Page 74 of The Feared Duke’s Found Family

On the wooden surface of the nightstand, past the leather bag and the wooden washbasin, sat a silver tray. Resting upon it was a single painted porcelain cup, half-filled with the dark, cold remains of a liquid.

“The cup?” Lysander asked quietly, his eyes locking onto the porcelain.

Michael’s finger trembled violently in the air, his small chest heaving as he tried to swallow down the dryness in his throat. He turned his face further into Lysander’s chest, his tiny fingers clutching at his father’s coat collar with a sudden, desperate panic.

Fanny rose to her feet on her side of the bed, her hands pressing flat against the edge of the mattress, her heart hammering against her ribs.

Michael’s dark eyes rolled toward the corner of the room, near the window where Veronica had sat just moments before. A tear spilled over his lower lid, tracing a clear path through the pale gray sweat on his cheek.

He swallowed hard, his jaw quivering as he forced his voice past his swollen throat.

“Veronica…” Michael whispered, his small fingers tightening their grip on Lysander’s lapel.

Lysander bent lower, his ear practically touching the boy’s lips. “Michael. Speak to me.”

The boy took a sharp, agonizing breath, his chest arching weakly against his father’s chest as he summoned every last reserve of strength in his small, poisoned body.

“Veronica…” Michael choked out, his voice small, clear, and desperate in the quiet room. “…bad.”

Lysander went utterly motionless.

The silence in the bedchamber stretched thin, sharp as broken glass.

Fanny gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes locking onto the dark, cold liquid sitting in the porcelain cup on the silver tray.

Michael let his arm collapse back onto the linens, his small body going limp against Lysander’s chest, his strength entirely spent from the single, monumental act of defiance. He closed his eyes, his breathing returning to a shallow, ragged rhythm, but his tiny fingers remained hooked tightly into the fabric of his father’s coat.

Lysander did not move. He did not speak.

He sat on his knees beside the bed, holding his sleeping son against his chest, his eyes staring blankly at the porcelain cup on the nightstand. The cold, suffocating numbness that had filled his chest all morning evaporated, replaced in a single, terrifying heartbeat by a dark, lethal clarity.

He looked across the bed at Fanny.

Fanny looked back at him, her pale face set, her dark eyes flashing with a quiet, terrible understanding.

The truth had finally spoken. And the silence of Hilgrove Manor was broken forever.

Twenty-Eight

The heavy mahogany door of the bedchamber clicked shut behind Lysander, sealing Michael and Fanny inside the quiet room.

Lysander stood in the dimly lit corridor for a single, frozen beat. His breath came slow and deep, dragging through his throat. The terrifying paralysis that had gripped him all morning was gone, replaced by a dark, deadly clarity. His fists curled at his sides, the skin taut and white across his knuckles, until he turned on his heel and strode down the corridor toward the gallery.

Veronica stood by the tall arched window at the end of the east hall. Her hands were folded neatly over her skirts, her profile pale against the dull, rain-swept glass. She looked serene, the picture of a devoted, grieving woman waiting for bad news.

“Veronica.”

Her name fell from his lips not as a call, but as a heavy, iron sentence.

Veronica turned, her lips parting to shape a quiet, sympathetic whisper. “Your Grace? Is he⁠—”

He didn’t give her the chance to finish. Lysander closed the distance between them in three long, silent strides, reaching out to grasp the heavy oak door of his private parlor and thrusting it open.

“Get in,” he growled.

Veronica blinked, a sudden flicker of uncertainty crossing her sharp eyes, but her posture stayed rigid and composed. She stepped past him into the room’s gloom. Lysander followed, slamming the heavy door behind them. He did not go to his desk. He did not offer her a seat. He turned, his tall frame cutting off the faint light from the doorway, and stared down at her.

“Michael spoke,” Lysander said. The words were quiet, flat, and stripped of all humanity.