Page 25
She slowly stepped away from his door. “I’ll leave you be, then.”
She walked his way, pausing as she reached his side. “It’s lovely to see you, Raphael.” And then she continued past him toward the stairs.
And now a new feeling sparked to life in his chest. For the woman—and the young man—he’d spent a decade ignoring.
Guilt.
* * *
Rafe stared at the wall just before the drawing room. He followed the dips and valleys of the irregular stone surface, the striations of grey that wove together in each stone block. All because he was delaying. Delaying the few more steps it took to enter the drawing room and face his stepmother. And he knew she was aware he was out here. There was no way she hadn’t heard his bootsteps.
“We don’t have to have tea,” came a soft voice.
He glanced at the doorway. His stepmother watched him, a sad smile gracing her lips.
“I understand if you wish to have nothing to do with us. Allowing us to live here has been incredibly gracious of you.”
He frowned, and she swallowed, her hand feathering over her throat. He immediately forced his features to relax.
“Let’s sit. But I need something stronger than tea.”
She moved aside. “There is whisky and brandy on the sideboard.”
He strode straight for the liquor. This conversation was important, especially for his stepmother, Abigail.
When he turned around, drink in hand, she was already seated. Her large green eyes were so…so bloody remorseful.
“I’m so sorry, Raphael,” she whispered. “I regret so much of how I behaved when I came into your life. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t look back and wish I had done more. I know the words I give you don’t erase anything, and I don’t expect forgiveness. I just wanted you to know…”
She had it all wrong. It wasn’t that he held any sort of resentment toward her. He hadn’t kept his distance because he held her accountable. He kept his distance because she was a walking, breathing reminder of his demons.
Yes, in his earlier years he had resented her, as the young lad who had both hated her for replacing his mother and desperately craved her attention and protection because he’d longed so much for a mother again in his life. But as a man, having had a decade to look back on what he’d experienced here, knowing what his mother and Abigail had both lived through…
“We were just trying to survive, Abigail.”
“But you were a boy,” she said quietly.
His jaw tensed, and he forced out a measured breath from his nose. Had he ever been a boy? Boy inferred innocence. Rafe had lost his innocence a long, long time ago. And he hadn’t made it easy on her. Neither had the Duke.
He took a sip of his whisky, the acerbic caramel taste burning down his throat. “If you had done something differently, if you had done whatever it is you’ve since convinced yourself you should have done—what do you think the outcome would have been? Because I can tell you right now: both of us would have suffered worse for it.” He stared hard at her. “I don’t think either of us is unaware of what my father did when he no longer had use for someone.”
She would have ended up like his mother.
Her teacup rattled in her hand for the briefest moment before she quickly recovered. But that rattle continued in Rafe’s chest. He didn’t know who’d had it worse. Was there a worse?
He’d seen the life drain from the woman before him, even as young as he’d been when his father had married Abigail. She’d been eighteen. She’d smiled in the beginning, something Rafe’d loathed, still mourning his mother. Then he grew to mourn that smile. Because it had died too.
He eased himself into the armchair opposite where she sat on a settee. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his thighs and cradled his drink. He stared at the amber liquid, the glowing candlelight reflecting off it like its own flame.
“I’m sorry, too.”
“You have nothing—”
“I do.” He met her gaze. “I’ve been a coward. It is…difficult to be here.” Difficult. What a paltry, bloody word. “And…it is difficult to see you. Not because I resent you. Because of the memories you evoke.”
“I can’t imagine,” she said softly. “You were so young. To be exposed to such evil. To suffer such evil. But you are far from a coward, Raphael. You are the strongest man I know. You survived what most wouldn’t have.”
His face twitched, his scar stiff. He wasn’t supposed to have survived.
