Regency Romance Omnibus 2018: Dominate Dukes & Tenacious Women by Virginia Vice

Author:Virginia Vice [Vice, Virginia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publishing Division
Published: 2018-12-04T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

He stood statuesque in the foyer of the Roxborough estate, the dim and dying daylight creeping in a gentle wave through the open door behind him. He heard her slippers step softly across the carpet; Roxborough butler murmured something pleasant to the woman, something he could not make out. He heard her reply; something about a bath, about warmth to clean off the muck of the day. He could not - or perhaps had no wish to - tell precisely what she said. The ringing in his ears and the pain in his heart had done more than enough to sever him from the doldrums of the rain, or the bath, or the estate.

The Lord Strauss closed his eyes. He saw himself - a boy again, of only twelve or thirteen years. He and his sister, standing atop the staircase at the Amhurst estate - a grand and twisting pathway, its steps hewn of marble, its frame build of the glossiest polished oak. The sun rained through the ceiling-high window at the stairwell landing, but in my memory it felt faded; dim, damaged. Candles burned away their last from the long night before. I had spent all night awake, in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Listening. Wondering. Dreaming of being away from there.

“Hush now, Lawrence,” my sister whispered into my ear as he hid beneath the shining rail, sun reflecting in the grain of the wood. he heard the shouts; muffled, full of pain and anger and two lifetimes full of regret. He closed his eyes, crying; his sister tried again to still the feeling, but it welled up until he couldn’t contain it any longer, the tears gushing along his cheeks.

“I cannot handle this anymore!” Lawrence’s memory recalled the pained and shrill call of his mother, her voice needled at its edges by cracking anxiety as she rushed into the foyer, her black and lacy dress swinging and swaying wildly beneath the vigor of her emboldened motions. She stormed towards the estate’s grand door. “I will not endure another night of you, spending your life in the stupor of drink, or the grasp of another woman.”

Another woman. That had always stuck with Lawrence. He had now known this side of his father in his youngest days - or perhaps in the ignorance of youth he wished simply to ignore them. But on that day, when he stood atop the staircase, peering through the slats on the banister, the illusion of a father of manner and means, a gentleman in service to the family estate, crumbled brilliantly beneath an unending, emotional tide of throbbing, raw revelation. His father stormed into his view, wearing a disheveled black suit with a silken shirt, the acrid burn of cheap brandy meeting Lawrence’s nostrils with its wretched lure. The young boy winced, watching the man he had had some sort of love in his heart for become something he didn’t recognize.

“I’ve taken your hand in marriage, and you’ll do what’s best for that,” his father had said.

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