The Last Duke

  “I swore to you he’ll never hurt you again.”

  “I wasn’t referring to myself. I’m not the only one Father has hurt.”

  “I’ll ensure your mother’s safety as well.”

  “I wasn’t referring to Mama either. I was referring to you.” She saw her husband go rigid, but pressed on nonetheless. “What did he do to you, Pierce? Why do you hate him so?”

  “This is a complex issue, Daphne, one I’ve never discussed. To be frank, I’m not sure I’m able to.”

  “You must.” Daphne lay a tentative hand on his chest. “Again and again, you’ve spoken of the undeniable wonder that draws us together. You’ve asked for my trust and I’ve gladly offered it. You asked for my hand in marriage, and, although I hadn’t a chance to properly accept your proposal, I intended to, joyfully. I’ve just become your wife—in every way—and the physical joining we shared was more beautiful than I ever imagined, much less believed; possible. Is all that not powerful enough for you to offer me even a shred of trust in return? Pierce,” she caressed his jaw, urging it down so their gazes locked, “I know the coldness that lines my father’s heart. Please tell me. What has he done to you?”

  “Nearly killed me,” Pierce bit out. “Me and hundreds of other pathetic children who had no manner of protection and nowhere to turn.”

  “How?”

  Some unknown emotion compelled him to continue. “I told you I grew up in a workhouse. The headmaster was a contemptible, greedy son of a bitch who got his position by knowing certain influential people, one nobleman in particular. The arrangement was simple. Barrings retained his job in exchange for providing the man who ensured it with a healthy portion of the workhouse donations. The rich prospered, the headmaster prevailed, and the children starved, and were beaten mercilessly by men who felt urchins were better off dead.”

  Daphne paled, but she didn’t flinch or look away. “Your story doesn’t surprise me. The vicar has warned me such arrangements exist.”

  “Has he? Has he told you what it’s like to be whipped until you bleed? Starved until you faint? Tormented until you’re numb? Has he told you what’s it like to see your mother die before your eyes, then have her denied a proper burial? And all because of the sick whims of a certain nobleman? The same nobleman who stole your money and ensured your suffering by keeping Barrings at the helm?”

  Sick at heart, Daphne murmured, “You’re telling me that man was my father.”

  “Yes. That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “How often did he whip you?”

  “Whenever I or any of the children had the misfortune to stumble into his path. In between visits, he left strict orders for Barrings to thrash us daily, if he wanted to remain the headmaster.”

  “Then Father does know the connection, the reason for your hatred.”

  “No.”

  “No? But certainly he recalls what he did to you when you were a child?”

  “He never even knew my name. Oh, he knows Pierce Thornton grew up in a workhouse. He uncovered that fact when he investigated my background. But he never once associated his lowlife business associate with one of the scrawny bastards he beat senseless. Quite simply, he never knew one workhouse child from another. In his eyes, we were all the same, nameless and unnecessary.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” Pierce searched her face, his eyes hard with bitterness.

  Slowly, resignedly, Daphne pivoted, dropping Pierce’s shirt from her shoulders and stepping into the path of the morning sunlight as it peeped through the open drapes. Then she swept up her tousled hair, twisting it into a knot atop her head. “Yes, Pierce, I understand,” she repeated simply.

  Bile rose in Pierce’s throat as he stared at Daphne’s bare back, confronting the heinous evidence of Tragmore’s brutality—evidence the darkness and his own urgency had eclipsed from view.

  Dozens of scars, some faded, some fresh, covered her naked flesh, obscene marks on the delicate satin of her skin.

  Never had Pierce felt more capable of murder than at that moment.

  “That filthy scum.” Beyond fury, he acted on instinct, wrapping his arms around Daphne and enfolding her against him as if to ward off the pain she’d already endured. “That vile, despicable son of a bitch.” With infinite gentleness, he brushed his lips across her nape. “In my gut I knew something like this was happening. An animal like that could never leave such flawless beauty unscathed. I just couldn’t allow myself to contemplate that he might—Christ, I’m sorry. I’m so bloody sorry, Snow flame.”

  “Don’t be.” She turned in his arms, pressed her fingers to his lips. “You rescued me, and I’ll never have to bear his beatings again. I just wanted you to know that I do understand some of what you went through.”

  “He hurt you, and for that I want to kill him. But Daphne, he could never truly touch your beauty. It’s submerged deep inside you, in a place your father could never reach, much less fathom.” He kissed her fingertips. “Don’t ever forget that.”

  Tears filled Daphne’s eyes. “You’re such a wonderful man,” she whispered. “And you’ve endured so much. Watching your mother die—starving in the streets.” Daphne bowed her head, two tears trickling down her cheeks. “I hate him, too, Pierce.”

  Abruptly, her pain was Pierce’s.

  “Don’t.” He gathered her against him. “Please sweetheart, don’t cry for me.”

  “I’m not crying for you,” she managed, her voice muffled against his chest. “I’m crying for the little boy you were when my father tortured you.”

  Pierce closed his eyes, buried his face in the fragrant cloud of her hair. “That boy is gone now.”

  She leaned back. “Is he? I don’t think so. I think he’s very much here and very much responsible for the man you’ve become and for his actions. No wonder you do what you do. And that you don’t believe in prayers.”

  Prayers.

  Fleetingly, Pierce smiled, remembering the occasions on which they’d discussed his lack of faith in prayers: the evening they’d waltzed in Gantry’s garden, and in the privacy of her bedchamber, when the Tin Cup Bandit had robbed her house.

  “I’ve endured nothing in comparison to you.” Oblivious to her husband’s tender recollections, Daphne rebuttoned her borrowed shirt. “But I have known the pain of my father’s beatings since I was small. Moreover, I had to endure the even more unbearable agony of hearing my mother’s sobs when he beat her. Lord, how many nights I covered my ears to drown out the sound of her anguished weeping.”

  “All that’s over now.”

  This time it was Daphne who shook her head sadly. “You, better than anyone, know that certain things can never be over. They’re burned in your memory forever, hopefully haunting you less and less as the years go by.” She averted her gaze, her eyes veiled. “From the day I was born, my father decided I was far too much like my mother, too good-hearted, too compassionate. By the time I turned eight, he ruled that beatings alone were no longer sufficient; firsthand experience was necessary. With that in mind, he dragged me to a workhouse and forced me inside. God, how I fought him. I knew once I entered those walls, my life would never be the same. And not because I’d experience the revulsion Father anticipated. Quite the contrary. I knew I’d never be able to forget the faces, the hopeless futility of those who truly do without. And I was right. Father thrust me in and I’ve never been the same. Nor will I ever forget.”

  “You’re astounding,” Pierce replied, his voice unsteady. “You’ve never lived there, and yet, you have.”

  “I remember it all. The women scrubbing on their knees, coughing until their frail bodies were racked with it; the smells of disease; the children pumping water, especially that one little girl with the hollow eyes and the tattered doll in her arms—everything.” Daphne’s lips trembled. “And that taunting sign hanging over the building, it’s name the antithesis of all I’d witnessed. Perpetual hope? More like eternal hopelessness.”

  Pierce??
?s head snapped around. “Perpetual hope?”

  She nodded. “Yes. That was the name of the workhouse. The House of Perpetual Hope.”

  “Damn.” A muscle worked in Pierce’s jaw.

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “I grew up in it.”

  “You grew up—” Daphne’s fingers flew to her mouth, all the color draining from her face. “That’s the workhouse you lived in?” she whispered. “That deplorable place in Leicester I just described?”

  “And what you described was hardly the worst of it,” Pierce confirmed, a tortured look in his eyes. “There was the dead room, where I was frequently punished by being locked amid decaying dead bodies and darkness—longer each time I disobeyed the headmaster’s inhuman demands. Alongside the dead room was the foul ward, where women tortured by syphilis screamed in agony on the beds and floors, together with those women distorted by unnameable skin diseases caused by living in filth. There was no ventilation, the smell was everywhere—” Pierce broke off, his breathing harsh.

  Wordlessly, Daphne went to him, fighting back tears of revulsion and pain. Pierce needed her now—needed her strength, not her pity. She wrapped her arms securely about his waist, lay her head on his chest. “There is purpose to everything, even if we ourselves cannot discern it. You were subjected to such a life for a reason, perhaps the same reason you survived it. My God, you’re strong.” Daphne turned her face, brushing her lips against his skin.

  Slowly, Pierce averted his head, staring down at her as she shared his remembered pain. “I’m sorry, Snow flame,” he said gruffly, his arms closing around her. “I never should have exposed you to such horrors.”

  “I’m proud you trusted me enough to confide in me,” Daphne demurred. She leaned back to meet his gaze. “Tell me about your mother.”

  “My mother.” A resigned sadness settled over Pierce. “She was beautiful—or perhaps she only seemed so to me.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. After long years of workhouse life her beauty faded, her health deteriorated, and I lost her.”

  “She gave birth to you in the workhouse?”

  “Yes. She had been a tavern maid at a London pub. That’s where she met Markham. Evidently, their affair was torrid, but, at least from his perspective, temporary. You see, the duke had a very proper, very legal duchess at home. Ironic how he conveniently dismissed that reality when he bedded my mother, just as he unfeelingly dismissed my mother when she went to him with the knowledge that she carried his child.”

  “He offered her nothing?”

  “Initially, no. According to the letter he left with his solicitor, he had a change of heart some months later and went back to the tavern to see for himself that my mother was well. By that time it was too late. Mother was long gone, dismissed the instant the tavern keeper discovered she was with child.”

  “Did your father abandon his search at that point?” Daphne asked softly.

  “Seemingly not. I’ve been told he hired investigators who traced my mother and me to the workhouse in Leicester, and that he intended to forsake his glittering life and claim us.” Pierce gave a harsh laugh. “That never came to pass. The duke’s wife chose that moment to do what she’d been unable to for years. She conceived his child. Needless to say, a legitimate heir has priority over a bastard. So the duke remained at Markham, and we remained in hell. Mother held on as long as she could. But she was never very strong. She died when I was seven.”

  “You were so young. How devastated you must have been.”

  “She was the only stability in my life. I never knew my father, and I hated him for what he’d done. When my mother died, it was the first time I felt truly abandoned.”

  Instinctively, Daphne ran caressing fingers along Pierce’s spine. “Your father paid dearly for his selfishness.” Her eyes misted with emotion. “He never had the joy of knowing you.”

  “Clearly, he considered that no great loss.”

  “You can’t be certain of that,” she protested.

  “Can’t I? If he were so distressed, why didn’t he damn protocol and claim me? No, Daphne. I don’t think Markham agonized over my absence from his life.”

  “Then the misfortune was his. Moreover, from what I’ve heard, you weren’t his only loss. His other son was killed in a riding accident, which drove the duke into seclusion.”

  “I presume. Tragmore told you that.”

  “He did, yes.” Daphne nodded. “I believe he was fairly well acquainted with the late duke.”

  Another harsh laugh. “Very well acquainted.” Pierce’s hands clenched in Daphne’s hair as he answered her questioning look. “In order to collect the funds Barrings owed him, Tragmore visited the headmaster frequently. I eavesdropped on every one of their meetings.”

  “I see.” Daphne blinked at the rapid change of subject. “I assume my father never discovered your presence?”

  “Never.” Pierce shook his head. “To this day he has no idea I witnessed his illegal dealings, nor that I observed him and his companion each time they arrived.”

  “His companion?”

  “Tragmore didn’t visit Barrings alone. He was accompanied by none other than the Duke of Markham.”

  Daphne inhaled sharply as Pierce’s point struck home. “The duke was involved with Father’s scheme?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean? Did he accept money from Barrings or didn’t he?”

  “None that I witnessed. Whether or not he took his share when he and Tragmore were alone, I don’t know. In truth, he was removed and disinterested during the actual meetings, more restless than avid. Actually, his entire presence at the workhouse always struck me as rather odd. The moment the meetings ended, he would wander about, saying nothing, doing nothing, merely looking. It’s only now that I understand what his purpose was.”

  Realization dawned in Daphne’s eyes. “To see you.”

  “Evidently. It was his pathetic way of keeping an eye on his bastard son. He’d received word of my mother’s death and was, supposedly, distraught. Not distraught enough to compromise his legitimate heir by acknowledging me; just enough to pay an occasional visit to the workhouse to verify that I lived.”

  “He was weak, Pierce. But it’s obvious that, in his own way, he cared.”

  “Cared?” Pierce’s expression was incredulous. “If he cared he wouldn’t have cast my mother out when she told him she was carrying his child. Nor would he have relegated us to the atrocity of a workhouse existence. No, Daphne, he didn’t care.”

  Daphne considered arguing the point, then thought better of it. Later, when her husband was ready, she would confront the pain of his abandonment and, hopefully, help him find peace of mind. But instinct cautioned her that now was not the time. “You said my father didn’t know you by name,” she clarified instead. “Then that means he never made the connection between you and the duke’s workhouse visits.”

  “Not then. By now I’m sure he’s figured it out. Between his investigation of my background and his realization that Markham sired me, I’m certain he’s put it all together.”

  “I wonder what excuse the duke gave Father for accompanying him to his meetings with Barrings.”

  “I assume Markham must have, at the very least, feigned interest in receiving financial compensation. Money is the only incentive your father understands.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Daphne’s voice broke as she pressed her forehead to Pierce’s chest. “I know I’m not responsible for my father’s actions, but that doesn’t prevent me from wishing I could undo them. Because of him you endured hell.”

  “And I intend to see him there in my stead.”

  Daphne raised her chin, tears glistening on her lashes. “Will you tell me what you have planned?” she asked softly, uncertain if Pierce would comply. “Why have you accepted a title you despise and how will it help bring my father down?”

  “Very well.” Determined to offer his wife as vast a measure of honesty as possible, Pierce squelch
ed his qualms that she wouldn’t—couldn’t—condone tactics spawned solely by hate. “I accepted the title because it offers me two things I lacked as a commoner: great wealth and great power. And you’re right. For myself, I give a damn for neither. But it’s not myself I’m considering.” Earnestly, he gripped her shoulders. “Daphne, each week of my two years as the Duke of Markham I receive an allowance of ten thousand pounds. If I fulfill Markham’s two stipulations, I leave a free man, with access to an estate worth over twenty million pounds. Do you have any idea what that money could buy?”

  She studied him, comprehension dawning. “Yes, I do. You want to help the workhouses, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “I’m far from a poor man. But the sum of my own funds is but a fraction of Markham’s fortune. I could do so much. Not just token donations, but rampant reformation—providing more sanitary conditions, higher quality food, less crowded space. The possibilities are endless. Plus I’d have influence with the magistrates, the kind of influence only wealth and a title can provide.”

  “And my father? Where does he factor into all this?”

  Pierce drew a deep breath. “As I told you, I own each and every one of your father’s outstanding notes. He lives in perpetual fear of when I’ll choose to call them in. His sole comfort has been that, unless I went ahead and scandalized him with enforced bankruptcy, my nonexistent social status precluded me from penetrating his coveted social circles and slandering his name. Now even that peace of mind is gone. Overnight I’ve become a lofty nobleman, respected by all the ton. Why, I can stroll into White’s, attend grand country house parties—the options are limitless. I’ll be a constant, taunting thorn in Tragmore’s side. I doubt he’ll ever sleep again.” Jaw clenched, Pierce steeled himself for Daphne’s response.

  It was anything but the one he’d expected.

  With uncanny insight rather than shock, Daphne replied, “I know the kind of man you are, Pierce, despite the depth of your hatred. You don’t plan to call in those notes at all. You don’t want to bankrupt Father, any more than you want his money.”