Page 73 of My Cruel Duke

How did he read her mind? He looked down at her hands in his, and when he raised it, his brows were drawn back in a frown.

“Where is your ring, Penelope?” He was back to calling herPenelope.

She turned away from him, removing her hands from his stronghold.

“Thank you for saving me. You should return to wherever you came from. Scotland, was it?” She still had that foul tongue. How he had missed it.

The rumor. He had returned to clear the rumors, to make sure no one thought he had abandoned her because he was out of town. He promised her a life of luxury and nothing else.

“Penelope, look at me.” She did not look at him. Lightly, he fingered a loose tendril of her hair on her cheek, then trailed it down to her chin, where he turned her face to him and lifted her head to meet his eyes.

“I can guarantee you that nothing transpired between Lady Madeline and me in Scotland.”

Penelope did not believe him. The hurt in her eyes was evidence. How could she believe him when he left her, without thinking, without a letter, like the coward he accused her brother of being?

“You do not need to explain anything to me, Your Grace. I believe we are merely bound by the life growing in my tummy.”

Rhysand hated the way she called himYour Grace. He wanted her to call himDarling.

My Darling. She had only said it once, but he repeated that memory in his head multiple times on multiple nights. It is how he fell asleep, listening to her honey-like voice call him darling, her eyes glistening with happiness. He wanted that again, but he would have to wait, he would have to apologize and tell her he wanted to be bound to her, heart and soul, not just by the baby inside her.

“Forgive me,” he said instead.

“I have nothing to forgive you for unless your apology is for lying about releasing my father.”

Rhysand drew back. “What happened to your father?”

Penny sniffed. How despicable of him not to notice Penelope was crying.

“He has not been released, and Lydia wants him present for her wedding, but I do not know how to tell her that he tried to–”

He pulled in closer.

“Tried to what?”

Penny stifled again.

“He tried to harm me. He was the one that tried to kill me, not my mother.”

Chapter35

For a moment, Rhysand ran his fingers through his hair, staring at her as he tried to make sense of what he had just heard, of what Penelope had just said.

“How did you–” he trailed off as his eyes widened with understanding. “Did you regain your memory?”

Penelope gave a short nod, then she shook her head as though she spoke out of turn.

“What do you need me to do? You name it, anything you want and I will get it done tonight,” Rhysand declared, and Penny pressed her lips together.

“I want to speak to my father and hear what he has to say, what his reason was. I want to know what happened with my mother and the truth–if there is any–behind her death.” Long forgotten was the hostility Penny had toward Rhysand. The truth about the incident was more important to her.

“I want to know before a date for the wedding is set, so I can break the news to Lydia…” Tears rolled down her cheek at the thought of hurting her sister in such a manner, but she hard to learn the truth first.

“I shall come along,” A masculine voice declared from the door.

“Patrick?” Penny shrieked. She had not expected to see him there.Had he been listening to our conversation all this while?

“I shall come along and I will not take no for an answer,” He strode into the room with his chest out and chin up. He did not spare Rhysand a glance at first. Instead, he leaned and touched his sister’s forehead. Her temperature seemed normal.