Page 74 of My Cruel Duke
“How much did you hear?” Penny reddened.
“Enough to know what father did to you,” Patrick said and Penny bit her lower lip.
“Patrick… Do you believe me?”
“I do not know what this is about, but I shall make sure we learn the truth from him. I have always had some questions for him anyway.” Patrick’s gaze softened at Penny, then hardened when he lifted his eyes to look at the man who ruined his sister.
“What do you want, Huxton? You claimed you were done and left her for good.” Patrick narrowed his eyes.
“I believe that concerns me andmy wife,not you,” Rhysand replied with as much annoyance in his tone.
“She is not your–”
“Enough! Both of you!”
Rhysand did not let Penny leave the house until after a few days of forced rest. At that time, they barely spoke to each other, but Rhysand would not leave her side. Whenever Penny said she did not wish to speak to him, he would simply take the chair he had placed by the window in her room, and sit there, watching her without saying a word. Penny had not noticed it at first, but she had stayed in Thornbury Hall all the while she rested. Rhysand claimed it was for her benefit, so she would not be moved, but Penny could sense he had another agenda. Aunt Augusta and Lydia frequently visited with Patrick who always never wanted to leave, and at some point, Penny was sure she heard Uncle Harold’s voice. She had missed that old man and his funny responses to everything.
For a man who claimed he wanted nothing to do with Penny except their child, Rhysand was surely present. He carried her in and out when she needed to get up, even when she was perfectly all right and could walk just fine on her own. He got almost restless, pacing the room with worry on every strand of his creased brows when she took too long for whatever reason. He had banned her from going to the lake, even after she reminded him that she had regained her memories and she was a better swimmer. Rhysand had not listened.
Penny had woken up early and dressed in one of the dresses her sister had packed from the new house. It was pink; bright and bold, and she liked it. She wished she would appear to her father like that. Bright and bold without any fear, but when the carriage stopped at the prison gate, Penny’s fingers began to tremble. She was about the meet the man who attempted to kill her, the man who she had believed was innocent. She had disregarded the piece of her memory that revealed him to be the killer and now, she was about to meet him.
How could I face him? What should I say?
“If you are not prepared to meet with him today, I can schedule a meeting for a later time.,” Rhysand’s rich baritone infiltrated her thoughts as he took her ringless hand and squeezed it.
She saw the hurt in his eyes whenever he saw her empty finger. She knew it bothered him that she no longer wore his ring, but she had taken it off out of anger and lost it. She did know where it rolled off to, and even after searching the entire room with Besty, she still could not find it.
Penny nodded.
“I am prepared to meet him. I have waited five days for today,” Penny announced. Rhysand searched her eyes.
“I know that, but I need to know you are ready to meet him. This is not something you should take lightly, Sunshine.”
Penny’s heart did a leap of joy at the sobriquet.
“I am not taking it lightly. You have mistaken my slight nervousness for deep fear, Your Grace.”
“Rhysand,” he corrected.
“I beg your pardon?” Penny angled her head to the side.
“Not, Your Grace, but Rhysand.”
Penny watched him without saying a word.
“If you two are done arguing, kindly get off the carriage so we can get this over and done with.” Patrick appeared by the window of the carriage.
He refused to ride with Rhysand and Penny in the carriage; he chose to ride on horseback, but they arrived before he did, despite the carriage moving slowly. Rhysand had made sure of that, claiming it was for the safety of his unborn child.
“When did you arrive?” Penny managed to ask Patrick to which he ignored her, walking away like he could not bear being next to them for a second longer.
The prison building was the same as Penny remembered it all those months ago. It had been her visit to her father that strengthened Penny’s resolve to visit the Cruel Duke that afternoon.
And now she had returned, with the Cruel Duke beside her, and his child growing in her. It was an unusual turn of events. One could not simply state what in actuality prompted the change; was it her visit to her father? Or her visit to Thornbury Hal. Or accepting to marry Rhysand despite knowing what he did to her family? Penny was not sure, but she believed everything happened the way it did so she could be in that very moment, in the small cold room that reeked of iron and piss. It had not gotten any better since the last time she had been there, and neither did her father.
“And now you must make something of yourself to help your sister,” he told her that day, and she had. She was a duchess, and Lydia was engaged to be married to a marquess.
Penny’s father, Wilson Hislop, had gotten much worse than the last time she saw him. A long beard had grown and covered the better parts of his once clean-shaven face—save for his signature mustache—which had connected with the beards so one did not know which was beard and which was mustache.