Page 46 of My Beastly Duke
“Bastard, bastard!” The bird squawked from beneath his blanket.
Adam looked at the cage with a sigh and shook his head, lowering his voice. “I have never sought our father’s approval; it is yours that matters to me. As a child, I wanted to be just like you, and I tried very hard, despite our father pitting us against one another.”
Running his tongue over his lips, Aaron waited for his brother to continue. In all their years of rivalry, he had never seen Adam speak so openly.
Shaking his head, Adam walked around the settee and slumped into the cushions, allowing the scandal sheet to drift to the floor at his feet. “I know that you took the beatings for me. I tried to grow stronger so that I would be able to ‘let’ you win and take the beatings, but you always seemed to know how to lose.” He let out a snort of derision and shook his head. “Isn’t it funny that the two of us had to compete to be the better loser?”
Aaron came forward and took the seat opposite his brother, sinking into the cushions with the same tired demeanor. It seemed surreal to him that his brother had known all along and had never uttered a word.
“Do not look so shocked, I am not an idiot. You are five years my senior and I kept on winning as a child. For a while, I resented you for allowing me to win, but when I was old enough, I came to realize the sacrifices you were making. Those sacrifices alone made you stronger than me in every possible way.”
“But why did you never say anything if you knew?” Aaron finally spoke up.
“How could I when you have been hellbent on pushing the world away for the past how many years? At first, it was pride that kept me from speaking to you, but after the battle…” His words trailed off as his eyes wandered over the scar on Aaron’s face.
Lifting his hand, Aaron ran the tips of his fingers over the knotted ropes.
“I wanted to speak to you after the battle, but you had become cold after being humiliated and rejected.” His words were filled with understanding as if he had been waiting for a decade to broach the subject. “You were never the same again, Aaron. The only way I could get you to look at me was challenging you like Father used to do to us. Do you think he would have been proud of the legacy he has left behind? Two strapping young sons that have the emotional intelligence of wet blankets.”
The corner of his mouth hooked into a faint smile, despite the seriousness of the conversation. “Do not call me strapping, I find it very disturbing.” Aaron lowered his hand and met his brother’s gaze.
Allowing his lips to crack into a smile, Adam threw his head back and laughed, shaking his head when he eventually caught his breath. “What are we doing, Aaron? I do not know about you, but I am tired of this bitterness and resentment between us. Can we not just call it a day and be friends?”
A moment of silence ensued between them as Aaron considered his words. It seemed almost too easy to have a lifelong feud come to an end in a matter of minutes, but was not that what Marina had been encouraging him to do?
The sudden thought made his chest clench as he recalled the hurt look in her eyes.
I hurt her.
He swallowed hard as he reminded himself that pushing her away was the best thing that he could have done for her. A woman as beautiful as Marina did not deserve to be associated with a monster like him.
Adam spoke up again, drawing Aaron from his thoughts. “I know there is a lot that I need to ask your forgiveness for, Aaron, but please believe me when I say that it was not me who placed the article in the scandal sheet. Have you ever known the gossipmongers to provide a source?”
Something suddenly clicked at the back of Aaron’s mind as he chewed over his brother’s words. It was highly unusual for a gossip sheet to provide a source. The piece had been presented in the sheet in the form of an article rather than a tantalizing tidbit.
“Whoever had given the information to the printers, had done so with the intention of creating division between us. Why anyone would want to further the feud, I do not know.” Adam shook his head in disbelief before standing and walking across the room where he poured them each a stiff drink from the cart in the corner of the room.
“I think I know who could have done it.” Aaron accepted the drink, taking a large gulp and allowing the amber liquid to burn the back of his throat.
Following suit, Adam sipped his glass and returned to his seat.
“What do you know of the Baron of Wallace?” Aaron leaned forward, recalling the afternoon tea when the baron had paid him a visit.
“Not much, he is a bit of a greedy cad, but he is known as a smarmy letch. Most of the clubs in London will not allow the man into their establishments.” He sat back on the settee and seemed to relax now that the whisky was beginning to take effect.
“He asked me for money, and I declined his request. I think that may have left a rather bad taste in his crow.” Aaron wonderedwhat the man was capable of if this was his reaction to a simple no.
His chest clenched when he thought of the way Marina had stood up for him, defending his name in front of the entire ton. If the baron’s plan had been to humiliate them both, then he had failed on the account of Marina.
Why did she stand up for me like that?
His brow suddenly creased as he swirled the last few drops of whisky in the bottom of his glass, watching the vortex as if it could give him an answer.
It felt almost impossible to him that someone as fine and beautiful as his wife could have fallen in love with him. Pushing the thought aside and reminding himself that she could not possibly love him, he threw back the last drops of whisky and placed the glass beside him.
“So now what, if we can prove that it was the Baron of Wallace, do we go after him and make him apologize?” Adam asked thoughtfully.
Aaron shook his head with a heavy sigh. “No, we leave things as they are. Marina is with child and has gone back to her mother. Things worked out as they should, even if the baron had meant to publicly scorn me. Marina and the child are better off with a life far away from me.”