Read Online Redeeming a Rake by Cari Hislop - Free Book Online Page B

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and ordered the footmen to throw me out of the house. Grayson
watched smiling as I was thrown down the marble steps. My noble
father cut off without a penny and then persuaded the countryside
that I was mad. I had to live in the dower-house which had a roof
with more holes than tiles. The boot-boy slept up at the Hall in a
bed. I slept on a straw pallet on a rotten floor after eating table
scraps from a slop bucket. I’ll never forget the disgusting smell
of roasting hedgehog and being too hungry not to eat it. When I
grew out of the clothes I had to petition my mother for new ones
through a servant. I was given my bastard brother’s cast-offs which
were too big. I was the laughing stock of the shires until I
inherited my maternal Grandmother’s fortune at nineteen. The Duke
was furious that I escaped two more years of humilations. Why
didn’t she send for me? Why couldn’t she love me? I was a good boy.
I could have been a good man.” Tolerance sanded the list and rose
from her chair. The room crackled with silence as she walked around
the desk to his side. The list folded into a small square, he
intently watched her face as she took hold of his waistcoat pocket
and tucked the list deep inside. “Tolerance!” The word was an
appeal for kindness.

    “I know of only one cure for guilt. You must
make restitution and put right what you can. Return all property
and money tainted by blood or pain to the original owners or their
heirs. Find the people on the list or their closest living
relatives and tell them you’re sorry for what you’ve done and beg
their forgiveness. There is a chance that as you complete the list
you’ll find some peace. Change and heal or stay the same and die,
it’s your choice Geoffrey.”

    He looked at her in horror as if she’d
instructed him to hang himself. “Beg? Graysons never beg! I can
return a property, but I can’t beg.”

    “Many of these people will
have suffered heartache and deprivation. You know what that feels
like. You had three year of it in your youth. You’ve caused others
to suffer as you were forced to suffer. Are you proud of
that?”
    “You don’t understand. I can’t beg. I’m the
Duke of Lyndhurst.”

    “Is it so important to feel superior to
other people?”

    “Yes…no…it’s just the way
it is. I’ll give them my money. I’ll give them my house. Hell, I’ll
give them the portraits of my ancestors, but I can’t
beg.”
    “You’ve spent the best years of your life
causing misery because you were miserable; does that make you feel
proud?”

    “You make me sound like my cousin
Strathmore. If you think I’m heartless you should try crossing a
man who’s made an art of taking offence.”

    “Is your pride so precious? That strikes me
as pathetic.”

    “My father could treat me like a dog, but he
couldn’t take my pride. I’m a Grayson. We never beg. Ever!”

    “Does it make you feel proud to know you’ve
become your father?”

    “I’m not my father!” The roar of rage had a
tone of despair. “I’m not all bad…I can be kind.”

    “Then give the people
you’ve hurt the one thing no one can take from
you.”
    “I can’t. I’ll be the worm my father always
said I’d be.”

    She reached up and lightly caressed his
cheek. His skin was smooth from a recent shave. She could feel his
teeth grinding as he looked down at her with the eyes of a drowning
man who knew if he couldn’t catch the rope he’d die. “If pride was
a chain it would have links as large as dinner plates. You’re
standing there holding up your pride thinking that a bent knee will
make you small, but it’s the only way to remove the weight. Keep
the chain; stand there feeling proud ‘till you die of exhaustion or
fall to your knees and bow your head and let it roll off your neck.
No one can take it from you. What will you choose? What do you want
Geoffrey?”

    His eyes shimmered like sunny blue skies
after rain. She had a feeling that if she peered