Читать книгу The Hidden Heart - Candace Camp - Страница 7

The Duke of Cleybourne was going home to die.

He had decided it the night before, as he was standing in his study, gazing up at the portrait of Caroline that Devin had painted for him as a wedding present. Richard had looked at the picture, and at the smaller, less satisfactory one of their daughter, and he had thought about the fact that it was December, and the anniversary of their deaths would be coming up soon.

Their carriage had overturned and skidded over the slick, icy road and grass into the pond, breaking through the skin of ice on top of the water. It had been only a few days before Christmas when it happened.

He could still smell the heavy scent of fir boughs that decorated the house for the holiday. It had hung in his nostrils all through his illness and convalescence, like the cloying odor of death, long after the boughs had been taken down and burned.

It had been four years since it happened. Most people, he knew, thought he should have gotten over the tragedy by now. One mourned for a reasonable period of time, then gathered oneself together and went on. But he had not been able to. Frankly, he had not had the desire to.

He had left his country estate, taking up residence in the ducal town house in London, and he had not returned to Castle Cleybourne in all that time.

But last night, as he looked at the portrait, he thought of how tired he was of plowing through one day after another, and it had come to him, almost like a golden ray of hope, that he did not have to continue this way. There was no need to walk through the days allotted him until God in his mercy saw fit to take him. The Cleybournes were a long-lived group, often lingering until well into their eighties and even nineties. And Richard had little faith in God’s mercy.

He did have faith in his own pistols and steady hand. He would be the bringer of his own surcease, and the dark angel of retribution, as well.

So he rang for his butler and told him to pack for the trip. They would be returning to the castle, he said, and felt faintly guilty when the old man beamed at him. The servants, who worried about him, were pleased, thinking he’d thrown off his mantle of sorrow at last, and they packed both cheerfully and quickly.

And it was true, he told himself. He would end his sorrow. In the most fitting way and place: where his wife and child had died, and he had not saved them.