Page 66 of The Duke of Deceit

He blew out a harsh breath and rubbed hard at the mountainous knot of tension at his nape. “Which makes everything so much worse for him. He worries and frets, becomes easily frustrated especially when he can’t find the right words or make his hands work as he wants them to. He has trouble interacting with others, either being too hesitant or too bold—it’s as if he can’t find the place in-between, or if he does find it, he doesn’t know how to navigate there.” He took another swallow of cognac. “The doctors examined him and concluded that for the rest of his life he would be no more mentally fit than an eight-year-old.” He stared down into his glass. “Then they all advised the same thing.”

“Which was?”

“Put him into an asylum and forget about him.” He felt the rising bitterness like acid on his tongue. “After all, they said, he’d be dead soon enough anyway.”

He felt rather than heard her catch her breath, so attuned had he become to her.

“I will never put my brother back into an asylum.” The conviction in his voice left no misunderstanding of that. “I amnotmy father.”

He tossed back the last of the cognac.

Wordlessly, Jess held her own untouched glass out to him. He gratefully took it, even though the inadvertent brush of her fingers against his provided more comfort than the brandy ever could.

“But he’s doing well,” he continued, “far better than the doctors believed he would. It takes him a long time to learn, but when he does, he’s got it, whether it’s schooling or doing his chores.” He gestured the glass toward the pianoforte. “Even music. His fingers trip over themselves sometimes when his hands don’t work as he wants, but he doesn’t let that stop him. We should all be so resilient.”

Although Jess said nothing, her eyes glistened with empathy, and Lucien knew those unshed tears weren’t for Phillip but for him.

He hesitated under the full gravity of what he was about to reveal, then said quietly, “Phillip is thirty-five.”

She blinked with confusion. “But that would make him…”

“Myolderbrother,” he finished for her. “Yes.”

Her lips parted as the full ramifications of that sank over her. “But…but you…”

“Usurped his right to the title and claimed it as my own?” His lips twisted with wry amusement although the situation wasn’t at all humorous. It was either that or punch his fist against the wall. “Perhaps the Grenier men are nothing but self-serving opportunists after all.”

Her brow rose slightly. “Or, knowing the truth about them as I now do, perhaps there’s a more complicated story to them.”

If Lucien ever stopped to consider how deeply she was able to see into his soul, he would have been terrified. Instead, inexplicably, for first time since his days at Eton with Chase, Shay, and Devlin, he didn’t feel alone.

Blowing out a tired sigh, he sank to the floor at her feet and leaned back against the chair. “Phillip is the first-born son and should have been the heir. He should be duke now, not me. But my father didn’t want the world to think he’d sired a monster.” He couldn’t conceal the hatred in his voice. “So when Phillip was born, Father told all the servants that the baby needed medical attention, that he was taking him to the doctor, and then rode away with him in the carriage. What he actually did was take him to a foundling hospital and left him there. When he came back, he and my mother told everyone the baby had died. They had me two years later.” A sad smile twisted his lips. “My father wanted the perfect heir. He never thought he’d end up with two of the least promising ones in our family’s history.”

No amusement laced her voice when she asked quietly, “Is that what they told you, too—that Phillip had died?”

“They didn’t tell me anything.” He took a sip of brandy and offered the glass up to her, but she declined with a soft shake of her head. “I found out when I was fifteen, when my mother died. There were letters hidden among her things that mentioned Phillip. I had no idea until then.”

“What did your father say to defend himself?”

“Nothing. Because I never told him I knew.” He twisted around and leaned his head back to look up at her. “He would have found a way to stop me from uncovering the truth, and I needed to know what happened to my brother, if he were even still alive.”

“What did happen to him?”

“Shortly after he was born, my mother managed to go behind my father’s back and remove him from the hospital. She was terrified the old duke would find out and hurt her or Phillip, so everything was done in absolute secrecy. She was able to find a married couple with no children of their own whom she paid to take him in and raise him as their own. He was only ten months old then. Mr. and Mrs. Porter are still caring for him.”

She glanced toward the stairs where Mrs. Porter had led Phillip to bed. “And doing a fine job, it seems.”

“An excellent job. Phillip shares their last name, and no one who saw them together would ever suspect he wasn’t truly theirs.” He turned away and let his head hang heavily between his shoulders. “After Mother died, I took over paying for Phillip’s expenses, ensuring the Porters had a safe place to live, that no one would ever find out his true connection to our family. Every bit of my allowance—and then some—went to care for him.” He finished the brandy and set the empty glass aside on the floor. “That’s why I became a mercenary after I was expelled from university and my allowance was cut off. The only skills Ipossessed involved fighting. My father knew that, yet prevented me from taking any sort of commission with the British.”

Jess rested her hand reassuringly on his shoulder.

He continued quietly, “That’s why I stayed overseas in the wars until the old bastard died and I inherited.”

He reached up to cover her hand with his, and she laced her fingers between his.

“That was when I bought this place and moved all of them here, close enough to London for me to attend to any problems that might arise, far enough away that no one would suspect any connection between them and the Greniers.”

“That’s why you pretend to be such a despicable creature, isn’t it?” she murmured. Her words were not a question. “The blacker your reputation, the further away everyone will stay.”