Page 108 of Courting the Wrong Duke

“Papa.”

“Yes.”

The word came quietly.

“She said your father spent hours with him. Talking to him. Listening when Algernon could manage to speak and waiting when he couldn't. He never hurried him. Never finished his sentences for him. Never treated him as though there were something shameful about struggling to get the words out.”

Rosalind's eyes glistened.

William continued more gently. “Apparently, your father was also the first person willing to confront mine over the way he treated Algernon.”

Her lips parted. “He confronted the duke?”

“Repeatedly, from what Mother told me.”

That, perhaps, had surprised William least of all.

“You remember what my mother told you before,” he continued. “About my father’s treatment of Algernon. And about yours attempting to intervene.”

Rosalind nodded slowly. “And you overheard us.”

“Enough of it.” William looked away. “At the time, I thought I understood what she meant. I knew father had been hard on Algernon and that Lord Eastmere had shown him kindness when he needed it. I did not understand the extent of either.”

Hearing it from Algernon had been something else entirely. There had been no gentle recollection of old family difficulties, no careful explanation intended to spare William more than necessary.

His brother had given him memories William had never possessed: the humiliation, the punishments, the constant fear of failing to force words from his mouth quickly enough.

And Edmund Carlisle had been woven through nearly all of it.

“Your father did more than comfort him,” William said. “Mother believes he changed the course of Algernon’s life. He was the first person willing to tell my father plainly that humiliating his son would never cure his stutter. He encouraged patience instead of anger, and when Father could not manage that, your father gave Algernon the patience himself.”

Rosalind looked away, blinking rapidly.

William allowed her the moment. “When your father’s name came up last night, Algernon changed.”

She looked back at him. “How?”

“He became quieter. Graver.” William frowned at the memory. “Until then, he had spoken about Father with anger. About his nightmares with embarrassment. But when he spoke of your father, there was something else entirely.”

“Gratitude?”

“Yes.”

William thought of his brother’s face across the library, stripped of the careful reserve he wore so naturally.

“Algernon said your father taught him that taking longer to speak did not mean his words had less worth.”

Rosalind’s breath caught.

“He helped him overcome the worst of the stutter. More than that, Mother believes your father helped change mine. By the time I was old enough to remember him, Father had become the man I knew partly because Edmund had forced him to see what he was doing to his own son.”

Rosalind said nothing.

All those evenings when Lord Eastmere had remained at Aldermere long after dinner suddenly looked different to William. He remembered conversations about Byron that seemed to stretch endlessly, Algernon listening while the earl spoke, sometimes contributing little and sometimes remaining with him long after everyone else had retired.

William had always known they were close. Even after overhearing his mother’s conversation with Rosalind, he had understood only that Edmund had once been kind to a frightened boy.

He understood now that it had been far more than kindness.