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Pity for the old man tickled his chest. Lord Beckett was hungry? Damnation, that couldn’t be easy for Penelope to witness. Did it really need to come down to this?

But no. Preston needed to stay focused.

Lord Beckett wasn’t doing well? Neither was Spencer—he was dead.

“And you decided to betray me,” he said, his voice a rasp.

“I didn’t decide anything. All I wanted was to help Papa. But I changed my mind, just before you came in. I was about to put it back. And I must tell you something else…”

His stomach dropped. “What?”

“I gave him money.”

She had broken his rule. She had deceived him. Preston stepped back, his whole being in agony. He hadn’t anticipated his enemy’s daughter could ever have the ability to hurt him like this. Like a cannonball had landed right in the middle of his chest, and torn, ragged pieces of his flesh ached and bled. “You need to decide right now, your father or me. Who has your loyalty?”

Penelope exhaled sharply, her eyes watering. “You’re forcing me to make an impossible choice, Preston! He’s still my father. He was hungry, unwashed. I think his health is rapidly declining. I’m worried about him. He’s the only parent I have left.”

Her only parent who had been ready to sell her like an animal. And yet, she had a big, warm heart. How could he both be so hurt by her and love her for caring so much about her unworthy papa?

“He may be the only parent you have left, Penelope,” he said. “But you have more people that care about you. I’m your husband. You have me now.”

Their eyes locked for a long time, and he sank in the depths of her eyes the color of a stormy sea hit by a beam of sunlight.

“Do I, though?” she asked. “Will you be able to ever fully trust me?”

“How can I trust you when you go against my rules, when you betray me in our own home?”

His jaws tensed to the point of pain. Yes, he was disappointed by this betrayal, but it was more than that. Trusting her, fully trusting her, meant pulling down the defenses and layers of protection he’d built around his soul piece by piece. Like the walls of Eilean Donan Castle, built from the granite of the mountains around the Mackenzie Boys’ School, flanking the flat, silvery-gray surface of Loch Duich. It was at that school that he’d learned he really was always alone.

And people who were alone couldn’t trust others, especially not with their feelings. Because if you trusted people, they hurt you. They sent you off to school like a traitor, like an unwanted dog. Like there was something wrong with you.

How could he take down the stones of his walls one by one, with bleeding, bruised fingers, and show her that behind them was not an almighty duke, but just someone who didn’t think much of himself?

“What did my father do to make you distrust me so much?”

He said nothing. He couldn’t contradict her. It wasn’t just his insecurities that made trust impossible. She’d always be his enemy’s daughter, and as long as Preston craved revenge, this war between him and Lord Beckett would never stop.

And she’d be entangled in it forever.

Richard’s words rang in his head. He either had to choose love or revenge. If he wanted to be happy with his wife, and love her, he’d have to forgive Lord Beckett.

And that wasn’t something he could ever do. Was it? Wouldn’t that mean endorsing Beckett’s actions? But even if he could never forgive her father, it wasn’t Penelope’s fault. She was just caught in the middle. Regret stung him, and any remaining anger slid away.

“I have something for you,” he said.

He went into the inner pocket of his tailcoat and fished out Mr. Turner’s letter. With shaking hands, she unfolded it and read. Her eyes brightened, and a smile spread on her lips, making his dead heart melt like wax.

“William Turner?” she breathed. “The William Turner?”

How could she think he was the one with all the power in this relationship, the one making all the rules, when he was ready to turn the world upside down for just one of her brilliant smiles?

She was the one with all the power.

The power to be his absolute bliss or his complete destruction.

“Yes, Penelope,” he said. “The William Turner. For you. Anything—for you.”

Anything but letting down the five-foot-thick granite walls around his heart.