AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t, er…”
“Get on.” The duke bit off the words.
Should he commiserate? That seemed presumptuous. Kenver fumbled for a way to have a confidential conversation with this impressive man.
“He died when I was fifteen.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kenver again.
“I try to be more so,” said the duke.
Kenver had rarely felt so awkward. The duke seemed to be feeling it too, which made things even worse. IfTerefordwas uneasy, they must be scaling the heights of unease.
“Fifteen years of seething and shouting and disputes that solved nothing. And were never resolved.” The duke looked out over the sea. “Well, it can’t have been quite that many years. I don’t recall when I learned to talk.”
Choking off a nervous laugh, Kenver said, “I don’t argue very often.”
“No.”
Was this a criticism? Kenver couldn’t tell. “There was a great deal of shouting at Poldene when I was a child. I developed a…distaste for it.”
The duke took this in with what appeared to be sympathy. “I’ve been thinking just lately, and it seems a weighty thing to be a father.”
They looked at each other—two youthful men, not much alike but newly married and likely to face fatherhood in the near future. To join a long line of fathers, Kenver thought. He’d never considered it.
“People—some people—burden their sons with vast expectations. Particularly only sons.”
“You also?” Kenver asked.
“Yes.” The duke made a broad gesture. “Carrying on legacies, making up for ancestral lapses. And so on.”
Kenver nodded, understanding the point all too well.
“But that’s no excuse to set up as petty tyrants.”
This time, the laugh escaped.
Tereford smiled in response. “I learned that arguments don’t convince such people. No matter how fiery. They aren’t…heard.”
“Not arguing isn’t either,” said Kenver. “Obviously.” Silence could be taken for agreement.
“Both are unproductive,” his companion replied.
Did he mean there was no solution? “It is affecting Sarah,” Kenver blurted out. “That is what I cannot bear.”
“Much harder when another person is involved. If my father had attacked Cecelia…” The duke’s expression grew grim. He looked intimidating. It was a moment before he continued. “The only thing I have found helpful is to…disengage. I have had to do this within myself, since my father is gone.”
As his was not, Kenver noted. How could one disengage when they were thrown together every day?
“When people are shown that their behavior is accomplishing nothing, sometimes they alter it,” the duke added.
His tone suggested that “sometimes” was not often. Kenver’s automatic pessimism began to surface when he was suddenly struck by a new idea. “Tresigan,” he said.
The duke raised dark brows.
“Could Sarah and I live at Tresigan? Once the repairs are finished? They are, nearly, are they not?”
