AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Calliope released a slow, deep breath. It was all she could do to sit there and remain calm when she wanted to lash out at him. By some miracle, she managed to keep her voice steady when she countered, “I understand that you are still grieving for your daughter, for she was your child, no matter if she was grown, married, or not. But you must understand that it is not a sin for someone to change their mind when it comes to who they want to spend the rest of their days with. Wouldn’t you think it was better that my father realized he didn’t love Elizabeth and moved on, rather than allow her to learn the truth years later?”
The marquess’s cane thumped on the ground. “He could have learned to love her, but he chose to break her heart instead.” He shook his head adamantly. “I will never forgive him for what he did.”
“You don’t have to forgive him,” she returned. “But you should forgive yourself.” His gaze snapped back to her. “I can tell that you not only blame her death on my father, but on your failings as well. The truth is, there is nothing you could have done. Our fates are set before we are even born. And it’s foolish of you to condemn me for what he did or did not do. I carry no sins of my father.”
“Do you not?” the marquess growled maliciously, as he slammed the end of his cane against the floor, making the tea tray rattle with his outrage. “I saw the way Sebastian suffered when you spurned his advances at that blasted seaside village! I’ll not have you make his life a misery so he shares his mother’s fate. You say that I blame myself for Elizabeth, and yes, I suppose I have done, because I’ve done my best to atone for my lack as a father by vowing that I would protect my grandson. That is what I shall do until my dying breath.” He got to his feet and pointed toward the door with his cane, his face violent with rage. “Now I will kindly tell you to remove yourself from this house before I call the watch upon you and have you forcefully taken away!”
Calliope swallowed uneasily, but she set aside her cup and saucer on a nearby table. When she stood, she smoothed out her dress and lifted her chin as she paused before the marquess. “Be careful that you do not make a mistake and rid yourself of everyone who might care about you, or it shall be a very lonely existence indeed.”
She walked out the door.
Not until Calliope was inside the carriage and headed back home did the confrontation with Lord Abersheen start to sink in. Her hands began to tremble, and moisture filled her line of vision. She had intended to pay a call on the marquess to find out the truth, but she’d gotten so much more.
Unfortunately, not all of it was what she’d been prepared to hear.
Although she’d had her suspicions that the marquess was trying to save Sebastian from his parents’ fate, she hadn’t imagined that her father might have considered marrying someone before he’d met Isadora’s mother. At this point, Calliope was starting to wonder if the duke was the man they had all believed him to be. He was caring and kind to his daughters, but had his love been true, or as fickle as she was starting to fear?
It had been a surprise to all but Isadora that he’d planned to marry again, just months before his death, but it was a selfless endeavor. Or was it?
He would have been paying for the medical costs for Viscount Rundell’s daughter, Eugenia, but it was mentioned more than once that he was afraid of being alone. With every tragedy that the duke had suffered, Calliope and her sisters believed that he loved each of their mothers deeply, but what if that hadn’t been the truth? What if he’d merely married for the sake of having someone in his life?
She put a hand to her lips as a tear escaped and slid down her cheek. Had everything she’d ever heard, every story that her father had said with such heartfelt emotion, all been a lie?
But more importantly, what was it that she truly felt for Sebastian? If what her father claimed he’d shared with his wives wasn’t really the enduring love she’d always imagined it to be, then who was to say a union with Sebastian wouldn’t end in disaster?
As she was deposited in front of the townhouse she shared with Isadora, she was aggrieved to see that Sebastian’s curricle was tied up out front. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to entertain him at the moment.
In truth, she wondered if she ever would be again.
