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How are you, darling? I feel as if it is ages between your letters. I imagine that is because of the distance between London and the Far East. Still, it seems as though you have been gone forever. As your mother, it drives me mad to not have you close by.
To that end, I need you to return to Archington Manor. It is not entirely for selfish reasons, though I must admit that is a small part of it. I have an important matter to discuss with you, and I wish to do so as soon as possible.
I understand why you fled London, darling. But you are the Duke of Archington. You cannot hide forever. Nor should you. I am proud of you, my son, and so should you be. Please, come at your earliest convenience.
All my love,
Mother
He sighed, running his hand through his hair as he stared out the window of the conservative cottage he had purchased for his stay. He had hired a handful of employees as servants, which he would have to dismiss if he were to leave. His valet, Frank, however, would return with him. If that was, he decided to return.
Idly, he began stroking the left side of his face, unconsciously wincing as his fingertips caressed the scar tissue. And just as unintentionally, his mind drifted back to the reason why he left London four years prior. He vividly remembered the reason he had the scars he was now stroking, as though with a strange fondness, rather than a condemning hatred. And the ruins of his skin had cost him dearly. He would never forget that, either.
He had once been engaged to Lady Jocelyn. She was as sweet and clever as she was beautiful, and he had been madly in love with her. But a couple of weeks before they were to be wed, he was in a terrible carriage accident. He had been unconscious for a couple of days, and Lady Jocelyn was not there when he had awoken. The next, and last, he heard from her, she broke off their engagement.
With a bitter sneer, Val rose from the chair. His waking memories of the accident were vaguer than the memory of Jocelyn’s rejection. His accident memories tormented him mainly in the form of nightmares. But each time he touched his scars, he remembered how his face slid along the splintering parts of the carriage door, just before everything went black.
How could she ask me to return?He thought, forcing his hand away from his face.Why would she want the ton to see her with such a hideous monster?
“Your Grace?” Frank asked from the door behind him. “Is something wrong?”
Val whirled around to see the tall, stout man looking at him with curious concern. He gave the valet a sheepish look.
“It seems as though I have been summoned back to London,” he said.
Frank nodded, walking over to Val, and standing to face him.
“And you do not wish to return,” he finished for his master.
Val shook his head.
“I do not,” he said.
The two men sat in silence for several moments. Frank was the best employee that a man with his deformities could ever ask for. Even the maids on his payroll whispered about him when they thought he couldn’t hear them. But Frank remained loyal and kind, and he had never spoken a bad word about the Duke’s scars. He was patient and understanding and never treated Val differently for a minute.
“When do we depart?” Frank asked at last.
Val chuckled.
“When summer and winter change places,” he said.
Frank laughed heartily. Then, he looked at Val with kindness.
“I understand your apprehension, your Grace,” he said. “But I will be here to help you in any way I can. I know this is uncomfortable for you. But you are a strong and clever man. More so than any other I have ever known. If anyone can find some good in this endeavor, it will be you.”
Val gave the valet a warm smile.
“I hope that you are right,” he said.
***
Three things are happening simultaneously, and Val’s heart is racing. He whips his head around, trying to figure out what he should do first. The carriage is headed straight for the men who are fighting in the street, the footmen are shouting, and Val feels the carriage crash into a hole and rattle one of the wheels loose. A moment later, Val understands what is about to happen and that there is nothing he can do.
As he draws breath to order the driver to stop, the loose wiggles its way off the carriage. At the same moment, the coach reaches the fighting men, who at last see the danger and scatter. Val thinks the carriage hit one of them, but he cannot see. And he does not get another minute to try to see if any of them render aid.
In a moment that feels as though he is turning flips in slow motion and suspended in midair, Val is levitating off the carriage seat. With a strange sense of wonder, he realizes that he is about to slam into the top of the coach when it comes back down, bottom side up, onto the road.
But to his horror, the carriage does not just slam down once and remain on its top. It bounces, flying into an instant roll down across the street. Instead of hitting the coach’s inside top, he feels his face slam into the door of the carriage, just as it splinters all to pieces. Searing pain tears through his face as the broken wood punctures his skin…
