Awakening His Duchess by Katy Madison Read Free Book Online

to do with him, Beau didn’t
know. His heart was thumping so madly now, he couldn’t focus on anything other
than seeing his father. Crossing the threshold, he peered across the room
draped in long shadows. By the fire, an old man sat in a Bath chair with a lap
robe over his legs.
    “Come closer that I may see it is really you,” ordered the
booming voice that belonged to the duke.
    His father had married late, well into his thirties. Now he
was old, much more shriveled than when Beau left. He had been virile and
powerful then.
    “It’s me.” Beau moved toward the fire.
    “Where the hell have you been all this time?” the duke
thundered. “Do you know what you have put your mother through?”
    At one time the booming voice would have made Beau quake and
he’d have come back with an irreverent rejoinder just to keep his fear from
showing. Instead he answered calmly, “I escaped at my first opportunity. I was
in Saint-Domingue until
I managed to book passage to New Orleans a year ago.” Beau stopped to breathe
air into his weakened lungs.
    His father’s eyes narrowed.
    “Mazi and I made our way to the eastern coast of America
where we were able to find a ship bound for England. Ten days ago we docked in
Liverpool. I am happy to see you too.”
    And he was, in spite of his father offering no more warmth
than a winter’s day. Other than growing weak and infirm, the duke hadn’t
changed. Oddly Beau found comfort in that. If it had been a delusion or
drug-induced dream, his father would have been kind, but this was familiar.
    Wheeling closer, the duke peered up at him then bent forward
and with great difficulty pushed himself to stand. His gaze raked over his
youngest son. Beau stood still under the scrutiny.
    “You look like a damned field hand.”
    Not surprising, since that was what he’d been, but his
father would be appalled if he said that.
    “You couldn’t send a letter?” The duke glared.
    “You wouldn’t have recognized my hand. And I figured we’d be
here in about the same time.” Not to mention posting a letter was costly to a
man who had to pick up odd work just to get home.
    “For more than nine years you have been unable to send a
letter.” There wasn’t much of a question to his words, just a resounding
disappointment Beau was no stranger to.
    “No, sir. I have not had access to finer things like pen and
paper.” Beau coughed. He stopped the impulse to rub his weakened right hand. It
worked after a fashion, but he could no longer hold a pen in it, and his
left-handed scrawl was barely legible. Not that he’d had a great deal of
opportunity to practice.
    His father’s eyes shot up and down his body. “Have you
forgotten how to dress properly, too?”
    “I haven’t anything that fits.” He didn’t really care that
much anyway. While the clothes in his trunk had been finely tailored, it all
seemed so wasteful now.
    “I cannot believe you crossed England wearing rags. Have you
forgotten your station?”
    Beau sighed. For a long time his station had seemed a
delusion. One of many he’d suffered while the bokor controlled him. Many times
as he worked with the sun beating down on him, he would say, “I am Lord
Beaumont William Arthur Trey Devereux Havendish, third son of the Duke of
Newkirk.” As if in saying it again and again, he would return to himself and
become a gentleman again.
    Now Beau had no answer. He would have thought his father
would be happy to see him, at least to settle the heir issue if nothing else.
“Am I to assume I have no nephews since the servants are addressing me as
Arrington?”
    “Your sisters have boys, but your brothers only managed to
produce girls.” The duke cleared his throat. “It is good you are here to clear
up matters.”
    Clear up matters? Was that how his change to heir
apparent was considered? A trifle to be sorted. He would have thought his
father would care that his title passed to his direct descendent instead of to
a distant cousin.