Lord of Regrets by Sabrina Darby Read Free Book Online

Natasha said as she began to carefully fold a small garment.
    “We need to talk.”
    “Mama?” The plaintive voice was louder this time. He glanced at the girl––his daughter.
    “Hush, Leona.”
    “Why is Lord Templeton here?”
    “Because I made a mistake,” he said, the admission for Natasha even though it was his daughter’s question that he answered.
    “A mistake!” Natasha stood, arms akimbo, fury emanating from her, and Marcus felt himself sink inside. “A mistake is forgetting someone’s birthday. What you did, Marcus, there are words for that I can’t say in front of Leona.”
    “Are we leaving because of him?”
    “I know.” Marcus held his hands out, palms up, pleading. “If I could change the past, I would. I’ve missed out on so much, on our daughter, on our life together.”
    “No.” Natasha stalked toward him, her hands fisted by her sides.
    “Mama,” Leona wailed, standing up on the bed.
    Natasha stopped. Her eyes closed and her fists slowly unclenched.
    “You need to go, Marcus.” The words were cold and final. He could not accept them.
    “Who is he?”
    He seized on the girl’s question, on the small, living being who tied him to Natasha irrevocably.
    “I’m your father.” His words filled the air like a cannon, smoke and ash raining down in the momentary silence.
    Natasha pinned him with a shocked, furious glare.
    “No, you’re not,” the child denied. Marcus tore his gaze from Natasha to watch Leona shake her head vigorously. “I don’t have a father. And if I did, it wouldn’t be you.”
    “Why not?” Marcus asked, offended and then bemused by his own emotions, by the conversation they were having by the light of one candle, in the middle of the night.
    “Because my mother loved my father and she doesn’t love you.” The statement was made with all the assured logic of youth, and while Marcus couldn’t deny that Natasha hated him now, he thought it odd that she would tell their daughter she had loved Marcus. He wanted to ask her why she had loved him, but he bit back the words, thinking them weak.
    “Tell her, Natasha.”
    “My father is dead,” Leona said, her lower lip trembling. But she didn’t run to her mother.
    “He’s right, darling.” Natasha’s voice broke.
    “No,” the girl wailed. “No, no, no. I hate you!” She threw herself at Marcus, small fists hitting. “You’re making us leave, and I hate you.”
    He didn’t know what to do with the small person assaulting him. He was afraid to grab her arms, to push her away. He was afraid that he would break her.
    Natasha pulled the girl away, hauling her roughly. “That’s enough.”
    Leona’s fists found her mother’s chest, her face scrunched up in dismay.
    “If I must have a father,” Leona cried, “why can’t it be Reverend Duncan?”
    The words hurt, but Marcus forced down his anger, his resentment of another man taking such a prominent role in his daughter’s life. She was just a child, and when she and Natasha came to live with him, everything would change.
    “You said!” The girl pushed away, her tearstained face uncrumpling and settling into a mask of confusion. “You lied.”
    The words seemed to hit Natasha with more force than Leona’s fists. That sinking nausea in his stomach started again, and Marcus wondered when the ripples would cease, when he would finally right this horrible nightmare.
    “When you’re older, you’ll understand,” Natasha said, her words measured, but he heard the pain behind them.
    “You told me not to lie. Reverend Duncan said lying is a sin.” Leona backed away on the bed. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
    Marcus grabbed her as she stumbled off the mattress. She kicked and screamed in his arms, but he held her tight, wondering that her little limbs could hold such powerful fury.
    “She was trying to protect you,” he said against her ear, all too aware that Natasha was watching, that his lack of fathering ability was on show.