The Viscount Returns by Eryn Black Read Free Book Online

You will not leave alone!” Turning from his wife, Robert made his way to the door.
    “Eight years! Yes, damn you!” Fiona found her voice, stopping him in his tracks. Unable to be warned off by the fear of what danger she was toying with, Fiona continued to find her voice. “You left me eight years ago to fend for myself so that you and your…” struggling to keep the word lover from leaving her lips, “your…friend…” The title was iced over with disgust, knowing that she was referring to her rival. “Could travel the world while I was trapped here, left with no money and your father and sons to care for.”
    “Sons?” The two men both turned to her.
    “Sprout was unexpected as were other things in this hell you have left me in, and yes I wrote you, but you had,” looking once again at Allen with a scornful eye, “ other priorities.” She gasped when suddenly choking on her tears and keeping any other confession lodged in her throat. Holding her red-gloved hand over her mouth, Fiona pushed past the men and fled the room.
    “Ruth! Ruth!” Ringing through the halls, the master of the house commanded for the only sensible woman. He would not be left in the dark. After leaving Allen to himself to partake in the homecoming feast as he wished, Robert’s heavy steps thundered on the dull wood floors. “Ruth!”
    “Dear Lord almighty, what is this racket?” The woman burst through the door with Sprout holding tight to her skirt.
    “Is it true?!”
    “Is what true?” One arm around the boy, Ruth stood with her head held high.
    “The boy’s father? Is it true?”
    He was a fuming ogre. Looking from one frightened face to the other, he took two retreating steps back before pausing for a moment. He then turned back to Ruth, trying to keep his eyes from drifting down to his son’s scared face for fear of seeing his own looking up at him. Robert was ashamed of himself for the fear he had put in the boy and had to flee the judgment he was now beating into himself.
    “I will see you in the dining room at once.” He turned to continue on his way, but added first, “It would be best if my son and his nurse retired for the night. I shall address him tomorrow.”
    “Nurse?” the boy asked, but Ruth silenced him and allowed Robert to leave.
    The table setting was meager and now that the feast had been uncovered, Allen noticed that there was much his friend did not know about the home he had returned to. The stew was hearty, but the paring of potatoes left little to celebrate in the homecoming feat.
    “I cannot bear to look or think of that woman.” Robert passed around the room, never pausing from the moment he entered. “Here I have worked with my own blood and sweat to support her and my birthright and never did she or my father think to send word to me that I had fathered a son?”
    “She claimed to have done just that.” Allen’s voice of reason was not welcomed.
    “If she had, I would never have remained there.” Robert’s pain was evident in his face and his disheveled hair that had been vigorously combed through by his fingers. “I am no monster. I would have been honored to raise a son of my own. No, obviously the good feeling I had for her were not reciprocated and she has tarnished what should have been a blessing in my life.”
    “I wish there were words I could say, but I am as thrown as you are.” Scooping up another bight of stew, Allen tried to hold back his own opinions of his friend’s treatment toward the family he had been reunited with this day.
    Yes, Robert was a hard worker, but never did he show regret for leaving or a longing to return after so many years. Their hard work was an adventure and he welcomed every moment. It was a year into their friendship when Robert finally confessed to Allen and the others they were acquainted with to even having a wife and that was only thanks to a night where the bourbon had influenced his confession more than a grieving heart. Though he