The reports of the marriage of the Duke of Springbrook and his wife. The birth of their first child-a son. The divorce. The Duke remarrying. The birth of his second son who he named heir. The non-existent relationship between the Duke and his first son. And then the tragedy of that second son’s death. Then nothing but silence.
Because you don’t exist. You never did.
Cedric’s hand was cold where it gripped the door handle, his knuckles bone white, and he had to force himself to let it go. He should leave, get out while he had a chance, and yet he didn’t. He turned around instead.
Anna stood next to the bed, that terrible sympathetic expression still on her lovely, vivid face. Concern glittered in those beautiful eyes, as if she cared about how he felt. He didn’t understand why she would. After all, no one else had. And he didn’t understand why she wanted to ask him about his past, either. About his brother. Sullen anger burned inside him, a healing fire.
“Did you, now?” His voice had turned to ice and he made no attempt to adjust it. She had to learn that the subject of Vincent was out of bounds. “Then you’ll know my father had him to replace me. He was the heir, I was cast out along with my mother, and she didn’t care either. I was nothing but a disappointment to my father.”
Emotions flickered over Anna’s expressive face: sympathy, concern and even a touch of anger. And then she was coming across the space that separated them, and he found he’d taken a step back as if to put some distance between them, the door behind him preventing him from moving any further.
She stopped in front of him, that sympathetic gaze stripping him bare. Seeing his pain. Seeing his anguish. Seeing the lost, lonely boy he’d once been, desperate for love and attention, yet who’d been ignored so completely he’d started to question his own existence. His heartbeat was drumming in his head, and when she reached out to him he flinched. But she only took his hand and held it gently, the warmth of her touch grounding him, keeping the edges of him solid.
“Come,” she said quietly, and tightened her grip, taking a step towards the fire.
He didn’t know why he let her lead him from the door and over to the armchair by the fire. Why he let her push him gently down into the chair. Why he let her open the bottle of wine that was sitting on the coffee table and pour a couple of glasses. Why he let her put one in his hand and wrap his fingers around the stem of the wine glass. Why he damn well let her put some food on a plate and put it on the table beside his chair.
“What are you doing?” He couldn’t make himself move.
“Looking after you,” she said matter-of-factly.
Then she grabbed her own glass, set it down on the floor beside his chair, then knelt at his feet. She put her hands on his knees… oddest sense that she made him real, somehow.
“Tell me,” she said quietly.
It wasn’t a command; he didn’t have to do it. But she was watching him and suddenly he had to get it out, to let someone know that sometimes he felt as if he was disappearing, like he’d been conjured out of the air, a god that vanished if no one worshipped him, if no one saw him. And perhaps if he told her, this desperation, this agitation, would go away.
“Vincent died when he was fifteen,” he said roughly. “Meningitis. It was very fast. My mother and I were already gone then, but my father blamed himself even though there was nothing he could do.” His fingers closed on the stem of his wine glass so tightly it hurt. But the pain grounded him. “The son he had to replace me was gone, and I won’t lie to you, Anna, but when I heard of his death, I felt some sick kind of joy. My father hated my mother and I guess that hate extended to me too. It didn’t help that I didn’t turn out the way my father wanted me to be, so I guess it was easier for him to cast me aside.”
She watched him, her eyes glowing, no judgment in her face. “Go on,” she said, as if she knew he hadn’t finished, and that there was more, so much more to say.
So he did.
“Nothing I did was good enough. My very existence was like a slap in the face to him. Vincent was perfect I guess. He liked to shoot and hunt and fish with my father, while I liked to read books and look things up on the internet and play computer games. My mother couldn’t wait to be rid of me after the divorce, so she I was left with my Aunt Diana most of the time,”
For some reason all his muscles had started to relax. Even though remembering all of this and uttering it was painful. But the warmth of her body pressing gently against him, the scent of her winding around him, made it easier somehow. “My mother wouldn’t even look at me. She would walk right past me as if I weren’t even there. I was ten.”
Anna’s body pressed harder against him, her gaze intent. She didn’t speak and she didn’t look away, and neither did he.
“I tried to make her proud-I was desperate to, you understand….” he went on, “As I grew older I was desperate to succeed, to show my father that he’d made a mistake by choosing Vincent over me, but trying to be what my father wanted only made it more apparent how unlike Vincent was. So I worked hard at school, thinking that getting good marks and awards would make him see my worth. Make him see me. Make him remember that I even existed. But they meant nothing to him. He didn’t care about marks or awards, or how his son had graduated top of his class. I wasn’t Vincent and that was all that mattered to him.”
Anna’s hands spread out on his knees, her fingers pressing down on him as if she knew instinctively that was what he needed; some sensation to make him feel as if he was part of the world. “So what did you do?”