My Fair Duchess (A Once Upon A Rogue Novel Book 1) Read Free

He knew better than to hope his father would appear and separate the lovers. Colin suspected his father was too afraid he’d drive his duchess completely away if he demanded she stop her affairs. Colin growled deep within but forced the sound to silence, though he could not control the muscles of his shoulders, which tightened considerably. He had not wanted a seventeenth birthday celebration, because he’d known it would provide the perfect opportunity for his mother to slip away and further torture his father with her continued dalliances. The only consolation, though it bothered him to think of it as so, was that his birth had left her barren and there would never be a worry of a child from one of her dalliances. Colin scrubbed a hand across his face. He should not have agreed to this party, but his father had insisted and had seemed briefly happy while planning it with Colin’s aunt.
    As wood creaked and the boat rocked, Colin remembered he was not alone. He glanced across the space at Rhetford. What must he think? “I did warn you when you accepted my father’s invitation to this celebration that you needed to be prepared for anything.”
    “That you did,” Rhetford echoed with a note of disbelief, his words a hushed whisper. “Is that why you didn’t want me to come? Because you were worried I might see your mother and her lover?”
    “Hardly. That”―he waved his hand toward the boathouse―“is nothing. You can see my mother with a lover on any given visit to this house when there are men besides my father in residence. What concerns me is that she may try to slip away with you .”
    “I’d never do such a thing,” Rhetford murmured, his face turning the same shade of red as his hair.
    No. Rhetford would not, and that was one of the reasons Colin especially liked and trusted him. His friend was one of the few truly good people he knew. Bitterness clogged his throat, but he cleared it and leaned back against the wood once more to rest his head in his interlocked fingers. He looked up at the bright stars. It would be nice to recapture that fleeting moment of peace he had felt before his mother had appeared, but the prospect was doubtful at best.
    “Scarsdale was the last friend I brought here, and as you well know, he departed no longer a friend.”
    “I gathered there had been a falling out when you refused to speak to him at school, but when I asked him what had happened he would not say, and well, you know what happened when I asked you.”
    “Sorry about that,” Colin immediately replied, remembering how Rhetford had broached the subject of Colin not speaking to their classmate. Colin had snapped and told Rhetoford that if he ever mentioned Scarsdale’s name to him again, Colin wouldn’t speak to Rhetford anymore, either. “Now that you know, I expect you to take the secret to your grave.”
    “Of course,” Rhetford said. “But I think I should point out that I would never sleep with your mother. She is married for one. Your mother, for another. And most importantly, I don’t love her.”
    Colin sat up, the boat swaying as he did and leaned against his knees. “By God, you are a dreamer. I wish I could be like you, but in my world, love has nothing to do with sex, or marriage for that matter, which is precisely why I’ll never bother to find it. My father is miserable because he loves my mother and she could care less about him. I’d rather be an eternal bachelor and blissfully happy.”
    Rhetford snorted while plunking his booted feet on the bench between them. “My parents love each other and are incredibly happy when my mother isn’t harping. Someday I’ll marry and find a wife who loves me as much as my mother adores my father. The only difference is I’ll have plenty of blunt so I won’t have to listen to any harping.”
    “Really?” Colin quirked an eyebrow. “Is your father’s land now profitable?” Rhetford had confided several months ago that bugs plagued their land.