How he had been kept to the house and the gardens, and only allowed to be in the company of strong, male servants.
It was impossible to be around him. He had been violent, angry, and tragically confused.
The outbursts during James’s childhood had been the first signs that things were about to go terribly awry. But as a boy, he had not understood that. All he had known was the terrifying fights, the jealous rages that his father would inflict on his beautiful mother.
And he had cowered in the shadows, lost. His mother had tried to protect him. To shield him. To hide him from his father’s notice.
He knew that now. Her letters had made it clear over the years. But then…
He had decided long ago that he would need no one, and he most certainly would never chance his heart to someone. As his mother had done.
Because the monster… It was in his blood.
She had been the diamond, and she had been nearly crushed. It was a good thing that diamonds were veritably unbreakable. The truth was, he never forgot that his father’s fate loomed before him. That blood would out.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
Though Alexander did not mean it, that was exactly what he was espousing in his attempts to avoid the fact that he had liked Miss Olivia Fairweather.
“I think that you should consider bringing in new blood,” James said honestly.“Lest my family’s fate befall yours.”
“Don’t say that, Stone,” Alexander said quietly.
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
“Peers marry other peers,” Blackbrook stated.“It is what we do.”
“Perhaps we should stop doing what peers do,” James countered through gritted teeth.
“That is a remarkable thing for a duke to say,” Blackbrook replied.
“Perhaps I say itbecauseI’m a duke.” He let his gaze wander to the horizon, feeling something tighten inside him. Something demanding to ride out, to outrace his pain.“I can do whatever the devil I please.”
“Who shall you marry, then?” Blackbrook asked.
“Me?” he queried.“I shall not marry for years. And when I do, it’ll be to some miss who doesn’t mind if I abandon her in the country, get an heir on her, and leave her be. My wife can expect a good deal of independence. I will not inflict myself on her.”
“You won’t be like your father,” his friend said firmly.
“How do you know?” he demanded.
“Because I do.”
“You cannot know such a thing.” He snorted.“He was not always…terrible. All accounts say my mother and father were a splendid match.” His insides twisted, and he forced himself to bite out,“Blackbrook, you can have no idea what I will be in a decade.”
“We will disagree on this point.”
“I would be a fool not to consider it,” he growled, and then willed himself to calm. He would not allow himself to be shaken. Cool, calm, controlled. They were imperative to his well-being.“And I will not bring some kind, unsuspecting young woman into my house with the delusion of thinking that she will have a happy outcome with me. When things could go horribly awry. She must be aware of how perilously things could go with me.”
“Is that why you keep everyone away?” Blackbrook asked. “Why you refuse to—”
“I do not fall under the foolish idea of a happy match like your parents. I never saw that with mine. Whatever love they had? It ended when I was too small to remember. I was not trained or taught to know the sort of love you did. I do not even know how to go about creating something like that.”
“And yet you do it for others,” Blackbrook pointed out.
He stilled, his stallion shifting beneath him, sensing the great well of emotion James kept at bay. “I do it for others, because I can never have it for myself.”
“You deserve—”