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And I pray she will receive them and think of me kindly.

“Apologies?” his friend snorted. “What kind of apologies? Jewels? Gowns? A new phaeton like the one you gave that opera singer of yours?”

Ethan scoffed. “I never gave anyone a phaeton.”

Besides, he had long lost any desire for any woman who was not Phoebe. Any woman—even one showered with gifts—would find his lack of attention insulting.

“So gowns and jewels, then.” Hudson smirked. “I never thought you could be so unoriginal, old friend. And they callyouthe most charming of the Wolves.”

Ethan could only smile weakly at him.

The truth was that the gowns he had ordered from Madame Delacroix were only the beginning.

He had also commissioned entire sets of jewelry exclusively for Phoebe. Oh, he certainly intended to drape her in rubies and sapphires. Emeralds. Diamonds.

After all, what was his massive wealth for if not to lavish it on his Duchess?

There was also that matter of the printing press he had purchased. He had bought it at a considerably much higher price than it was worth, but now, it was earning quite significantly as interest in that scandalous book of hers spread like wildfire across the ton.

He planned to givethatto her, too. Encourage her to write more of those scandalous books of hers.

His mother-in-law probably would not approve of her daughter’s hobbies, but he would support her wholeheartedly. Give her everything she wanted and needed.

Except for his heart.

“If you like your Duchess so much, why do you not simply open up to her like she wants?” Hudson asked him softly.

Ethan smiled bitterly. “We all know how that will end up.”

“No, we truly do not. Everyone used to think the worst of the late Duke of Blackthorn. Colin himself was afraid of becoming the man his father was.” Hudson smirked at that. “Now, I think that he is proud to be following in that man’s footsteps. In fact, I think he may just well surpass the man, seeing as how he hovers over that wife of his.”

Ethan chuckled at that. Indeed, Colin was truly becoming more like his father in more ways than one—in a good way.

But while the late Duke of Blackthorn had inherently been a good man, if misunderstood, the late Duke of Sinclair was truly a despicable one.

Ethan would rather throw himself off a cliff than become the sort of husband his father had been.

Unfortunately, the more he lingered around Phoebe, the more he was drawn to her. Attached to her.

Sometimes, it was impossible to see through the haze of desire that would seize him whenever he was in her presence, and that had never happened to him before.

Not even in his wildest, most erotic encounters.

“Things are different, Hudson,” he finally managed to speak. “My father was a monster who terrorized his wife and his son. He considered us his possessions, mere extensions of himself. I do not want that for Phoebe.”

“Then do not be like that for her,” his friend told him firmly. “Do better. Be better than he was. You can be more than your father ever was.”

Phoebe had said the same thing, and what scared Ethan the most was that she might actually believe it—that he could be a better man.

“That bastard’s blood runs through my veins,” he groaned. “I wish to heaven more than ever that that was not the case, but that is the damned truth. I am becoming my father in more ways than one.”

Even now, in his townhouse, there was nothing he wanted more than to possess her entirely, to drag her body to his and thrust into her so hard until they did not know where one began and the other ended.

No, he was exactly like his father, using his family for his own ends, and if he was not careful, then Phoebe was going to end up exactly like his mother.

Miserable and dead.

Ethan sucked in a sharp breath. His mother, who had lost all her will to live, sapped dry by her husband. She could not even find it in herself to survive for the son she would leave behind with her monster of a husband.