Page 27 of His Scottish Duchess (The Dukes of Sin #5)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“ W hat… what did you say?”

The words, spoken with such innocent desire, hung in the air like a death knell. Sampson’s breath hitched, his heart stuttering in his chest.

Surely he had misheard. She understood him. She told him she respected his wishes, so she couldn’t want?—

He couldn’t. He simply couldn’t do that. The very idea made a cold dread coil in his gut, a visceral rejection of a future he had long ago deemed forbidden for him to even consider.

He recoiled, pulling away from her abruptly. The suddenness of his movement caused her blissful expression to falter. The blush on her cheeks did not fill him with the sense of pride it had earlier, and her brow furrowed in confusion.

Although it hurt him, as the warmth that had enveloped him moments ago vanished and was replaced by a chilling emptiness, he kept his distance because he had to put a stop to whatever she was thinking.

“Sampson?” she murmured sleepily as she reached out a hand to him, her fingers brushing against his arm. “What is it?”

He sat up, his back to her, his mind and heart still racing as he scrambled for a way to resolve this as quickly as possible.

“I… I cannot do that, Catherine,” he said, his voice strained.

The words felt like shards of glass tearing through his throat because although he knew he needed to cut the situation down by its legs, it was still hard to deny Catherine something she wanted.

Lord, he groaned inwardly, dropping his head into his hands. What sort of man have I become?

Catherine pushed herself up on her elbows, her eyes wide with confusion, the soft light catching the bewilderment on her face. “Cannot do what? Whatever do you mean, Sampson?”

He remained facing away, unable to meet her gaze, the weight of his past pressing down on him.

“I cannot… I cannot have a child.”

Her confusion deepened, now tinged with a growing concern.

“Why not? Is something… Are you unwell?” She reached out again, her touch more insistent this time, her fingers gripping his arm, urging him to face her.

He flinched at her touch, pulling his arm away as if he was burned. He stood up and started pacing the small confines of the room, the need to move, to escape the suffocating weight of her request overwhelming him.

“It is not that,” he said, his voice sharper than intended. “It is… it is something else entirely.”

He avoided her gaze, his eyes fixed on the dying embers in the fireplace, the flickering light offering him some form of solace as it seemed to reflect his inner turmoil.

Catherine sat up fully now, the silken sheets pooling around her waist. Her expression was a mixture of hurt and growing frustration.

“Then tell me, Sampson. What is it? Why would you say such a thing? After… after what we just shared?”

Sampson let his legs lead him about the room again, trying to buy himself some time until he discovered the safest way to end their conversation.

He couldn’t tell her. Not necessarily because he did not want to—although that was strongly affecting his ability to come clean. The words were trapped in his throat, a dark secret he had guarded for years, a truth that threatened to shatter the fragile happiness they had begun to build.

The happiness he wanted to guard more than anything.

“It is… complicated,” he said, the word a weak shield against her persistent questioning.

“Complicated?” she repeated, her voice rising in disbelief. “What could be so complicated about having a child? If you do not wish to yet, then say so. But to say you cannot ? What in God’s name does that mean, Sampson? I thought we had gotten past evasive answers. I thought we had found something… new. Something special between us.”

She pushed herself to the edge of the bed, her bare feet touching the cold floor. She wouldn’t let him put this distance between them. Not now.

She stood up after a moment, her gaze unwavering as she moved towards him, reaching out her hand to stop his restless pacing. “Sampson, please. Look at me. Tell me what is wrong.”

He finally stopped, his gaze locking onto hers. The raw pain in his eyes was a stark contrast to the passion that had burned there moments before.

“You would not understand,” he muttered, his voice low and strained, the words practically torn from him.

“Then help me understand,” she pleaded, her voice softening, her concern for him overriding her confusion and hurt. “Tell me.”

“I can’t, Catherine. I just need you to understand that I cannot have a child,” he told her, exasperated and tense.

Catherine couldn’t comprehend his vehement refusal, the almost panicked look in his eyes. Did he really not want a family? But he got along so well with hers. She had watched him comfort Graham and guide him in a fatherly way. She had seen how gentle he was with Isobel. How attentive he was to her needs.

He would make a wonderful father, or at least a decent one with enough commitment to the role. Hadn’t their shared moments hinted at a deeper connection, a future they could build together?

“Why don’t you want one?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly. “Is it me? Do you not—do you not want a child with me?”

The vulnerability in her voice was a sharp arrow to his already wounded soul.

He flinched again as if she had struck him across the face. “No, Catherine. It is not you. Never you.”

The words were filled with a desperate sincerity, and he was relieved he could convey as much.

“Then what is it?” she pressed, her frustration mounting. “What could possibly make you say you cannot ?”

The dam within Sampson finally broke. The years of suppressed guilt, the haunting memories, and the self-loathing he had carried like a shroud rushed to the surface in a torrent of raw emotion.

“Because I killed my brother,” he choked out, the words a ragged whisper that seemed to hang heavy in the silent room.

Catherine froze, her breath catching in her throat. The air between them crackled with a sudden, chilling silence.

“You… What?” she whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief and horror.

Sampson looked away once more, his face growing paler as the minutes ticked by. The words began to pour out of him as the floodgates opened.

“You know I had a brother. I… never meant to hide it. But I do not like to talk about him. We were never close. As the first son and heir, our parents were intent on simply sharpening me to perfection. All I knew as a child were constant lessons and formal training that would ensure I grew up to become a strong and reliable duke.

“They were cruel to me, but apparently, what I went through could never compare to what Thomas endured. As the spare, they barely paid any attention to him. He was dismissed, punished cruelly for the smallest mistakes, and sometimes isolated and starved. Whenever we crossed paths in our home, his eyes always held some animosity towards me, but I merely thought that he was lonely.

“He had tried to kill me once when we were little boys. He put a pillow over my face and tried to suffocate me. But I fought too hard, and he ran away. Afterward, because no one was in my room, I thought that perhaps it was nothing but a bad dream. For years I’ve had nightmares about it.”

It had been a terrifying ordeal for him as a boy, scared out of his wits and fully convinced that he had lost his mind. His parents had shown no sympathy, nor had he expected any. But if he had looked closely at his brother, he would’ve seen the hateful stares that followed him for what they were.

Sampson tried to clear his throat as his voice grew thick with emotion, just as he was about to recount the second and final, fatal encounter between them.

“Years later, when Thomas was nineteen years old, he had orchestrated another attack. He had asked to meet with me at the docks so he could make a business proposal. But not before he hired thugs to assault me. I managed to fend them off, but I was still battered and bruised.

“Still, I rushed to the docks to warn him because I believed it was a setup to harm us both, only to be met with violence, again. He started to hit me, confessing that he loathed me—he had all our lives. He blamed me for our parents’ mistreatment of him as he tried to throw me into the water…”

His voice broke, his hands clenching into fists as he relived the moment, recalling too clearly the sight of his brother’s bleeding, mangled body on the sharp rocks jutting out like jagged teeth.

“I… I only meant to push him away,” he choked out, his voice wrought with anguish. “He was coming at me, and I just… I pushed him back. He… he fell. Onto the rocks.”

His breath hitched, a sob escaping his lips.

“It was an accident, Catherine. I swear to you, it was an accident. We… we never got along. There was always this… this distance between us, for reasons I didn’t understand back then. But I’d never… I’d never have hurt him intentionally. I never wanted him to die.”

His voice was thick with unshed tears, his raw grief resurfacing with brutal clarity.

“Thomas… Thomas died that night. And it was my fault.” He finally looked at Catherine, his eyes hollow and haunted. “Don’t you see? It was all their fault,” he said, his voice laced with bitter anger now.

“Our parents. If they hadn’t raised Thomas with such neglect, such indifference, he wouldn’t have been filled with such rage. I… I was beaten too, Catherine. Abused. But I was the heir. They wouldn’t have harmed me beyond what I could endure. But Thomas was offered no such grace because he wasn’t as important to them. He was my b-brother, Catherine. And he died at my hands.”

He ran a trembling hand through his hair, his gaze filled with a profound self-loathing. “And if they were such terrible parents, what kind of father would a murderer like me be? I am tainted, Catherine. Marked. I cannot bring a child into this world—cannot taint an innocent soul with the blood running through my veins. I want no child. No heir. Nothing of the sort.”

He turned away again, his shoulders slumped with the weight of his confession, years of buried guilt finally coming out.

Catherine stood frozen, the horror of his confession washing over her. The passion they had shared moments ago seemed like a distant dream now, shattered by the brutal reality of his past. She didn’t know what to say, how to even begin to comprehend the pain that had been festering within him for so long.

She finally found her voice, a whisper in the weighted silence of the room.

“It wasn’t your fault, Sampson,” she began, her heart aching for the tormented man before her. “It was an accident. You said it yourself—you did not mean to hurt him. You had gone to those docks to warn him. It was an unfortunate accident, but no fault of yours. You are not a murderer.”

Sampson finally turned to her, his blue eyes filled with so much doubt and a deep, harrowing self-loathing.

His gaze was hollow and resigned as he stated in a flat tone, “That’s not true. Do not lie for my sake, Catherine. I am undeserving of such kindness.”