Page 19 of Ravished by the Beastly Duke (Regency Beasts #1)

CHAPTER 19

E veline could not quite believe he was truly ready. She knew, of course, that they had had a vulnerable moment together in the carriage. However, when the carriage had come to a stop in front of the castle, she had thought the moment lost forever.

And yet, now, he had expressed his willingness to tell her everything.

Eveline glanced at her husband, but the pain in his eyes made her heart ache. She wanted so badly to take it all away.

However, she knew the only way to take it all away was if he talked about it.

“I never knew my mother,” he started.

Eveline glanced at him again, but he was staring off into the distance.

“She had died while bringing me to life,” he continued.

Even though Eveline had heard this before, hearing him saying it filled her with such sadness.

“Is it not ironic?” William chuckled. “My mother gave her life for me to live. I practically took her life.”

Eveline gently placed her hand on his lap for reassurance.

“No, you did not take your mother’s life,” she retorted immediately.

Her husband turned to look at her, his face unreadable. “But I did. If it were not for me, she would still be alive,” he argued.

Eveline gave him a comforting squeeze. “You did not take her life,” she insisted, shaking her head. “What happened was truly sad, but do not blame yourself for this. Do not ever blame yourself.”

William sighed. “It does not matter.”

Eveline wanted to tell him that it mattered, but she kept quiet instead.

“Growing up, I was all alone. I had no one to talk to save for the staff,” he said.

“I cannot possibly imagine how lonely that must have been,” Eveline murmured.

Even though she had grown up without a mother, she had her sisters. She could not imagine how childhood would have been if she did not have her sisters.

“And what made it worse, my father… he… my father wanted nothing to do with me,” William stammered.

Of course, Eveline knew there was more. However, she understood that it must be difficult for him to recount the experience.

“He despised the sight of me. It was almost as though I repulsed him. And more than anything, he blamed me for my mother’s death,” he said.

Eveline wanted to say something to comfort him, but she could not. The sadness in his voice broke her heart, and she knew that no word she uttered could give him relief.

“My father did not only despise me. He was also cruel, as he did not hesitate to use the rod on me at every turn for the slightest misgivings. It did not help that he drank heavily, so when he was drunk, he would even hit me for no reason. I was forbidden from locking the door to my room. On most nights, when my father staggered into the castle after a bender, he would come to my room and flog me mercilessly.”

Tears welled up in Eveline’s eyes as her heart broke for him again, but she blinked them away.

“The garden was my only refuge, as he refused to ever step here. But, of course, I could not possibly live in the garden forever. And for every time I sought refuge in the garden, he would simply double my beatings.”

“How could someone be so cruel even to his own son?” Eveline blurted out angrily.

William chuckled. “It is because I was his son that he did what he had done,” he said. “He was simply grieving the death of his beloved wife.”

“And yet the only way he could honor his wife’s memory was by torturing her offspring?” Eveline scoffed.

For the first time since William started speaking, he turned to look at her.

Her words seemed to have struck a chord inside him.

“But he was not a bad man,” William countered.

Eveline could see the confusion written all over his face.

“That is the only reason anyone would do such horrible things to a little child who cannot defend himself,” she maintained.

“But he was overcome by grief,” William pointed out. “Grief makes people do horrible things. My father loved my mother with all his heart, but her death changed him.”

Eveline nodded. Even though she did not agree with him, she knew that arguing with him would not yield any results.

“My young days were lonely and torturous, and the only respite I had was when we had to attend events. My father would embody a widower perfectly. I can remember the old ladies’ fascination with me. They would praise my father for how amazing it was that he raised me all by himself.”

“And he would receive all the praise?” Eveline asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“Certainly. In fact, he relished it. And he enjoyed the attention he got from the old spinsters. Then, the moment we left the party and got into the carriage, he would start to scold me even if I had only made one slight mistake. If he was in a foul mood, he would flog me when we returned home.

“If he was in a good mood, he would let me go with only a scolding. There were days when I would lie awake, wishing that he would take one of them as a wife so I would finally have someone who would protect me from his wrath. But he never did. It was only me and him for so long.”

“And nobody knew?”

“One of my mother’s sisters would often visit. However, when she began to suspect the abuse because of my constant sickness, my father forbade her from coming back.”

Eveline shook her head. The man was truly a monster.

But she knew William would never want to hear that.

“I was sickly as a boy, and instead of receiving my father’s care and affection, all I received was ridicule and, sometimes, even more beating. On one of those days, when I was terribly sick, my father had a guest. He had instructed me to dress up smartly to welcome his guest. However, I could not get dressed fast enough before his guest arrived. After all, I was unwell.”

“Tell me your father did not flog you simply because you could not welcome his guest when you were sick,” Eveline whispered.

The tears that she had tried to blink away earlier were now pooling in her eyes again, threatening to fall in torrents.

“I ran out of the house, as my frail, sick body could no longer take the flogging. It was all fine until it began to rain. I tried to enter the house, but he had instructed all the servants not to let me in. Therefore, I had no choice but to sleep outside, in the pouring rain as a sick, scrawny child.”

Eveline sniffed as her tears finally began to fall.

“How… how…” Her voice shook as she cried for him.

She quickly wiped her tears away and swallowed the rest of her words. William had suffered unimaginable pain, and she did not want him to know that she was crying.

She needed to hear it all.

“When I became a teenager and began to rebel, he would often threaten to send me to the military,” he continued. “Of course, I never quite believed him. After all, everyone knew the terrible things that happened in the military.”

Eveline had heard of the horrors of the Army even long before she met William.

The suffering, torture, hunger, and even death that young men experienced in the military was an open secret in the ton, and it was not quite uncommon for fathers to threaten their teenage boys with it.

In fact, her own father would often tell Stella that he would have shipped her to the military if she were a boy.

However, Eveline knew he would never do that even if Stella was indeed a boy.

And yet the former Duke of Mayfield did it to his teenage son without a care.

“As cruel as my father was, I never quite believed he would do that. After all, most men would often enlist in the military when they were at least nineteen. Therefore, I was surprised when, one night, my father woke me up and ordered me to follow him somewhere. No sooner had I stepped out of the house than I was snatched up by two grown men. The last thing I saw before I was blindfolded was my father with a satisfied grin on his face.”

“You were abducted?” Eveline was shocked. “How could anyone be so cruel?”

Her rage flared again. She knew it was futile, and yet she could not help being angry with his father.

The man was a monster.

“But you were only a boy,” she murmured. “Did the law even support that?”

At least Eveline knew that the military did not take little children. How, then, was the late Duke able to get him enlisted?

William shrugged. “It was a different time back then. You could get the military to do anything if you were willing to pay the right amount.”

Still, Eveline could not believe such cruelty. From his father and the military officers who had agreed to abduct him.

“All my father had to do was pay off some officers, and they were happy to ship me off to the military even though I had only just become a teenager.”

“I cannot possibly imagine how harsh the Army must have been on your young body,” Eveline sympathized.

“You might not believe this, but the rigor of the Army was a welcome relief from my father’s cruelty.” William chuckled.

“How so?”

“In the military, it was simply our captains giving strict instructions and training us under harsh conditions. Everyone received the same treatment regardless of rank. Therefore, whatever hardship I faced was simply part of the training, and hundreds of other recruits were suffering the same. However, at home, my father tortured me simply because of my existence.”

Eveline nodded. “And I suppose it was easier to bear knowing that your captains were simply doing their job as opposed to your father, who seemed to relish torturing you.”

“You are right. And not to mention, I finally had people I could call friends,” William smiled.

For the first time since he began recounting his past, Eveline caught a hint of happiness in his voice.

“Finally, I had people who looked out for me, people who looked after me. At the time, I suppose I even considered them my brothers.”

“You must have been so happy.”

“I was, indeed. Having Theo, Magnus, and Edwin as friends made all the troubles of the military well worth it. And even now, I am certain if I had known as a young boy that I would meet my lifelong friends in the military, I would have been happy to go.

“However, I did not know, and when the new recruits and I were packed into the ship, I was terrified out of my mind. I had never been with so many boys my age, after all. And my father would often threaten me with talk of how the other boys would beat me up until I became a man.”

“I am so sorry. I hope you were never beaten?” Eveline asked.

“Indeed, none of the other boys ever bullied me like my father had threatened,” William said. “If he had known how much I would grow to enjoy the military because of my friends, I am certain he would not have paid to have me sent away.”

“Your father was simply your biggest bully.”

“I suppose you can say that. Being around other boys my age made me realize that what I had experienced was, in fact, not special. A lot of the other boys also had rather violent fathers. In fact, Edwin was a year younger than me when he was sent away by his father.”

“How could men who are unbearably cruel to their children possibly call themselves fathers?” Eveline scoffed.

William shrugged. “Some years after, Magnus received a message from home. His father had died, and he had to go back home to handle his father’s estate and take care of his little sister.”

“He must have been relieved.”

“Indeed, he was, and we were happy for him. Still, we could not help the jealousy we felt, and in some ways, I wished that I had such luck too. I feel ashamed to admit that I wished that upon my own father.”

“Oh, William,” Eveline soothed. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Absolutely nothing. You suffered unimaginable horrors at the hands of your own father. Of course, you are justified to wish he was no more.”

“It does not matter anyway. My prayers were never answered. Year after year, we got more scars from the battlefield. We acquired fatal injuries, and we still lived. It was only by a miracle that we survived such battles. It was shortly after Magnus left. The Army had received information that the enemy would be invading a little town. Unbeknownst to us, it was only a trap and the enemies had planted the information.”

Eveline clapped a hand over her mouth as she imagined how terrifying it must have been.

“We were ambushed, and they opened fire on us mercilessly. I can still feel it now, the rapid sound of gunfire and how it went on and on and on. Men fell all around me. It was only because of my friends that I made it. There was especially a scrawny, wee boy who had only just been recruited. He begged the captain to let him join us. He was one of the first to-to be hi?—”

For the first time since William began to speak, he seemed to choke on his words.

Eveline patted his back, afraid to look into his eyes and see him in tears. She was not certain he would find it dignified to be seen in such a state.

“We can call it a night now,” she suggested. “This is all too much for one person to bear. And it must take such incredible strength for you to recount it.”

“No, it is important that I continue,” William insisted.

Eveline’s heart went out to him. To have experienced such a rough life and still be able to talk about it…

“Soon after that battle, Edwin left. He must have been sad about leaving us, but I know he must have been even more relieved that he was finally escaping. It was me and Theodore for a long time. You might see Theodore as a jester now, but back then, he had slipped into such depth of sadness that all lights had gone out of his eyes. It was a welcome relief when he finally received a letter from home. I was happy for him when he left.”

There was pain in his voice when he made that last statement.

“But Theo leaving meant you were all alone again, did it not?” Eveline whispered. “That must have been damning.”

“Indeed, it was. It was lonelier than when I had endured my father’s torture.”

“How could that possibly be?”

“When I was a little boy and my father had done all he could to torture me, I never imagined that I could be free from him. However, after I found my friends in the Army, I finally experienced a life I never thought was possible.”

“And with them leaving, you lost it yet again—the friendship and brotherhood you found in your friends,” Eveline concluded.

“They wrote letters, of course,” William continued. “But it was not enough.”

“No letter could replace their presence.”

“I was plunged into loneliness again, and for many years to come, I was all alone. I could not even bring myself to make new friends, as I could not help but compare them to Theo, Magnus, and Edwin. I prayed every night for my father to die so I could finally return home, but it never happened for many years. Instead, I nearly lost my life in a dangerous faceoff.”

Oh, poor William.

“It was supposed to be a simple mission. Rescue some civilians. We had left in the early hours of the day, and the mission should have been over by noon.”

“What happened?”

“Since we were going to their domain, it would only be foolish to launch an attack. After all, they outnumbered us. Instead, we infiltrated the enemy’s camp and successfully freed the captives.”

“What went wrong, then?” Eveline asked.

“One of the captives was a toddler, and as we tried to help them escape, she cried for her toy.”

“Oh no. And her cries alerted the enemies?”

William nodded. “It was a bloodbath,” he sighed.

“Did the little girl live?” Eveline asked, even though she could already imagine the answer.

“I was the only survivor. And I was only spared because they thought I had died. Multiple bullets had hit me when they opened fire, and when I awoke later, it was in pitch darkness. I had been dumped, along with other dead bodies, in a ditch.”

Eveline gasped as she realized yet again that her husband had survived unimaginable terrors.

“I had to crawl out of the ditch, weary and tired, while half of my face was badly mangled,” he said.

“Oh no.”

Eveline could picture it. Her poor husband, crawling through dead bodies out of the ditch, holding onto the torn flesh of his face.

She felt sick to her stomach.

“I did not make it back to camp before I collapsed. Fortunately, I was found and nursed back to health. I awoke only two weeks later, but my recovery took months. Aside from the bad scar that now disfigures my face, I was a changed man from that very day. I was a shell of the man I used to be, and I lost interest in everything.”

“Only one as strong as strong as you could survive what you have,” Eveline told him.

“Every time I slept, I would see all those bodies in the ditch, and I would remember how cold it felt while I tried to make my way out. The images of the eyes never left me—the eyes of children and adults alike, wide with horror, their last moment captured in that single stare. A few months later, I was still recovering when I received the letter. My father was dead.”

“Finally, some good news.”

“I wished I could see it as good news at the time. However, I was numb with pain, so I simply could not rejoice at my freedom. I returned home and took over the dukedom on the same day I returned.”

“I can imagine how joyous your reunion with your friends must have been,” Eveline said, trying to hold onto any form of positivity at that moment.

“I was too numb to reach out to them,” William admitted.

Eveline was surprised. “You did not contact them?”

“I did not. And even when they caught wind of my arrival and wrote to me, I did not respond.”

“Why?”

“I was a different person than who I was when the last of them left,” he said. “Not only because of my scars but even in my head I had changed. The war had changed me in more ways than one.”

“But they never gave up, I presume?”

William shook his head. “Oh, they never did. They invited me to their estates ever so often, and Theo made it his duty to write to me every fortnight. He never asked why I chose to ignore them. Rather, his letters would be filled with the latest gossip in the ton and simple reports of what he was doing.”

“They never tried to come to your house?”

“They understood that I needed time to myself,” he replied simply. “And they respected my choice not to respond. I secluded myself from everyone. I simply did not want to see anyone or socialize. I never stepped out of the house, and even when I had business meetings, I sent representatives. I simply wanted to disappear. I wanted to cease to exist.”

“What, then, caused you to finally accept your friends’ invitations?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Nothing! One day, I simply realized that I no longer wished to disappear. Instead, I suddenly wanted to spend my life with those who truly matter to me.”

“Your friends.”

“Indeed, and this turned out to be the best decision I could have ever made,” he said, finally turning to her with a smile on his face. “If I had not accepted their invitations, Theo would not have invited me to the party where I met you, and if I had not met you, then I would still be living in misery, only having momentary relief whenever I saw my friends.”

There was such vulnerability in his eyes that Eveline had never seen before, and at that moment, she could see a glimpse of his younger self in them, vulnerable and unprotected.

She touched her hands to his scar, and he sucked in a breath. She slowly stroked his scar, touching the rough lines and the hard surface.

William felt relief like he had never experienced before. It was as though a heavy burden had just been lifted off him, and he could have sworn that he even felt lighter. All the pressure that had built up inside him all these years had finally been released.

However, only a moment later, the relief was replaced by fear and worry. He has never been so vulnerable with anyone before. Even his friends did not know most of the things he had just told his wife.

And now, as she touched his scar, he held his breath, and panic rose inside of him.

“How do you feel now that you have unburdened yourself?” Eveline asked.

It was as though she could tell that he was experiencing emotional turmoil.

“I am relieved,” he said, “yet terrified. I feel raw and exposed. I cannot help but wonder if I have shared too much. “

“Oh, William,” she breathed. “You could never share too much with me. In fact, I think you are brave for being so open.”

William did not feel brave at that moment.

“It only takes someone who is brave and strong to reveal all that you have. What most people would rather do is lock it all in and never speak of it. Only someone as brave as you would do the opposite,” Eveline added, admiration evident in her eyes.

William wanted to believe her, and yet he had the nagging feeling that she might judge him.

“But do you not feel scared? Especially because of the rather gory details I have shared?” he asked.

Save for her bloodshot eyes, which hinted at the fact that she may have cried, Eveline seemed rather calm.

“Nothing I feel could be close to what you have experienced. I can only imagine how nerve-wracking it must be to recount these experiences again.”

“Not with you by my side,” he responded. “I must admit. I cannot help but wonder if you think me a damaged man. I would not blame you if you did.”

Eveline looked hurt, and her eyes narrowed. “How could you ever say that?”

William shook his head. “I just cannot help but wonder if I deserve you. If I deserve someone so gracious.”

In response, Eveline turned to face him fully and planted a kiss on the scar on the side of his face.

That action said more than a million words could ever convey.

“Your scars are a testament to your bravery. You should wear them like a badge of honor,” she said as she planted more kisses on his scar.

William felt a rush of emotions. He was not quite sure if it was gratitude or love, but at that moment, he felt hopeful for his future.

She finally stopped kissing his scar and leaned back a few inches.

“You have me now,” she said, staring pointedly at him. “I am yours and yours only.”

William’s chest tightened, not in the same way that his chest would often tighten when he remembered the horrors of battle. This was different. It was as though his chest was filled to the brim with admiration and love for this woman. This woman, who has accepted him wholly and truly.

“I love you, William,” Eveline confessed.

William felt a wave of joy, followed instantly by disbelief.

How could anyone know him at his rawest and truest form and yet love him?

His chest was now threatening to burst. And as he stared at her, nothing else mattered to him—not his past or his walls.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but no words came out.

“Shhh!” Eveline whispered, pressing a finger to his lips to silence him. “I am simply telling you so that you know how much you mean to me. You do not have to say it back if you do not feel the same way.”

But he felt the same way. William realized now that he had loved her for quite a while.

It was the reason he had been so bitterly jealous when she had interacted with Theo. It was the reason that just the sight of her drove him to madness. It was the reason he had his wall up around her. After all, what good was love if it was not to hurt?

And yet he could not say it back, not yet. Because if he did now, she would believe he only said he loved her because he felt obligated to.

William knew he had to wait for the right time. He had to make the moment special.

When he cradled her face, his hands trembled with disbelief. And yet there he was, holding the woman he loved, and she was as real as day.

And when he finally kissed her, the world could burn for all he cared, because all that mattered to him was being with her, holding her, kissing her.

He felt warm all over, and her moan sent shivers down her spine.

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, and their eyes met. They did not have to say anything because her eyes alone conveyed her longing for him.

At that moment, he was certain that he had found the one thing that his heart ached for—to be loved and to be accepted without judgment.

Their kiss, which had started off soft, soon transformed into a hunger, a need that could only be satisfied by her.

He ran his hand across her back, and he cursed under his breath as he touched only fabric. His hands traveled back to her neck and pulled her closer. He wanted their bodies to melt into each other. He wanted them to become one.

She suddenly broke their kiss, gasping for breath.

“William,” she breathed, “take me.”

In her eyes was undeniable surrender.

William’s heart thudded in his chest. He did not need a lot of words to know what she meant.

Without another word, he lifted her into his arms and headed for the house.

And before long, they were finally in his chambers. He set her down, and in her eyes was lust like he had never seen. There was, however, something else. There was need .