Page 26 of Ravished by the Beastly Duke (Regency Beasts #1)

CHAPTER 26

W illiam closed his eyes just as quickly as he opened them, the sunlight streaming in from the window momentarily blinding him.

The sunlight was, however, the least of his troubles. He groaned as his head pounded. He tried to get out of bed with his eyes still closed, but he felt rather heavy and sluggish. It was as though he suddenly weighed double his size.

His movement was slow, and he felt weak.

When he finally reached the edge of his bed, he opened his eyes and managed to rise to his feet.

However, the sunlight that hit him again was rather too bright, and it only compounded his headache.

He swayed as he struggled to stand on his feet, his legs almost giving out.

He felt as though he would vomit any moment, and yet he felt thirsty, his mouth as dry as a desert. He could not help but wonder how he had come to be in this condition, but the memories of the previous night eluded him.

All he could remember was that he saw a figure entering his house just as he passed out.

His eyes suddenly widened.

“There was an intruder!” he cried, his fatigue evaporating.

He rushed out of his chambers, determined to protect his home. However, when he reached the hall, he could not see any intruders. In fact, his home looked just as pristine as it had always looked.

It was then that William began to wonder if he had truly seen an intruder.

“Certainly, an intruder would have harmed me or tied me up when he saw me,” he murmured to himself.

He looked from the hall to the staircase, and he wondered for a moment how he had ended up in his bed when the last thing he had remembered was passing out in the hall.

“Your Grace,” a voice said.

William whipped around sharply only to see his butler.

“Arnold,” he breathed. “You must tell me. Do you know what happened yesterday?”

If anyone knew what occurred the previous day, it would certainly be the butler.

“Your Grace, your guests are waiting for you in the drawing room.”

Guests?

William was taken aback. Even though the details of the previous night were still quite confusing to him, he could not remember having a guest.

He quickly headed for the drawing room, and it was then that it hit him.

The intruder he had thought he had seen was, in fact, a guest. And suddenly, he remembered the face he had seen right before everything went dark.

“Eveline!” he muttered, his heart leaping with excitement as he opened the door to the drawing room, glad to be reuniting with his wife.

He could not have been more disappointed when, instead of his beautiful wife, he saw three men sitting inside.

“Finally, the sleeping beast has awoken,” Theo drawled. “I was beginning to wonder if he was alive.”

Magnus, on the other hand, looked rather disturbed. “William, what have you done to yourself?”

William was dumbfounded for a moment.

“Have you lost your tongue when you lost your mind, William?” Theo asked.

William had a million questions.

“What are you all doing here?” he finally managed to utter.

“Stopping you from making a rather rash decision that you would regret for the rest of your life,” Edwin said, rising to his feet.

Now William had even more questions.

“How did you know where I was?” he asked.

“You can thank me for that,” Theo quipped.

“I do not quite understand.”

“Why don’t you come in and take a seat?” Magnus suggested, leading William to a chair at the center of the room.

“Well, I decided to pay you and your wife another visit, so I was surprised to learn that you and your wife had left the estate at different times,” Theo revealed.

The reminder that Eveline had left his home in tears compounded William’s headache, and he could barely keep his eyes open. He sighed as he rubbed his temples, willing the throbbing headache away.

“I could sense immediately that something was amiss, and upon further questioning, your gardener told me that you have left for Bath after an altercation with your wife.”

“How did he know about the altercation?” William asked.

“You might find it surprising that nobody quite knows what happens in an estate like the servants,” Edwin said.

William did not quite blame Wilson for telling his friends about his troubles. After all, he was the only servant who had known him his whole life.

“Of course, I immediately summoned Edwin and Magnus, and they did not seem to realize that there was a problem at first,” Theo continued.

“That was only because you refused to give us more details,” Magnus retorted. “In the letter you wrote, you did not mention that you have evidence that William was in trouble.”

“Then the letter would have been longer. I was in a rush, so forgive me if I was not able to cram all the information I had into a letter,” Theo said sarcastically.

William frowned as he struggled to keep his eyes open. Theo and Magnus’s arguing voices only caused his head to pound even harder.

“Would it kill you two if you at least pretended to be civil with each other for William’s sake?” Edwin hissed.

This seemed to do the trick, as Theo and Magnus both fell quiet, looking rather guilty.

“It does not matter how we made it to Bath. What matters now is that we are here, and we must help you fix your mistake before it is too late,” Edwin added.

“Edwin is right,” Magnus spoke up. “If you lose Eveline now, you might spend the rest of your life regretting it.”

Those words hit William like a dagger to the heart.

“But I would not be able to live with myself if she ever got hurt because of me,” he said.

“Why do you think you would ever hurt her?” Magnus asked curiously.

“I am certain she is already hurting because of you,” Theo added.

William had to agree with Theo. Eveline had been heartbroken when she left, and he was sure that as he was drowning his sorrows in alcohol here, she was probably crying on her sisters’ shoulders in Notley Manor.

“First, you must tell us what caused her to return to her father’s house. What did you do to her?” Magnus asked.

“I told her that I shall be moving to Bath, as our marriage was only one of convenience and we shall be nothing more than friends,” William said.

“How foolish can you possibly be, William?” Theo scoffed.

“You should never say that to a woman, even if it is true,” Magnus chided. “Have you no social skills?”

“Of course, it is not true. I care for Eveline. I care for her deeply,” William admitted in a low voice. “In fact, I might be in love with her.”

“Then you must have resigned yourself to misery because why else would you ruin your one chance at happiness?” Edwin asked. His curious expression told William that he truly wanted to know.

“I suppose it is time I told you about my father,” William sighed.

His friends exchanged glances. They had always joked about the fact that while the others spoke about their fathers, William never said anything about his.

It was, therefore, surprising that he suddenly wanted to talk about his father.

“You have never talked about him,” Magnus noted.

“And it is for a reason,” William responded. “My mother died while bringing me to life, and in his grief, my father turned into an incredibly violent man.”

“Oh, that is just awful,” Magnus said.

“He was cruel to me, as he blamed me for my mother’s death,” William continued. “Now, I can never bring myself to love anyone in fear that my love would turn me into the monster my father became.”

“I know how you feel,” Theo murmured. For the first time in a long while, he seemed to be serious. “My father did the same thing to me. He would beat me to no end, and if I dared to cry out, the beating would only get worse.”

William was taken aback. He never knew that his friend’s father had been cruel too.

“My father was cruel too,” Edwin admitted. “I ran away from home throughout my childhood because of this. It is for that reason that he shipped me off to the Army.”

“I would rather not talk about it, but I had to stand up to my father when he began to beat my sister too,” Magnus added. His eyes were so full of pain that it was unimaginable.

“If you have all experienced this with your fathers, then you must understand why I pushed Eveline away,” William said, looking from Edwin to Magnus and then to Theo.

They all shook their heads.

“If I ever met a woman I care about as you do Eveline, I could never hurt her,” Edwin declared.

William was surprised. “But if she died or if she were hurt in any way, I could never live with myself.”

“Then this should make you cherish every moment you spend with her,” Magnus argued.

“Why would you let fear of the unknown lead you to punish yourself?” Theo asked.

That struck William hard. Was he truly punishing himself due to the fear of death?

“We can never truly avoid pain and death, can we? After all, they are inevitable,” Magnus said. “The only thing we can do is live to the fullest so that when death finally comes, we will have fond memories to look back on.”

Fond memories .

William remembered the time he and Eveline had spent together in the castle. How he had caught her just in time before she fell off the ladder in the library, how they had gone to the ball together and ended the night on an eventful note, and, finally, their first night together.

He knew right there and then that he wanted to make more fond memories with her.

He wanted to watch her eyes twinkle while she teased him.

He wanted to watch her eyes roll to the back of her head and her back arch when he pleasured her.

He did not yet know how bitter losing someone to death was. However, he now knew the sorrow of living without Eveline.

And at that moment, he chose to put an end to his sorrow.

“I must go to Eveline!” he announced as he rose to his feet with renewed strength. “Prepare the carriage, I am returning to London,” he said to his butler.”