Page 97 of The Formation of Us

Radford had been right to be concerned, and he himself had been a fool.

He felt deflated and cold and sick inside. And stupid. She had brought this mess to his doorstep, and he, being the lust-struck fool Radford had accused him of being, had opened the door and welcomed her into his life.

“I had to do it, Duke. I couldn’t take a chance of having my name being traced back to that brothel.”

“Then why didn’t you change Adam’s name?”

“I would have, but . . .” She huffed out a breath. “He’s a boy. He wasn’t thinking when he told you his name.”

It sickened Duke that the boy would even have to lie about something like that. “I married a woman named Faith Wilkins, not Faith Dearborn. Do you realize I could annul our marriage on those grounds?”

Her lips parted, but no words came out. Her eyes flooded and she shook her head. “You can’t . . . Duke, no.” She clutched his hands. “If you annul it . . . oh, God, think of Cora.” Tears spilled over her lashes. “Please, Duke, you can’t do that. You can’t tell anyone about this or we’ll be driven away in shame.”

Her tears gouged his heart. His anger choked him.

“Don’t punish them because of me,” she pleaded. “I’m the guilty one. Don’t cast out two innocent children.”

“Those innocent children are my responsibility now. How could I cast them out?”

“Because you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. I hate lies. I hate being stupid. I hate being deceived. Damn it!” He slammed his hand on the porch column. “I hate this burden you’ve put on my conscience!”

“I had to,” she whispered, killing him with those sorrow-filled eyes. “I’ll get rid of the brothel as soon as I can.”

His blood ran cold. “Youownthat place?”

Her sheepish nod heated his neck and doubled his heartbeat. What she owned,heowned.

Fury turned his voice to ice. “Do you know what will happen to my job and my family if anyone discovers that my wife, thatI, own a brothel?”

She shivered and clutched her sweater tighter. “I want to sell it, but I can’t find the deed. My mother had no will, and I haven’t been able to talk to a lawyer about this.”

He gritted his teeth and faced the chill breeze, struggling to control his outrage. “Who was your mother’s lawyer?”

“I don’t know. None of us knew anything about her affairs. She may not have even had a lawyer.”

His fists clenched and his shoulder ached deep in the socket. “Where are her papers? Surely she had some?”

“Just a key and a guestbook.”

He faced his deceitful wife. “A what?”

“Mama recorded the guests and their fees in a book. I don’t know what the key is for. It didn’t fit her jewelry box or any locks in the house.”

Guests?The euphemism repulsed him, and he suddenly hated Faith’s mother. “Get the book.”

“The deed isn’t there.”

“Get it.” He didn’t want to talk. Not tonight. He was too outraged, too ready to smash his fists into a wall until he beat the frustration out of his system. In all his life, he’d never been so naive or made such a stupid, drastic mistake.

Worse yet, he’d compromised his integrity tonight by not charging Dahlia for killing Levens. Her deadly shot had probably saved several lives, including her own, which Levens would have snuffed out in his rampage to punish and kill Anna; Levens had hurt both women, and probably would have killed them, but Duke had stopped him. He’d cuffed the man and would have taken him back to prison. Dahlia had known that, and she’d still pulled the trigger.

Duke didn’t blame her, but his job was to uphold the law, not decide a person’s guilt. That job was for a jury. Once a person bent the truth—or the law—to suit himself, he would bend it a hundred times. Faith was proof of that. Her life was a web of lies.

He didn’t lie, and he’d never supported or approved of prostitution in his life. But now he owned a brothel. His father would roll in his grave.

Chapter 30