The Lure of a Rake (The Heart of a Duke #9)(7)

“And you’ll not have to abandon those pleasures.” His father tightened his mouth and moved on to his pragmatic explanation. “I understand your aversion to saddling yourself with one woman, but you can take a proper bride, do right by the line, and still warm every whore’s bed you so wish.”

Cedric tightened his fingers on his snifter. “How very practical,” he drawled, earning another frown. Yes, that was what the miserable bugger had done with Cedric’s own mother. He’d wed a flawless English lady, given her two legitimate babes, the requisite heir, and then she’d even done him the service of dying in short order. Why, it was everything a heartless, miserable letch like his father could have hoped for in a ducal union. Unfortunately for the old Duke of Ravenscourt, there was one slight, but very important, difference between them. Cedric didn’t give a bloody jot about the ancient title. It could go to the grave with his father and Cedric would quite gleefully kick dirt upon both as they were lowered into the ground.

“I expect you at my goddamn ball.” The duke jabbed a finger at him. “The bloody affair is for you.” It had never been about Cedric. None of it. It had only and ever been about the dukedom. “Find a sweet, biddable bride, or—”

“You’ll cut me off,” Cedric put in with a half-grin. “Of course. How can I forget?”

His father sputtered and flared his eyes. After all, no one taunted, baited, or denied this man—except Cedric. Then as quick as the flare of emotion had come, it was gone, and the duke smoothed his unwrinkled features into an un-moveable mask. “You’ve gone through a good deal of the funds left you by your mother.”

He stilled. Yes, with the recklessness of youth, he’d wagered too many of those funds, lavished expensive mistresses with jewels befitting a queen.

A slow, triumphant smile devoid of all amusement turned his father’s hard lips. “I can see every creditor called in. One word, and not a single credit will be extended you. This residence,” he waved his hand. “Gone. Then where will you be?”

Forced back into that long-despised townhouse where he’d endured relentless training and schooling on all things pertaining to the dukedom as a boy. To the place where he’d received such caring tutelage under his father. That house of ugliness and learned depravity. “Go to hell,” he said at last.

His father stuck a finger out once more. “Be at the ball this evening. My threats aren’t idle. Surely you know that, by now?”

…I told you. One mistake, and you’ll not see light outside this office…

The old memory slapped at the corners of his mind and he fisted his hands. He’d not let the duke know the influence he’d once yielded and that the memories sometimes crept in. No, Cedric had buried those oldest hurts and pains long ago and shaped himself into a man incapable of feeling anything.

The duke peered at him a long while and then gave a slow, pleased nod. “I see you understand.” Without giving Cedric another moment to reply, he spun on his heel and stalked over to the door. He yanked it open. “Be there.”

“A pleasure, as always,” Cedric called after him.

His only living parent slammed the door behind him.

Cedric stood, unmoving, and stared at the mahogany panel the duke had left through. With tension thrumming inside him, he looked to the broken bottles littering the floor from his father’s outburst. He scrubbed a hand over his beard-stubbled face. Glass in hand, he went over to the window. Drawing back the crimson brocade curtain, he peered down into the street.

His father exited the townhouse and paused outside to adjust his elegant Long Eaton top hat. The late morning sun glinted off the blond and silver strands of his hair. With his expensive cloak whipping about his tall, commanding frame, he evinced power and control. Odd, how one could look at a person and see regality and, yet, that was just a fine veneer of a black, ugly soul and depravity that ran in his veins. A depravity he’d passed easily to the son he’d taken under his wing as a boy of five and schooled on everything from future ducal responsibilities to the immoral pleasures granted men of their stations.

As the duke climbed into his carriage, Cedric released the fabric and let it flutter into place. He carried his drink over to a leather winged back chair and sank onto the edge. He stared over the rim to the mess left in his father’s violent fit.

For years, he’d thrilled at taunting his father. He’d lived for his own pleasures, and with the debauched clubs he attended, and parties he hosted, had earned a reputation of rake. When other respectable noblemen would disapprove of those ignoble escapades, Cedric’s had been accepted, even applauded, by his father. His lips pulled in an involuntary sneer. Then, would one expect anything else from the man who’d sent a whore to the schoolrooms to administer Cedric’s lessons when he’d been a boy of thirteen?

Regardless of fatherly approval or disapproval, he’d lived for himself. All the while he found a secret relish in knowing that the one task his bastard father expected of him was one he’d never grant. For the control he’d exerted over Cedric through the years, this had been the secret, but ultimate, show of power and triumph. Yet, ironically, as a young man out of university and now nearly in his thirtieth year, in his base living, he’d run through funds that had once seemed limitless. A gift given him by the mother who’d correctly seen little worth in her only son.