Free The Heart of a Duke by Victoria Morgan Page B

sailed for America, Edmund left for London and rarely returned. It was as if he were avoiding home.” Her voice softened. “As you said last night, grief takes its toll. I have witnessed that with both my father and Emily.”
    He clenched his jaw so tight, he feared it might crack. Edmund’s mourning of their father had involved a fortnight of drunken revelry. He doubted his own departure had warranted a backward glance.
    “A bailiff oversaw the estate, so things weren’t perfect, but they weren’t totally neglected.”
    “So he was mourning in London?” He struggled to keep his voice neutral, realized he had failed when Julia shot him a look.
    “For the first few years, yes. I think . . . well, I believe that like my father, he was afraid to accept his responsibilities. It is not uncommon—”
    “Your father?”
    “My mother said my father also escaped to town when he inherited his title. He was a bit of a rake when she first met him, sowing his wild oats before donning the heavy mantle of an earl, so to speak. My mother eventually quite reformed him of his wicked ways.” Pride laced her words.
    “I have no doubt she turned him into a veritable saint,” he murmured distractedly, her comment stirring up a wave of old memories. One after another tumbled over each other.
    He saw Julia as a young girl, her hair a mop of wild and windblown curls and her cheeks dirt smudged. She was saving a collie, the runt of the litter, from a drowning. In another, she was pleading with him to help her make a nest for a wounded thrush. Later she had wheedled him into freeing a rabbit ensnared in a trap belonging to Weasel, Bedfordshire’s notorious poacher. And Daniel had. How odd. Even as a girl, when she turned those beseeching blue eyes on him, he hadn’t been able to resist her.
    Some things never changed.
    He studied her profile, noting the wistful smile that curved her lips as if she were lost in nostalgic memories of her parents.
    He stilled and it was as if someone had sucked the air from his lungs.
    Good God, is Julia planning to save Edmund as her mother had reformed her father?
    He drew back on his reins, bringing Chase, the chestnut stallion he had procured from Robbie, to a stop.
    Surprised, Julia glanced back at him and slowed her own mount, her expression one of concern. “Daniel?”
    They both ignored Emily and Jonathan, who continued on. “Is that what you are hoping to do?”
    “Excuse me?” Julia looked at him as if he had spoken in a foreign tongue.
    “Do you hope to reform a rake?” He cocked a brow at her, daring her to refute his claim.
    Her lips parted and she leaned away. They stared at each other in a silence that lengthened uncomfortably between them. Finally, her chin jutted in a familiar stubborn thrust. “People can and do change.” Her eyes narrowed. “You are an example of that. Are you the same man that left home a decade ago?”
    He stifled the urge to press a hand to his chest, for her point had struck its mark. It was painful, for the answer was no. No, he most certainly was not. He was a far cry from the runt who had fled for his life. He did not like to concede that, for it begged the question that if he was a different man from the one who had left, his brother might be, too. Or to acknowledge that with Julia’s help, his brother could change.
    For if anyone could save someone, Julia could. She had saved her father, his estate, and Emily, just as she had rescued the wounded animals in her childhood. It took a strong and loyal woman to do that.
    Could her strength change Edmund? Her loyalty save him?
    No. Every bone in his body, once bruised and battered from years under Edmund’s fists, screamed a denial. Cruelty was not an item like clothing that one outgrew, or a trait easily shed like a second skin, but rather an attribute inherent to a person and which grew and matured with them. Or so Daniel believed.
    Ten years was a long time, and Daniel could not in good conscience