“You must think of your reputation, Florentia.”Her father took her by the hand.“The Season has just begun, and yet there is already talk of your…behavior.This cannot go on.”
“Is this really the appropriate time to have this conversation?”Charity asked, interrupting the small silence between them.
“You are welcome to leave at any time.This does not concern you,” Lady Allendale snapped, brokering no room for argument.“Florentia, you will marry now that your mourning period is over.After all, the new duke will eventually claim the title, and you will have nowhere to go, unless you would like to sink yourself even further and become a doxy.”Her mother’s eyes cut to Charity before she turned and marched out of the room.
Florentia exhaled, happy that the scene had not escalated any more than it had.Yet she wished that Montague or Charity had not seen the true nature of the relationship between herself and her mother.
“Please, Florentia, you must see reason.It is the right thing to do for yourself,” her father pleaded, his features so much like her own that she wanted to obey him, but she could not.
Foolishly, she had done what he’d asked by marrying the old duke and tying herself to a man who took joy in cruelty.She would not make that same mistake again.No, the next man she married—if at all—would be someone of her own choosing.
Of that she was absolutely certain.
CHAPTER THREE
Tavish exhaled several times, his hands covering his face.It had been five days since he’d walked out on his fight and the bare-knuckle championship.Five days since his brother informed him that he was the Duke of Summerset.
Bloody fecking hell.
This couldn’t be real.He was no duke.He was a fighter; that’s all he’d ever wanted to be.Since he was a boy, fighting had called to him.He wasn’t meant for drawing rooms and whatever the hell else they did in Mayfair.
His father had often laughed when someone mentioned that he was the heir to a dukedom.Surely Summerset had sons, hadn’t he?The last he’d heard from his mother was that his father’s cousin had married a young chit a few years back.No doubt she’d birthed some unfortunate looking child in the years they were married.
“We will go directly to the solicitor, Mr.Hughes, at once,” Declan announced from his seat across from Tavish in the expensive coach.
In the years since he’d last seen his younger brother, the other man had not changed much at all.He still had the same air of superiority he was born with.One would think he was the eldest of the six children, but that curse had befallen Tavish alone.
“I still haven’t decide if I want to be a fecking duke or not,” Tavish spit out as he sat back in the hired coach his brother had rented to forcibly bring them from Scotland to London.
“As I told you, you don’t have a choice, brother.We’ll lose everything.The club, the townhouse, everything,” Declan reminded him as the coach began the last leg of their journey to London.
Only a few more hours before his life changed completely.He chuckled to himself.Days ago, all Tavish cared about was getting revenge on The Butcher for killing Hammer.Now he was a damn duke?There had to be some sort of mistake.
Except, he knew there was no mistaking the connection between his family and the Summerset dukedom.It had always floated over them like a foreboding omen, reminding them that they were a part of the aristocracy and not the rogue Irishmen their father raised them to be.
As a child in Ireland, Tavish had not known of the family connection.He had no idea that his grandfather was the third son of a duke or that son after first born son had died from illness, war, or accident.
“Da never wanted the dukedom, so why should I?”he shouted, his anger taking over him.“I will fecking decide after I see Ma?—”
“Really?”Declan threw up his hands, glaring at Tavish.“Now you care about Ma?After being gone for five years with barely a letter.I should’ve known that you’d run away from your responsibility, like always?—”
Tavish threw a quick right hook, catching his brother in the jaw.“Don’t you fecking tell me about my responsibilities!I was never meant to be a damn gentleman’s club owner, and I’m not meant to be damn duke.”
Declan rubbed his jaw, his blue eyes wide.“Did you ever think that taking the dukedom from the very family that shunned Da would be the sweetest revenge Da could ever have?”
“Feck off!You and I both know that Da didn’t give a shit about revenge.The only thing he ever cared about was us and Ma.”Their father was a lot of things, but above all, he was a loving husband and father.
Growing up, Tavish heard horror stories of fathers who beat their families or had all together abandoned them, leaving them to starve or live on the street.Not Flynn O’Brien.He’d cared for his family above everything else in the world.
“Like it or not, you’re the fecking Duke of Summerset.Da died in debt.Becoming the duke is the only way to save our family.So I suggest we go to the fecking solicitor’s first.”Declan flexed his jaw.“Did you have to hit me?”
“Aye.I’ll keep hitting ya as long as you keep acting high and mighty.I’m not you.I wasn’t meant to be respectable.I’m a fighter!”Opening and closing his hand, Tavish peered down at his bruised knuckles.He and his brothers spent most of their childhood fighting each other to bloody stumps, until their father threw them all into a ring.Tavish was the only one of the five boys who took pure joy in fighting.
It gave him an outlet for all the anger that coursed through his veins since the moment he was born.He’d never fit in anywhere, not even at home amongst his lively brood of brothers, his sister, and his cousin, Caitrin.His little sister came long after he was already traveling the world, so he focused on becoming the best bare-knuckle boxer.And he had nearly done it, until his damn brother came and ruined it all.
Throwing his head back against the weathered black leather seats, he tried not to think about his da.When they last parted, Tavish had thought he’d have all the time in the world to make things right between them.
Declan let out a weary sigh that Tavish could feel seeping through his own bones.“You were a fighter, but now we need you to be a duke or everything that Da worked for will be lost.”His brother bent forward, placing his elbows on his knees.“Is that what you want?For us to lose everything?”
