But Hamilton’s hands were empty.
Raising his gaze to Hamilton’s face, Royce read his expression with the barest glance.
Felt like he’d been kicked in the chest.
His features grave, Hamilton bowed—lower than usual. “Your grace. A rider has arrived from Wolverstone.”
No further explanation was necessary; the title said it all.
It could only be his if…
Somehow he gathered enough wit to speak. “Thank you, Hamilton. Please see to the comfort of whoever it is. I’ll speak with him shortly.”
Once he’d absorbed the latest blow.
Once he had the rage roaring through him contained.
Hamilton bowed. “Indeed, your grace.” He silently withdrew.
Leaving Royce to face a prospect he hadn’t, despite all his experience of dicing with fate, ever contemplated.
His father had been a constant in his life—over the last decade a constant foe. One to whom he’d owed filial obedience, but filial obedience had stretched only so far.
Paternal command hadn’t stopped him from serving his country in the way his country had needed, in the way he was so uniquely qualified to do.
Paternal denunciation—one step short of outright disinheritance, but socially even more damning—had seen him adopt a name from a distant branch of his mother’s family tree.
His father had drawn his line short of disinheritance purely because he’d had only one son.
So he’d had to make do with Royce, a son who openly chose to live by his own creed, by an interpretation of loyalty, honor, courage, and service to his country that was significantly different from that of the generation of noblemen to which his father belonged.
Had belonged.
It was from his mother’s family he’d inherited that finer, more selfless creed; they’d always been warriors. His father’s family had been the money-makers, the power brokers, the kingmakers; serving their count
ry had, for them, had a different meaning.
Brought up beneath his father’s heavy hand, but with his mother, strong and vibrant, an equal influence, he’d always been aware of the distinction.
When his father had learned of the exact nature of his commission, he’d been forced to choose between his father’s creed or that other. Forced to make a choice between his father’s approval and his country.
He’d chosen, and his father had made his stand—in the main room of White’s, of all places. Carefully chosen to be a bastion of his generation, a perfect setting to support him in bringing his errant son to heel.
Only the encounter hadn’t gone as his father had expected.
He’d never expected Royce to take all his fury, then, with a face carved from stone, simply turn and walk out.
Out of society, out of his father’s life.
His reentry into both had been imminent for the last month. He’d been putting off the moment, finding reasons to delay resigning his commission, which, while overdue, his superiors had been in no hurry to receive.
He’d chosen the Monday after Christian Allardyce’s wedding as the first day of his return to his past life, the first day of becoming once again the Marquess of Winchelsea, the courtesy title bestowed upon the first son and heir of the Duke of Wolverstone.
It had seemed appropriate to choose the first weekday after the last of his seven ex-colleagues of the Bastion Club had wed. He’d assumed he would drive north, walk into his father’s presence and see what came next.
Instead…
There wasn’t going to be any “next.” No reconciliation, no understanding.