Forever a Lord Read Online Free Page A

others for the sake of goodwill? I’m going for a walk down Broadway. It’s the only thing that ever calms me down.”
    The duke pointed. “No. No walks. Not now. You will stay and finish whatever this is.” Brown eyes that were surprisingly intelligent, albeit solemn, observed Coleman for a moment. “We have been in New York, sir, for months making endless inquiries. We are beyond exhausted and are hinging a breath of hope on the possibility that you may know something. Do you?”
    Coleman shifted away from the duke, trying to distance himself from the eerie reality that the past was tapping on his shoulder. “It depends on what you want with the information.”
    Those features tightened. “If Atwood still lives, which we hope he does, inform him that his sister’s husband and her son are here to collect him. If, however, he is dead, we also wish to know of it. All we want is information that will lead us to resolve this matter and give it peace.”
    Coleman stared, his plan to claim the money crumbling with every word. This man was married to his sister? It wasn’t possible. Trying to keep his voice steady, he confided, “Allow me to speak to his sister first. I will decide then.”
    The duke swiped his face. “I cannot produce her.”
    “Why not?” he demanded, unable to remain calm.
    “She died.” That voice, though well controlled, bespoke a deeply rooted anguish.
    Coleman staggered, the marble floor beneath his boots momentarily swaying. For the first time in a very, very long time, tears connected to who he had once been pricked his eyes. Auggie was barely six years older than him. She couldn’t be dead. This had to be a trap. “I don’t believe you. Auggie isn’t dead. You’re lying.”
    The duke’s gaze snapped to his. “How did you know her name?”
    Lord Yardley watched Coleman. “Glass-blue eyes and black hair. And his accent. ’Tis anything but American.” He stepped closer, lips parting. “Dearest God. It’s him. It’s Atwood. It has to be.”
    Fuck. He’d stupidly outed himself. Coleman swung away and stalked toward the entrance of the hotel. He wasn’t staying for this. He didn’t even want to know what had happened to Auggie. He didn’t.
    Booted feet drummed faster down the lobby, after him.
    “Nathaniel?” the duke called out. “Nathaniel, stay. For God’s sake, stay! Atwood? Atwood! ”
    Sucking in a breath, Coleman darted toward the entrance leading out to the street. Grabbing the oversize doors, he tried to shove them open, but his scab-ridden hands were too disconnected from his body to cooperate.
    “Atwood!” The duke grabbed his shoulders and yanked him away from the doors.
    Though his fists instinctively popped up to swing, Coleman knew pulverizing his own sister’s husband was not what he owed her. “Atwood doesn’t exist anymore,” he rasped.
    The duke slowly turned him. “I have stared at the painted miniature of you as a child so many times. No one has eyes quite like yours. I don’t know why I didn’t see it. The bruises on your face were very distracting.”
    Coleman couldn’t breathe.
    The duke leaned in. “Your sister devoted everything to the hope of finding you. And this is how you repay her? By running from her family when they come to you? Don’t you care to know what happened to her? Or how she died?”
    A warm tear trickled its way down the length of Coleman’s cheek. He viciously swiped at it, welcoming the pinching from grazing the bruise on his face.
    The duke held his gaze. “She died in childbirth. Many years ago. It would have been a girl. Our third. Neither survived. I just lost our eldest son, as well. Typhus took him. Yardley here is all I have left of her.”
    Coleman stumbled outside that grasp and leaned back against the door, feeling weak. He had been running and running from the past to the point of delusion, and now, it would seem, he had become that delusion. At least he had protected Auggie’s good name to the