Awakening His Duchess Read Online Free PDF

recognize the shocking similarity.
Or perhaps she hadn’t allowed herself to see. That magical time with Beau had
been cut short too quickly. The longest time had passed before she could think
of Beau and his sudden death without dissolving in tears.
    Fortunately Henri couldn’t have known the son he claimed
looked like Beau. He’d never met Beau.
    But the man who opened the door to them at the duke’s castle
had put his hand to his chest and exclaimed excitedly. He’d seen the resemblance
right away. He’d known she was from Saint-Domingue before she could tell him.
    The servant had shouted for Danvers, and the man appeared,
looking much older than she remembered, but then she had aged too. She rarely
looked in the mirror anymore, but when she did she saw the darkness in her eyes
as shadows of a woman who’d been widowed twice before the age of twenty-five
and lost far too much. If it weren’t for Etienne, she didn’t know that she
would have found the strength to go on.
    Fortunately, Beau’s man had recognized her and had gone all
teary-eyed when he’d seen her son.
    The duke had wanted to see her straight away, before she’d
had a chance to catch her breath or really assimilate that Beau had grown up in
this grand house with marble floors, jewel-like mullioned windows and
breathtaking murals on the ceilings. She had been hesitant to claim a marriage
she didn’t believe legal, but she had produced the signet ring when the duke
asked.
    If Beau had told her he was the son of a duke, she wouldn’t
have had to marry Henri. She could have come here. If she’d been safe in
England, she never would have witnessed the complete massacre of her family.
    The devastation balled in her and swelled upward, clogging
her throat. No, she could not allow herself to shatter. Better to feel nothing.
She had to remain strong for Etienne. She swallowed the bitter lump.
    For the last few months she’d taken one step then another,
focusing only on getting Etienne to his father’s family where he would be safe.
She had to keep doing that—burying the emotions that robbed her of a will to
live. He was safe here, but she no longer wanted to feel. Because everything
hurt too badly.
    She shoved the events of the day to the back of her mind and
whispered into her son’s hair, “This is your home now, Etienne.”
    “Maman, how could Pere not be my papa?” His mien was
too serious for a boy his age, but perhaps that was why she hadn’t seen the
resemblance to his father. Beau had been too much of a charmer to be serious
for long.
    “Your papa was my first husband. The man who grew up here.
But he died before you were born.”
    Etienne’s little face crinkled. “How do you know he’s my
papa?”
    Her son never accepted anything at face value but must dig
until he knew how things worked. She sighed. Rather than get into a discussion
of things he was far too young to understand, she said, “You look like your
father.” She touched his straight aristocratic nose. “You look like Beau.”
    All of his family’s old time retainers saw the resemblance
and now that she really looked at her son, she could see Beau in the curve of
his lips, the dimples in his cheeks and in the pale blue eyes with thin indigo
spokes radiating out from the center.
    “Maman, did the slaves kill him too?”
    Yvette winced, trying to think of an appropriate
explanation. “No, he fell and hit his head.”
    Etienne frowned. “That’s a silly way to die.”
    “I don’t think there is a good way to go,” answered Yvette.
Everything about Beau’s death had confused her. She had seen him fall and bang
his neck and jaw against a table, but the blow hardly seemed enough to kill a
healthy young man. She’d screamed, then run for help, but returned to find him
lifeless. Even now the memories sliced her raw. Her inability to help him stung
her eyes. “Now go to sleep, Etienne. Tomorrow you will get to know your papa’s
family. It seems we will stay here