Forever a Lord Read Online Free PDF Page A

wad of money into my hand and told me to start life anew. So I did. And you’re looking at it.”
    Yardley observed him for a moment. “After holding you hostage for five years the man just let you go? Why?”
    Coleman shrugged. “It might seem difficult to believe, but we became incredibly good friends. He knew he had kept me long enough and wasn’t interested in taking me to Venice. He was getting married and people in his circle would have started asking questions. They were already asking questions.”
    “You befriended this man? After he— Did you not go to the marshals after you were released?” the duke demanded. “To press charges?”
    Coleman shook his head, his breath almost jagged. “I didn’t want what I knew of my father touching my sister or my mother. It would have destroyed their lives if I had resurfaced.”
    The duke held his gaze. “How many were involved in your disappearance? Who were they? And when were you smuggled out of New York?”
    “There was only one man involved in my disappearance. A Venetian. And I never left New York.”
    “You never…? All this time, you’ve been…?” The duke closed his eyes and grabbed his head with both hands. “Jesus Christ.” He rocked against his hands for a long moment.
    Coleman set aside the brandy on the small table beside him and rose in a half daze. “I appreciate that you shouldered my sister’s plight, even after her death. I know if she had been the one missing, I would have fought for her to the end, as well. My only regret is that I didn’t get to see her one last time. I would have liked that. She and I didn’t part on the best of terms and I—” He swallowed hard, trying not to give in to emotion. With his sister gone, what more was there to return to? Nothing. Their mother had always lived for their father. Who was he to break her delusions of a man she loved? “I should go.”
    Yardley rose. “Go? No. You can’t. We are here to take you home with us. To London. Where you belong.”
    Coleman walked backward toward the door and swept a more than obvious hand to his beaten face. “Do I look like I belong in a ballroom, gentlemen? Too many years have passed for that.”
    The duke rose. “Atwood. You can’t leave when we’ve just now found you. We have yet to know you and genuinely wish to assist you in making the transition back into our circle. It will take time, mind you, but—”
    “No.” Coleman shook his head. “I abide by my boxing name, not my titled name, and want no other life than the one I have now. People depend on me. I have a purpose other than living with regret.”
    The duke swung away, placing a hand to the back of his neck. “Yardley, speak to him. Because I am not thinking clearly. And neither is he.”
    Yardley quickly strode toward Coleman and leaned in, his rugged features tightening. “To take on any other name than the one you were born unto, knowing everything you and my mother have suffered, would be an insult to her and you. By God. You have allowed a lifetime to pass. If you cannot face this now, when will you ever?”
    The boy didn’t understand. This wasn’t about being unable to face the past. He’d faced it. He’d lived it. This was about facing the anger he had yet to unleash on the only person he’d ever wanted dead: his father. Not his captor. His father.
    Coleman widened his stance. “If I return to London, I’ll do more than face my father. I’ll kill him.”
    Yardley pointed. “No you won’t.”
    “You don’t know me,” Coleman said between clamped teeth. “I’ve beaten people into bloodied pools of unconsciousness for far less.”
    “Killing him isn’t going to change what happened.”
    “Neither will letting him live.”
    His nephew touched his arm. “Setting aside all that has come to pass, surely you understand that you owe your mother a breath of peace. A peace my own mother never got in her lifetime.”
    Coleman released a breath. Yes, he did owe his mother