His Duchess at Eventide

by Wendy Lacapra

  Her eyes flashed. “Again, you had the opportunity to choose me—to choose your son. And again, you chose Hurtheven.”

  “No.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “It was the scar on my ankle. The man said his name and then I remembered him.”

  “Of course you remembered him first,” she said bitterly. “You made time to have him witness your will, but you could not make time to meet your son.”

  “I was protecting you,” he replied. “That’s why I amended my will. That’s why I went to war in the first place. Would you have rather our son be a bastard?”

  “Still, you cannot see.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “That’s not what I meant. Believe me, if I could do things differently, I would.”

  Would he?

  Right now, he believed he would.

  Surrender.

  The slow melting to the iron-pointed arrows that were her only defense. Because if she succumbed and he left again, she’d have nothing to keep her from being bludgeoned to pieces by grief.

  She turned away and filled a small basin with water from the tub. She wet her towel and scrubbed the towel with soap until small bubbles foamed between the woven threads. With hand aloft she returned to Chev.

  “These past weeks, you’ve watched me struggle with the truth I both hoped for and feared. You saw me drowning and you never threw me a line.”

  Her anger was a dinghy against the tidal wave of emotion in his eyes.

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  She dropped her gaze.

  “Look at me,” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Look at me. Pen, love, please look at me.”

  The last of her resistance crumbled.

  How could she resist him? A part of her wanted to hold him close. To clasp his face to her chest, smooth his hair down his back, and make him promise to never, ever leave again. She lifted her eyes.

  He took a deep breath. “I am sorry. I am so, so deeply, and fully filled with regret, I’m sorry does not begin to express how I feel.”

  Of course, she warmed all the way to her toes.

  Cheverley had never apologized. Not as Chev, anyway. But any apology could only be grossly inadequate.

  Sorry did not lighten the burden of her loss.

  Sorry did not find her within the years she’d spent lost.

  And sorry did not heal her greatest wound.

  “You may be sorry for going to war. Sorry for your deceit. You may even be sorry that I believed you dead.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “But, have you changed? Can I trust you? Can you give me your trust?”

  ~~~

  Was he capable of giving Penelope his trust? Last night, he’d believed so.

  But her anger had punctured him, painfully extracting his essence. His soul filled the space between them, pulsing weakly, like a disembodied heart.

  He’d spent six years with a woman who’d fed on his terror, who’d violated him in darkness, who’d cut off his hand.

  Saw jaws rattled against his bones. Straps burned against his shoulders. Cave stench stung in his nose.

  But he wasn’t in a cave.

  He was in the duke’s sitting room.

  With his wife, who smelled of midsummer lavender, even as she gazed down on him with a Fury’s anger.

  He removed the warm, soapy towel from Penelope’s hand, and draped the fabric over the tip of his injured arm.

  Could he give Penelope his trust?

  Slowly, he soaped his cheeks. Warm water tingled on his skin. His beard spiked through the towel, rough against his scars.

  He lost awareness of everything else but Penelope. With his left hand, he lifted the razor from the basket. A tremor ran through his fingers as he transferred the razor from his shaking hand to hers.

  “Do what you came to do,” he said quietly.

  Her eyes went wide. “Good heavens, Chev. You cannot be frightened of me! I’m angry. I’m not Bedlam-mad.”

  Hell yes, he was afraid.

  His fear was a tar-like mess—thick, peaty, and hot—clinging and confining when everything in him was desperate to rise. He would be nothing, own nothing, have nothing, if he could not conquer his fear.

  He sucked in his cheeks and swallowed. “I trust you.”

  She frowned, glancing to the razor.

  “You can’t think I would—” She gazed back into his eyes. “Good God, you do. You think I could actually hurt you.”

  He didn’t believe Penelope would plunge that razor into his neck. His body, however, responded as if he did.

  “You can hurt me”—his voice lurched—“more than anyone else. I fear,”—panic and mastery teetered on the pivot point of his trust—“but I place myself in your hands.”

  She took a step back. “Perhaps another time—”

  He seized her by her wrist.

  “Now.” He spoke gruffly. “I trust you.” He released her. “I trust you with my life and I swear I will never doubt again.”

  She glanced down at the razor in her hands. If she refused, he would not force.

  “You told me to go to my love,” he said. “I listened. I’m here.” He held her pained gaze as long as he was able. Then, he leaned back and closed his eyes. “Show me it’s not too late.”

  His ears attuned to her movement, the gentle whisper of her skirts, the trickle of water off the razor.

  She will not hurt me.

  He could expose his scars, his neck, his heart, and still, she would not hurt him.

  She touched him beneath his chin and moved his face to the side. She will not hurt me. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  The warm razor skimmed slowly across his cheek. The scraping sound crackled in his ears. She will not hurt me. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  If he moved, if he even flinched, he’d be cut. She will not hurt me. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  With infinite care, she sliced away the past. She will not hurt me.

  Another swish of water. She lifted his chin and lathered beneath his throat.

  The thin line of the razor’s edge traveled up his throat once—the water swished again—then twice, then a third and final time.

  She wiped his now-smooth cheeks with a warm towel.

  He exhaled.

  “Cheverley,” she whispered. “There you are, my love.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  PENELOPE HELPED HER husband rise from the chair and then she led him into the duchess’s bedchamber. She placed the candle she carried on the bedside table and then looked up into his eyes.

  She’d never asked her husband to lie with her.

  She didn’t even know how.

  She reached up and removed the pins from her hair.

  The first—her bun grew heavy—the second, a lock drifted down onto her neck—the third—the knot unraveled, and her hair fell down onto her back.

  She put the three pins next to the candle and withdrew the rest. Then, she sat down on the bed.

  Wariness remained within her husband’s gaze.

  He’d allowed her to press a sharpened knife to his throat and still he held some part of himself apart. Now she trembled. He’d come halfway across the bridge between them.

  What if halfway was as far as he could go?

  “I am not the same,” he said.

  She placed the final pins on the bed stand. Holding his gaze, she removed the knives and sheathes from her thighs.

  “I asked you before who you were. And though I know you are my husband,”—the essence of what she understood to be love—“I will ask you again, who are you, really?”

  He swallowed. “I am not fully yours.”

  Chev. Dear Chev. “Nothing of you is mine. Just as nothing of me is yours.” She smoothed the back of her hand down his cheek. “People are not possessions. And marriage is but an agreement to face the world together—a pact to search for the ours. You promised”—mortifyingly, her voice shook—“we’d invent a new world.”

  “Nothing could be better in th
is world than when two minds, husband and wife, are united in harmony and spirit, they bring grief to their enemies and happiness to their friends,” he quoted.

  She sniffed and then nodded.

  “Not my own words, I’m afraid.”

  “They belong to Homer. The Odyssey.”

  “Yes.” He knelt down, placing his forehead against her knees.

  His damp hair fell around her thighs. Emotion rushed into her throat, clogging against a thickened knot that thieved her breath.

  His shoulders shook with a sob.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  He gripped the back of her calf. And threw his injured arm next to her thigh. He turned his head to the side, struggling to staunch his tears.

  She touched his face.

  One moment he was Chev. The next a stranger.

  His grip simultaneously kept her close and pushed her away.

  She ran her finger over the scar on his wrist. He flinched.

  What had happened to her husband was deeper than the physical scars he bore.

  Too deep to heal?

  She refused the thought.

  Disloyal at best. Moot, in any case.

  She’d hadn’t given up on him when he was lost. She certainly would not give up now.

  “Cheverley,” she whispered.

  He glanced up, face stilled, harsh and jagged, his gaze, still raw with the kind of hunger that had driven humans to hunt animals that could devour them whole. If any other man had looked at Penelope with an equal amount of proprietorial desire, she would have sunk a dagger into his throat.

  She loosened the string at her throat, and the fabric fell away from her shoulders, catching between her body and the bed.

  How much of him had the pirate robbed?

  And, to reclaim her husband, how much was she willing to risk?

  Everything.

  She lifted her hand. He winced before she touched him.

  Very well, then.

  She folded her hands in her lap.

  “You are beautiful.” His face twisted. “Soft.”

  “Soft as a lioness,” she replied. “And just as willing to defend her pride.”

  Her words earned...if not a smile, at least a gentling of his features.

  “Lioness,” he repeated.

  “Will you remove your shirt?” she asked.

  He did. His chest was a solid wall of muscle.

  “I want to be close to you, Chev. What would you prefer?”

  “What I prefer...”

  He shook his head no. His face hardened again.

  He made a sound of frustration. Latent power rippled through his muscles. He could crush her if he wished.

  The Unknown—the unknowable slinked through her like a demon, weaving a trail of fear in the pit of her stomach.

  Any thought she had, he seemed to know. She veiled her eyes with her lids.

  There were pieces of him she did not know, might never know. She’d asked for his trust. And the cost had been higher than she’d expected.

  The question was, did the man she knew and understood and loved still exist beneath all this rough water?

  She’d made choices before and she would make choices again, none would matter as much as the choice that she made in this moment.

  Could she be vulnerable?

  Could she open to him now?

  “Penelope.” He reached up and gripped the back of her neck, his fingers, so powerful, she couldn’t move her face.

  She wet her lips and forced herself to be pliant.

  This is a dance. I’ll move as he moves. They’d mirror one another—opposite but moving as one to the same tempo.

  “Trust for trust,” she said.

  Roughly, his mouth met hers.

  His kiss ravaged—her lips would be raw. The rush that shot through her limbs was unlike any she felt before. He pushed forward in a kind of prowl until she lay back on the bed. Still they kissed—one long, unbroken kiss, strong enough to stoke a fire that could melt away the years.

  She thrilled to his muscle, to his arousal, to his very scent.

  A thrill so vibrant, the tingle could have been fear.

  This was the man who’d ridden with her through the moonlight countless times. The man who’d danced with her in the dark. The man she’d trusted to lead her to worlds she had never known before.

  To create new ones for them to explore.

  No matter what transpired, he was that same man.

  And she was that same girl.

  He pulled away, panting. She savored the sweet ache in her lips.

  “Husband,” she said with a sigh.

  ~~~

  Husband.

  Not Captain. Not Chev, nor Cheverley. But husband.

  Something he’d been only to her. Always.

  “Penelope...” Her name was a gruffy query. A plea. “Wife.”

  He wanted her.

  The evidence of his desire pulsed thick, hard, and aching against her stomach. He savored the pressure, the tense, heavy soreness.

  He denied relief, battling the feeling he must take her or die.

  He would not roughly thieve what she willingly offered.

  She wove her hands into his hair, pulling the strands back into a plait so they hung down his back. He wanted this. He wanted to sink inside Penelope’s body.

  Yet couldn’t bear her touch.

  He held himself up by his elbow and tore her hands from his back and pinned them over her head. She whimpered in protest.

  His humiliating memories had no place here—but they would not be denied. They haunted like a question. Like a challenge.

  He squeezed his eyes closed and drew back. The pirate and her evil whispers closed in.

  Tu n’es rien. You are nothing. Je te possède maintenant en entier. I own every part of you, now.

  With a low-pitched growl he drove Penelope back against the bed. Covering her with his body as if he could shelter them both.

  Anger rioted though his desire.

  “Chev—”

  “No! Just let me—” Let him what?

  Ravage her as he’d been ravaged? Restrain her from touching him while he indulged the restless, demanding ache in his cock?

  Be no better than the pirate?

  “Touch me,” she offered, “if you cannot allow me to touch you.”

  He released her wrists and crudely went for her breast. He felt her shock skitter through her body. In her shiver, he knew she resisted recoil.

  He dropped to his other elbow and rested his forehead against her chin.

  “No.” She gripped his hips, drawing his body fully onto the bed between her thighs. She threaded her hand through his and placed it back against her breast.

  Beats of pain drummed in Chev’s elbow. He didn’t mind the stabs. He was ashamed. He’d been rough. Which was wrong.

  But what the devil was right?

  “I don’t want to take you in anger.” He could barely speak. His words burned in his eyes, on his tongue, in his lips.

  “You are not taking anything. I give what I give in love. I love you, Chev. I always have. I always will.”

  Love.

  A feeling like rain. Like a gentle breeze rising from dead calm. Like the soft relief of twilight. Like the circles she drew against his spine.

  Penelope.

  He listened for her breath. In. Out. The rioting anger quieted.

  He opened his eyes and gazed down into her hers—half frightened, half longing, all trust. And luminous, even in the early afternoon light.

  Sweet Pen.

  Her gaze lulled him like a ship’s rocking.

  “My body knew you at once”—she spoke mildly, tenderly, as if he had not twisted her wrists above her head—“though my mind refused to believe.”

  He concentrated on her melodic tone. “You—you wanted me?”

  “Did you not know?”

  He’d known. Or, at least he had hoped...

  “I blushed,” she said.


  Blushed, yes. She had. And often.

  Such were the signs of innocence. A language he could no longer speak.

  But a language he could, perhaps, still understand.

  “I love you, too.” He touched his forehead to hers.

  He could lie with his wife. He would lie with her.

  He braced his knee, relieving her of some of his weight. Every muscle in his body screamed, tensed, repelled. She stilled. Frozen. Like a hunted rabbit in brush.

  Or a woman seeped in pity.

  Then, she circled her fingers down his spine.

  He felt like an impostor.

  “Cheverley,” she whispered, guiding him back.

  Chev reached behind him and caught up her hand in his. Her fingers were so long, so thin, so delicate. Why did he want to twist her fingers above her head? Pin them painfully while he rode her hard? He hated the very idea of her being helpless.

  He lifted her fingers to his lips, greeting each one, learning their shape with his lips.

  Gentle fingers. Penelope’s fingers.

  She threaded her other hand through his hair, light and yet precise, as if she were weaving and then her fingers came to rest on the back of his neck.

  His shoulder muscles twitched, waking to tenderness he’d been denied. Want flickered in his belly, feeling almost like hope.

  Penelope...Penelope...Penelope...

  Silently, he chanted her name as if it were a torch that could keep the fear at bay.

  No one had a touch like hers, so why was he frozen? Why did he wish to roar and, at the same time, to weep?

  “I saw you,” she said, with tears shining in her eyes, “and all my words fell away.”

  She’d said the same on the night they’d met. The young woman within her reached in and touched the boy within him.

  The boy within him responded.

  “I saw you, and you became the embodiment of words I never understood.”

  “What words?” she asked

  “Love.” He kissed her forehead. His inhale wrecked his body. Two people—children really. Brave-hearted. Foolish. And somehow wise. “I’d never seen anything so exquisite. Not then. Not now. Not ever.”

  She soothed his neck with firm even strokes.

  “This time, I choose you,” she said. “If you’ll have me.”

  At stake, his marriage. His future. His heart.

  “Yes,” he replied. “And I choose you.”

  Penelope.