But to gut him? To thrust a blade into his belly?
Her stomach churned.
Where had that come from? She didn’t know how to stab a man. How to hurt another person.
She’d never held a blade to anything but an apple, but she knew—knew how to press it into his skin. How to thrust. She’d never hurt anything in her life. But she knew how to stab that man.
Her eyes shut against the thought, and the man’s stunned face when he realized what she’d done filled her mind.
His face.
She jerked upright from the floor, scrambling to her feet. Stumbling to her secretary along the wall lined with windows, she flipped open the top rosewood cabinet. Pushing aside her charcoals, she pulled free a stack of vellum that she had set aside deep on the high shelf. The pile of sketches she kept for no reason other than she was unable to toss them into the fire.
Her fingers shaking, she flipped through the stack of vellum, sending sheets of paper flying in all directions, the edges fluttering to the ground until countless pages surrounded her.
She sank to her knees in the middle of the mess, her gaze flickering from one sketch to another. And another. And another.
Charcoal and pencil on the vellum sheets. Each from a different angle. Each capturing something new her imagination had conjured up.
She gasped, sinking down onto her heels. Her hand stretched out, her fingers trembling as she touched the sheet directly in front of her.
All the sketches were of the same man.
The man on the road.
He was the man her fingers sketched again and again. Years of sketching him.
And he had just appeared out of nowhere, grabbing her. This very same man.
She shook her head. She’d always believed he was an imaginary figment—for she knew she had never met him. At least as far as her memory went back. She had lived here at Roselawn her entire life. Her grandmother had assured her of that fact long ago after she had fallen from her horse and knocked all the memories from her head. It had been nine, maybe ten years, since the riding accident.
But the man said he knew her. Preposterous. After her accident, her grandmother had kept her safe, for her head was far too delicate to put out into the world with balls and parties and dinners where she would have met a man like him. And then she had reached the age of spinsterhood, and she hadn’t even considered attending balls and parties to meet new people in years.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t dream.
Sienna picked up a sketch in front of her knees, her fingers still trembling as she studied it. It was of his eyes, just the top of his face. His dark grey eyes—not so dark they frightened, but they held just enough hidden depths to haunt her. To make her want to sketch those eyes too many times to count during the years.
She closed her eyes, picturing him in front of her. Seeing his dark silver eyes again. Eyes that lifted slightly at the edges, his dark lashes pinpointing his gaze. Eyes that were unmistakable.
She could almost feel his fingers still digging into her arms—how he had latched onto her. There had been something so undeniably primal in how he grabbed her. Like he owned her. Like he could do anything he wanted to her, because she belonged to him.
He was an utter stranger.
She had to remember that.
Her eyes drifted down to the sheets of paper scattered about her legs.
And she had to forget that she had just seen the one man she had fixated on her whole life in real, living, breathing person.
{ Chapter 2 }
“He is in the fourth room to the right on the third level?” Sienna’s eyebrows arched as she looked at Mrs. Wilson, the innkeeper’s wife.
If the man was on the third level, that meant either there were a lot of travelers staying here at the moment, or that the man was planning on staying in the village for a spell. The lack of horses in the coaching inn’s stable told her it was most likely the latter. The thought sent a heavy rock of foreboding into her gut.
Mrs. Wilson nodded, juggling tankards and glasses as she moved away from Sienna and her maid as quickly as she could, weaving her way through the tables in the inn’s dining room.
Sienna watched Mrs. Wilson for a moment before her eyes flickered to the stairwell on the far side of the inn’s large dining room, then to her maid next to her. “Don’t look at me like that, Bea.”
“Like what, Miss Ponstance?”
“Like you know my grandmother would have your hide if she knew you accompanied me here. You don’t need to worry. She won’t know we stopped here at the coaching inn.”
“That woman sees everything, even with her failing eyesight and you know it, miss.” Bea shook her head. “I don’t see why you need to check on the man. He attacked you and you stuck a knife into his belly. Seems right justice to me.”
“Again, Bea, he didn’t so much attack me, as to…stop me on my way.” Mrs. Wilson exited the dining room into the kitchens and Sienna reached over and took the basket Bea was carrying, draping it onto her arm before starting toward the stairwell. “Or maybe he did attack me. I don’t know. Anything is possible. That is why I brought you with me. I’m not a complete fool.”
“I’ve never stuck a blade into a man, Miss Ponstance,” Bea said. “Don’t know what help you think me to be in that situation, a man attacking you and all.”
Sienna paused at the entry to the stairwell and met Bea’s wary look. “You can yell, can you not?”
Bea sighed, following Sienna up the stairs, every heavy step an argument against what Sienna was set on doing.
“And your presence will keep my reputation intact—or at least with a thread of respectability. It would not do with the village gossips, going up to a man’s chambers here at the inn by myself—even in the most innocent of circumstances.”
Bea snorted. “My presence isn’t about to keep the yapping traps of the town’s gadflies closed.”
“No, but it will lessen my direct affront to the bounds of propriety, at the least. Between your presence and my spinsterhood, that is all I ask.”
They trudged up the last flight of stairs in silence and then Sienna walked the long hallway, counting the rooms. Dark shadows abounded even though it was the middle of the day. At the fourth door, she stopped, squaring her shoulders to the door before taking a deep breath.
With questions of idiocy on her actions brimming in her mind, she knocked.
A muffled, “Enter,” came from the bowels of the room.
Sienna kept her eyes straight ahead. If she looked at Bea again, she knew her maid’s face would be all it would take to make her toss aside this plan and turn to run down the stairs.
But she had to know.
Know that he had survived her knife well enough.
And more importantly, she needed to know who he was.
Opening the door, she stepped quickly into the room before she lost her nerve. Bea followed so close she bumped into Sienna’s back before turning to close the door.
The man was lying on the bed in the tastefully appointed room—dark green linens lined the bed and coordinating drapes adorned the window. The matching green damask coverlet was shoved to the side of the bed next to his legs. This chamber was larger than the rooms below it for guests that stayed in the area for a longer stretch of time.
His eyes met hers and she had to instantly gulp back another gasp.
She hadn’t seen it in the flurry of the day before—in his grabbing her and her panicked attempt to free herself—she hadn’t seen how atrociously handsome the man was. Her sketches of him had captured his eyes, the strong line of his chin, his jaw, his straight nose and cheekbones that were bred from an ancient refinement.
But nothing she had ever sketched compared to the reality of the man now staring at her with blazes of fire in his steel grey eyes.
Bea saw it instantly, her gasp not choked back. “Oh, good heaven above that is beautiful,” she muttered under her breath, but loud enough for Sienna to hear.
>
If the man heard Bea, he didn’t acknowledge it, his stare fixated on Sienna. “You.” The one word came out rough from his chest, almost pained.
Sienna forced a smile onto her face. “Me. Yes. Me. I am here to apologize to you, sir, and see that your wound was appropriately taken care of.”
He shifted on the bed, moving to sit upright with slow arms. Clad only in a white linen shirt and trousers, his boots were oddly on for a man recovering in bed. He shuffled his body backward, leaning against the wide walnut headboard of the bed.
His dark grey eyes sliced into her. “Who are you to judge if it was taken care of appropriately?”
“I—I—” She looked around the room, her eyes landing on Bea. Bea just raised an eyebrow at her. Her look travelled back to the man. “I have rudimentary knowledge of knife wounds. I would like to examine yours to make sure it is on the path to recovery.”
Now his eyebrow lifted.
She had no such skill and every person in that room knew it, but now that she had uttered it, she was sticking with the lie. She turned back to Bea. “Will you wait outside, Bea? I shall not be too long.”
For a long second, she thought Bea would fight her on this, but then her maid inclined her head and spun back to the door, exiting out into the hallway.
“So?”
He asked the question before she had a chance to turn around toward him.
“So what?” she asked, her lips drawing inward as she faced him.
“So are you truly going to look at the wound, Sienna?”
“Of course.” She moved across the room, stopping beside the bed as she looked at his torso. He was tall, wide, and judging by how he moved, she imagined there was little fat on his body. Probably none at all, if his face was an indication.
She set the basket of meats, cheeses and a mutton pie that Cook had made this morning on a wooden chair next to the bed and then stood frozen, staring at the bandage wrapping his torso that she could see through the white linen of the shirt covering his stomach. A wave of apprehension swept through her as she realized how close she was to him. It wasn’t a fear that he would harm her, but an unease she couldn’t name.
“I am at a disadvantage, sir, as it appears you know my name, but I do not know yours.”
“Lipinstein. Logan Lipinstein.” His grey eyes pierced her, so expectant with his words that it almost made her take a step backward. Did he expect her to suddenly recognize his name? Recognize him?
She offered a slight nod, looking to the black granite fireplace on the far side of the room.
He cleared his throat. “Truly?”
Her eyebrow lifted as she looked back to him. The man liked to speak one vague word at a time. “Truly what?”
“You truly intend to look at my wound?” The rumble of his deep baritone voice wrapped around her.
She forced an apologetic smile. “Yes. I am the cause, so I must also be the reaction.”
He winced at her words. Visibly in pain.
The cut had to be deeper than she’d thought.
She took a quick step forward as her eyes dipped down, unable to meet his look. “Yes. Your shirt, please. It won’t take but a moment to assure me the wound was tended to in a satisfactory way.”
For a long breath, he didn’t move. But she could feel his eyes boring into her. Feel him assessing her.
She focused on his waist, the rumple of his shirt as it met his trousers, nothing else.
With a sigh, he shifted, tugging his shirt up and free of his trousers and exposing his midsection.
No fat. No fat at all. Just lines of muscles disappearing under the white bandage wrapped around his waist. Scars. Many of them, white ragged lines along his skin. The man was no stranger to pain—to knives and bullets piercing his skin.
He tucked the bulk of his shirt under his upper arms and then slid his thumbs behind the bandage, his stomach sucking in as he pulled the white cloth downward to expose the wound. Whether the bandage was tight and he had to suck in, or the pain of the movement made him suck in, she wasn’t sure. If she could brave a look at his face, she would probably know, but she couldn’t bring herself to lift her eyes.
His wound came into view and she instantly leaned forward, bending over the bed to get a look at the jagged skin. A scab had crusted around the opening.
The taste of bile chased up her throat and she had to swallow it back. That she had done this—cut into another person—it curdled her stomach. “I—I am sorry—I did not mean…”
Her words trailed and she shook her head, trying to clear it before truly studying the stitches holding the wound closed. She took in the crooked cross lines of the thread, the tugging of the ragged skin.
Her eyes finally lifted to his face. “These stitches are horrible. Tell me you didn’t let Doctor Miller see to it—he probably left a leech inside you, he is so blind.”
His grey eyes narrowed at her. “I did them.”
“You did?”
“The wound wasn’t that deep.”
“Oh.” She snapped upright, giving a curt nod as she took a small step backward. “Then the stitches are admirable, what with the pain you must have worked through.”
His look stayed upon her as he shrugged, and then he tugged the bandage upward before letting his shirt fall back into place.
“You have seen what you needed to?”
She nodded. For as much as his curt words insinuated it was time for her to exit his room, her feet stayed rooted in place.
She needed to ask him. Ask him now before she never got another chance.
Her lips parted, and it took a long moment to gather the strength to utter the most difficult words of her life.
Her voice dipped low so Bea couldn’t hear her through the thin wood of the door. “I do know you, don’t I, sir?”
Except for flashes of pain, his grey eyes had stayed neutral, placid since the moment she had walked into his room. Wary, if anything, and rightly so. He probably thought she was there to stab him again.
But then a sudden burst of the same desperation she’d seen the day before cut across his eyes.
His mouth opened, offering her only one word. “Yes.”
She nodded, her brow crinkling. “Do you know my grandmother? Have you worked for her? Is that how you know me?” She remembered nothing of the time before the riding accident, but this man could have very well been part of her grandmother’s staff when she was young.
“No.” The room, the very air around him stilled with his answer.
Sienna’s arms lifted, wrapping around her middle as the rock that had been in her stomach expanded tenfold. She looked to the window in the room, staring for a long moment at the rays of sunlight bending in through the glass.
She had long ago come to peace with the fact that she would never remember her past. Not that it was much to remember her grandmother had always said. She’d had the usual childhood, full of governesses and tutors, and needlepoint, music, reading, riding lessons, and sketching. Of all those things, sketching was the only thing that had come natural to her after the accident. All the other pastimes seemed foreign, her body awkward with the motions of them. But never the charcoal on paper. That had always been easy.
The sense of foreboding crept up from her stomach to wrap heavily onto her shoulders. She was treading too deeply into something she knew nothing of. Into something she shouldn’t question.
Yet she couldn’t control her tongue.
Her gaze shifted to him. He was still staring at her, his dark grey eyes cutting into her.
She met his look straight on. “Tell me who you are.”
For a long breath he was still, his eyes not blinking.
Then his arm lifted slowly, his fingers landing on the back of his neck. His forefinger dipped below the back of his linen shirt, fishing. Hidden deep, he pulled a golden chain from below his shirt, bringing it into the daylight.
Dangling from the end of the chain, a ring.
Blue stones dotted th
e gold band that he held up to her. “I’m your husband, Sienna.”
The ring, his words, stole her breath. Stole it and would not return it.
She stood, still and staring, at a loss to move or say anything.
A sudden knock on the door made her jump, sending her heart into a pounding flurry.
“Miss Ponstance, your grandmother will be most upset with me.” Bea’s shrill voice cut through the door. “This has gone on long enough.”
Her look still locked with the man’s stare, Sienna’s head started to shake. “No.”
Her feet shuffled backward toward the door. “No. You are sorely mistaken, sir. I have no husband. I am a spinster. Grandmother explained it to me—she said it would be better this way.” Her back bumped into the door and she spun to it, her fingers fumbling on the doorknob. For the quickest second she paused and looked back to him.
“No. No. No.” Her head shook harder, her fingers finally clasping onto the brass knob and yanking the door open.
She ran into the hallway, slamming the door behind her as she gasped for breath and then nearly toppled over Bea.
Bea caught her forearms, stopping Sienna’s charge down the hallway. “Is the man well?”
Sienna swallowed, attempting to calm her voice. “The man will recover. My blade didn’t sink too deeply.”
“We are done here?”
Sienna nodded. “We are done.”
{ Chapter 3 }
Sienna kept her eyes averted from the coaching inn as she walked past the weathered yellow and orange bricks of the sandstone exterior. She hadn’t wanted to come into Sandfell today—hadn’t wanted to walk into the village at all in the last four days.
But her supply of charcoal had dwindled and every time she sent Bea to pick up more from Mr. Simmons, Bea came home with compressed charcoal made with the weakest wax binders, no matter how many times she chided the man for pawning his sloppy scraps upon her. If she didn’t pick up her supply of charcoals herself, she would be making the trek into the village in another day regardless.
The Devil in the Duke: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 2
