A grin lifted her lips. “As I said. There was a bit of scrutiny afoot.”
He chuckled. It was a relief to finally be able to tell her something genuine of his life. Something he could talk about and not worry it would spark memories for her. Aside from Sienna, nothing was closer to his heart than the Revelry’s Tempest and his guards.
The horses turned a curve in the trail, and Logan glanced at Sienna’s profile. She looked as though she was still turning over again and again in her mind the idea of ladies running a gaming hall, there was so much mischief in her eyes.
He interrupted her thoughts. “Now I have another question for you.”
She nodded, her bright eyes moving from the trail to him. “What do you want to ask me now?”
“Your uncle, Mr. Bournestein, do you know what his business is?”
“I know he owns several shops in London.” She shrugged, the question not tempering her good-natured patience at his many inquiries. “For his generosity in how he supports me, grandmother and the estate, I imagine his shops do quite well. Is that where you know him from? His business?”
Logan’s tongue pressed into his cheek. “Yes, our paths have crossed numerous times.”
Not exactly a lie.
He wasn’t about to tell her of Bournestein’s sins. Of his brutality. That the man owned a wide swath of St. Giles—every gaming hell, every brothel, every pocket that was picked in his area, he had his fingers in deep. That too many of Logan’s guards had tangled with Bournestein and his brutes—and Logan had spent far too much time extracting his men from Bournestein’s clutches.
That the man was the devil incarnate.
And his wife would always be in grave danger with Bournestein in her life.
All that was information for another time. If she remembered.
If she didn’t, he needed to leave well enough alone.
His wife was content, generally happy, even. Even if it wasn’t with him, it was all he had ever wanted for her. To see her face light and free from worry. Free from their past.
He needed to not hold on so tightly that he broke her.
His breath lodged deep in his neck below a lump that had formed as he looked at her. Her cheeks flush with the exertion of racing across the field, her full pink lips still held the smile that came so easily to her face.
She had never been like this. Smiles that appeared effortlessly. She’d always had to consider her smiles carefully, lest they reveal too much.
Except with him. When they were alone, just the two of them, those smiles had come easy, even though it was hard for her to let go. For him, she had done it.
The mist turning, a fat droplet of water splashed past the rim of his hat and into his eye. “Rain has started.”
She nodded. “It has. And it’s wonderful.”
Her head swiveled to him, rain collecting on the brim of her bonnet. Sparks flew in her blue eyes as she watched him, the smile still dancing on her face.
She was falling in love with him. But what did he expect? Their attraction spanned lost memories. This guttural, unspeakable need for each other. She felt it just the same as he knew it. And now she was free—open where once she was not. Open to meeting a strange man for a ride. Her caution had disappeared, replaced by a blind trust he couldn’t fathom her ever possessing. Meeting him—effectively, a stranger to her—was something she never would have even considered ten years ago.
She was free. Free of the past that haunted her. The past that curbed her smiles. The past that made her suspicious of everything around her.
He needed to leave. Leave her to her freedom. For all she smiled at him, for all she found him and who he claimed to be curious, she didn’t remember him. He’d thought there would be a chance for them if they spent time together and it sparked a memory.
But nothing. All day, and nothing. Not a glimmer of recognition.
It was too much to be near her like this.
All he wanted to do was grab her and bury his face in her neck, tug down her dress, hear her laugh when his knuckles brushed along her ribcage under her breast.
All he wanted was his body sinking onto hers.
His look jerked away from her, his gaze fixed to the passing trees. “We will part ways at the split in the trail ahead. You need to get back to your grandmother’s home so you don’t catch a chill.”
She chuckled. “Though it is kind of you to worry upon me, I am hardly a child that will catch my death in a spot of rain.”
His mouth went terse at her light voice.
Resist. Resist at all cost.
He needed to leave Sandfell. Needed to gather his belongings and leave this village, leave this land and forget he ever stumbled upon this place.
A moth to the blaze, he couldn’t stop himself from looking at her and a rage he could barely control swept through him.
He wanted his damn wife back. He wanted her looking at him like he was the one person in the world she needed. Just as he needed her.
But she sat there on her horse, entertained—intrigued—by him and what he told her, but nothing more. What had he thought would happen—a day riding together and she would fall in love with him again? Regain all her memories?
She still had no inkling of their love. Of the life they once led.
And it was killing him, for he’d never been able to resist her—she’d always been a flame that would burn him to a crisp, time and again, and still he would be driven back to her.
He tore his gaze away from Sienna’s profile. He couldn’t look at her and bring himself to be the man he needed to be.
If her memory of him came back to her, so would all the memories. Memories that were better left forgotten.
She was content, so what kind of a monster would he be to trade her current peace and happiness away for memories that would only ravage her mind? Memories that needed to stay buried.
He had to give her this. No matter what it cost him.
He had to get out of Yorkshire.
{ Chapter 4 }
Five miles out of Sandfell, Logan passed by the abandoned gamekeeper’s cottage at the edge of Baron Valsper’s lands. Mostly hidden in woods, Sienna had pointed out the decaying thatched-roof cottage as they rode past the day before.
The rain had poured thick after he parted ways with Sienna the evening before and he’d had no choice but to give himself one last night in Sandfell. One last night wavering—his selfishness waging a vicious battle with his integrity. That he’d had a bottle of brandy delivered to his room hadn’t helped the matter and he had awoken with heavy eyelids, slow muscles, and muddled thoughts.
Muddled, except for one overriding decision. He needed to leave Sandfell. Needed to leave Sienna to her peace.
Peace she would never know again if she remembered all that had happened.
He would get back to London and send two of his guards to watch over her—a necessity until he knew what Bournestein’s true strategy was with Sienna.
The edge of the forest cleared in front of Logan and he could see the intersection that marked the crossroad to London. The road still thick with muck, he’d passed no other traffic on the road that morn. He pulled the front of his black, broad-brimmed hat further down his brow. The rain had dwindled to a drizzle that he’d been shielded from by the trees, but now in open land he realized it would be a slow, wet slog to London.
He heard it before he saw it, in the same moment he turned south on the crossroad. A horse and rider galloping through the woods behind him at full speed.
He turned to the sound just as the horse broke free of the line of trees.
Sienna.
Her brown mare heaving, its long legs stretching with every stride.
He didn’t stop his horse, even though it nickered at him, watching Sienna and her mare just as intently as Logan was.
Five more steps on the road to London, and she caught up to him, pulling her horse to a stop directly in his path.
He had to hide a smile. She was
bold. She hadn’t lost that when she’d lost her memories.
Her hand flat on her chest, she panted a few hard breaths before swallowing hard, her blue eyes piercing him. “You said you were going back to the village last evening.”
“I did. And now I am leaving Sandfell.”
Her lips pursed as her eyes narrowed at him. “You’re not leaving Sandfell, you’re leaving me.”
He paused, and for one second in time, he almost gave in. With a shake of his head, his mouth clamped shut and he set his heel into his horse’s flank, moving it forward.
Sienna’s mare danced a step away and she flicked on the leather reins, moving to block his path once more. She waited until his horse stopped, then scrutinized him. “Why are you leaving me after what you told me?”
“That you’re my wife?” Logan sighed, looking out across a hayfield soaking in the drizzle. “You don’t remember me, Sienna. Let us leave it at that. Your life will be immeasurably better as it is now.”
“I disagree—I may not remember you—”
“And that is the point, Sienna—you don’t remember me.”
“No—you were the one that approached me.” Her voice pitched higher, filling the thick air. “You were the one with these wild claims of being my husband. And now what? You are just going to leave? Without telling me?”
His jawline hardened. “Exactly.” He nudged his horse to the right to pass her. For a moment, he thought he would clear his way around her. But his wife was never one to back down.
Facing the opposite direction, her horse alongside his, she reached out just as he passed, shifting her weight into the stirrup of her sidesaddle. The stretch of her arm committed—if she missed him, she would fall off her horse.
Her fingers snagged the backside of his overcoat at the last instant, stopping her momentum toward a long fall to the ground.
He yanked up on his reins, looking back at her balanced precariously between their horses.
“My mind may not remember you, Logan.” Her blue eyes were wide, fight still firing in the azure depths. “But my body remembers you. My hands. They can do nothing but draw you. Years of drawing you. Your eyes. The line of your jaw. You.”
Damn her. Damn that the first time he’d heard his name from her lips in ten years was in this moment.
All caution to the wind, she released her hand from the pommel of her sidesaddle and reached out to grab his forearm, committing herself to stopping him, no matter the consequences of her mare moving.
Her fingers squeezed his arm as her eyes centered on him. “And my body…when you are near me…I cannot breathe…” She paused, her head dipping down as she swallowed. She looked up at him. “I cannot stop the whirlwind that tears through my insides, the aching. I have never felt this—never looked at another man and even considered it, but with you, it is…it is a need for you that demands to be satiated but is never satisfied.”
His hands frozen on his reins, he shook his head. “But you don’t know me, Sienna.”
“I do. You say I do.” She shook his arm. “You are the one that asked me to consider you were telling the truth. And I have considered it.”
“Sienna—”
“I have considered it—considered you. And my mind may not recognize you, but my body—my body knows you, Logan. I don’t know how, but it does. My body needs yours in a way I’ve never imagined.”
His name again.
She said it with such ease, such familiarity that it made his gut sink in horror that he hadn’t left her soon enough—he hadn’t left before he could do more damage than good.
Her hand clutching the back of his overcoat shifted, grabbing the edge of his saddle and she pulled herself upward, so far he wondered if her toes were even still on her stirrup. Her blue eyes almost eye level with his, she leaned in, her lips brushing against his, the gentlest touch.
Of all the things he could deny, kissing his wife was not one of them. His hand instantly lifted, his fingers curving around the back of her neck, holding her lips to him. Kissing her. Full and hard with no question as to who she belonged to. Who he belonged to.
Her lips molded under his, her body leaning into him. The smallest mewl came from her throat.
The sound of it reached through the fog enveloping his head and he panicked, yanking his head away.
What was he doing? Doing to her? Doing to him?
Her head snapped back, confusion rolling across her face. “You—you don’t want to stay. You don’t want me.”
Words so rough they were barely understandable ripped from his throat. “I cannot love you again, Sienna.”
“Why not?” She leaned away from him, shifting her weight back down to the stirrup of her sidesaddle. The movement pushed on her horse and her mare skittered several steps away. Sienna slipped, her hands dragging from Logan and flailing for a moment in midair.
His heart stopped, her fall head first into the ground already in his mind. But then she twisted, untangling her foot from the stirrup just before she fell to the road. She landed sideways, one foot and one hand sinking into the wet muck of the road and catching all of her weight.
Before he was down and off his horse to help her, she had shoved herself upright with a grunt. She glanced over her shoulder as she stood, checking her horse. It had stopped at the edge of the road next to a low stone fence, happily munching on sprigs of bright green summer grass.
Logan reached out to help Sienna steady her balance, but she whipped her look back toward him and the glare she shot him stopped his movement.
“Why not?” The two words hissed through her gritted teeth.
His hands dropped to his sides as his shoulders lifted in a heavy sigh. “You mistake what I want to do with what I have to do, Sienna. I cannot love you because you are at peace. You are safe here. No matter how I want you, I cannot take that away from you.”
“I am at peace?” A caustic chuckle left her lips as she slapped her muddied hand against the skirts of her dark blue riding habit. “I haven’t been at peace since the moment you grabbed me on the lane and I stuck you, Logan.”
He winced, turning from her and looking back into the woods he travelled from, his fingers running through his hair. “Then because I am death, Sienna—how about that? I am death when I am with you. If I love you, death will follow. It always does. And I won’t do that again.”
“Death?” She stepped in front of him, confusion thick in her eyes. “What madness is this?”
She planted herself before him, a demanding ball of fire, and all he could do was look away.
She grabbed his forearm. “Logan, you cannot charge into my life, upend it, and then keep everything you know and I don’t hidden from me. It’s not right. It’s cruel.” Her fingers curled hard into his muscles. “And I don’t think you’re a cruel man—in fact—I’m fairly positive you’re the farthest thing there is from cruel.”
He stifled a sigh. He couldn’t defend against it. It wasn’t fair to keep her from the past she had every right to remember. He knew that. But the burden of the last time his love for her had caused death was his alone to suffer.
Her fingers loosened and went gently to his upper arm, and she angled herself close so she could look up at him from under the brim of her bonnet. “Tell me what haunts your face, Logan.”
He found her eyes, the azure depths of the blue making him waver. She wanted so much to touch this past that she could not grasp.
She believed.
He had gotten her to believe they had a past. And now all he wanted to do was protect her from remembering it.
She wouldn’t give up fighting for an answer. He knew that of her spirit. She would always fight.
Maybe…maybe if he told her, she would understand. Understand how life in Sandfell—far away from him—was exactly what she needed. Was exactly why he had to leave this place.
His body tensed and he braced himself as he met her look. “I chose you over my men, Sienna.”
“What?”
“On the continent against Boney’s forces.”
Her forehead scrunched. “Boney’s forces? How—where—how could you do that?”
“You were there during the war.”
“I was on the continent?”
He nodded. “In Spain—you followed me into the damn war. I had you safe in a village far from the fighting, but then…”
“Then what?”
“Then the French swept the countryside. When I learned where they were coming, what they were doing along the way…” He stopped, his eyes closing as his head shook at the barbarity of the memory. “They were burning everything in their path.”
He opened his eyes to her, his voice vehement. “You were in their path.”
“Logan…”
His head dropped, his eyes hiding from her. “So I gathered my men and instead of joining the other forces at Arapiles I marched my men toward your village. It was suicide and I knew it. They knew it. Yet I made them march into that village. All of us. Not one of them questioned me.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm, a gasp fluttering from her lips.
He rushed on before she could question him—question his stupidity—for it was nothing he hadn’t played over again and again in his own mind. “Their eyes—I saw it in there, the betrayal. Yet their feet kept moving. Straight into the devil’s flames. My men died because I was weak—because I chose you—I had to. I had to save you.”
Her fingers dropped from his arm, her voice choked. “You…you shouldn’t have…didn’t need…”
“I damn well know that now, Sienna. For the whole of it—it didn’t matter. You were dead. When I got to your house it had just been swept with flames and your body was charred in the ruins. But your hand—you still clutched your ring. That is how I knew you were dead.”
“But it couldn’t have been me.”
“No.” His head shook, his voice bitter at his own idiocy. “And my men died because I was weak. If we had saved you…then maybe…maybe it would have been justified, what I sacrificed to save you.” He paused for a long moment, his words going to a choked whisper. “A man does not consider failure when he needs to save his wife. But it was a failure. I didn’t save you. And then I couldn’t save them. And it has been my burden to bear ever since.”
The Devil in the Duke: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 4
