Never A Duke (Dukes' Club Book 11)

by Eva Devon

  She swung her gaze down to the dock.

  Calliope’s breath caught in her throat.

  He stood there in a dark blue coat.

  It hung all the way down to his boots. It was new, that coat. But it was rough. It wasn’t made for a drawing room or for riding in Hyde Park.

  It looked as if it was ready for the wildest wind and weather.

  The lapel was up about his neck, his hair was shorn, and in its short state, it was strangely dark and wavy about his harsh cheekbones. He looked at her with fiery eyes and asked, “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

  She looked down at him and tensed. “Why in God’s name should I permit you aboard The Wasp?”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Don’t you have need for another crewmember?”

  She looked at him carefully. “Aren’t you needed in some godforsaken part of the world?”

  “Only if you have need of me,” he said. “For I am needed nowhere else.”

  “And what about the great British empire?” she countered.

  “The British empire has enough people to do her bidding, and I, well. . . I’ve sold my commission,” he announced.

  “You what?” she gasped, realizing that was why he bore no scarlet coat.

  “I’ve sold my commission,” he repeated happily. I am no longer a soldier in His Majesty’s service. No, I am ready to be only at your service, my Captain.”

  Adam, Alexander, and Cleo gaped at him as if he had absolutely lost his mind.

  Calliope, on the other hand, took a step forward and braced her hands along the railing of her ship. “You wish to follow me?”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” he said passionately. “Through wind, or weather, or storm, or squall, or doldrums. Whatever it takes, I wish to be by your side. Will you permit it? Someone as ignorant of the sea as I? Can you teach me, Calliope? Can you teach me to be an adventurer like you?”

  Her heart slammed in her chest. She could hardly believe the words he spoke. Regardless, they swept her up, and she felt as if she were flying.

  “You already are an adventurer,” she pointed out.

  “Oh, I have gone on a great many adventures,” he agreed, propping a foot higher on the gangplank. “But I have never been free as you.” He met her gaze with his open one. “Can you teach me how to let go of the past? Can you teach me how to take sail?”

  A smile parted her lips then. She could barely stand how marvelous it felt to see him there.

  “I cannot believe that this is what you wish,” she replied, her voice full of emotion, not daring to truly believe yet.

  “Calliope,” he said firmly. “You are my other half. You are the freedom to my rules. The adventure to my routine. You’re everything that I need. You have shown me my best self, and when I abandoned you out of fear, I realized that was where my darkness lay. It wasn’t my father’s feelings that made his life so unbearable. It was his fear. And I am afraid of living this life without you. For you make my life worth living.”

  Tears stung her eyes, and she dashed them away. “You make my life worth living too.” She swallowed and knew there was only one thing to do. Clearing her throat, she ordered in her most captain-like voice, “Now, come aboard, then. We’ve papers for you to sign.”

  He stormed up the gangplank, grabbed her into his arms, and whirled her around.

  “That was too easy,” he said. “But I am grateful for it.”

  “Easy?” she queried, savoring the feel of his strong arms about her. “Not easy at all. I’ve heard that you were kidnapped.”

  “I was,” he agreed. “And I thought it the best thing in the whole world. For they were going to take me to you, but I realized. . .”

  “Yes?” she prompted, gazing up at him.

  “I didn’t want to be taken to you,” he said softly. “I wanted to come to you with open arms and open heart. For you are my compass, Calliope. You are my true north. You are my stars.”

  She lifted a hand and cupped the side of his cheek. “I love you, Lock. My north, my stars, my heart.”

  “And I, you. Let the adventure begin?”

  “Let the adventure begin,” she confirmed.

  And hand-in-hand they went across the deck, ready to lift up anchor and set sail to begin their lives without fear, without looking back.

  Now they could embrace each other without fear of recriminations or of the past stretching out its hand to touch them.

  And her heart took flight, for she had never felt so free as she did with him.

  Epilogue

  Six months of sailing round the world with Lock had taught her one thing: the past was not as quite behind her as she wished.

  And it wasn’t Lock’s past that was causing the difficulties.

  No, it was her own.

  It had been so easy to think that almost all of the trouble was with him, but she knew the truth of it was that she was just as afraid as he, afraid that he would abandon her.

  And that fear had made itself evident day after day until, finally, Lock took her into his arms and told her, “You know, my darling, I shall never leave you again, for you are my life, and I cannot live without my life.”

  Those words should have solved everything.

  She’d wanted to believe him, but she realized she was still terrified, like that little girl, long ago, whose father had left her, that one day Lock too would go.

  It was then that she knew exactly what was necessary, and they’d come to Boston, Massachusetts.

  Lock held her hand. They stood upon a doorstep she’d sworn never to grace.

  She rapped the bright brass doorknob.

  “You don’t have to do this, my love,” Lock said.

  “I do,” she countered, feeling grim. “If we are to have a future together, I must. I must face him.”

  “Well, I’m here to face him with you,” he said.

  She turned and whispered up to her new husband whom she had married at sea, “I’m so glad, my darling. Thank you for coming with me. This is exactly what I needed.”

  “I will be with you forever. For-bloody-ever,” he assured. “I will never go from your side, for I am your loyal second, happy to follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  She laughed then at his grandiosity. “Come what may, my love?”

  “Come what may, Captain Calliope,” he confirmed.

  “Good,” she said. “Now you’ll have to face the old bastard with me.”

  “Happily,” he replied. “We shall show him what he has done, the consequences of it, and then,” he said.

  “Then,” she said, “we will go, and I will remember how you love me.”

  “Good.” Lovingly, he brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear. “That is all I could ever wish.”

  The door swung open immediately, and an old man stood in its empty frame.

  Half of her wondered if it was a butler, but she knew from the cut of his coat and the shape of his cravat that it was not.

  It was absolutely her father.

  She looked at him.

  He looked at her.

  And his eyes flared. “You came,” he breathed. “At long last, you’ve come.”

  “Indeed, I have,” she said. “Your invitations simply became too many for me to ignore.”

  “Truly?” he asked softly and without recrimination. “You seemed quite capable of ignoring anything I sent.”

  It could have sounded harsh, but it didn’t.

  His eyes were warm and strangely full of worry as he looked upon her.

  “My God,” he said. “You look exactly like her.”

  She didn’t need to ask who the her was.

  She and Cleo were a picture of their mother, Anne Donnelly.

  He looked as if he was so happy to see her, and she could barely countenance it.

  “Come in, come in, my dear,” he urged with a wave of his big hand. “Come at once.”

  And so, she did.

  “May I ask who this fellow is?” her father aske
d over his shoulder.

  “Lord Lockhart Eversleigh,” she said. “My husband.”

  It was so strange, removing the title of captain from Lock’s name and replacing it with lord. But that was the proper thing, given he was the brother of a duke.

  “Husband?” her father echoed. Then he narrowed his eyes and studied Lock. “My goodness. Are you Lady Gemma’s brother, for you do look as if you are cut from the same cloth?”

  “I am,” Lock agreed, his manner calm.

  “Your sister is a treasure.”

  “She is, indeed. She knows how to keep us all on our toes,” Lock agreed.

  “Yes,” said Calliope’s father, “best possible thing for a man.”

  Calliope narrowed her eyes. “Is that what you truly think?”

  “Oh, yes,” her father said sadly. “Now, I have not always been able to do as I should with a woman who knew how to lead a fellow in a good dance. I. . .”

  “Yes?” Calliope queried as he led them down the narrow hall.

  “Come, come,” he said. “Let us have a drink of brandy as we talk over it.”

  “If you insist,” she said, and then her father was quickly pouring out three snifters of brandy in a small parlor that was actually quite simple but well appointed.

  He gestured for her to sit before the small but hot fire.

  “Calliope,” he said. “I know that I have done you a great wrong. . .” He hesitated then said, his eyes two great wells of pain, “I did love your mother.”

  She was stunned both at how quickly he got to the point and at his blunt confession.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said, her hand tightening on her snifter. “How could you?”

  “I loved her deeply,” he said simply, his voice deep with pain. “By God, I have been waiting to tell you this for so long. . . My dear. This reflects very poorly on me, but you see, I had my boys, and I was terrified of what they would think of me for forgetting their own mother so quickly after her death and falling in love with yours.”

  “What?” she gasped.

  Her father’s face whitened. “I did not wish to lose them, and I was terrified that they would hate me for having. . .”

  “Father,” she said. “You left us.”

  “I did,” he agreed. “And it is the greatest regret of my life. I left you,” he whispered, “because I was afraid. Because I felt I had to return to my sons because I was afraid of losing them. Instead, they still thought little of me for my roughness, and I lost all of you. They were angry at me for years for my harsh manner. And. . . I lost you, too, by trying to do what I thought was right. Well,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “I lost everything.”

  She wanted to feel sympathy for him, but it was difficult.

  Here, now, in this room, staring at the old man who looked far more faded than she would have imagined, she did not know what to do.

  He did not look like the great adventurer of her memories.

  No, he looked like someone who had been beaten by life’s harsh brush.

  “You don’t have to forgive me,” he said, his eyes dark with regrets. “I don’t ask it of you, but I do wish you to know that leaving you was the greatest mistake of my life.”

  She looked at him then, truly, and she said, “Thank you for telling me that.” She took a long drink of brandy then ventured, “But I am not here for you to be forgiven or not. I am here,” she said, “to choose to live my life without being afraid anymore, without being afraid of being abandoned.”

  He grimaced. “I am so sorry, Calliope, that I did that to you. It was the worst thing I could have done.”

  “No,” she countered. “I don’t think it was the worst, but it hurt.” Her heart tightened in her chest, but then she forced herself to relax. To breathe. “It hurt greatly, and I do wish you to know that.”

  He nodded. “Thank you, dear girl, for coming here to look me in the face and tell me the truth. It is the most I could have ever hoped for, but. . . I hope that, perhaps one day, you will give me another chance to be the father that I failed to be in the past, for I have learned so much as an old man.”

  She smiled at that, unable to stop herself.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I can tell you this. I have found love, and I know it is a love that will never go away.”

  Lock took her hand, holding it tightly in his. “That’s right,” he said.

  “And for me to keep that love,” she declared passionately. “I must let go of what you did, and it is time for us to move on and to leave the past where it belongs. . . in the past.”

  Her father nodded his white head, accepting of her words.

  And as they sat there together, contemplating each other, she felt the weight of the memory of him leaving lift from her.

  Her father was not a perfect man, it was true, but nor was he the villain that she’d so imagined him to be for so long. He was just a man, just someone who had made mistakes, just someone who was now hoping that she would forgive him.

  And perhaps, one day, she could.

  *

  One year later

  The ship tossed on the great sea, and she and Lock laughed as they stood on the quarterdeck. The wind whipped at their hair as they sailed through the tumultuous waters.

  It was a wild ride full of danger, but the two of them faced the crashing waves and the wicked rocks, grins upon their faces.

  Lock held onto her and the wheel tightly, and he suddenly bellowed, “Thank you, Calliope.”

  She turned to him, her hands tight about his waist.

  “What ever for?” she called over the wind.

  “For this,” he called back, “my darling. For this.”

  And with that, he took her mouth in a searing kiss.

  As they stood, The Wasp circling around the Cape of Good Hope, she knew that their life would always be one of adventure, of love, of hope, and of passion, and that was worth everything.

  Next up is A Duke Like No Other

  Pre-order now!

  Don’t Miss the Other Books

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  Once Upon A Duke

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