by Devon, Eva
She needed to feel the air upon her face. She needed to have a few moments to see the sky as she always did when the world seemed to overwhelm her. Yes, the fresh air always sorted her out when she needed to be reminded what it was like to be free and not in the horrors of the workhouse.
So without looking back, she headed through the cobblestone courtyard and over the arched bridge that crossed the sea loch, linking it to the mainland.
And then her feet touched the soft grass of the Highland glen.
Once she was on that land, she deepened her stride, positively eating up the earth.
Indeed, she walked quickly without looking back, without thinking. For now, she could let her mind dance and skitter about as she needed. And she did need it. Too many thoughts had come crashing down upon her in the last day.
How had she come to be here?
How had she possibly come to be with such a man as the duke? No, not the duke. Tristan.
He was entirely unlike anyone she had ever met in her whole life. Despite his strength and dangerous veneer, he seemed kind. But she’d never known kindness. What was she to do with kindness?
My God, what was she to do with the sudden freedoms he seemed to wish to give her. All her life, she had been dictated to and told what to do. Obedience was the only thing that had kept her alive.
Oh, she had learned how to subvert those rules in small ways. But she had been very careful. And under her uncle’s roof, the smallest indiscretion could land her the worst of punishments.
So, now if she charged across the glen and began to walk upward over the hill, she wondered, would she face a consequence? Or could her husband be in earnest? Did he truly wish her to be free?
It seemed such a mad thing. It seemed even madder still that he might like her at all. Much to her amazement, this morning, she’d felt it truly for the first time. Tristan admired her and wished her happiness.
She could hardly countenance it.
For surely, he could sense the things that she had done, the horrible choices she had made. He must know the kind of person that she was.
She was no sweet girl. She had been involved with the ruin of many young men, and she had not looked back when she had done it. No, she had only been concerned with her own survival.
How could he not see that? He had to see that.
And yet, he wished to be kind to her still. Such a thing made no sense to her. But it seemed to be true. She bit down on her lower lip as she lifted her face into the crisp air.
Just as she was crossing over a small promontory, her boots barely clutching to the slick grass, she stopped. Slowly, she breathed in the sea air. It filled her lungs and made her feel heady as if she might suddenly take flight.
The wind danced through her hair as it barreled in from the sea. And she turned her face to it, lifting her chin. It felt as if that wind could cleanse her soul. She knew it couldn’t, of course, but for one brief moment, she hoped it would.
As she turned to look out at the great glen, her heart squeezed with wonder. She’d known so little of the world. And now there was this grand place.
The glen, the hills, they soared around her. Their ancient, rugged stones singing a song she’d never heard. The sky was crystal blue this day. The wind was as playful as if it were a living being. And the sea loch below sparkled silver.
In such a place, she imagined one could feel entirely free, but she could never be truly free, could she?
And just as she was about to sit upon a stone and contemplate her future, she noticed that she was not alone. From the corner of her eye, she caught the sight of a brightly colored skirt flickering behind the gorse bushes.
“Hello?” she called tentatively, tensing.
Suddenly, it struck her that she was alone in a place she did not know. This was not her uncle’s estate where she reigned and had great protection. In fact, she had no idea how the villagers might react to an English woman.
But the skirt had been one that was clearly not that of a peasant.
“Hello?” she called again, more firmly this time. There was no immediate answer, but the low bushes rustled ever so slightly.
“I won’t hurt you,” she said.
Just as she was about to take a step forward. The bushes rustled again, and a young woman stepped away from them. Her brightly colored green skirts danced about her legs.
A cloak of matching emerald fluttered about her frame. Her face was pale, so pale it might have been as white as any snow. And her eyes? Her gaze was haunted, a dark blue, bluer than the sky above them. That gaze only seemed to drive deeper, and deeper, and deeper into Annabelle’s soul as she looked.
Without another word, the young woman whipped around and ran away. Her footsteps thudded on the earth as she went. Annabelle started to call out to ask her to stay, but then she realized how foolish that was. She knew nothing about the girl. She knew nothing about why she was hiding. And it was very clear that the young woman had no desire for company.
As the wind whipped against Annabelle’s skirts, she stared after that disappeared girl. Something struck her then. She knew that face. She knew the lines of it. She knew the color of those eyes, and the shade of the hair. Oh, not that face exactly, but its male counterpart.
It looked so much like Tristan.
Annabelle stood still, wondering what secret she had just discovered. Or if it was a secret at all.
She was tempted, for a moment, to consider that she had fancied the entire affair, that her mind had tricked her. After all, this was the Highlands where books did claim magic reigned.
But she knew what she had seen. She had seen a girl. A girl who looked remarkably like her husband. Slowly, more carefully now, she turned and retraced her steps down the glen. Deliberately, each step digging into the dark earth, she looked up to the castle.
What secrets might be hidden in those beautiful towers?
Was her husband truly as kind as he seemed? Or was he like all other men that she had known before? Was he, too, full of darkness and secrets?
Everything that she had seen had shown that he was a man who was capable of violence but, at the same time, great restraint. Now she had to wonder what it was that had driven him to her uncle’s estate.
What secrets did his family keep?
As far as she could see, there was only one way to find out, and that was to ask.
But she could never ask. For in her experience, such questions brought great danger to oneself and sometimes great harm.
No, she would pretend as if she had never seen the girl, as if she had never realized there might be more to the castle than appeared.
So, as she crossed back over the bridge, ignoring the stares of her servants, she climbed back up the steps into the castle.
Annabelle pinned a smile to her face, determined to look like everything was absolutely perfect. As if she, too, did not have a host of secrets deep within her.
Chapter 17
The coaches rolled into the castle courtyard one after the other. Each black ducal vehicle, emblazoned with an elaborate coat of arms, made its way through the arched gates of the curtain wall and pulled up before the portcullis entrance. All this was happening as night was falling.
One after another, the doors of the coaches opened, and some of the most powerful men in the country descended.
Tristan stood high in one of the battlements, watching his dearest friends and allies make their way into the castle. He had sent word summoning them almost immediately upon marrying his wife.
The truth was, he needed support now. He needed advice. And he needed to know exactly what to do now that the man who had destroyed his sister’s life had slipped through his fingers. After all, at this moment, it was not simply a peer of the realm that he was trying to kill or destroy.
Oh, no. Now, he was dealing with a royal prince, and a royal prince would not simply beg off when the prince had done the ordering of his marriage to begin with.
Tristan had no idea how h
e was going to keep Annabelle’s honor intact. Bloody hell, he had no idea how he was going to ensure that she did not end up in the clutches of a prince.
But now that he had Annabelle, he was determined not to let her go. Something had happened in the days since her uncle’s estate. With every night, her entwined in his arms, and here at the castle, his soul had seemed to grow more insistent as it growled a single word again and again.
Mine.
And Tristan was damned certain that she had no desire to go with the prince herself. All her life, she had been a pawn. That was clear to Tristan.
Though she was exceptionally clever and exceptionally talented, he did not believe that she had been living in a situation of her own making.
No, she had learned to thrive in it, to survive in it, to do her very best in it. But she was a victim of the men who had controlled her most likely from the moment of her birth and, still, even to this day.
Now, he wanted to set her free.
Damnation, he wanted her to make her own choices. But it was no easy thing, for could she ever truly know freedom? After all, she was a wife now, a duchess. Period.
If one had to be a woman, he supposed being a duchess was the best thing a woman could be, for she had more power, more wealth than most women could ever dream of.
Furthermore, it was within his power as her husband, a duke, to give her a great deal of freedom. He was determined that she would have it.
But unless he could figure out how to deal with the prince, she would be lost, and so would he. For even as a duke, he still had to obey. There was little he could do right now except for seek out the help of others. These men had helped him since he had been little more than a boy. Their introduction had come when he had first gone to war and they had been allied ever since.
He prayed they could help him now to make a decision on what to do.
All this time, he had been acting out of rage, out of anger. The passion that had torn through his veins in his desire to pursue revenge had tempered. Perhaps because now it was not just his sister’s honor that depended on it.
Annabelle’s depended on his actions, too.
There were far too many lives now at stake for him simply to pursue hot justice. No, now he needed to be cold. Now he needed to be cool. He needed to be temperate. And he had to devise a way to protect both of the women in his life.
Tristan lifted the crystal brandy snifter to his lips and swallowed deeply. The rich French liquor coated his tongue with its spices. He savored the feel of it sliding down his throat to warm his belly.
He was desperate to ease the edge of anger that burned through him.
This morning, it had become all too clear how few choices Annabelle had had in her life. Though she liked to seem as if she were fierce and wild and capable of facing any difficulty, he had quickly realized that almost every facet of her life had been organized and dictated.
How the devil had she managed to endure it?
What other alternatives had there been?
None. Not truly.
No, women did not have many alternatives to following the dictates of their keepers. The bitter truth was that their fates were determined by the men about them. Yet, Annabelle had somehow managed to maintain a wonderful sense of self, even if she had been foiled at every turn.
Just the simple act of choosing coffee over tea this morning. It had been an act of rebellion, he knew, against her uncle, an act that he had encouraged. And he would encourage other acts of rebellion, other acts of freedom.
For instance, he knew that she had gone up into the hills alone. Every instinct inside him clamored for him to stop her, to shake her, to tell her not to go out alone. It was not a safe thing, not when her uncle and Caxton hated them so.
But he could not begin to dictate her actions, not now. No, he needed Annabelle to trust him. He needed Annabelle to know that he was on her side, even if he could not trust her as of yet.
He looked up to the cold Scottish night. The first stars danced wildly overhead as the sun sunk into the loch. They glimmered and shone with the promise of boyhood dreams.
One might think that magic truly existed looking up at those stars. For here, deep in the Highlands, they were an array of shimmering diamonds. He drew in a long breath, thinking once how happy he had been as a boy, how happy his sister had been, how many hopes that there had been for the future. So much had changed since then. He barely could countenance it. Now, he was a man. And now, he had family to protect.
He turned from the battlements and headed towards the narrow stairs that descended to the elaborate chambers below. His boots thudded on the grooved steps that curved in a spiral downward.
The way was so narrow his shoulders brushed the stone walls, and he moved with a decided easiness that belied the danger of the steps. For it would be very easy to slip and crack one’s neck on the narrow curving way. Having toddled his first steps in the castle had ensured his comfort.
At last, he came out to the great chamber that had been the place of so many feasts and so many celebrations. It was quiet now, for all the dukes were downstairs in a smaller chamber.
He paused and looked up at the banners of his family. For generations, the men of his family had ruled this part of the Highlands. They had been here since the time of the great Viking longships. They would be here for as long as he and his descendants could ensure. Now as he crossed the chamber, he felt the weight of history upon him.
Tristan drew upon the strength of the lairds that had come before as he strode forward. All the men of his family had been powerful, strong warriors. They had all faced great odds just as he was facing now and, like them, he would not yield.
Squaring his shoulders, he descended the remaining much wider stairs and headed into the grand chambers below.
MacLiesh had shown his friends into one of his favorite rooms, the library.
The long hall of a room was as old as Mary, Queen of Scots. Somehow, it had survived over years of war and rebellion. The shelves were lined with ancient tomes and texts. They varied in subjects from Aristotle, to Shakespeare, to Newton.
He’d read most of them, and he could read most of the languages, too, that were on those shelves. Just like his friends, he valued knowledge. Power was well and good enough, but power without experience, and power without education, left one little more than a brute, a blunt instrument with not but a cudgel.
No. He was not a cudgel. He was a blade, just like every other man in the room with him. As he strode through the arched entry, his fellow dukes paused.
There was a decided silence as the men turned towards him.
Wisely, they had already poured themselves drinks.
The subject they had come to discuss was no easy one and, after all, it was a long journey from London. One could hardly expect them to stand in the cold room without refreshment.
True, they were all used to ancient castles without a great deal of warmth, and even though a fire did blaze in the great hearth, it was impossible to warm the room entirely. Thick stone walls lined only with tapestries to keep the chill and damp out ensured that.
One by one, he met the eyes of Raventon, Drake, Royland, Harley, and Blackstone. They had all come. Every single one of them had heeded his call, and now they stood waiting to hear what he might have to say.
The silence stretched.
Now that he had them here, now that they had come at his call, he was not entirely sure how to begin. How did he admit what he had done? Damnation, how did he admit how far things had gone, and how was he to explain Annabelle?
“Well, you’ve gone and done it then, haven’t you,” Drake drawled.
The Duke of Drake was a strange fellow. He always had been, and he always would be. Frankly, Tristan liked him all the more for it.
“I hear you married,” Drake added blithely. “The lass must be truly tempting for a man like you to throw so much away on a quick wedding.”
The other dukes attempted smiles, but no o
ne was quite willing to shout congratulations, or felicitations, or slap him on the back.
They all knew what this quick marriage had meant, and it wasn’t because of a scandal, not the typical sort of scandal that caused a quick marriage.
Tristan cleared his throat. “Has no one poured a drink for me then?” he asked.
Raventon quickly moved to remedy the disparity, pouring out a deep glass of brandy. The beautiful amber hue winked in the firelight.
Nodding his solidarity, Raventon extended it to him.
Tristan took the crystal snifter in his hand and tossed back the contents in one quick swallow. Wordlessly, he handed it back to Raventon. He nodded his head towards the now half-full decanter, gesturing for more.
Raventon lifted his brows, a touch of surprise on his face, but he did not hesitate in replenishing the liquid. Tristan took it again.
“Och,” Tristan admitted, “I’ve done it. I’ve done it, my friends, and more. I have managed to potentially anger the most powerful men in the country, and in Europe.”
“Napoleon then,” drawled Harley.
“Oh, not Napoleon,” sneered Royland. “That idiot’s going to get himself well and clearly trounced at the end of the day.”
“Well, who does that leave? Wellington? Could Wellington possibly be angry at you?” quipped Blackstone.
“No’ Wellington. No’ Napoleon. The Prince of Wales and his men,” Tristan said with a touch of irony.
Harley, Raventon, Drake, Royland, and Blackstone stared at him for a long moment and then, one by one, they all began to laugh. For the Prince of Wales was not a man that most took any real note of except with regards to his debts. He was not considered generally to be dangerous. He was usually considered to be a fool. The only thing he had possibly done that could be considered to be of true value was the beautification of London.
“You cannot possibly be serious,” Royland said.
“Oh, but I am,” Tristan replied. “I have gotten myself deep in with the prince.” Tristan let out a sigh. “And even if the Prince of Wales has little power, the men about him do.”
