“None—none.” She grabbed his wrist, wrenching it away from her throat, her own voice lifting. “I smile at them because your mother insists that I barter with them and it’s easier if I smile.”
“Of course, you little witch. Of course, you use your wicked ways—just like you use them on me. Tempting me. Tempting me all the time and never delivering anything to me. You want me and then you don’t and then you do and you damn well like to play with me.”
“Percival—I don’t—”
“You do!” His face went into hers, spit landing on her cheek as his nose rammed into her skin. “You do, and now you’ve gone off and given away what was mine—what I have been waiting for all these dammed years.”
She shoved past him, starting down the hall.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Your mother—I need to talk to your mother.” Her feet sped down the corridor.
His hand flew from behind her and grabbed her arm, viciously spinning her back toward him. “You’ll not speak to my mother—never again.”
“But she needs to know what—”
“I’ve already told her everything about you—about how you never went to Hampshire—never delivered that package.” His voice lifted into a brutal yell. “You don’t think she can hear us? Hear me?” His head tilted upward so he could scream up the stairs. “She hears me, but she’s not coming to your defense—not this time.”
“But—”
“But nothing—you’re out—out of our home, out of our lives. Out this very moment.” He gripped her upper arms and shoved her backward.
She fought him, trying to push past him, trying to dig her heels into the floorboards. “No. You cannot.” Five more steps lost to him. This couldn’t be happening. And her belongings—hell, the dress that Strider had bought her hidden away under her bed. She couldn’t leave it.
“No. I have to get my things.” She lunged forward in a desperate attempt to break his hold on her.
It didn’t work and he jerked her upright, lifting her from the floor—more strength than she’d ever guessed he possessed. “You don’t go anywhere—not in this house.”
Pen twisted in his arms. “But my things. I need my things.” She needed to get her dress. The rest of it was nothing. But Strider’s dress—it was everything.
He laughed—a strained bark—as he shook her. “You mean that dress?”
Her eyes flew wide open.
“You don’t think I know about that? I do. I know all about that whore’s dress.” His shaking grew brutal, sending her head to roll about her shoulders. “But it’s not yours anymore. Nothing is yours. Those are not your things upstairs. My family gave you that—all of it—the clothes on your back. Pray I don’t rip this one off of you before I toss you out. You had everything here—everything and you’ve thrown it all away.”
He dropped her, her heels hitting the floor hard. But his grip stayed on her arms.
“But no—Percival, please.”
“Please?” His snarl morphed into a perverse smile. “Now you say please? Well then, I might…might be willing to let you stay. Since you said please. Begged. But things will have to change and there will be consequences.”
“What things…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She knew exactly what was coming next.
He leaned in, the stench of his breath filling her pores. “I think you know exactly what, Penelope. I know you’ve wanted me for years and years. You will come into my bed and your lies will need to be beaten out of you. And you will beg me to stop. Beg me to take the pain away. Beg me.”
He yanked her into him and his mouth clamped onto her neck, sloppy and wet and grotesque. His right arm slithered around her backside, forcing her to him as his left hand went to her frontside, grabbing, pawing at her dress until he found her breast and squeezed it hard. Pain shot outward from his grip to her head and toes.
It took her a stunned moment to gasp a breath inward and she slammed her knee upward, catching him between the legs.
She ran toward the rear door as he screamed, doubling over, spittle flying everywhere. “Bloody bitch—I’ll send them after you—your neck will be in a noose by month’s end. You—”
His words cut off as she slammed the door closed and ran through gardens and into the mews.
Dark. It was dark now.
She turned to her right, running. Her legs so fast her skirts caught about her calves and she started to trip in her steps. One side street. Two. Three. A street to her left. Another to her right. And another.
A pain in her side exploded—a blade into her belly—and she stopped running, ducking into a skinny alleyway between two buildings.
Collapsing backward against the brick, panting for breath, she slid downward, her knees banging into the brick in front of her. The pain in her side throbbed as she buried her face in her hands.
What the hell had just happened?
She’d just lost everything—the last semblance of normalcy.
Gone.
And now she had exactly what she deserved.
Nothing.
{ Chapter 19 }
Strider looked down at his nails, then let his gaze stray to the wood carvings framing the flat black marble about the fireplace. An intricate design of lions and leopards playing up and down the sides of the mantel, the left side was clearly original. The right side, a reproduction. Burnt or broken off at some point, it had been clumsily repaired, the new carvings not of the same wood and a poor imitation of the left side of the mantel.
He'd have that redone. Redone right once this place was his.
There was a fellow on Parkers Lane—an underrated woodworker—craftsman—that had worked under several prominent architects in the finest homes of London. Though exceptionally skilled, the man didn’t know how to talk to people. His words came out in short bursts that rarely made sense—so he’d never made the type of money that he’d deserved. The type that would have gotten him out of the rookeries.
Pen would enjoy watching the craftsman work with the wood. In Belize when they were little, there was a man that carved figureheads for the bows of ships—fantastical women with magic in their wooden eyes. Mermaids, goddesses—his wife. Pen would sit under a mangrove tree outside his lean-to, watching him carve wood for hours, always amazed the man could create something out of nothing. Strider could still see her sitting there, her yellow dress getting dirty in the roots of the trees, her green eyes intense on his gnarled hands shaving away curls of wood. How her whole face would light up when she realized how he’d just made lips, eyes, hair, come to life.
Stop.
What the hell was he thinking? Contemplating what Pen would or would not like.
He’d given himself no margin to think on her. Not until this was done.
He shifted his stare to the window, staring at the boxwood hedges unfurling out from this side of the manor—a castle, truly. A gothic masterpiece set with soaring arches, flying buttresses and hovering gargoyles, it served the purpose of intimidation well. Whichever duke in the line built it must have had a macabre sense of purpose. History he’d hope was well documented within the house, for he doubted any of the family would dare to speak to him after he took over the estate.
Strider was moments away from finally grinding that arrogant smirk off his cousin’s smarmy lips. Finally taking back what was rightfully his. Everything he’d worked to destroy after he was thrown out of Leaven Manor years ago. Everything that he would now restore to its former glory.
All of this for his father and what had been stolen from him. His title. His legacy.
Strider wouldn’t let his father’s memory drift into forgotten dust of the past.
He had to concentrate on that—the task at hand. Not on what Pen would like. Not on what Pen was thinking. Not on what Pen was doing.
He’d exiled her from his life—rightfully so—and was disgusted with himself for how often his thoughts strayed to her. How often her face—so serious as she look
ed at him—would fill his mind. How the frown of her mouth could turn in an instant to the most glorious smile he’d ever seen. How her eyes would crinkle along the edges when he would catch her looking at him—like she couldn’t quite believe he was real, that they were together again.
Stop.
He only had one thing to think about at the moment.
Crushing his cousin.
He couldn’t afford any more distractions by that woman.
He heard the uneven clomp of his cousin’s feet on the wooden floor outside the drawing room. Ten years older than him, Frederick Hoppler, the current Duke of Leaven, walked toward the room with his limp from a childhood ailment. Strider refused to refer to him as the duke or as Hoppler, as both of those were Strider’s domains by all rights. His cousin would never be anything more than ‘Frederick’ to Strider.
The footsteps paused for a long breath just beside the open entryway.
Coward.
Strider kept his gaze on the window, refusing to turn to the doorway of the room.
The footsteps resumed, the clacking of boot heels turning into dull thuds as Frederick stepped onto the Axminister carpet swallowing the floor in the room. Impressive, for Strider had thought Frederick had sold all the rugs of worth a year ago. Though this one looked more worn. Different from the last time Strider had set foot in this room. But still a crumb of elegance when, by all reports, squalor echoed throughout the halls of Leaven Manor.
“Mr. Hoppler, you are not welcome in this home. I thought we determined this the last time you were here.” His cousin’s droll monotone broke into the silence of the room as his steps stopped. “The footmen are at the ready to repeat the encounter you last had here at Leaven Manor. They rarely get to throw men out, so this will be a treat for them. How is it you even convinced my butler to let you in?”
“The man wants to keep his job.” Strider turned to face his cousin. The man was smaller than him, but had some of the same facial features as his father. Strong nose, eyes that tilted inward slightly, dark hair. But the whole of his face was thin, sallow. Sickly, even. Too much wine and women, as Strider knew his vices to be.
“Keep his job? He’s about to lose it.”
“I’ll reinstate him when I move in here.”
A guffaw flew from Frederick’s mouth. So hearty and forced, it reeked pathetic. “Not this again. We both know you are nothing but an imposter—trying to lay claim to something you have no right to.” He turned around to exit the room. “I’ll send my footmen in to—”
“You’re done, Frederick. This time I have proof.”
Frederick’s feet stopped.
A moment passed, and then without turning around his hand flew in the air above his shoulder, dismissing Strider. “You have nothing.” He started forward to the doorway.
“Then you don’t want to see what will be your downfall?” Strider’s voice nonchalant, he stared at the back of Frederick’s greased hair. “You prefer to have it hit you, all at once then, the freezing snowbank I plan on kicking you face-first into? I would say I came with some thought of gentlemanly courtesy, but really it was to watch your face when your carefully coiffed world fell about you.”
That made Frederick turn around, his squinting eyes staring at Strider. “What are you talking about?”
Strider reached into his coat and pulled free a folded piece of vellum. He held it out to Frederick.
His cousin stormed across the drawing room, snatching it from Strider’s outstretched hand.
His hands trembled as he unfolded the paper, then clasped at the edges with his knuckles turning white. Frederick scanned the words, his eyes pausing at the signature.
He didn’t look up. “This…this is a fake—a clear forgery.” His glare lifted to Strider as a snarling sneer lined his lips. “A sorry excuse for a ruse.”
Frederick lifted the paper, ripping it in half. And again. And again. And again until he couldn’t tear the paper anymore because it was too strong against his fingers. With a growl, he threw the shreds of paper into the air at Strider. “Be gone with you and your malevolent schemes, trying to get into my family’s graces. Never, I tell you. You’re a charlatan.”
Strider crossed his arms over his chest, not allowing himself the smallest smile. There would be time for that later.
The shreds of the letter floated, fluttered to the floor between them.
But Strider knew the words by heart for how many times he’d read the letter in the last ten days.
March 14, 1808
My son, Strider Lawrence Hoppler,
I have held this from you, as you are still too young to understand, but at your mother’s insistence, I write this letter now in case you should ever need it.
You must know that you are descended from a long line of distinguished men.
I never wanted you to be burdened with what has been bestowed upon you, what is your birthright, and your mother and I left England after she was threatened. Our intention was that your grandfather would declare me lost at sea—dead.
That did not happen and I have reconciled with your grandfather. He knows of your birth.
Know that this does not mean you have to choose the path I have foregone. It is your choice, and your choice alone.
If you determine it so, you may contact your grandfather and take your rightful place in the family. He assures me you will be welcomed. You must contact the office of Graves and Simpson on St. James Street in London and ask for Mr. Thomas Graves, solicitor. Show him the turtle-shaped birthmark on the back of your arm and he will tell you all you need to know of the family and what would be your responsibilities within it. If you then desire to move forth, he will arrange for you to meet your grandfather.
With love and admiration for the boy you are and the man you will become.
—Your father, Wallace Ferdinand Hoppler
Strider waited until the last piece of the ripped paper curled onto the carpet, then shook his head. “You don’t think that’s the original, do you? Don’t be stupid, Frederick.” His forefinger flicked out from his clasped arms to point at the floor. “That’s a tracing. The original is already in the hands of the House of Lords. Your days here are numbered.”
Red flooded Frederick’s face, so crimson he looked to explode. His hands swung in front of him, pointing at the mess of vellum on the floor. “This—this is a forgery. Anyone can see that.”
“Except that this tracing also doesn’t include the seal of my father’s signet, which the original does. And the facts in the letter are about to be verified by eyewitnesses to both my birth and to my parents’ marriage.”
Frederick stepped forward, grinding his heels into the shreds of paper. “No—no—you paid people off. That is the only way.”
Strider shook his head. “No, actually. One doesn’t need to pay off anyone when the truth is what you want it to be.”
Frederick’s face went vicious and he started backing out of the room—cornered prey scurrying for cover. “This won’t work, I tell you. It won’t. It’s just a bloody piece of paper. It won’t work.”
“Except it will.” Strider unthreaded his arms, taking a step forward. “Don’t even think about sending men to intervene—they’ll be too late on all accounts. Let me assure you, there is no stopping this. The letter clearly states I am his son. The birthmark on the back of my arm has already been verified.”
Both of Frederick’s arms swung wide, his yell filling the room, breaking from all decorum and gentility. “You don’t even want the title, you bastard, for how hard you’ve driven it into the ground.”
“I’ll rebuild.” Strider shrugged as he took another step forward. “For my father’s memory. For what should have been his.”
“No—your father was a wastrel—never good enough for the title, what with that whore of a woman he ran off with. He—”
His fist instant, Strider swung, connecting to jaw, to teeth that dislodged under his knuckles. Frederick flew backward, landing hard on his bac
k, his head knocking into the wooden floorboards just beyond where the carpet ended. His eyes rolled back into his head, his eyelids closing, but breath still lifted his chest.
Too bad it wasn’t the marble.
Strider moved forward, grinding his heel into Frederick’s belly as he stepped over him on his way out the door. “Don’t ever disrespect my mother.”
{ Chapter 20 }
Pen curled around the corner of bricks on the elevated plant bed full of lavender. Dewy grass beneath her cheek, the smell of rosebuds opening behind her in the early morning sun wafted down to her.
Without opening her eyes, she sank her face toward the blades of grass, her parched tongue touching the moist tips.
When was the last time she had water? Two days? Food? Three…four days. Maybe five. She counted the private gardens she’d slept in the past nights. Two nights in that sequestered garden behind the lovely light-yellow townhouse on Seymour Street. Three nights in that garden with the weeping willow—far too large for its small plot of land, but perfect to hide away from the mist within the cloak of long, wispy branches. Two nights where she lay now, behind a wide townhouse with a facade of Portland stone—the stucco walls and thick hedges surrounding the private garden sheltering her from the mews and neighbors. She’d chosen all of the homes for their lack of current residents—easy, as so many were out of London at this time of year.
So many fancy homes empty. Such a waste.
But finding a place to sleep meant nothing without food and water, and she had barely staggered into this garden before collapsing into a sheltered corner by the tall evergreen hedge.
She’d roamed during the daylight hours, sticking to alleyways and mews for fear of a constable happening upon her, and she hadn’t found any discarded bread or food that she could salvage in days. Just half of a mincemeat pie tossed out of a window of a carriage house that had made her violently ill two hours after she had devoured it.
Her head lifted slightly, the rays of the morning sun breaking over the top of the evergreen hedge opposite her. She couldn’t go on like this, the hunger gnawing like a rabid dog at her belly, vicious, just as it had been in that year after the fire. She had lived in fear of falling into hunger like this for the last seventeen years, yet here she was again. Life with the Flagtons ended just as it had begun.
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