The Secret Wallflower Society: (Books 1-3)

by Jillian Eaton

  “I’m sorry. I know he was your father, and this was must difficult to hear–”

  Stephen lifted his head, and the rage in his eyes stole the breath from her lungs. “Any bastard who could do that to woman, who could do that to you, is no father of mine. If anyone should apologize, it’s him. And it’s me. I am sorry, Helena. My Helena.” He hugged her close as he began to rock back and forth. “My sweet lamb. My one and only love.”

  Her heart stilled.

  “You – you love me? Still?”

  “Always,” he said fiercely. “I’ve loved you always.”

  Helena smiled through her tears. “Always sounds good to me. It is how long I intend to annoy you, after all. Should we forget everything that’s happened then, and start again?”

  “No,” Stephen said as he carefully put her down, and panic filled her before he dropped suddenly to one knee and held out his hand. “But we should forgive each other, and look to the future. Lady Cambridge, will you do the great honor of courting you?”

  She started to laugh. Then her eyes widened. “You’re serious. Stephen, you don’t need to court me; I’m already yours.”

  “I know,” he said. “But it’s something I want to do.”

  “Will there be presents?” she asked, only half-jesting.

  “I suppose. But no scarves. You’ve already plenty of those.”

  “Then my answer is yes.” Ignoring his hand, she jumped straight into his arms. Right where she belonged. Where she had always belonged. “Let’s have a courtship, and a wedding, and beautiful children with your eyes and my hair. Let’s have it all, Stephen.”

  And even though it wasn’t always easy…they did.

  Epilogue

  Helena tapped her knuckle against the door, then beamed when Percy opened it. She’d been doing a lot of beaming lately. Ever since she and Stephen became officially engaged, it was hard not to smile.

  He’d brought her back to the very same fountain where they’d first met. And there in the moonlight, with the scent of wisteria in the air, he had asked her to be his wife. She had said yes, of course, and they were to be wed in two weeks’ time at a small church just outside of London.

  Only a handful of loved ones would be in attendance. Stephen had offered her a big wedding, but she’d already had one of those. A simple affair was all she wanted. Not to say that her attire was going to be simple. The gown she had planned was fit for St George’s Chapel at Windsor, and she couldn’t wait for Stephen to see her in it. More than that, she couldn’t wait for him to see what she was wearing underneath of it.

  “You’re doing that little grin again,” Percy remarked as she stepped to the side to allow Helena into her room. “You’re thinking about your wedding night, aren’t you?”

  “Thirteen days and counting,” Helena said cheerfully before she sat down on a rosewood settee in front of the window. Summer sunlight spilled in through the glass, warming the top of her head as she leaned back against the sill. “It’s strange, really. For so many years the mere thought of my wedding night filled with me revulsion and guilt. But now I can hardly wait. How completely things can change when you’re with the person your heart needs.”

  “I hope that’s true,” Percy said, her tone a tad wistful as she dabbed perfume on her wrists. “It’s just that…”

  “What?” Helena asked when the duchess trailed off.

  Her expression troubled, Percy crossed her arms. “It’s just that Calliope has found her soulmate, and you’ve rediscovered yours. But I…I’m beginning to fear I am always going to be alone.”

  “That’s not true!” Helena argued. Springing up off the settee, she crossed the room and grasped Percy by her slim shoulders. “You’ll always have Calli and I.”

  “I know, but…it’s not the same, is it?”

  No, it wasn’t the same.

  Helena loved her friends, but the love she felt for them and the love she felt for Stephen were two separate entities. Similar in some ways, different in others. She’d foolishly believed she could have one without the other, and maybe that was true for some people. But it hadn’t been true for her, and she recognized that it wasn’t true for Percy, either.

  “You’ll find someone,” she said with the utmost confidence. “Someone who treats you with respect and admiration. Someone who is deserving of you.”

  “But how?” In all the months Percy had been living with Helena she’d never cried, not once. But now her violet eyes were awash with helpless tears. “I am married. Even if I did find someone who loved me, there is nothing I can do.”

  “Divorce?”

  “Andrew would never allow it a hundred years,” Percy said bitterly, shaking her head. “It’d cause too much of a scandal.”

  “And beating his wife hasn’t?” Helena exclaimed. Inwardly cursing herself when the duchess flinched, she lifted her hands and stepped back, giving Percy the space she was too timid to ask for herself.

  “No one knows about that,” Percy said softly.

  “We know. Stephen, Calliope, Leo, and I. We know what he did to you, and he won’t get away with it.”

  A sad little smile stole across Percy’s lips. “There’s nothing that can be done except for me to remain hidden. It isn’t what I want, but it is vastly preferable to the alternative. I could never go back to him, Helena.”

  “And you won’t,” Helena vowed. “No matter what happens, he will never lay another hand upon you. I promise you that, Percy.”

  The duchess dashed the back of her hands across her eyes, then managed a watery laugh. “Enough about me. It’s you we need to focus on. Are you ready to go find the perfect pair of earrings to compliment your ridiculously gorgeous wedding gown?”

  Helena grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Later that evening, as Percy added the finishing touches to her latest painting in the rear garden while listening to the soothing chirp of crickets, she thought about promises.

  How often they were made.

  And how easily they were broken.

  Andrew had promised to love her and keep her. He’d vowed it, before God and King and Country. But the ink had barely dried on their signatures in the marriage register before he struck her the first time.

  A glancing blow to her cheek. An accident, he told her at once. Except they’d been in the middle of an argument – over what, she could no longer remember – and it hadn’t looked like an accident when he’d swung his hand through the air.

  He’d claimed the next time was an accident as well, and the time after that. He’d asked for forgiveness. He’d made excuses.

  If only she didn’t anger him so, he’d be able to control his temper. He didn’t want to hurt her.

  But he did.

  Again, and again…

  And again.

  Percy’s heart leap into her throat when she heard the distinct crack of a stick. In the quiet of the garden it sounded like a bone snapping; a sound she was well acquainted with. Holding her brush like a weapon, she slowly stood up, her gaze pinned to the shadowy fence at the far edge of the yard. Helena had gone out for the evening; Stephen was taking her to the theater. Calliope had offered to come keep Percy company, but she’d declined. Now she desperately wished she hadn’t.

  “Who – who’s there?” It was an improvement, she supposed, that she didn’t simply turn on her heel and run screaming back into the house. A show of courage, however slight. Courage that rapidly crumbled to dust when the looming silhouette of a man emerged from behind the shrubbery and began walking straight towards her.

  “S-stop right there!” she cried. “I – I have a knife, and I’ll use it! I swear I will!”

  “Are you threatening me with a paint brush?” The stranger’s voice was very deep, very masculine, and very amused.

  “N-no.” Not Andrew, she thought in relief. She would have recognized him at once. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t sent someone on his behalf. “It’s a knife. A very s-sharp knife.”

 
“It looks like a paintbrush to me,” the stranger drawled.

  “Well, it’s not! So you should just - just run away!”

  “I’m afraid I cannot do that.”

  Percy sucked in a startled breath when the dark figure stepped out of the shadows, revealing a tall, ruggedly built man dressed in all black. He had a strong jaw covered in bristle, a full mouth that was pulled to one side in a lazy smirk, and the most piercing golden eyes she’d ever seen.

  “W-why not?” she whispered.

  He took one step towards her, then another. Her arm holding the paintbrush fell uselessly to her side when he gently cupped her chin and tilted her head back, forcing her to meet his wicked, wolfish gaze.

  “Because you’re the Duchess of Glastonbury,” he said huskily, “and I’ve been hired to kidnap you.”

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © 2020 by Jillian Eaton

  Edited by Quillfire Author Services

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  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Description

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  The Secret Wallflower Society

  About the Author

  Domestic Abuse

  Description

  He's a dangerous bounty hunter hired to track her down...she's a beautiful duchess with a wounded heart. When these two meet, one thing is certain: the Devil of Duncraven is never letting her go.

  When Percy was swept off her feet by a charming duke, she thought her fairytale dreams had finally come true…until her husband left her broken and bleeding in an alley. Rescued by two ladies who immediately take her under their wing, she has been a duchess in hiding ever since.

  Lucas Black, the Devil of Duncraven, is a man who procures things…and he’s very good at his job. Hired by the Duke of Glastonbury to track down his missing wife, Lucas quickly finds Percy hiding in London. And just as quickly makes the regrettable error of losing his heart to the frail, violet-eyed beauty.

  Betrayed by one man, Percy has no intention of ever trusting another. Especially the scoundrel who has been hired to kidnap her! Except Lucas isn’t as devilish as he’d like everyone to believe, Percy isn’t as delicate as she seems, and soon they find themselves falling in love. But danger lurks around the corner, because Glastonbury is still searching for Percy. Unfortunately for the duke, Lucas has no intention of letting her go…

  Prologue

  Persephone had always wanted to be a princess.

  Not for wealth or gowns–although she did like a pretty dress. Not even for popularity. Especially not for popularity. No, her reasons for wanting to be a princess were quite specific.

  Princesses had Prince Charmings.

  It was, if not a rule, a very serious guideline.

  And Persephone had been looking for her Prince Charming since she turned eight years of age and fell in love with the idea of being in love.

  She could still remember the exact moment it happened. She’d been walking with her mother through Hyde Park. It had been the middle of April, and the air had smelled of cherry blossoms and possibility. There was no season Persephone liked more than spring, especially after a long winter spent cooped up inside her parent’s modest townhome in Berkley Square, and she’d been eager to stretch her young legs.

  “Persephone, you need to slow down,” her mother had ordered when Persephone tried to rush ahead. “Proper young ladies do not hurry. They take small, precise steps. And they never flap their arms. You look like a goose.”

  Persephone hadn’t wanted to look like a goose. She’d wanted to look like a Persephone. So, she’d obeyed her mother–she was a very obedient child–and begun to take small, precise steps. Which was fortunate, for if she’d been running, she might have missed the man on one knee and the woman standing in front of him with her hands pressed to her mouth.

  “What are they doing?” Persephone had asked, her eyes wide with wonder as the woman said something to the man and he jumped to his feet and wrapped her in his arms with a loud whoop that sent a startled pair of mourning doves fluttering out of the bushes.

  “They are acting in a most inappropriate manner,” Persephone’s mother had said, the corners of her mouth pinching with disapproval before she’d put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and steered her in the opposite direction. “Such public displays of affection are nothing more than a cry for attention from desperate people. Proper young ladies do not engage in such behavior.”

  But Persephone, who hadn’t been able to stop herself from glancing back at the couple, didn’t believe they appeared desperate. She thought they appeared happy. And she had decided she wanted to be that happy one day, too.

  She just needed to find her Prince Charming.

  Chapter One

  Fourteen Years Later

  Wanted: One Prince Charming

  Estranged Husbands Need Not Apply

  Percy–as she was called now–had always loved painting. There was something about the smooth stroke of a brush on canvas that was innately satisfying. She enjoyed creating beauty out of blankness. Of coaxing the landscapes out of her head and onto paper. It soothed her. It calmed her.

  But most importantly, it silenced the demons within.

  As she sat in the rear garden and eyed her most recent work, a lovely scene of a pond with two white swans gliding across the glasslike surface, she didn’t think about her estranged husband Andrew, the Duke of Glastonbury. She didn’t think about how black his eyes turned right before he lost his temper. She didn’t think about the sound his hand made when it collided with her cheek. She didn’t think about the rain washing away the blood on her face as she huddled in an alley, wondering what her life had come to. She didn’t think about all the nights she stayed awake, flinching at every sound for fear it meant Andrew had finally found her.

  Instead, her focus was on what shade of green to use for the weeping willow behind the pond. Mint, or chartreuse? This painting was to be a wedding gift for one of her dearest friends in the entire world, Lady Helena Ware, and she wanted it to be absolutely perfect.

  It was in Helena’s townhouse, a cheerful brick home tucked away in the middle of Berkley Square, that she was currently residing (or hiding away, depending on how you looked at it). And it was Helena, as well as her friend Calliope, Countess of Winchester, who had rescued Percy in her most dire hour of need.

  Chartreuse, she decided before she carefully began to fill in the long boughs of the willow with tiny little flicks of her wrist. While oil was her preferred medium, she’d chosen watercolor for this particular piece as she’d wanted to bring a sense of romanticism to the painting. It was her first time attempting watercolor, but she’d long admired the work of Joseph M. Turner, an artist renowned for his use of bold colors and creative landscapes.

  She even owned an original painting of Mr. Turner’s from early in his career; a stunning seascape of an ocean in the midst of a turbulent storm. Or rather, her husband owned the painting. It hung in the library of their country estate in Sussex, one of the few things she missed from her past life as the esteemed Duchess of Glastonbury.

  The fancy gowns, the glittering jewelry, the endless parade of luncheons and balls and theater appearances…those things Percy could
gladly go without. Truth be told, she’d never been particularly fond of all the attention and duties that accompanied being married to a duke. Especially a duke of Andrew’s renown.

  Constantly being on display, like a china doll high on a shelf for everyone to look at and try to find fault with, had been both emotionally and physically draining. She’d felt as if she always had to be the best in the room. The best wife, the best hostess, the best duchess. And if she wasn’t…

  Well, she didn’t think about that when she was painting.

  She’d just begun to add depth to the clouds floating lazily over the pond when she heard it. The distinct crack of a stick. It was a small sound. Insignificant to most. But for Percy, it might as well have been a gunshot.

  Her heart leapt into her throat.

  An icy chill swept down her spine.

  He’s found me, she thought.

  For that was what she always thought.

  He’s found me, and this time he’s going to kill me.

  She wished it was an unfounded fear, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t because she knew that the crack of a stick sounded exactly like the crack of a bone. She knew that pain could literally bring a person to their knees. And she knew that Andrew would never stop trying to find her.

  He didn’t search for her out of any sense of love or obligation. Oh, in the beginning she’d believed he loved her. In the beginning, she’d believed he had hung the moon and all the stars along with it. But she’d quickly learned he could no more love her than he could love a plant or a plate.

  She was a possession.

  His possession.

  Trembling from head to toe, Percy spun towards the shadows prepared to fight for her life…or die in the process. Because she wasn’t going back on that bloody shelf.