He held both of her arms as he faced her, crouching to her level so they were face-to-face. “You sent them to bed. So that’s not a chance I’m willing to take. Stay here, Jess.”
The firmness of his voice brooked no argument. She pinched her lips shut, knowing that it was futile to argue.
She never took orders well. Her husband had thrived on control and then became enraged every time he realized he could never rule her every action. No man would cow her again. No man would tell her what was best for her, how she should act, and what she should do with her life. Not even Hayden. And it was better for him to learn that now.
She let him leave the room in search of the broken glass and followed not two minutes later. She knew the lay of the house better than he did and could navigate it flawlessly in the dark of night.
Gracefully, and on tiptoes, she headed in the direction of the main parlor. Wherever the sound had come from, it was close, so she checked the immediate rooms first.
If the noise were caused from one of the servants, there would be a light on somewhere close by. Everything was just as dark as when she’d entered the house. She walked around the room to check the windows to make sure they were locked.
There was nothing out of order.
A stumble and grunt in the direction of the stairs drew her gaze toward the open door. Could that be Hayden? She walked over to the door to peer down the dark hall. There was no one nearby, but the soft shush of someone walking above her head could be heard through the floorboards. She’d only been home a short while, so the servants could be shutting up the house before they headed for their own beds.
She chose to turn toward the smaller green parlor, her heart racing now that her imagination had run wild with possibilities of where the sound had come from.
As she walked the perimeter of the room her foot crunched on the result of the broken glass. She lifted her foot away from the shards and focused on the broken window banging in the breeze.
The sheer curtains billowed out ominously, tauntingly, as she realized the worst of her imagination was indeed the truth. Someone who didn’t belong here was prowling around her house. She clicked the window shut and turned over the latch to lock it again. The window would have to be boarded for the night and fixed first thing in the morning.
Where in the world was Hayden? She couldn’t hear any walking above her now. The only sounds to be heard were of the wind whistling through the broken windowpane and a clock ticking the seconds out in the hallway.
As she walked past the fireplace she picked up the iron poker; the slide of the metal across the marble was an eerily sharp slice of sound in the almost silent house. Jessica held her breath as she tiptoed more carefully from the room, poker raised and ready to strike if someone popped out into her path. She held it aloft, not pointed, so that anyone she crossed would meet the hard side of the iron instrument, not the deadly poker end.
When she was in the hallway and mounting the bottom of the stairs a thud rang in her ears from one of the bedrooms. It sounded as though a shelf had fallen … or a person. She swallowed against the nervousness building inside her. Her right arm shook from holding the weight of the poker. Well, maybe not from the weight but from fear.
But she’d not admit to the latter when she might need to face her intruder head-on.
Closer to the top of the landing, there were more crashes of furniture, heavy objects hitting the floor and walls—or people tumbling into heavy objects—all coming from within her husband’s old room.
“My lady.” Miss Camden came rushing out of her room and toward her; she wore her dressing robe. Her hair was covered under a mobcap. When she reached for Jessica’s arms she said, “I thought at first the noise was my imagination, but it’s only intensified. I was frightened to come out of my room, but I saw you come up the stairs.”
“Go back to bed. Hayden is in there, and has everything under control,” she lied. She didn’t know if Hayden fared well or not. Oh, God, she hoped he did. She couldn’t bear the thought of something terrible happening to him.
“I couldn’t possibly leave you here.”
Jessica grasped Miss Camden’s sleeve, ready to plead and beg for her to let well enough alone. At least until Jessica knew who had come into her house and for what reason. “Everything will be fine. Please, go back to bed. I’ll find you later.”
Miss Camden very reluctantly left Jessica standing outside her husband’s bedchamber door. She looked at Jessica for a spell from across the upper-floor landing before shutting her door.
It was a miracle that the servants hadn’t heard the commotion and come running upstairs.
No candles or lights had been lit upstairs, so it was quite dark when Jessica stepped away from the stairs and closer to the thumps and heavy groans as the fight ensued beyond the double doors. She had avoided crossing them while her husband was alive and even now that he was dead. She hated that room; it had been certain torture to enter it under any circumstance in the past. And so she never willingly crossed that threshold.
Putting her shoulders back, she pressed forward with the poker still in her right hand as she turned up the latch of the door. She heard a great roar as the door slammed open and she entered the scene of a fight unlike any she’d ever witnessed before. Though it was dark, she could see a smear of blood across Hayden’s forehead. The man he had by the throat seemed limp and lifeless in Hayden’s hold.
The clang of the iron poker hitting the floor rang through the room like a church bell brought up short as she ran forward to pry Hayden’s hands loose from the intruder.
She shouldn’t have run forward with Hayden’s angry state, as he was liable to strike out unintentionally, but when she realized that he held Miller in a death grip she snapped to attention and acted before thinking. She could not stand idly by and watch Hayden kill another man in cold blood. No matter that the man deserved death and by her own hand if she could accomplish it—not that she would.
“Hayden. Don’t do this,” she begged of him as her fingers curled around his wrists and yanked until her nails cut half-moons into his skin.
He finally looked at her with his dangerous gaze and dropped Miller so suddenly that she stumbled back. Hayden caught her before she tumbled to the floor and crushed her body along the length of his. Finger tracing featherlight along her temple, he brushed away the curls that had fallen from her chignon.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t.”
She brushed her hand over his forehead where a smear of blood had dried from a knock he’d taken to the head. He hissed in a breath when her fingers brushed against the goose egg hidden in his hairline just above his temple. It looked like it hurt a great deal and she’d have to take care of it right away.
She pressed the balls of her feet to the floor as she gained her balance, which was difficult to do in his iron grip. “You could never scare me when I know you’ll never hurt me.”
There was a moment when she didn’t want to let him go. She’d give in to any of his demands so long as he never left her and always made her feel safe. She shook away her silly, sentimental thoughts.
Had she not invited him in …
Who knew what could have happened? Who knew what Miller’s purpose was?
A groan emitted from the victim of Hayden’s fury behind Jessica. She flinched in Hayden’s arms. She couldn’t help her revulsion at Miller’s presence. She daren’t turn around just yet or she might commit to some unspeakable act she might later regret, whether or not he was deserving of her wrath.
“I can’t face that man right now.” Her voice was small. Frightened.
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you with him, either, but I want to know why he’s snooping around my home.” She gazed around the darkened room, feeling bile rise in her throat even knowing her husband wouldn’t come in at any moment. “I want to know what he was looking for in here.”
Hand once more brushing her hair back from her forehead, Hayden let her go completely and kissed her on the cheek. “He’s waking. Go before he’s aware of his surroundings.”
She nodded, trusting Hayden to deal with Miller when she could barely look at him without wanting to lose her dinner. He reminded her so completely of her husband, the vileness swept right off him and wrapped around her throat, choking away her desire to fight for what she believed was right. How could such a slimy, lowly man ever make her feel so worthless?
He should be nothing to her.
Yet.
Yet …
He was something. Something vile. Like a snake slithering and flicking out its tongue evilly, he made her skin crawl whenever he was near. Maybe it was the poison he’d fed her in the end that had enlightened her to his true nature as a human being. Maybe it was the way he watched her with a cruelness in his eyes just as her husband had done. Whatever instinct was telling her that this man was to be avoided at all costs, she trusted it without question.
She backed away from Hayden and edged toward the door, never letting her eyes leave Hayden’s.
Once in the hallway, she pressed her back against the paneled wall and took a steadying breath. Her hand covered her mouth when she felt she’d be ill, but the sensation passed. She closed her eyes and focused on the moment and not on everything that Miller represented and the violation she felt on him stealing into the house. She breathed steadily through her desires to run and managed to stay right where she was, knowing she needed to hear what Miller had to say.
She flinched as Hayden’s hand smacked the perpetrator, the sound of flesh on flesh raising bile in her throat again. She slid down the wall, holding her hand over her mouth, the other clutched against her stomach.
“Wake up, man. I’ve a few questions for you before you’re thrown out in the gutter for the trash you are. Before your debtors happen upon you.” Another slap of Hayden’s hand against wet—bloody, she imagined—skin.
She bit the insides of her cheeks hard, hating the violence she allowed to rise in Hayden. Hating herself more for thinking herself safe from Miller and living so complacently, vulnerably, when she’d vowed never to do so again.
“Speak, man.”
A mumble of incoherent sentences was all that followed, then the disgusting sound of Miller spitting on the floor before he laughed, the sound broken and garbled as he wheezed in a lungful of air. Had Hayden broken the man’s ribs? Why did violence have to follow her everywhere? Was there something about her that incited anger in men?
She pinched her eyes shut tighter, hoping it would get the image of the valet bloody and beaten out of her head. It helped long enough for her to hear Hayden smack him hard across the face again and demand, “Answer me,” in a much firmer, more dangerous voice than previously.
“I’m fetching my master’s things.”
“There is nothing left of your master. Personal effects were cleaned out after his funeral.”
The man coughed and hacked up something from his throat before he spat again. Jessica swallowed back her disgust, unable to move, not wanting to listen, yet needing to know everything said between the two.
Hayden had told her about his run-in with Miller before, and while she didn’t know exactly what was said then, she knew she could never leave him alone with Miller in fear he’d have another man’s blood on his hands. And all because of her.
This wasn’t right, but she didn’t have the strength to stand up, to stop it; she didn’t have the might to move from where she crouched against the wall like some defenseless victim.
“What were you hoping to find?” Hayden asked in a voice that tolerated no argument. She was sure Hayden would hit Miller again if he didn’t answer this time.
“Nothing is ever truly lost forever,” Miller responded, cryptic as usual.
She grasped on to that thread of familiar that made her hate this man so much and steeled her nerves bit by bit.
“You had a chance to start new, and you pissed it away the moment you stepped off that boat.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m doing as my master wishes. Nothing more, nothing less. I made a promise, Duke, but of course you’re too good to understand exactly what that means for a man like me.”
When Hayden chuckled the sound slithered uncomfortably down Jessica’s spine. She took full responsibility for turning him into the man she suddenly didn’t recognize. Would he have ever acted so lowly, gotten his hands so dirty, if not for her?
She had to stop running away from this. What choice did she have but to face her fears once and for all?
She took her first calming breath since the whole ordeal with Miller had started, and pushed herself higher on the wall. Almost to her feet, she took another steadying breath and braced her stomach for the sight she was about to witness. She would face whatever came tonight. She was done shying away from the violence that had made up her marriage. Miller could not hurt her. He was helpless, really, without Fallon’s backing.
She turned away from the wall and toward the entrance of the room. Hayden looked up. She could tell he was surprised to see her, but he did not ask her to leave again. Perhaps he knew she needed to see this with her own eyes, witness his truth with her own ears.
Hayden grasped the lapels of Miller’s jacket and nearly lifted the man from the floor, since he was limp in Hayden’s arms and by all appearances too weak to stand on his own.
“What did you hope to find?” Hayden asked.
“What right have you to it? His Lordship always thought your friendship resembling that of a consort to the slut that was supposed to be his wife. Was it your bastard in her womb? Did you fuck the wench the nights you took her from this house?”
Hayden shook Miller once. Twice. The valet only cackled before coughing up another mouthful of blood and spat that on the floor next to Hayden’s boot. “Guard your tongue, man, or I’ll cut it out and damn your reasons for stealing into the house like a thief.”
Jessica walked farther into the room. Her fear receded with every step as she neared her foe. She felt no desire to act out against him; she just wanted to know his reasons for coming into her home.
What did he think to find?
“Why are you here, Miller?” Her voice was strong, not feeble and weak as she feared it might be.
“The bitch comes to your side quickly, Duke. You should be proud to have tamed the redheaded witch. She’s fierce but tamable with the right amount of force, my lordship always said. He brought her to heel in a fashion.”
“I’ll not warn you again about guarding your tongue.”
There must have been something in her look that stalled Hayden, for he raised his hand to strike the man again but dropped his fist as she approached and knelt next to Miller, where he hung precariously from Hayden’s grip.
She was unafraid for the first time in so many years that tears pricked at her eyes. Miller wasn’t deserving of them, though, and she shed none as they first blurred her vision before drying.
“Let him go.”
“Jess.”
She pressed her hand to Hayden’s strong jaw. “Trust me.”
Before long, Hayden released him. Miller thumped to the floor with a heavy thud.
“Does it bother you that I’m not afraid of you, Miller?” she asked, her voice calm and even.
“Don’t matter much to me. I’m not here for you, now, am I?”
“What good can you do for Fallon when he’s cold and lonely in his grave?”
“It’s his lasting wish that I destroy your life.”
The energy such hatred must take. That was probably what had killed her husband in the end. The poison he spewed out finally ate him up from the inside out.
“And how do you think to accomplish that? You’ve already ensured that I’m a laughingstock, the brunt of all jokes among the peerage. You’ve stolen the child from my womb in fear that it was n
ot Fallon’s.” It surprised her how level her voice was when she’d avoided this man like the plague all the years he’d been in her husband’s service. “Look at you, Miller. You’re no better kept than a street urchin; you smell like one, too. Do you believe Fallon wanted you to live your life as a wastrel, running from those you are indebted to?”
“It never mattered what I wanted. I promised to bring you down so far that you were forced into a poorhouse.”
“What a fool you are.” She was proud that the disdain was sharp in her comment. Superior and without remorse, which was good for what she was about to tell him.
“Do you want to know one of my secrets, Miller?”
He looked at her with suspicion. Rightfully, he should. For he would not be long for this world if he didn’t run fast and far away from London.
“You don’t have any secrets. His Lordship told me everything.” He brought his hand up to his mouth and wiped the sleeve of his stained coat across his mouth.
“Oh, but I do have secrets. Many that you wouldn’t have been privy to once I tossed you out of this house.”
His hatred was so palpable that it should have caused her resolve and determination to falter. But it didn’t. Once the truth had been revealed about Miller and her husband’s involvement to destroy the baby in her womb, she’d had one important task to complete before the estate funds were completely out of her control.
“I purchased your gambling debts, you see.”
Hayden stepped closer, his legs brushing the bottom of her skirts.
“I used the money that would have been your annual wage toward your chits. I paid top dollar for some of them, and do you know what I did once I held them all in my hands? I gave them all away. Do you want to know who I gave them to?”
She didn’t think it possible for his color to fade to a wan, deathly yellow, but it did just that.
“Mr. Enders was ever thankful.” She paused, letting the name linger in the air between them. That had been the one thing she had control over once she’d learned the full depth of Miller’s betrayal and contribution in poisoning her. “You do know a Mr. Enders, do you not?”
The Scandalous Duke Takes a Bride Page 20
