The Duke Takes a Wife

by Dahlia Rose

  Uncle Brewster furrowed his brow in confusion. “You know she will never leave this place, we don’t have any leverage to make her do otherwise.”

  “I think I can work it out.” Jasper looked at his watched and then went to the window to peer outside. “It’s getting dark, Zeva should be here. She probably left a few minutes late and will be here soon.”

  By seven he knew something was wrong and called Haile and asked him to go by the office rental to see if she was still there. Jasper picked up his coat and found the keys to the Land Rover. The warning signals made his stomach clench and his mother had to be at the center of it.

  “We’re coming with you, son,” Uncle Brewster said firmly. “If Cornelia has done something to Zeva she’s gone too bloody far.”

  “She went too far long ago.” Jasper’s voice was deadly. “If anything has happened to Zeva, there is no place to hide from what I will do my mother.”

  By the time they got into town Haile was waiting by the car Zeva had taken that morning and the hood was up. His face was grim when Jasper got out of the large vehicle.

  “What?” Jasper’s voice was terse.

  “Someone disabled her car, good job too,” Haile replied. “They went under the main part of the engine and pulled the wires. She wouldn’t have known where to start to fix it, the plugs, brake lines, and everything looked intact.”

  “She could’ve walked to the pub and got you or called,” Jasper said and ran his hand through his thick hair.

  “Not if she was taken,” Haile said grimly.

  “Get in the car. Haile you follow us, we are going to my mother’s house,” Jasper said. “I’m beating the shite out of everyone until they tell me where Zeva is.”

  “How could she be so cruel to do this to her own son,” Lillian cried out.

  “She’s pure evil, she feels nothing,” Jasper answered. “But when I’m through she will understand she made the biggest mistake by taking my wife.”

  His words held deadly intent and everyone got silently into the vehicle to go to the mansion where Cornelia McTavish resided. Her day of reckoning had come, and Jasper would be the one who delivered the final judgment.

  * * * *

  It had been a good day. Zeva looked around the office space for Northumberland Hope Center and felt a sense of accomplishment. In area where they lived, residents had to go to one of the larger towns for resources. Now she and others would be able to help many when the doors to the center opened. She hired Tori as a full time assistant and the young woman was thrilled. She wouldn’t have to dance anymore to support her daughter, and with the day care on-site, the baby had someplace safe to be while her mum worked.

  She was still hiring staff but had already received hefty donations from some of the more wealthy residents. She knew from her job in D.C. how to work a crowd at a charity event. She planned to have the center funded and helping residents by the next month, and by Christmas she wanted to have a domestic abuse shelter open for women and children. The address would be secret, and Haile had already agreed to help her find security for the site. Along with bookkeeping for Jasper her life was full. The fact that she loved her husband and thinking about him made her warm all over only sealed the fact that she was where she was meant to be.

  Zeva locked up and went to the car. She had sent Tori and the baby home for supper an hour ago while she finished up a few things. It was time for her to go home and meet Lillian, Uncle Brewster’s wife, and hopefully he had agreed to get help. Jasper had it all planned out, and while she would’ve loved to be there to support him Zeva felt it better they handle Uncle Brewster on their own. She had only been part of this family for a few months, and she knew embarrassment could drive the uncle to refuse just on stubbornness.

  Zeva slid behind the wheel of the car and rubbed her hands over her shoulders vigorously. “I’m going to have to wear a thicker coat, it’s getting brisk out there.”

  She turned the key in the ignition and the car didn’t even stir. Zeva frowned and turned the key again. Nothing. “Damn it,” she muttered and got out of the car. She was already late, but when she pulled her cell phone from her bag of course she’d forgotten to charge it. It was dead. The phone service wasn’t going to be turned on in the center until the next week. The only option she had was to walk to Haile’s pub and call Jasper from there, then ask him to take her home. Thunder rumbled in the distance and she felt the first small drop.

  Of course, rain, she thought. Zeva had seen how rainstorms developed in the area and hoped by the time she got to the pub she wasn’t drowned. She was just about to set off when a car slowed and pulled in next to her. Zeva heard the whir as the automatic window rolled down slowly, revealing the face of one of Jasper’s cousins. They were identical twins, and she had never talked to either of them so she didn’t know which one was driving.

  “Hello, you look a bit put out.” The young woman smiled. “I’m Patrice, Jasper’s cousin.”

  “Okay, hello,” Zeva said doubtfully.

  “Why are you walking? It’s about to start pouring any minute.” Patrice’s voice was friendly.

  “The car won’t start. I’m going to head to Haile’s pub to get a ride home,” Zeva replied. “It was nice talking to—”

  “Come on, I’ll give you a lift,” Patrice cut her off.

  “Why would you do that? Your aunt would prefer to see me drowned before helping me, and as far as I hear you and your sister are her clones,” Zeva said bluntly.

  Patrice laughed. “I do have my own mind, and while we may not all get along, I wouldn’t see anyone, let alone my cousin’s wife, needing help and do nothing. I was actually quite curious about our new ventures. It’s all the talk about town and maybe I could volunteer?” Patrice sighed, a little dramatically in Zeva’s opinion, but she was British and rich and tended to be good at acting. “To be honest, we can’t keep going like we are now, the big divide within our family. I would like to change that, maybe it can start with us. Besides, the pub is two streets over, you’ll be soaked before you get there.”

  Zeva looked at her, trying to gauge her sincerity and finding nothing she could compare it against because the girl had done nothing to her. “Okay, thank you for the ride.”

  Patrice smiled. “Come on around and hop in, I’ll turn the heat up.”

  Zeva got in on the left side, while Patrice sat in front of the steering wheel on the right. The car was warm, and Zeva sighed gratefully as the heat hit her just as the rain began to fall. “I appreciate this. My cell died, and you are right, the rain came in fast.”

  “Not a problem at all,” Patrice said as she pulled away slowly. “Mobiles, technology makes it harder sometimes, I swear.”

  Zeva smiled. “Yes it does.”

  The drive started out okay, and then Zeva frowned when Patrice didn’t take the turn on the road that would lead to the manor house. The rain had stopped but more was still on the way, light drops still hit the windshield of the compact car.

  “Um, you missed the turn,” Zeva pointed out.

  “It’s okay love, I have to make a small stop. I’ll take you right back,” Patrice said. “Besides, I wanted to talk to my cousin about dad’s drinking. It’s gotten much worse.”

  “Jasper would appreciate any help in getting him to go into recovery,” Zeva said.

  The road turned rocky then meandered into nothingness. It was dark all around and she couldn’t even make out the wilderness in the pitch black.

  Patrice stopped and Zeva looked at her. “What are you doing?”

  “I leave a care package here every few weeks for a friend who lives out here near the moors,” Patrice said seamlessly. “He doesn’t come into town and has become essentially a hermit, an old friend of my father’s who went a bit mad after his wife died. I have the things in the boot of the car, I’ll pop it open and we can leave them by the post standing in those rocks and he will pick them up.”

  Zeva was hesitant but anything to get back to civilization.
“I’ll help but let’s move quick. Jasper told me the rain can turn these roads to mud in minutes when it rains.”

  Patrice nodded. “He is quite right.”

  They both got out after the young woman leaned over and pressed the button to open the trunk. Zeva grabbed one package and Patrice another to move toward the old wooden sign post that was so old it didn’t even have a sign anymore. It was only an old, thick piece of wood standing in the darkness, solitary and alone. She didn’t notice Patrice had lagged back until she heard the thump as something fell. Zeva whirled around and saw Patrice running toward the car.

  “You bitch, what the fuck!” Zeva yelled and started to chase her down.

  Patrice was already in the car and pulling away. Zeva heard her laughter though the open window as she ran behind the car. The rear light was swallowed up by the darkness in seconds as the young woman sped away. Zeva stopped running and heaved out a sigh of exertion just as the skies opened up again and the rain poured down. She could barely see through the sheets of water, and the tire tracks that she planned to follow were quickly washed away. Zeva walked and looked around. She saw nothing, even the packages were swallowed up the night that was like ink in a bottle. She couldn’t see through it. Zeva understood they wanted her to die out there from exposure or to walk lost into the moors and be trapped in the mud to sink to her death.

  “Not going to happen, bitch.” Zeva firmed her shoulders in the rain and started to assess the situation. She would find her way home and then there would be hell to pay.

  Chapter Nine

  There was no stopping Jasper. When his mother’s driver, lover, butler, or whatever he was opened the door, Jasper greeted him with a fist to the face and another to the gut. When he bent over, Jasper kneed him in the face and left him moaning on the ground.

  “Haile, beat him to death if necessary to find out where Zeva is.” Jasper didn’t even glance back. He walked through the foyer, and his voice echoed through the house. “Mother!”

  Cornelia came to a stop on the stairs wearing a silky bathrobe and her hair put up in a neat style. The twins came out of a downstairs room, and when they saw Jasper’s face, the fear in their eyes was evident as they glanced at each other.

  “What is this about, Jasper? How dare you barge into my house?” his mother demanded.

  “What have you done with Zeva?” Jasper snarled.

  “Jasper, you’ve lost track of your wife. You should really put a bell on her.” His mother laughed at her own joke.

  Haile sent her driver boyfriend skidding across the marble tile floor. “I think it’s safe to say he knows nothing.”

  Cornelia took stock of his face and cried out, “You brutes, what did you do to him?”

  “We rearranged his face, and trust me you’ll wish it was this easy when it comes to what I have planned for you,” Jasper replied.

  “Cornelia, what have you done this time?” Uncle Brewster shouted. “You have gone too far.”

  “Shut up, Brewster. What the hell is she doing here?” Cornelia flicked a cold glance over Lillian. “I thought we got rid of the trash years ago.”

  “Darling Cornelia, you just look into a mirror and deal with those old age lines. I thought you’d age better, I was wrong,” Lillian said in a mild voice. “Brewster is going with me and hopefully my daughters are as well, if you haven’t poisoned them to the core.”

  Patrice and Patricia moved next to Cornelia and Patrice lifted her head defiantly. “She is more of a mother to us than you ever were.”

  “Then you go down with her.” Jasper was so angry his yell made them all jump. “Where is my wife!”

  “We don’t—”

  The doorbell rang, and Haile moved to the door since the man of the house was incapacitated. He threw it open and there stood Zeva, soaking wet, her hair dripping from the rain and her eyes flashing fire.

  “Oh my God, Zeva!” Jasper moved toward her quickly.

  “Honey, I’m home,” Zeva muttered and he noticed that she stared past him to the twins. She pointed at them. “I want them. I don’t know which one is Patrice, but she left me in the moors. Since I can’t tell them apart I plan to kick both their asses.” She gave Cornelia a deadly look. “I told you, crone, to make sure you drop me and you didn’t. You’re next.”

  She moved with purpose and Jasper let her go. They deserved whatever Zeva doled out, and he had no problem watching her tear them apart.

  “It was her!” one of the twins pointed. “She’s Patrice and Aunt set her up to it!”

  The both tried to hide behind Jasper’s mother, and she stepped aside. Zeva grabbed Patrice, and with a right hook to the chin, the woman crumpled to the floor like a rag doll. Zeva turned and slapped Jasper’s mother so hard the sound echoed, and her handprint appeared quickly on her alabaster skin.

  “I’m calling the constable and filing assault charges!” Cornelia rubbed her cheek.

  “You do that, you call the fucking constables and explain to them how you orchestrated them leaving me to die in the moors, oh, and throwing a brick through our window!” Zeva snapped and got in her mother-in-law’s face. “You forget one thing... darling. I’m United States Army, I had to survive in heat and cold, learn how to deal with the wilderness and fucking fight insurgents in between rocks. I have battery acid in my blood, and the likes of you would never get the best of me.”

  Jasper pulled a cashmere blanket off a chair and threw it around her body. “You tell them, sweetheart. Haile, find her a brandy in this house please. Try the piano room. Mother dear always keeps it stocked.”

  Haile rubbed his hands. “Let’s see what I can find.”

  “Brewster, make them stop this nonsense, you have to help me.” Cornelia’s voice was pathetic and soft.

  “Never again, Cornelia. I’m leaving Northumberland with Lillian and I am living for me now.” Uncle Brewster took Lillian’s hand. “You made your bed, you lie in it, sister dear. You destroyed my life and turned my daughters against us. No more.”

  “You can do nothing to me, son of mine,” Cornelia said snidely to Jasper. “I have photos of you and that one, in your workshop naked, doing unseemly things. I will release them to the tabloids.”

  Jasper laughed and looked at Zeva. “She wants to release pictures to the tabloids of the duke making love to his duchess. Go ahead, do it. When the press comes around I’ll tell them I love her so much I can’t keep my hands off her. I certainly don’t care what anyone thinks, unlike you mother. I wonder how they will react when they find you are a fraud and not Lady Edwards after all, but in fact the bastard child of the gardener?”

  “How dare you speak of my heritage like that?” Cornelia seethed. “My mother and father had a legitimate marriage.”

  “Oh it was, but Lord Edwards was cruel to grandmother and she found solace in the arms of the groundskeeper. She sent a letter to her maid, one who was close to her heart and moved to America. She detailed the abuse and the affair, also the pregnancy that came from it. Lord Edwards couldn’t get her pregnant, and that made the beatings he gave her worse. When the groundskeeper got her pregnant, Lord Edwards thought the children were his. And to save her true love’s life, Gran sent her lover away, knowing the twins she bore were his.”

  “Lies, lies, lies!” Cornelia screeched. She sat on the steps as her legs gave out. Patricia sat on the floor holding Patrice, who was still unconscious.

  “I have the letters and it has been validated by the solicitors as Gran’s handwriting matching her will,” Jasper explained. He had to admit watching his mother go pale was satisfying. “Which means you are not Lady Edwards, and when you married my father it was under that pretense. You can lose everything your father left, including this house and all my father bequeathed you under the law.”

  ‘That means you lose everything as well,” she said gleefully. “And Brewster would lose all his assets.”

  “You’ve piddled it all away anyway, and a title means nothing to me,” Uncle Brewster looked at
Lillian. “What truly matters is right beside me.”

  “And I am the legal son of my father, he was married to you after all and even if you had no title, you still had a son within the marriage,” Jasper pointed out. “It also means your assets will now become mine.”

  “You would not dare leave your mother with nothing in the streets,” Cornelia said with pride. “Your father raised you better than that.”

  “You are right, father raised me, not you.” Jasper moved and crouched in front of his mother and his tone became deadly. “But you tried to hurt my wife, and that is worse to me than anything you did in my entire life. So I should take everything from you.”

  “Jasper, please.” His mother’s lips trembled and she forced a few tears from her eyes. “Please don’t leave me penniless.”

  “Even now, that’s what matters to you, not the fact that you almost made me lose the woman I love or the fact that you made all our lives a living hell. You show no remorse.” Jasper shook his head. “Mother, I will not leave you penniless. You will sell me this house at a discount, take whatever stipend is left from father, and you will leave Northumberland. You can live wherever you want but not here, not around me. And budget wisely, mother, because you will never get another penny from me.”

  “You are putting me into exile?” his mother said angrily. “What about my friends, my duties here?”

  “You have no duties, mother. You and the twins do nothing, Zeva has done more in the few months she’s been here than you ever did,” Jasper pointed out. “Your friends are better off without you. It’s either that or I release all this information to the tabloids and I have the proof verified, you lose everything, and I also file charges against you and the twins for assault against the Duchess of Northumberland, my wife. Make your choice.”

  “I choose exile from my home.” Cornelia stood and turned her attention to Zeva. “I hope you’re happy, you destroyed my life.”

  Zeva, who was wrapped in the blanket and now sipping brandy courtesy of Haile, lifted her glass in a cheer. “I am quite happy, the only thing that could make me happier is hitting you again, but I’ll let that go.”