Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  Belatedly, she registered the old servant climbing to his feet. The determined glint in his hard eyes sent her scrambling to a stand and she rushed to put several steps between them. “I must see His Grace.” For George would make all the ugly right.

  The pompous man looked over her shoulder and she followed his gaze to the footman at her back. Her heart clamored into her throat. They’d turn her out without granting her that audience.

  She retreated sideways, putting distance between herself and the men eying her like she was a thief come to make off with their employer’s finest jewels. “The duke will see me,” she said, her voice rising to a near frantic pitch. He had to.

  Because in all her wonderings of how this exchange would play out. For all the fears her parents had planted in her mind and the Duchess of Blackthorne’s promise of retribution, she’d known the moment she came to him…all would be well. For that was what love did; it made you stronger. It gave you hope and faith…it also gave you courage.

  With a skill that came from too many games of tag with her younger siblings, she darted past the aged butler and around the footman who reached for her. Heart racing, Lily darted past the men and down the crimson carpet while the blood raced in her veins and fueled her steps. Her breath came hard and fast…and then, she collided with a wall.

  Nay, a person.

  “Oomph.” Lily sailed backwards and landed hard on her buttocks. Pain shot up her tailbone and climbed up her spine. With stars dancing before her eyes, she blinked several times bringing the beloved visage of George Winters, the Duke of Blackthorne, into focus.

  Hands folded at his chest, he stood, a tall beacon of strength and power. “What in blazes is this about?” The fury in his deep baritone marked him the champion who’d earned her love.

  Her heart tugged as that familiar voice washed over her. She’d lain in his arms but once and known only a handful of his kisses, but it was a voice that had sustained her through the horror of The Scandal. Lying on the floor, she craned her neck back and stared at him.

  Immaculate. Impeccable. Coolly elegant and wholly perfect. Attired in a sapphire jacket with a snow white cravat, he was the model of male beauty. As though in absolute mockery of his perfection, a wet curl fell over her eye and she brushed it back to better gaze at—

  His scowl.

  Unease churned in her belly.

  Why is he scowling…at me?

  He peered down at her and his blue-eyed stare ran through her; a man who saw, but did not see. That was, at least, see rain-soaked urchins on the floor with their skirts rucked up above their ankles. She gasped and quickly shoved them down.

  George looked again to his butler. “What in blazes is the meaning of this, Sutton?” he bit out, ignoring Lily’s prone form at his feet.

  “Your Grace, I am sorry,” the butler said, rushing forward. “This…cretin…entered through the front entrance.”

  A healthy rage filled her. How dare he speak of her with those tones of icy derision? She was no lady born, but she was a vicar’s daughter, and a woman who even for that had earned the heart of this powerful lord. “How dare you?” A man who, in the moment, simply could not see past her ragged garments and bedraggled appearance.

  “I pay you good wages to see that these persons,” these persons? “do not—”

  “George,” she whispered, cutting across shameful words she’d believed this man incapable of. She may as well have fired a pistol into the quiet.

  A charge of shock ricocheted about the portrait-lined corridor.

  Using that distraction, Lily scrambled to her feet and stretched a hand out. “George, it is me,” she said softly. She continued forward and then stopped before him.

  But an inch or so taller than her own five feet seven inches, their eyes nearly met. In an eternal moment that stretched on forever, he stared at her. He narrowed his eyes. “Who are you to enter this home and use my Christian name?”

  She froze; her body immobile and eyes unblinking, she braced for his teasing laughter, for him to fold her in his arms and hold her close…in a moment—that did not come.

  Unease skittered along her spine. He did not recognize her. That was all. There was nothing else to account for this icy disdain seeping from his cold eyes. She turned her palms up. “George, it is I,” she tried again. How could eyes that had twinkled with warmth now ice her worse than the late autumn cold raging outside? “Lily Bennett,” she said, pleadingly. She turned her palms up, praying he played an unfunny jest, one that she would take him to task for the remainder of their days when he did right by her.

  He frowned and peered at her through blond lashes. He took in her now limp curls and as his stare lingered on her painfully modest cloak, shame spiraled through her. “Deal with this, Sutton,” he ordered and turned on his heel.

  “Surely you remember me!” Her cry echoed about the hall, freezing him, and earning gasps from the butler and footman. “I-I wrote you letters,” she said, her voice catching, as he turned around. Mayhap with his mother’s interception of those missives he’d believed Lily a faithless, fickle girl who’d forgotten him. “Y-Your mother came to my parents’ cottage with them.”

  He opened his mouth and closed it several times. “What manner of jest is this?” he asked, so coolly detached that a sliver of her heart broke.

  Oh, God. He does not remember me. She reeled. How could she have given her virtue to a man who did not even recognize her from Eve? Her fingers scrabbled at her throat and she searched for words. Any words. A sound. A plea. A cry. Something to prove that she was still breathing. Lily managed words. “I am—”

  “George,” a curt voice sounded from down the corridor. A hated voice. A hateful voice. The one to have issued warnings, that in being inside this hallowed home, Lily ignored. “Wherever are you? Sir Henry is to arrive shortly with the gift for tonight’s b—” The Duchess of Blackthorne gasped. “What is the meaning of this?” she hissed.

  Lily looked blankly past George’s shoulder as the elegant, silver-haired Duchess of Blackthorne swept over in a flurry of silk skirts.

  “I am handling this, Mother,” he bit out.

  “Are you?” With a pointed look for the hovering footman, she snapped. “The same way you handled her in Carlisle?” Then the Duchess returned her attention to Lily. “You,” she seethed. “You were warned…”

  “By you,” she bit out. Where did she find the courage to toss those words at this unfeeling duchess?

  The woman flared her eyes and then as swift as it had come, all hint of emotion was gone. “This is the girl who is writing you notes.”

  This time, when George looked to Lily there was a bored curiosity. “Ah.”

  Ah. That was what he would say? Nothing more than a single, affirmative utterance that was not even a word?

  “She is your vicar’s daughter,” his mother snapped, impatience adding a frosty bite to the revelation.

  Hope stirred in her breast. Hope he would remember. That he would see past her downtrodden appearance and his mother’s disapproval to the woman who had given her virtue on the pledge of his love.

  He flicked a detached gaze over her and brushed an imagined speck off his sleeve. “I thought you said you would deal with her.” I am that dust. I am that insignificant to him. She struggled to hear past the blood rushing in her ears. His mother’s words came as if down a long, empty hall.

  “…do you see why you do not make village girls your whores? They get ideas beyond their station…”

  Her heart cracked and with her throat working, she looked from mother to son. “George,” she pleaded again, taking a step closer.

  He looked to her again with disdain seeping from his eyes. “What in blazes are you doing here?”

  Her breath caught. Her lower lip trembled and she hated it. Hated it because it was a telltale sign of her weakness and despair. But more, she hated herself for having been so foolishly naïve. Regardless of his lofty title as duke, he’d taken her virginity and she expec
ted, nay demanded, more.

  Lily searched for words. His face remained a smooth, unaffected mask. She searched for a hint of warmth. How could she have been so deceived? How? “I gave myself to you.” Her voice cracked and she buried that sound in her trembling fingertips. But once, in a moment of madness, she was swayed by the skillful words on his lips.

  The duchess’ shocked gasp split the quiet.

  Ignoring the exclamation, Lily continued. “I love…loved you, and you promised me…” Her voice broke and a dratted sheen of tears filled her eyes. For her reservations that day in the Carlisle countryside, he’d promised to give her his name in love.

  “This is your lesson on what happens when you bed the village girls,” his mother snapped. “After you are wed, then you may bed whomever you wish, but by God behave with some discretion until then.” She spared a lethal glance for the two stone-faced servants. “If a word is said about any of this, I’ll turn you out without a reference and ruin you so that employment will not even exist for you within Newgate itself.”

  Feeling a player in a farcical drama, Lily looked blankly to the white-faced footman. He gulped and hastily dropped his eyes to the floor.

  “Surely you did not believe I would marry you?” At the ugly laugh that spilled past George’s lips, nausea churned in her belly.

  She stared, stricken, his words blasting through the foolish love she’d carried. “Yes,” she whispered. “I did.” I am going to be vomit.

  Lily gagged and the duke stumbled away from her. “Egads, do not go casting your evening meal at my feet.”

  If she could muster the proper ability to formulate a sentence she’d point out that she’d not eaten a meal in more than a day. With the precious coin handed her by her father, she’d preserved those coins with greater care than she’d guarded her own virginity. “You cannot simply turn me away.” A denial screamed around her mind, even as panic threatened to cut off her airflow.

  His mother threw her hands up. “By God, give her coins and be done with her. You have your meeting with Holdsworth and then the betrothal ball. Imagine the scandal if a single guest arrives to find your whore here?” She seethed and the sneer on her lips transformed the regal woman into a harsh, ugly figure that matched her soul. “Lady Barbara’s father will never allow the match under such dubious beginnings.”

  Lady Barbara? Through the peculiar humming in her ears, Lily struggled to make sense of the odd jumble of words and names.

  The betrothal ball?

  Dutifully, the duke fished a small purse from his pocket and held it out.

  Lily stared blankly at mother and son. Money. He would pay her like a whore in a tavern who’d served but one purpose. Cold iced over her heart.

  He shook his hand and the coins within jangled.

  She cocked her head.

  He gave his fingers another shake. “Off you go.”

  As her hand curled tightly, reflexively over the pouch, she went hot and then cold, sick with a dangerous blend of shame, agony, and fury. He was to be married. To a proper lady…and you are nothing but a whore. After all, whores took payment for the gift of their virtue.

  She choked. How could she have ever believed herself in love with one such as him?

  “See her out, Sutton,” the duke instructed. Without a backward glance, he wheeled around—and left.

  Before Lily could move, the footman wrapped powerful hands about her forearms hard enough to raise bruises. She cried out, as he hauled her physically through the hall and to the foyer. Pulling against his punishing grip, the man only tightened his hold.

  With Lily kicking her legs and flailing, the butler rushed forward and pulled the door open. Biting rain stung her face and sucked the breath from her lungs.

  “Miss Bennett?” the duchess called out, staying the butler.

  For a moment, hope kindled that there was a sliver of good in this woman and she would insist George do right by her. She glanced back. “Do not return to this household or I will see your family ruined.” The duchess peered past Lily. “Get her out, now.”

  A gasp exploded from her, as the footman hurled her down the steps and into the street. Lily crashed hard on her hip, landing in a deep puddle. Tears smarted behind her eyes as the autumn rain soaked her modest cloak and her dress all the more.

  Her valise followed behind her. It sailed through the air and fell open. The meager contents of her existence spilled into a thick puddle at her feet. She stared at the small wooden box made by her brother, Sheldon, two years earlier. It would be ruined. It would be spoiled by the rain if she did not have a care.

  The door rattled from the force of Sutton slamming it and Lily continued to stare, dazed. An empty numbness dulled the agony of betrayal, leaving in its place the renewed terror.

  Lightning lit the skies.

  What will I do? Her breath came hard and fast. Her father’s warnings came rushing back, slapping her with the truth of her own naiveté and foolishness.

  “Hello, miss.” She blinked. “Miss? Are you all right?”

  All right? Her world had been ripped asunder. She’d been cast out of her family, betrayed by the man she’d given her virtue to and now had nothing but a handful of coins given her by her father and the duke. She would never be all right again.

  “Miss?” he repeated.

  Lily looked up at the kindly gentleman with thick, white whiskers and concern in his eyes. She shook her head, dazed. What did he want? And more, why was this stranger outside George’s home speaking to her even now?

  “My name is Sir Henry.” He knelt beside her and made quick work of stuffing her entire life’s possessions into her satchel. With the valise in one hand, he held his other out. “Let me show you to my carriage.” He gestured behind him and she followed the slight movement to an elegant, black carriage. “It is too cold for you to remain in the street.”

  By the cut of his elegant, black cloak and hat and by his very presence here alone, he was a member of the lofty ranks the Duke of Blackthorne kept. It marked his soul as black and evil, and yet…

  “Come,” the older gentleman urged. “Let me help you.”

  Help her? He wanted to help her? She peeled back her lip in a sneer. What did any of these powerful peers know of kindness? “I do not want your help.” Lightning cracked overhead, aching to make a liar of her.

  Still, he remained, staring with gentle concern. “What other choice do you have, miss?”

  She stilled and her gaze crept back to the front door through which she’d been summarily tossed. Fear curled inside her belly, once more.

  “Miss?” the man repeated, as rain fell about them.

  With nearly frozen fingers, she took his hand, and allowed him to help her upright. Wordlessly, she let him guide her to his carriage, help her inside, and climb in behind her. The man doffed his hat and beat it against his leg. “What is your name?”

  Her words emerged faint and breathless. “L-Lillia—Lily,” she quickly substituted. She’d not give him more of her identity than that. After all, it was as much folly being in this stranger’s carriage than in giving herself to George. Then, desperation made people do desperate things. “I-I must go,” she said, forcing a thread of strength into her words. “It is not p-proper to be here.” Thunder rumbled and shook the carriage, as though mocking those words from a woman who’d shown up on a duke’s doorstep expecting marriage.

  The old gentleman continued to smile at her in that benevolent manner. “I’ve a brief meeting inside with the duke. I’ve no intention of hurting you, but given your exit from Blackthorne’s home, you are just another one subject to his ruthlessness.” The frown on the man’s lips met his eyes and hinted at a person who’d also been somehow victim to that powerful peer. “If you choose to remain, I’ll help you.”

  She eyed him through narrowed eyes. Hadn’t George proven gentlemen were only driven by their own motives? “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you need help,” he said simply. The stranger
motioned to the door. “You are free to go. I will not stop you.” He paused. “But neither is it safe for you to be out on these streets, alone. The decision is yours.”

  Lily remained silent, glaring at him through mistrustful eyes until he opened the door and strode back across the street and, eventually, disappeared inside George’s home.

  She reached for the handle and froze. Where will I go? Home was no longer an option. Shivering from cold and fear, Lily pulled her fingers back and balled them on her lap. She huddled deeper into the thick squabs of the comfortable carriage.

  After all, as he’d said—what other choice did she have?

  Chapter 1

  London, England

  Late Winter 1821

  Derek Winters, the 8th Duke of Blackthorne, sat cloaked in the darkness of his office. Curtains drawn, the room silent and empty but for the eerie shadows that played off the walls, he’d come to crave the deathly still of the room like a demon craved the fires of hell. From the corner of his sole eye he glared at the crumpled copy of The Times that lay on the table beside him…as it had for months. A growl worked its way up his throat and he swiped the damned sheet up. He squinted and re-read those familiar words, once more.

  …The Marquess of St. Cyr nearly killed underneath the deadened branches of a Hyde Park elm…

  At one time, that piece would have devastated him. He fisted the page, further wrinkling the old copy. Now, this new man he’d become found an unholy glee in the other man’s misery. He gripped the arms of his chair. With his back presented to the room, he stared into the dancing flames of the blazing hearth. Only, he’d ceased to be human long ago—because of that very happy man, nearly killed by a blasted branch. Then, wasn’t that life? Some men had families and love and good-fortune…and then others? A muscle ticked at the corner of his eye. “And others have nothing,” he whispered. Yes, others were cursed, like the other Winters family members who’d only known death and despair. Such a truth had once ripped him apart with a vicious pain. Somewhere along the way, he’d built himself into a man who didn’t feel or care. And he was all the stronger for it.