Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  “You did defy my orders.” Several times. “And entered areas I’d expressly forbade you from entering.” With his harsh urgings, did he seek to protect himself from hurt? He lowered his face so close to hers, his brandy-scented breath fanned her lips.

  Her lashes fluttered madly and she ached to tip her head back and take his kiss.

  “But I will not.”

  She tried to untangle the meaning of his words through this haze of desire clouding her senses. “You will not what?” she managed.

  “Sack you.” Derek drew back and by his smooth unaffectedness, she may as well have imagined the momentary haze of passion between them.

  She blinked several times. “Your Grace?”

  “Despite Davies’ compunctions, I’ve need of you, Lily.”

  “A need of me?” she repeated blankly, backing away from him. Disappointment settled like a stone in her belly. Having no choice was vastly different than deciding to give yourself to a man. “Y-You wish me to warm your bed?” She retreated until the backs of her knees knocked against the bed and she tumbled into a seated position.

  Derek limped forward and she’d no doubt, even with the injury to his leg, he could easily overtake her if he so desired like one of those sleek, primal beasts. Except, as he stopped several feet from where she sat, she knew that this was not the manner of man Derek, the Duke of Blackthorne, was or ever had been. Snarling, surly, and harsh, he’d still never force his intentions upon a woman.

  Her brooding employer looked her up and down, startling her with his gentle tone. “I have told you before; I will not take advantage of a servant in my employ.” Then the mask of ruthless duke descended as he lowered his lashes. “What manner of household did you work in prior to this to turn you cautious?” The hard edge to that inquiry hinted of a man who’d shred her previous employer should she issue the words.

  He would feel that rage because of a gentleman’s treatment of me? She wetted her lips. “I…” Could not speak of it. For even as desperate as Derek was for a governess for Flora, even he was not so very desperate to turn that post over to his brother’s whore. She gave her head a shake. “I…” Her words ended on a shuddery whisper as he brushed his knuckles in a sweeping movement from her cheek to her chin. Then back. The caress was rhythmic and soothing.

  “I’ve need of you, Lily,” he said again, allowing Lily her secret. “That need does not require you to warm my bed.”

  But what if I wish to? Lily squeezed her eyes shut a moment, shamed by her wanton desire for his strong, sure touch.

  “I am not of a mind to run through cowering governess after cowering governess. You are, for reasons I do not understand, unafraid of me.” Derek peered at her. With the intensity of his impenetrable gaze, there was the horrifying moment where she believed he could see into her thoughts to the sins of her past.

  Wordlessly, he let his arm fall to his side.

  Her skin went cold at the loss of his touch and snapped her from the desirous reverie he’d cast. She blinked slowly.

  Derek stomped his cane to the floor twice. “You are to care for Flora.”

  Flora, when all other times he’d called her by nothing other than “the girl”. She cocked her head at this unexpected softening in him. She managed a jerky nod. “I-I can d-do that.” She had to find that diamond. Needed to do Holdsworth’s evil bidding. The sooner she found the bloody diamond, the sooner she could be free of this household and free of Derek’s ever-strengthening hold upon her and her senses. “But why?” she blurted. “Why should you dismiss the concerns of a servant who has been faithful to your family for countless years?” For me? Why, when people had long ago stopped seeing good in her soul?

  He shifted his weight over the serpent-headed cane in his hands. “Why?” he repeated. White lines tightened the corners of his lips and his skin turned an ashen hue. A vise squeezed her heart at the evidence of his pain. A hard smile formed on his lips. “The truth is, Lily, my staff fears me.” And with good reason. With his scathing words and black glares, he’d rouse terror in the unholiest beast. All of those servants failed to see the façade their employer had crafted to protect himself from further hurt. “All fear me,” he carried on in a silken whisper. “My own mother and brother did, as well.”

  Agony lanced her heart at that matter-of-fact deliverance. Having bore witness to the heartlessness of those two, she could imagine how they’d look upon their scarred son and brother, and Lily hated them all over again. Hated them for reasons that had nothing to do with her own suffering, but for this man’s pain.

  “Yet strangely,” he continued. “You do not.” He shot his other arm out and ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. “How can that be?”

  Lily trembled at his slight touch and leaned into his caress. “When I was a girl of fifteen, I met a gentleman.” Derek stiffened. His expression curiously blank, he dropped his arm to his side. Mourning the loss of his caress, she forced herself to go on. “He was riding in the countryside. I was walking in the hillside and our paths crossed.” And she’d been paying for that meeting since. The memories slipped in, dragging her into her past. The late duke had stunk of brandy and spirits, his rumpled garments bespoke an evening of carousing, but as a girl she’d been too foolish to see any of that. She curled her fingers so tight her nails dug vicious crescents onto the soft flesh of her palms.

  With his penetrating stare, Derek urged her on with her telling.

  She forced herself to unfurl her hands. “The gentleman was magnificent,” she said, emotionless. “He had glorious golden tresses and a face the archangel Gabriel would have envied.” Even with that black-hearted scoundrel’s beauty, George paled in his younger brother’s more impressive, darker shadow.

  A muscle ticked at the corner of Derek’s black patch. “And?” he gritted out.

  She gave her head a clearing shake. “That gentleman’s soul proved to be black and ugly and all things vile.” Lily claimed Derek’s left hand. She turned over the large, powerful palm and studied the scars that marred the, no doubt, once perfect flesh. Both George and Sir Henry had worn fine gloves as though they were part of their skin. How very different Derek was from all others; so wholly real and raw. Lily pressed her hand to his and studied the joined palms. “I came to learn a man’s worth, honor, and beauty is about far more than the physical perfection one may have, by a matter of chance, been born with.”

  His body jerked, as though she’d run him through with a jagged rapier. Where she’d once been the prey and he the hunter, with her telling, the roles were reversed. Derek stumbled away from her. His left leg buckled and he quickly caught himself with the use of his cane. “Will you accept the position or not, Mrs. Benedict?” he rasped.

  And so she was Mrs. Benedict again. She nodded once. “I will. However,” she called as he turned to leave. He froze and cast a glance over his shoulder. Lily shoved slowly to her feet and tried to regain her bearing in his tall, towering presence; a nigh impossible feat with his six feet and five inches of unyielding masculine power. “I will not deal with Davies. I will report to only you about Flora.” His eye disappeared into a thin, narrow slit. She swallowed hard. No doubt, few presented ultimatums to a duke, particularly one of this commanding strength and power. “I will need to visit your office and speak to you.” She held her breath. For that request, if granted, would afford her entry to his most private room.

  Charged silence blanketed the room. They stood, gazes locked on one another in an unspoken battle. As the moments ticked by and he continued to assess her in that piercing way, trepidation built at a steady, relentless rate. A man such as this one could look into a person’s eyes and glean their secrets and all the darkest, ugliest truths they carried. Her chest froze tight, until she reminded herself to breathe once more. For the lies she carried, were the dark, ugly sins that he’d no doubt destroy her for, when he ultimately discovered her duplicity.

  Except…he gave a curt nod. “You will meet with me each Friday. You have a
n hour. Not a minute more. Not a minute less. Should you have requests to put to me, they will not come before those meetings.” Derek turned and started for the door.

  An unexplainable disappointment filled her. For she well knew a man who shut himself away from Society would never exit the protective walls of his office and, as such, she would never see him. Is that not for the best? Then I may have free rein of his home and not fear being under his watchful eye…

  Derek reached for the handle.

  “Wait!”

  He froze.

  Her mind sped quickly and abandoning all proper decorum, she raced after him. “Meet but once a week?” she asked. It was madness to issue any protestations to his demands. The fewer dealings she had with this man who roused equal amounts fear and desire, the better, nay safer, it was for her to escape, unscathed. So why did she protest?

  Derek eyed her dispassionately. “You’ll debate the merits of my terms?”

  There was a hint of warning she’d be fool to ignore. “I will.” Then, she’d proven herself a fool many times before this. “You meet with Mr. Davies but once a week, but I am overseeing the care of a child entrusted to you. We must meet more than once each week.” Did she imagine the ghost of a smile on his lips at that last charge? Surely he’d already proven himself incapable of amusement. She shook her head. “No, one meeting will not suffice. I will meet you in your office each Monday, prior to beginning Lady Flora’s weekly lessons. And each Wednesday to go over the progress she is making and any questions I might have, until our Friday meeting where I will provide a detailed reporting for the week.”

  He stood at the door and, for a long moment, she thought he’d fling her demands in her face and be done with her once and for all. “Very well, Lily.”

  His words jerked her erect. What?

  “You’ll have your three meetings.” Without another word, Derek turned, yanked the door open, and left. He shoved it closed and the panel rattled in its frames.

  With Derek gone, her shoulders sagged. She folded her arms at her waist and squeezed tight. No matter how much she held herself, she could not drive back the self-loathing that churned in her belly and spread through her like a venomous poison. In coming here, she’d convinced herself of the right of deceiving the new Duke of Blackthorne. After all, blood will out. By the whispered rumors about the man called The Beast of Blackthorne, and the witness she herself had borne to his tirades and disdain for the child in his care, he fit with all heinous, ugly things she knew to be true about the now dead George.

  Only, in three days’ time, he’d upended her world and forced her to see a man who protected himself at all costs. A lonely gentleman who’d not go near his niece for fear of terrorizing the girl with his visage. Why should he believe otherwise when, by his own admission, his own mother could not bear to look upon him? Derek Winters, the Duke of Blackthorne, was a man who trusted none and closeted himself away in his office, hiding like a great, injured beast, nursing his wounds in a corner.

  And this is the man she would ultimately deceive.

  Tears smarted behind her eyes; useless, empty drops, as she found just one more reason to hate herself. She stilled and blinking back tears, then stared at the door Derek had just taken his leave of. Yes, she would take from the Duke of Blackthorne and be off like the thief in the night she was…but perhaps, before she left, there was some good she could do here that would atone for some of the evils she’d done in her life.

  As much as his old injury allowed, Derek walked briskly through the quiet corridors. Panic and fury warred for supremacy within, with neither proving triumphant. He’d allowed the lovely, vexing, and all things tempting Lily Benedict her three meetings. Not only had he allowed her to remain, he’d granted the lady free rein of his household and agreed to her outrageous terms of three weekly meetings. He gave his head a disgusted shake. Now he knew how that fool Odysseus, spending years of his life a willing prisoner upon that island, felt.

  For instead of setting Lily from his thoughts, with each exchange, she strengthened whatever this maddening hold she had over him. He didn’t want to care—about her, his sister’s child, himself. He’d been content to live in the past, constructing defenses that would see him immune to Society and his own family’s loathing. Instead of caring, he’d fed his icy disdain for the world—for his mother who’d rejected him. For his former friend St. Cyr, who’d destroyed him. And for every woman, man, and child that had turned from him in horrified revulsion. Revenge against St. Cyr had fueled him—a desire to see that man as miserable as he’d made Derek. In the end, his efforts to shatter that man’s happiness and his marriage had proven futile.

  Derek turned at the end of the corridor and marched awkwardly down the hall. Yet, since Lily had entered his household, a woman of mystery and courage, he’d been consumed by her: the sweet taste of her, the fragrant hint of lavender that clung to her skin. Through her, he felt more alive than he had since Toulouse.

  His heart thundered hard and he lengthened his stride, damning his leg that slowed his retreat. For Christ in Heaven, he didn’t want to care there had been a gentleman with the face of the archangel Gabriel who’d hurt her in ways that made Derek wish he was whole again so he could tear the bastard apart with his bare hands. Why should it matter she knew hurt or pain? Why, when his own suffering was so very great? Only, the anguish in her eyes dulled his own self-pain, so that he wanted to drive back the memories that clearly haunted her.

  “Goddamn you, Lily Benedict,” he spat. Derek’s heel scraped along the carpet. He stumbled and then pitched forward. Coming down hard, he caught himself on his palms as pain shot up his arms. His cane skidded across the carpet and then came to an abrupt stop at a pair of small, slippered feet. His breath coming hard and fast from his fall, he froze.

  “Are you hurt?” she called and her almost haunting child’s voice carried down the hall.

  He growled. “I am incapable of pain.”

  The little girl took a step closer and then another. “I don’t think that is true.” She motioned to his scarred face. “That must have hurt a great deal.”

  The scent of burned flesh seared his nostrils and his body went taut with the remembered agony of being stuck through over and over again in his thigh, like a lady’s embroidery scrap, by a French soldier determined to end the man whose face had been set ablaze.

  “Did it?” she prodded. And then clarified. “That is hurt. Did it hurt?”

  Drawing forth years of the harsh ugliness he’d reserved for all people, Derek opened his mouth, but the words would not come. “It did.” He jerked and then cast a quick glance about to the person responsible for that admission. Me. By God, I was the man who uttered those words.

  His sister’s child wandered ever closer. A tiny replica of Edeline when she’d been a girl of seven now hovered over his prone form. He braced for her horrified shock but, instead, she peered long and silently at this face. “Yes,” she said at last. “I expect it would have.” She leaned closer. “Does it still hurt?”

  Derek shoved himself into a sitting position. Oh, how the ton would laugh and sneer should they see the fabled Beast in his shirtsleeves and gloveless, collapsed upon the floor with a child putting inquiries to him. Only, you don’t care what anyone truly thinks of you… Or, do you? He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “It does not,” he said gruffly, the lie slipped out with surprising ease. He was not so devoid of humanity that he’d fill this girl’s ears with the agony of movement; that his entire body throbbed daily with pain. He started. For hadn’t he spent the better part of seven years believing that very thing?

  Unnerved by the girl’s silent stare, he came up on his knees and attempted to stand. His leg buckled in protest and a black curse slipped from his lips. The familiar self-hatred ran hot through him, burning him with the ever-deepening disgust for himself.

  His sister’s child looked him over and then blessedly turned on her heel and skipped off as though she danced through the meadows
of an English countryside and not the dark, lonely halls of The Beast of Blackthorne’s home. Derek attempted to stand once more, but his exertions running about the blasted townhouse in search of Lily Benedict and then away from her just moments earlier, crippled his efforts now. He sank back on his haunches, shifted his body’s weight onto his unaffected side and then narrowed his eyes.

  The girl stopped alongside his cane and with an ease he envied, bent, scooped it up, and raced back. “You need your cane.”

  Sweat dotted his brow and dripped into his eye, momentarily blinding him. He brushed it back and warily stared at the offering she held out.

  She shook it. “Well?”

  Reluctantly, Derek accepted it and, with the aid of the crutch, shoved himself to a stand.

  “It is an ugly cane, you know.” There was a chiding tone to the child’s words that made him smile.

  He quickly smoothed his features.

  “I daresay if I required a cane, I would have a fairy or flower upon mine. Something happier than an ugly snake.”

  He blinked. “Undoubtedly.”

  “You did not allow Mr. Davies to sack Mrs. Benedict.”

  Keeping up with this child’s ramblings was like being set out at sea in a squall. “Should you not be in the nursery?” Once more, the wisdom in allowing Lily to remain on, despite the havoc she wrought upon his senses, proved true.

  Flora lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. “Mrs. Benedict and I are going to the park for my lessons tomorrow.” She cast a hopeful look up. “Would you like to come with us?”

  To smell the air. He closed his eye a moment. To feel the sun touch his face like a whispery caress. Derek opened his eye on his now scarred, disfigured face. “Run along to bed then.”

  She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I am glad you didn’t sack her. She is nice to you. Mr. Davies is not.”

  Most people were not. And with good reason. He was an ugly, miserable bugger.

  “Mayhap people are not so very nice because you are not so very nice, Uncle Derek.”