Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  She absently fingered the carved rose on the top of her box. How very foolish to believe Derek would want any help from her. The bellowing, angry duke he’d proven himself to be would sooner send her to the devil than acknowledge need of help from anyone. And yet… She wandered closer to that painting and met his once happy eyes.

  At some point, everyone needed help. Life had taught her that.

  The day Derek had lost his left eye, he’d come to appreciate his remaining senses. Scents became stronger and his hearing developed an acuity that would have been the envy of a buck avoiding being hunted. It was how, in the midnight hour, a faint sniveling penetrated his solitary thoughts. He glanced beyond the edge of the folded, still unread note in his hand, over at the closed door. A frown formed on his lips.

  Silence.

  Derek returned his attention to St. Cyr’s neat scrawl. They’d met as boys when St. Cyr and Maxwell had discovered Derek with a crystal inkwell in hand, one movement away from dumping ink into the tea of their nasty instructor with a fondness for a birch rod. He’d stood frozen at being caught in the man’s rooms. Wordlessly, St. Cyr had wandered in ahead of Maxwell, relieved Derek of the crystal jar, and dumped the ink. “I rather think this means we must be friends forever.” His mouth twisted with dry irony and he absently massaged the sore muscles of his useless leg. That damned boy, along with Maxwell, had followed him from the notorious rooms of Eton, on to Oxford. In the greatest twist of irony, Derek had followed St. Cyr but once—into the fields of battle. Maxwell had been with them on those battlefields, as well. He gave his head a regretful shake.

  At the time it had seemed the perfect grand adventure for three daring and fearless boys who’d believed themselves invincible. His fingers tightened reflexively upon the page; wrinkling the sheet. Following Toulouse when he’d at last awakened from a drug-induced slumber to find his eye gone and his face burned, he damned the day he’d ever met St. Cyr.

  Another faint whimper cut across his useless musings of the past. He stilled. In the shroud of midnight’s dark loneliness, he could almost believe his mind rang with those dying, once brave fools weeping in pools of their blood. “Do not be a bloody fool,” he muttered. Setting aside the latest letter sent ’round by St. Cyr on the rose-inlaid table next to his chair, Derek grabbed his cane. He used it to leverage himself to a standing position.

  People did not enter these corridors. The thump-thump-thump of his cane echoed loudly as he made his way across the office. He jerked open the door and peered into the hall.

  Silence.

  Then another faint sniffle pulled his attention toward that portrait of his once-perfect self. The sight of the lady hovering beside that image weeping, hit him like a well-delivered punch to the gut. Did she stand there with the same pity and regret for the loss of that beautiful, charming gentleman? He opened his mouth to bellow her into leaving, but stopped. Lily stretched a hand out and brushed her fingertips tenderly along the white-gloved hand, the same hand that now required the assistance of a cane to amble his way along through life. Derek’s blustery tirade died swiftly and he remained rooted to the floor. His throat worked spasmodically.

  Why should she stand before an old, frozen likeness of him with anything other than contempt and disdain? He’d proven himself a foul, bellowing beast and yet, she should linger there and caress that canvas. What manner of woman was Lily Benedict, this woman of otherworld perfection? A willowy creature who stood before him in nothing but her nightshift, with her braided black tresses flowing down her back.

  He shifted his weight and the floorboards creaked, revealing his presence. Lily drew her shoulders back, but she remained silent, with her back presented to him. Derek started forward. “Lily Benedict, you continue to persist,” he drawled. He hitched his leg to correct his awkward stride.

  She shuffled something in her arms and then with one hand, swatted at her face. “Your Grace,” she said in steady, even tones as she turned to greet him.

  The sight of her sucked the breath from his lungs and he lost his footing. On a curse, Derek stumbled and caught himself hard against the wall. He grunted. God how he despised the weak soul he’d become.

  Lily gasped and the box in her arms tumbled to the floor with a loud bang. “Are you all right, Your Grace?” Her long, slender legs ate away the distance between them and she rushed to a halt at his side. She wrapped her hands about his forearms, as though to steady him.

  Despite the misery he’d cloaked himself in, that protective angriness that kept him safe, a smile pulled at his lips. Did the narrow-waisted, gentle beauty think she could prevent a man of his size from falling? “Derek,” he corrected.

  As though she registered the impropriety of her touch, she jerked her hands back and let them fall to her side. “Derek,” she murmured. “Are you all right…Derek?” Her husky contralto wrapped around the harsh two-syllable word that was his name, sucking him into a vortex where he wished to lose himself in that soothing, seductive tone. Such a voice was the kind that healed and drove back previous pain.

  “I am fine,” he said harshly. He took in the lady’s reddened eyes. She’d been crying. A thousand questions sprung to his lips, but he quelled them. As a man who celebrated his privacy, he’d not press her with questions, he himself would not answer.

  She stiffened.

  Seven years of nothing but his miserable self for company had erased all remembrances of those Social niceties. Such a detail shouldn’t matter. So, why did it?

  In a bid to end the protracted silence, he bit out, “Are you unable to sleep?”

  Lily hesitated and, for a moment, he suspected she’d not answer. Then she inclined her head. “I am. And are—?”

  “I do not sleep,” he interrupted.

  A small laugh escaped her. “Of course you sleep. Everyone sleeps.” He’d inspired nothing but fear in women since his return. This woman could laugh around him. Power headier than a potent aphrodisiac surged through him.

  “You are mistaken.” He stole moments of rest, when he closed his eyes and sought the peace to be had in the unconsciousness. Inevitably, the demons entered; the sharp report of gunfire, the blast of cannonballs, and the agonized screams of the dead and dying—himself. And tonight the demons had come and he was too much of a coward to face them alone. I’ve been alone for so long…

  Another long silence met his pronouncement. He shifted his gaze about and then his stare alighted on a crude box at the foot of the painting.

  She followed his stare and with high color on her cheeks, Lily sprinted over. She dropped to a knee in a flurry of cotton skirts. His gaze went to her trim ankles and the naked soles of her feet. His mouth went dry. He wanted to place his lips on the satiny soft flesh and trail his lips higher, upwards—Derek gave his head a brusque shake. God help him, he was worse than a green boy.

  He shuffled over and with a slight grimace, lowered himself to the floor beside her and took in the folded notes littering their feet. The muscles of his leg screamed in protest to the uneven pressure put upon his knee and thigh. Derek swallowed back a groan, but not before she heard that faint indication of his misery.

  Lily froze mid-movement and picked her gaze up. He braced for the pitying look. Yet, the lady continually threw him off balance. “I am surprised you have not scolded me yet,” she murmured as she stacked her notes.

  To give his fingers something to do, Derek picked up several folded sheets. “Would it do me any good?”

  A smile pulled at the corners of her lips and the sigh of it roused lightness in his chest. “No, I rather think not.” She held her hand out and he eyed her outstretched fingers. Desire ran through him. A need to take her hand as she urged and twine it about his neck and…

  Lily cleared her throat and, bemused, he followed her gaze. Her notes. Of course. Derek made to hand them over, and then registered the pages; these links to who she was. Were they from a lover? It certainly would account for her tear-stained cheeks. A white-hot envy swirled in his bell
y. The bold, slashing strokes suggested they were in a man’s hand.

  “Your Grace?” she urged.

  “Derek.” Reluctantly, he turned them back over to her care. All the while, curiosity ate at him to know the contents of those pages she filed away into her box.

  As he climbed to his feet with slow, precise movements, Lily quickly stood. Once he would have risen and effortlessly guided her. Bitterness twisted in his belly. Now he could barely properly limp down a hall. They stood there a long while studying one another. “I should return to my rooms.”

  Perhaps it was the madness of the midnight hours or perhaps it was years of solitariness thrust upon a man who’d once very much loved life, but he did not want her to go. Did not want to be alone with his demons. “Surely you did not get what you’ve come all the way below stairs for?” he asked when she turned.

  Lily stopped, her foot hung suspended. Crimson color flooded her cheeks. “I came to read through my letters,” she said quickly. And then she completed that step. There was the slightest imperceptible pause that hinted at more to her response.

  What secrets did she keep? Cane in hand, he spread his arms wide. “Then, please do not allow me to stop you from your pleasures, madam.”

  She eyed him with wariness that surely came from a lifetime learned of mistrust. Who had put that cynical glint in her expressive eyes? As brave as the day she arrived, Lily squared her shoulders and retreated several steps, and he mourned her departure which would thrust him back into the maudlin thoughts haunting him this evening and a familiar loneliness. She stopped then wheeled back around, that small container held like a pirate’s treasure in her arms.

  His heart thumped with that growing desire to have her near.

  “Will you join me, Your…Derek?” She didn’t want to be alone any more than he himself wanted to be. He balled his hands at his side. He’d spent years erecting protective defenses about his deadened heart. Yet, each moment with Lily Benedict cracked those walls and reminded him of what it had felt like to laugh and love and be loved. It was safer to leave.

  Over the years, his office had been a sanctuary of sorts. He’d shut the world out of those heavy oak doors. But now, in the madness of night, he wanted her there in a place that had previously only existed for him. “Will you come to my offices, instead?” She started. Was it shock that as a duke he’d make a request and not a demand? Or was it that she, too, saw he was letting her inside his world. Then, she held her hand out and led the way. Wordlessly, he trailed behind her. Their footsteps fell in a quiet, harmonious rhythm. Lily entered his office and he followed, now knowing how those poor, doomed sailors felt at sea when thrashed against Siren’s rocks.

  Derek hovered at the doorway as Lily moved deeper into the room as though she were, in fact, the rightful owner of this very space. Only a few days, earlier he would have bellowed until she fled. Now, something stirred deep within him at the connection to life she represented. Lily slid her gaze about the room, giving her the look of a one searching for something. Escape, perhaps? He carefully schooled his features as she turned about the room, taking it in, with an assessing manner. Far safer to focus on her distracted movements than the hungering for this slip of lady now raging through him, he followed her curious stare.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” His question brought her attention up from the mahogany piece that had commanded her notice.

  A fire still burned in the hearth, casting a faint glow about the room. Derek shoved the door closed and limped over to his sideboard. He poured himself a brandy and then swirled the contents in a small circle. “An odd piece, is it not?” With his snifter in one hand and cane in the other, Derek limped around his desk to the gilt-metal revolving bookcase that had captured her notice.

  She gave it a slight nod, eying it through her endlessly long, dark lashes. “What is it?” she asked and, at the huskiness underscoring that hesitant inquiry, desire licked away rational thought.

  Derek forced himself to focus on his ragged breathing. Her hold was born of nothing more than the lust of a man who’d gone years without a woman.

  Liar.

  His hands trembled and he set his cane down. “Here,” he said gruffly and moved over to demonstrate the intricacy of the case. “It was designed to contain books. It belonged to my brother.” A rusty grin formed on his lips. “My brother was not much of a reader.” No, George had been a notorious rake more interested in bedding beauties and collecting fine baubles than in enriching his mind. Registering Lily’s absolute quiet, he glanced up.

  Her cheeks an ashen hue, she had the look of one close to casting the contents of her stomach.

  He took a step toward her. “Lily?”

  She waved her hand. “Fine.”

  He strained to make out that hushed whisper.

  She cleared her throat. “You were saying?” Lily set her box down on the edge of his desk and moved around, coming to a stop so that her slender leg brushed his. Charged awareness unfurled at their bodies’ closeness. Heat singed his thigh from where their legs touched and blazed through him, and this was a fire he’d wholly welcome.

  “Compartments,” he managed to get out. “There are compartments hidden within.”

  He lowered his head and stopped with their lips a hairsbreadth apart. He sprung the latch free and his pulse, pounding loudly in his ears, muffled the sharp click. Had he ever been so aware of a woman? In the past, it had been about those fleeting moments of pleasure and instant gratification. With Lily, it was a hungering that seared his soul; an ache to know her in every way, forever. His fingers shook slightly as he drew forth the extravagant diamond. He’d never understood the fascination his family had possessed over such fripperies.

  Lily’s breath caught on a gasp.

  “It is beautiful, isn’t it,” he murmured, examining the forgotten piece. For his own carousing and roguish behaviors, he’d not craved those fine baubles the way his kin had. The coldness of the piece, even now, merely served as a highlight of the equally cold existence he now lived.

  “There is a story that surrounds this stone.” One Davies had insisted he know after his previous employer died. It was a story Derek hadn’t cared a jot about. “It once belonged to the King of France.” Derek held it between them. As one, he and Lily dipped their heads, their gazes trained on the diamond worth more than most kings’ crowns together. The heart twisted on the long, gold chain. It spiraled back and forth, rotating in a half circle and then spinning back again, and even in the dark, the opulent gem shimmered and shined. “My brother had a taste for fine things. Extravagant things.”

  Lily jerked up so quickly, they cracked heads. She stumbled away from him.

  He eyed her quizzically as she skirted the edge of his desk. With her long fingers, she brushed them over his desk, his belongings, nearing the handful of letters he did not burn but instead left out as a constant reminder of a friendship gone. He frowned, unnerved by the intimacy of her presence here in a room that had been his shelter and sanctuary for so long. “What are you doing?”

  His sharp command brought her up short and from where she stood over by his sideboard, she turned back. “I…” She wet her lips and his gaze, unbidden, went to her mouth, taking in that slight, seductive movement. The memory of their embrace sucked at his logical thought and desire slammed into him to know the taste of her once more. He suppressed a groan. “I am sorry,” she said quietly, the evenness of her tone indicated she’d not followed his desirous musings. “I find myself wandering when I am nervous.”

  How very interesting. That slight detail revealed made her more than a governess in his employ, but a woman with peculiar habits that made her—her. “It is fine,” he said gruffly, shocking the both of them with his concession.

  Her keen eyes followed his every movement as he turned the lock and sealed them effectively off from the handful of servants who’d not been run off by his horrifying features and surly bellows.

  The graceful column of her throat worke
d as she slid her gaze over to the doorway. “Is there a reason you locked the door?” There was a faint tremble to her voice.

  Did she fear him? She’d be mad not to. “Are you afraid to be alone with me?” He turned a question back at her. Annoyance stirred. Perhaps it was merely the midnight weakness, but he detested a world in which she feared him the same way all others did.

  Lily rested her palms on the edge of the sideboard. “I have long ago learned to be wary of all men.”

  The same warrior’s bloodlust that had filled him in battle and made him able to slay men and fellow soldiers ran through him with a powerful force. Men. With that telling word, she spoke of more than her golden-haired Gabriel, an unknown to him figure who’d left a mark upon her happiness, and Derek needed to know all those secrets she held close. Nay, he wanted to. Wanted to, when he’d made it a point to not know or care about anyone these many years. Yet this woman had slipped into his household and in a matter of days, captivated him with her bravery. “Was he a previous employer?” he asked, silently loathing the bastard who’d put this wary hurt in her eyes.

  She hesitated, but then shook her head once. “He was not.”

  That three word revelation roused a deep-seeded, inexplicable jealousy. Derek clenched and unclenched his jaw. It spoke of a former love and a broken heart, and as such, a man he hated. A man whose notes now rested in the box on his desk, then. The urge to stride across the room, flip open that lid, and read about her past, consumed him. When it became clear she intended to say nothing more of it, he spoke. “Ah, so it was your archangel Gabriel with the face of perfection and magnificent golden tresses?” That bloody paragon she’d spoken of, with regret in her eyes. A man he despised for being the perfect man, Derek himself once had been.

  Lily started. “How…?”

  Yes, why should he remember such a thing? And his earlier resolve to allow Lily her privacy left him. “Who was he?” For ultimately, he wanted to know everything there was to know about the spirited, fearless woman who’d braved his lair.