Harris matched her movements, effectively blocking her path. “There is not.”
“What?”
“You asked if there was another duke and there is not.”
The man spoke with such seriousness she peered at him for a trace of humor. And found none. “I know, Harris.” She paused and then said gently, “I was merely jesting.”
“Jesting?” he repeated. For the man’s shock, she may as well have announced her intentions to avail herself of the duke’s silver.
Heavens, what would Harris say if he were to discover her actual intentions to abscond with the family’s jewels? He’d likely expire at her feet, in that case. “Yes, jesting. Never tell me,” she said dryly. “The duke does not permit expressions of amusement and mirth?”
The butler’s shoulders sagged. “He does not.” He wrinkled his brow. “His Grace prefers his home be silent.”
She stilled and stared unblinkingly back. The duke preferred his home silent? “What?”
Harris gave a vigorous nod. “Nor does he welcome visitors.” He gave her a pointed, “return-above stairs-this-instant” look.
Which she pointedly ignored. “Well, I am not a visitor.” At his furrowed brow, she smiled. “I am a servant in his employ, charged with caring for his niece.” Lily took a step left, but undeterred by her flirtatious grin; the resolute butler placed himself in her path once more.
“And he specifically does not welcome visitors in the corridor outside his office, at this hour.”
Curiosity stirred; the first welcome emotion outside the fear and uncertainty to dog her these seven years. She opened her mouth but the butler frowned that question into silence. No, she’d expect Harris wouldn’t welcome, accept, or answer any questions about his new employer. The hard set to his jaw indicated that for his ashen pallor and stammering words, there was a good deal of courage to him. Though she suspected that courage was born of fear in angering his master. Alas, Harris, His Grace, and the devil still did not know the level of her courage. “I daresay my hiring merits a meeting to go over my obli—”
“No.”
“Or—”
“No. Mr. Davies, the duke’s man-of-affairs sees to all of that.”
Well. She sighed. “Very well.”
As if she’d given him a stay of execution, his eyes slid closed. When he opened them, relief seeped from their brown depths. “You are to wait for your summons from Mr. Davies.” That pronouncement should not shock her. After all, lords and ladies had little to do with servants, and a governess was really just another member of the household staff.
The fact the Duke of Blackthorne ceded all control to his man of business made him more like than unlike all those other slothful lords. If that was the care he showed for his niece, then the girl would be ruined for her likely fat dowry and ducal connection before she’d even made her Come Out.
“Very well, Harris.” Lily inclined her head in acknowledgement.
“Do you require any further assistance?”
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from pointing out he’d been very little help thus far. Lily gave another slight toss of her curls and smiled softly up at him. “No, that is all, Harris. Thank you,” she purred.
The space filled with his audible swallow. Harris dipped his gaze lower to the loose black curls draped over her shoulder. Bloody inconvenient stubborn tresses. Who knew they’d have served a purpose. Not any purpose that was good. But still, a purpose nonetheless.
She dipped her head. “I’ll return to my rooms and then seek out Lady Flora.” And yet, another lie.
Harris gave a jerky nod. “O-of course, Mrs. Benedict.” A lie he believed as easily as if she’d held out the apple in the Garden of Eden.
With a murmured goodbye, Lily started up the stairs. She stole a glance over her shoulder and scanned the bold, marble space. Finding Harris gone, she readjusted her direction and started down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and then darted down the forbidden corridor. “Does he think he is a dragon and this is his lair?” she muttered.
The faintest, muffled laughter echoed her words. Heart hammering, Lily stopped mid-stride. She skimmed her gaze over the darkened halls in search of her charge. Only the shadows dancing upon the walls served as her company. Before Harris returned and found she disobeyed his orders, she quickened her steps. To kill the unease rolling through her, she struggled to drag forth the face of the blackguard who’d ruined her with the promise of more.
Instead, it blurred and melded so all she could see was a strikingly beautiful, scarred visage of another.
She reached the end of the corridor and came to a jerky stop. Unease roiling in her belly, Lily concentrated on her own breathing. The pale blue silk wallpaper. Anything but on the rash decision she’d made once upon a lifetime ago as the foolish vicar’s daughter with stars in her eyes and dreams of love in her heart, that had forever marred her future.
She trailed a palm over the wallpaper, and then raised her gaze upward to the gold sconce directly above. Following that elaborate gilt piece, she then looked back down the hall to the intermittent matching sconces. With wooden steps, she continued down the next hall.
In her connection to George, this place had been destined to be her home. Just not in the way she’d imagined. Through the dreams she’d carried of life with the late duke, never had it been about the fine porcelain vases and the army of servants. Rather, it had been about the need to love and be loved in return. How quick she was, a naïve girl, to believe a rake’s lies. Her mouth twisted up in a sad smile.
“You goddamn, weak fool.” The thunderous shout bounced off the plaster and Lily started.
The honorable intentions that had set her in search of the duke receded. She swallowed audibly as Harris’ warning danced around her head. Perhaps she’d wait for the duke’s man of business, after all. “Coward,” she silently mouthed, and turned to go. For cowardice oftentimes promised survival.
“You are a useless, pathetic excuse of a man.” The duke’s gravelly voice emerged from around the corridor in a harsh whisper that was more powerful than any of his previous bellowing.
It brought her to a slow halt.
She could be the coward and ignore those degrading words hurled at some other poor, fearful soul. She could continue on, unseen by the duke and the man he berated, and none would be the wiser. The butler would be pleased in thinking she’d dutifully attended his orders. And all would be well.
Rather, all would be well for her. Not, however, for that poor servant and stranger being so brutally admonished by the duke. Feelings of commiseration for the man demeaned with words kept her here when fear said flee. Just leave. I have my post. What he does now matters naught...
“You’ve no purpose in life.”
That vile charge snapped her into movement. She’d been so disdained by his family, even her own. She could not stand as silent witness to another person’s shame. Fueled by a healthy fury, Lily raced around the corner. “Who do you think you are to speak...?” Her words trailed off and she came to an abrupt stop. She scanned the hall for the poor servant whose rescue she’d come to. Empty. “There is no one here,” she said to herself. Then her gaze lit on the Duke of Blackthorne lying prone on the floor. Under her scrutiny, his unscarred cheek flushed red.
And then shock slammed into her, sucking the air from her lungs. “You were speaking to yourself,” she breathed. All the earlier annoyance and fury that had sent her charging down here, without regard for Holdsworth’s plans and her future, faded.
As one who’d spent years despising herself, she recognized the glimmer of self-loathing in His Grace’s eye. Pity pulled at her heart as, in this frozen instant, a kindred connection between them was born.
The duke swept his black eyelashes lower in a menacing manner. Only an austere duke of this man’s powerful frame could manage to both look and be in complete control, even sprawled upon the floor as he was. “What do you think you are doing here?” he demanded in clipp
ed tones, slightly breathless. From his exertions? Or the shock of her presence?
Staring down at him, sympathy continued to fill her breast. “I am so sorry,” she said softly when her heart resumed a normal beat. For more than her mere intrusion. Rage flashed in his eyes; a man who heard her words of pity and would burn her with his glare if he could, because of it. Unnerved by the extended silence, she shifted back and forth on her feet. Suddenly wishing she’d thought better of disobeying his orders, she cleared her throat. “I did not see you—” Her lips pulled in a grimace as she realized belatedly what she said.
“Did not see me?” he bit out. “Perhaps you are the one who is blind, madam.” He rose to his feet.
She took in his slow, awkward movements. The slight whitening at the corners of his lips and a faint grimace hinted at the pain he was in. Her heart softened at the sign of his suffering. Lily took a step toward him, but he fixed a black scowl on her that pinned her to the floor.
The duke took another step and his jerky movement sprung her into action. She retreated until her back knocked against the opposite wall. Her throat worked with a nervous dread as he limped over to his serpent-headed cane and took slow, threatening steps over to her. “You were ordered to stay away, Miss Benedict.” Thump-thump-thump. The heel of his walking stick beat a staccato rhythm upon the carpet.
Lily pressed her palms against the wall and walked sideways, away from him. “Mrs. Benedict.”
“Come,” he scoffed. “You’re no more a Mrs. than I am a dashing, charming gentleman.” But once he had been. Something in his tone and the flash of regret in his eye spoke volumes. Whereas, she’d never been anything but a vicar’s daughter-turned-whore. “Surely you’ll not maintain the pretense of a married widow for my benefit?”
Shame slapped her. For his aloofness, the duke had accurately surmised her worth. He possessed a keen intelligence she’d not thought a titled lord capable of.
“Nothing to say?” he taunted.
Her fingers twitched with the desire to slap him in his condescending face. “S-surely you’ll n-not maintain the role of nasty beast all to k-keep people out.” The faint quiver to her words ruined all attempt at false bravado.
His body went taut. “I warned you to stay away,” he said on a lethal whisper that fueled the rapidly rising nervousness in her belly.
Do not stir The Beast. “Y-yes.” She wet her lips. “B-but—”
“There is no but or questions or words required on your part, Miss Benedict. Were my demands not clear?”
Lily wanted to be brave and equally impressive in her fury. “Th-they were, Your Grace.” Instead, she proved herself the weak, fearful creature she’d been since her father had cast her out. She didn’t want to be that woman. Not anymore. That was the whole reason for her being here in this man’s household in the first place. Weak-willed women never found freedom. Rather, they were owned, possessed, and destroyed by powerful lords. She gave a toss of her curls and he narrowed his eye into a thin slit of hidden emotion. Do not be afraid. “I am here about the child.”
He stuck his face close to hers and she saw the snapping flecks of silver in his blue eye. “The child, you say?” Lily recoiled, but did not run as he surely wished her to. “What brought you here was a desire to abandon your post as a nobleman’s plaything.” At the unerringly accurate charge, heat singed her cheeks. Hadn’t her own father said she’d been born with the mark of whore upon her person? She curled her fingers into tight balls when he pushed his scarred visage ever closer. “But after a couple of days you are so very devoted to that same child, a girl you’ve just met, that you’d defy my orders?”
Fear sucked the words from her and all she managed was a weak, shaky nod. Still, there was a primitive rawness to him that roused terror. The fine layer of civility and politeness carried by one of his station had been stripped back to reveal the most primitive level of a human being.
The triumphant gleam in the depths of the duke’s eye indicated he’d followed the precise path her terrified thoughts had wandered and that he delighted in it. “Just as I do not care about the child, Miss Benedict, nor do I care to have my orders gainsaid by anyone.” With that cold decree, he was every inch a Winters and she despised him for it.
He limped off.
The new duke might be a scarred, hurting shell of a person but there were levels of depravity and wrongness that could not be pardoned. “You are a vile, coldhearted monster.” As soon as the insolent words slipped past her lips, she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood as he turned back.
The harsh, angular planes of his partly beautiful, partly horrific face settled into an inscrutable mask. “A monster?”
At those flat, emotionless words, fear spiraled through her. Her mouth went dry. “I merely wished to discuss what expectations you have for her learning.” She angled her chin up a notch. “And a proper introduction.”
“You’re here seeking an introduction?” He sneered. “You spoke of wanting security, but that is not altogether true, is it?” Even with the slight space between them, she strained to hear those lethally whispered words. “A woman who truly desired security and the post you foolishly fought for would not have defied the orders given by her master.”
“My master?” His high-handed words sent her back up. “My goodness, would you liken me to a dog?”
He continued over her as though she’d not spoken. “She would not have wandered halls she was expressly ordered to avoid.” Her fury slipped. He spoke in the past tense. His Grace paused and lowered his gravelly voice all the more. He drew back and then pointed a long, commanding finger to the opposite end of the hall. “I want you gone.
Surely she’d heard him wrong? And yet, by the hard set to his face, and the icy glint in his eye, her ears had not proven faulty. Oh, God. “G-gone?” Fear continued to grow, spreading through her person and crushing her chest with the weight of her folly. But this was not dread brought by his snapping, snarling ways or the marks upon his face. This was the kind of dread that came from losing all the security and safety she’d found in the world.
The duke eyed her dispassionately for a long moment and then turned on his heel once more. With the aid of his walking stick, he limped down the corridor. And each step that carried him away heightened the panic cloying at her.
The same terror to grip her as a just sixteen-year-old girl put aboard a mail coach and sent to London came rushing back. The memory of that day lapped at her mind. Where would she go? Home... The promise of Carlisle whispered around her memory. The lush greenery. The rising mountains. Only the intoxicating promise of a place she’d given up hope of ever being welcomed back was quashed by the harsh, curt words that her father sent her off with.
Her eyes slid closed at the rising swell of helplessness. What have I done? She might detest the Duke of Blackthorne. She might despise his treatment of her, his servants, the young girl who was his ward, but he was still her employer. Or he had been her employer. Tears clogged her throat and she damned the fine crystalline sheen that blurred his tall figure at the door.
Your passionate nature is a sin before God... Her father’s words rang as clear if they’d only just been uttered. Only, that had been when she’d striven for daughterly obedience, when nothing but being approved by one’s parent mattered most. Life had taught her there was more than that.
He turned and took several steps toward the opposite corridor, no doubt seeking his office. “You would send me away?” she called out, proud of herself for standing up to him.
Then, anger made one stronger.
Wasn’t the coldhearted duke, after all, proof of that? His Grace stopped. She drew a slow breath and then walked briskly toward him. “You’d send me away because I inquire about my responsibilities?” And she proved herself a coward, stopping with several paces between them. “Because I care about the ch—”
He spun around so swiftly and with such effortless movement, she gasped. “You care about the child?”
She winced at the slight, mocking emphasis. “You are a stranger and know even less about that child than I myself.” He peeled his lip in a mocking sneer. “No, you were quite clear, Miss Benedict. You came for employment. You would have taken anything,” he continued his relentless barrage upon her conscience. “The child was always a mere afterthought to you.”
Oh, God. He was correct. She pressed her eyes closed a moment. She hated him for being accurate and, more, hated herself for having been reduced to someone who’d put her own thoughts, security, and future before that of an innocent child. She’d fallen lower than Eve in this land of Eden. She managed to move her thickened tongue. “You are wrong,” she said, her tone hollow. For was he truly?
Over the satin fabric of his black patch, he arced his eyebrow upward. “Am I?” he asked, echoing her own silent question. Had his inquiry been delivered as taunting, with that icy edge she’d come to expect, it would be easier than this matter-of-factness. “You come here making charges on the manner of guardian and person I am.” He stalked over with surprising agility. Rage made people do powerful things. The duke stopped before her. “I spare the child from having to see a living monster.” She winced at the cruel words she’d leveled at him a short while ago. For just that, he said more than he had since their first meeting. “But you,” he went on. “You would come into this household and place your own desires,” he wrapped that word in a silken tone that caused an odd fluttering in her belly, “before what is best for that child you so care about.” A cold, mirthless smile played on his lips. “Now tell me, which of us is truly thinking of the child’s best interests?”
She froze and stared unblinking at him. His charge ran through her, shocking her with the accuracy of it. Guilt unfurled in her belly. Lily slid her eyes closed a moment. “You are, indeed, correct,” she whispered. This great, hulking bear of a man who yelled at his servants and hid away in his office, in this was far more honorable, far more decent than her.
He came closer and then stopped so a hairsbreadth of space separated them. His towering, broad-muscled frame sucked the breath from her lungs. At his body’s nearness, a slow heat spread through her body, and befuddled her mind. So that she wanted to know more of this warmth, and not the cold chill to have filled her since she’d entered his dark halls. “I should send you away,” he said with a gravelly roughness to his tone better suited to a cutthroat in the Dials than a man who could command entrance into any ballroom; a man just shy of royalty. “I expressly forbade you from entering my halls.” Power emanated from his well-muscled frame.
Rescued By a Lady's Love (Lords of Honor, #3) Page 12
