How very foolish she’d been. She’d seen him in one light, not allowing herself to linger on the darker pieces he’d revealed. I didn’t want to see anything else… She’d been content with the dream. The problem with dreams is that they invariably ended and left one with the cold reality that was life.
What is my reality?
She’d resolved to never be her mother, but had never given proper thought to who she did wish to be and, more, how to shape herself into that person. Nick’s words rang in her ears.
…You come here weekly, and you sit at the back rows listening to the opinions of others… What you have to say, Justina. What opinions you have are no less important…
She blinked slowly, staring at the gentleman droning on and on, with his own opinions and the truth slid forward. She didn’t want to simply sit and listen anymore. She wanted a voice, but one she was unafraid to use. Nick had helped her realize that. In coming here and hiding in a lecture hall, she was hiding from her husband and the future that was now theirs. In that, she may as well be the same girl hiding from Tennyson. She needed to fight for him and for their future—together. A lightness filled her chest and she shoved back her chair to stand when whispers rent the monotony of the lecture.
The steady tread of a footfall brought her attention sideways and her heart squeezed. Gaze trained forward, Nick strode down the narrow aisle toward the front podium. His eyes briefly found hers. He was here. Why is he here? Emotion clogged her throat and she struggled to swallow past the hope there.
“What is he doing here?” Honoria whispered, echoing Justina’s thoughts as he stopped at the front of the room and proceeded to exchange hushed words with the lecturer.
With a final nod, Nick claimed a place behind the podium. Reaching inside his jacket, he withdrew his spectacles and placed them on. Then he fished out a piece of white parchment.
Justina cocked her head.
“The autumn winds carpet the earth in deadened leaves, ushering in winter’s cold.” His quietly spoken words filled the hall, raising whispers from the gathered gentlemen.
“He writes poetry,” Gillian said, widening her eyes.
“Yes.” No. He hadn’t. She slid back into her seat and clung to the edge.
“The season lasts eternal, freezing, destroying in its hold.” Nick lifted his gaze from the page. From across the hall, his gaze locked with hers. In his eyes, the love and regret there stole her breath. “But with her love, spring returns and slowly the chill recedes. Bringing forth hope, and laughter, and everything that can be.” The column of his throat moved.
Tears welled in her eyes and his face blurred. She frantically wiped at them. Needing to see him.
Gillian sighed. “His grand moment.”
Justina bit hard on her lower lip. He’d put pen to parchment—for her.
“You were my spring. You awakened me in ways I’d believed myself long dead. You filled me with joy,” he said, hoarsely. “Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not—” Oh, God. She touched quivering fingers to her lips. “Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed—” Nick held her stare, waiting. His meaning clear.
A teardrop spiraled down her cheek. She let her hand fall to her lap. “But it returneth,” she whispered. It did. Because as long as forgiveness and redemption existed, so, too, did love.
Her husband touched his hand to his heart. “I made a blunder of it all, Justina,” he called out. His voice trembled with the weight of emotion underlining that pronouncement. His words filled the hall, raising whispers as wide-eyed stares moved between him and her.
The small gathering of gentlemen swiveled their heads to where she sat.
“That you did,” Honoria groused, earning an elbow in the side from Gillian.
Nick continued over that interruption. “I do not seek to pretend that I can ever be worthy of you.” He would humble himself in this way for her? A man who’d shared nothing of himself all these years. “But I am selfish enough to want you anyway.” Clearing his throat, he folded his parchment and stuffed it back inside his jacket. “If you’ll have me.” And then started the same path down the aisle.
She sat frozen, her throat working painfully, and the lecturer reclaimed his spot as though it was every day a powerful duke entered his hall and read a poem before a crowd of strangers. He’d not force her hand. Where so many husbands, like her father, would demand submission and order their wives about.
“Surely you aren’t going to simply let him go?” Gillian whispered.
Justina swung her gaze to the back of the hall just as Nick departed. She pressed her eyes closed. Mayhap she was weak. Or ten times the fool again. Shoving back her chair she sprang to her feet and sprinted from the room. But she wanted to at least try with him.
Her skirts whipped noisily at her ankles as she rushed for the door. She stumbled against it, then righting herself, pulled it open. Breathless, she stepped outside and searched the crowded streets. She located him ten paces ahead, making for his mount. Cursing his longer strides, she cupped her hands about her mouth. “Dominick Tallings,” she cried and he spun about.
Shock and hope mingled in his features.
She raced after him and then skidded to a stop.
“I could not do it,” he blurted.
She cocked her head.
The wind whipped about them, tossing the fabric of their cloaks together in a noisy whir. “I cannot destroy your father or brother.” He paused. “Or Rutland.” Her heart caught. “I paid him a visit this morn.” His words came rapidly, rolling into one another. So at odds with his usual calm and ease. “Your father’s vowels. Andrew’s. All of it, I’ve given it over to Rutland. Now you may trust that no harm will ever come to your family at my hands.”
Her heart squeezed and she touched a hand to her lips. He’d not only abandoned his vow for revenge but had sought out Edmund, giving all her family’s possessions over to him.
“I know you cannot forgive what I’ve done, Justina, but—”
She leaned up and pressed her mouth to his in a brief meeting, silencing his words, then sank back on her heels. “I love you.” Hope lit his eyes. “Not because of any material gift you’ve given or for what you’ve given my family back but because of what you let go.”
He dropped his brow to hers. Whatever words he opened his mouth to speak were cut into by a sharp voice, coated in fury.
“How very touching, Your Grace,” a voice chimed close. They both whipped around.
The woman, a striking stranger with hardened eyes, stared back. “What a beautiful display from the Darling Duke for his fool wife. A wealthy, powerful husband who also writes poems? Tsk, tsk, my how fortunate you are, Your Grace.” She flashed a small gun. A maniacal glint burned from the depths of the woman’s eyes, hinting at her madness.
Justina’s mouth went dry. She stole a look back for Nick, whose skin matched the stark white of his cravat.
“Come, nothing to say? No greeting? No invitation to tea? I expect we should be good friends,” the woman said, turning to Justina. “After all we’ve shared?”
All they’d shared. The cold-eyed stranger scraped a ruthless stare over her. Then it registered. This was Nick’s former lover. Fear turned over in her belly when the lady waved her weapon in their direction.
Tension spilled from Nick’s frame. “Lady Carew,” Nick said slowly, as though handling a fractious mare. “Set your weapon down,” he urged, guiding Justina behind him.
“Stop,” the woman cried, her voice taking on a high-pitched tenor that hinted at her rapidly receding control. He immediately stilled.
Justina’s pulse thudded loudly in her ears, muffling the street sounds. She looked about frantically at the passersby for assistance. They may as well have been any other trio gathered for tea and pastries for all the attention paid them.
“This did not go as I had planned,” Lady Carew explained in eerie tones that hinted at her madness. “Huntly and I had crafted ever
ything so beautifully. Your brother-in-law was to be devastated. You were to be miserable.” Her face contorted, transforming her lovely features into something macabre. “I was to have Huntly as a lover. But you could not be deterred by the note Tennyson delivered to you. Instead, you landed the duke,” she spat. The hatred in that charge raised the gooseflesh on Justina’s arms. It had been her. The note Lord Tennyson had forced into her hand had come from this mercenary creature.
“What do you want?” she asked quietly, ignoring the silencing look Nick shot her.
“You abandoned all our plans for this one, Huntly.” Lady Carew’s voice shook.
Nick took another small step, angling his body between Justina and the incensed woman.
“Surely you don’t intend to kill a duke and a duchess in the middle of Lambeth Street?” Justina compelled.
From the corner of his eye, Nick caught her gaze and gave a slight shake of his head.
“Come, Your Grace, do you truly believe me so gauche as to kill you?” the lady asked with a little giggle. “I merely wish to meet the woman Huntly threw me over for.”
“Marianne?” The shocked inquiry cut into the lady’s tirade and they glanced down the alley to where Andrew stood. Confusion spilled from his eyes as he took in the woman wielding a weapon.
Her arm wavered between Justina and Nick. “Andrew,” she greeted as if they met at Almack’s.
His confused gaze went to the weapon trained on his sister. “What are you doing?” His whispered query, laced with disbelief, cracked Justina’s heart open. Her hopeful brother would never be the same after this treachery.
“She is my husband’s former lover,” Justina quietly supplied.
“What?” That word ripped from him as Andrew took a slow step forward. “You are wrong.” Shock bled from his eyes and he touched a hand to his chest. “Huntly, old chap?”
Nick turned his palm up. “I—”
“Shut up,” the viper hissed, jabbing her pistol in Nick’s direction. “Surely you did not think I could ever love a boy like you?” the lady cackled. “How free you were with information about your family.”
All the color leeched from Andrew’s cheeks and he shook his head in mute silence. “You are mad,” he whispered and took a step forward.
“Stop!” The faint tremor to that command hinted at the lady’s thin grasp on control as she swung the gun in his direction.
Justina shot a fist out, catching the mad woman hard in the stomach. The weapon sailed through the air, landing with a noisy jingle on the cobblestones at Andrew’s feet. Nick rushed the lady, knocking her down.
“No,” Lady Carew wailed as he pulled her wrists hard behind her, looking around.
Several constables came running to gather the screaming madwoman. She was forcibly dragged off, legs flailing, curses on her lips.
Justina stared after the young lady, not many years older than herself. In a bid to drive back the tremble in her arms, she folded them close to her midsection. This was the woman who’d known Nick in the most intimate of ways. Who’d schemed and plotted with him. Until she drew her last breath she would regret his connection to that viper but, mayhap, he’d not have come into her life without it?
She lifted her gaze to her husband’s face. Searching for some response. Yet, he studiously avoided her eyes. What was he thinking?
It was done, and yet it wasn’t.
As Lady Carew’s screams faded to a distant hum and then to nothing at all, horror turned in his belly. I brought this about. With his dark, twisted plans for revenge, he’d bound himself to people of true evil and it had nearly cost him his wife. Nick briefly closed his eyes. Until he drew his last breath, he’d see that gun trained on Justina’s chest. A gun in the hand of a madwoman who, at any moment, would have pulled that trigger and—
His wife slid her fingers into his. Those long digits trembling, marking her own tumult, forced his eyes open and he suddenly registered the sea of strangers staring on.
Men and women who gaped and gawked, and didn’t give a jot that this was, in fact, his and Justina’s and Andrew Barrett’s life.
A large hand settled on his shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze. “Come.” Andrew’s uncharacteristically gruff voice, devoid of its usual cheer and also newly hollow, twisted the blade of guilt. “Take my sister from here,” he urged with the same control of a skilled military commander.
Giving his head a jerky shake, Nick guided Justina to the carriage with Andrew trailing close behind. As they walked briskly along the streets of Lambeth, he felt her gaze on his face. What was she thinking? He tried to swallow past the lump of regret and anguish clogging his throat.
No doubt the folly it was in ever trusting herself to me. In marrying me.
They reached the black conveyance. Numb, he went to help Justina up but she ignored his hand and turned to Andrew.
Feeling like an interloper, he retreated several steps while brother and sister spoke in hushed tones. Scraps of their conversation drifted over.
“…I’m so very sorry, Andrew…”
Andrew’s reply was lost to him and Nick swallowed hard. His wife said something else that earned a pained smile from her brother. Going up on tiptoe, Justina pressed a kiss on his cheek. He glanced in Nick’s direction and then over to his sister. “Do you need me to stay with you?” he asked loudly, his meaning clear. He’d battle Nick in these very streets if she asked it.
Justina looked at Nick and he stiffened. Braced for her rejection. Deserving of it. Expecting it. Even as she was entitled to her resentment and hatred of him, he wanted her forgiveness. Wanted to prove he could be better for her…not because of her. He searched for a hint of what she was thinking and feeling but her expression gave no indications. “No,” she said quietly. “I would speak with my husband.”
His brother-in-law flexed his jaw. “I’ll return home and see Mother is cared for. If you need me, though, Justina, send word,” he ordered, sparing another hard look at Nick.
Guilt sluicing away at him, he forced himself to meet that direct stare. What did one say to the man one had set out to ruin? Who’d become embroiled with a viper because of one’s planning and plotting? Who’d had his heart and innocence shattered in the streets of London, no less? “Barrett,” he began in solemn tones.
Andrew stuck a hand out and Nick started. “I am trusting you with my sister, Huntly.” His brother-in-law glowered. “Do not make me regret it or I will see that you do.”
He immediately placed his hand in the other man’s. That truce undeserved and speaking volumes of Andrew Barrett’s character. Then, life changed them all. Sometimes for the better. “I won’t,” he pledged.
Justina lingered. “Gillian and Honoria—”
“Go,” Barrett urged. “I will see they are returned home safely.”
She nodded and, this time, allowed Nick to hand her inside the carriage. He climbed in after her.
Long after the conveyance rolled on through the streets of London, silence hung heavy between them. He contemplated all Cecily and Chilton had said these years. They had both proved correct—inflicting pain on Rutland would never have undone the years of misery he and his family had known. Since Justina, he’d proven a man capable of love and goodness. Also a man with flaws and failings.
The slight weight of two chess pieces inside his jacket called him.
Nick reached inside, feeling his wife’s gaze taking in his movements as he withdrew one of the ivory pawns. He held it out and she stared at a moment before accepting the small piece.
“After my father’s death, I saw life like a game board.” He gestured to that symbolic object in her hold and she moved her keen gaze from it to Nick. “It was easier that way,” he went on quietly. “I saw the boy I’d been, my father, even my sister and mother, as those weak, powerless figures. I never wanted to be that man.” A sad chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Oh, I never wanted to be king, but I wanted to be master over myself. But more, I wanted to be what my father was
not. A hero.” His throat constricted. How very pathetic and small he’d been. He appreciated that now, as a man who’d lived life.
Setting the pawn down on the bench, Justina claimed the spot beside Nick. She reached up and, with a delicate butterfly caress, angled his face toward hers. “Oh, Nick,” she said softly, running her eyes over his face. “You still don’t see, do you? You’ll continue to make mistakes. We both will.” Her lips turned up in a tender smile. “But I do not want a hero from the gothic novels I’d read. I want you.”
“I love you,” he rasped. “Justina…”
She captured his face in her hands and held his gaze. “Take me home,” she urged with a gentle smile, palming his cheek. “With you. Where I belong.”
And at long last, the thread binding him to his darkened past snapped.
He was free.
Epilogue
One Fortnight Later
London, England
Nick had spent the past thirteen years mired in hatred. Seeking revenge. Bitter. Hurting. Justina had shown him there was something far more powerful, beautiful and healing—love.
There would always be regret. For who he’d been. What he’d done…to himself, to Justina. Her family. His own kin. But as she’d promised, they’d moved on together.
“Oomph,” she grunted as Nick inadvertently steered his blindfolded wife too close to the wall.
He brought them to a stop and whispered into her ear. The hint of honeysuckle on her skin wafted about his nose, intoxicating like fine brandy. “My apologies.”
To Enchant a Wicked Duke Page 30
