“Ara—”
“No.” Her hand flew up, stopping Caine as she looked up to him. “You wanted to hear this, Caine, so do not dare to stop me now.”
His mouth closed, and Ara’s gaze dropped from the hard lines of Caine’s face to settle on the peach muslin that covered her knees as she drew them to her chest. Her voice went low, slow, each word having to be dragged from the depths of memories she had denied for so long. “Once the crow was satisfied with me, she pointed to Isabella. The men dropped my legs and shoved me off the bed. I was still so scared I could only crawl along that filthy floor into the corner. The crow did the very same thing to Isabella—the men grabbed her and held her down on the bed, pulled her legs apart. The crow asked her the same question, Isabella said she was a virgin, and the crow bent over her, checking her the same as she did to me. Except…”
“Except, what, Ara?”
“Except she pulled away and looked at Isabella. Her crow face—so mean, pinched. ‘Ye ain’t a virgin,’ she said. Isabella was shaking then. She kept swearing she was. The crow caught Isabella’s forehead, brushing back her hair. And then her voice went so damn soft. ‘Admit it, girl. No harm will come to you if you admit to the truth. Are you a virgin, girl?’ she asked.”
Closing her eyes, Ara tried to swallow, but her dry mouth offered no moisture. “It took forever, and the crow waited. And then…then Isabella shook her head. The crow asked how many times, and Isabella was crying. I barely heard her say, ‘Six. Six times.’ And then the crow cackled, vicious. She set her face right in front of Isabella’s and spit out, ‘Ye lied to me boys, wench.’”
Ara’s eyelids cracked open, looking up to search Caine’s face, horrified that she had just admitted the secret she had harbored for the past six years. A secret she had thought she would keep to her grave. Caine did not need to know he had been betrayed by the woman he loved. He had left Isabella a virgin when he went to war, and she had been unfaithful to him while he was away.
Ara could read nothing in his face. Not shock. Not despair. Nothing.
“What happened next, Ara?”
Ara dragged a deep breath into her lungs, her eyes shutting to the present once more. “The crow stood up from Isabella and opened the door. There were two other men—different than the ones that had us in the carriage—waiting just outside. She pointed back at me and said, ‘That one is clean—we need her—she stays untouched.’”
A sob deep in her chest gave hiccup to her words, but Ara pushed on. “But then she pointed to Isabella, and said, ‘That one be a liar. She ain’t no virgin. And ye know what we do to liars.’”
Ara tightened her hold around her own body, her eyes opening to focus on Caine’s boots in hopes the vicious images in her head would stop. “And they laughed, Caine. They laughed and it was a frenzy, and they turned into wolves. They attacked. Wolves on her. Right in front of me. One and then another and another. The wolves they…they…” The savage memory choked off her words.
Caine swayed, Ara saw it in his legs—she didn’t need to look up to witness it. She curled tighter around her belly, her forehead touching her knees as she tried to stay the bile that was quickly rising in her throat.
It was one thing to live through that nightmare in her dreams. It was a very different thing to speak the words out loud. Speak them to the man that had loved the woman torn to shreds in front of Ara.
Especially when she had told him Isabella had died peacefully.
She had thought she was being kind when she lied to Caine those many years ago about Isabella’s death. But when she had lied, she had believed she would never see Caine again. Instead, that kindness had done nothing but haunt her every day since.
Blood pounding in her ears, Ara almost didn’t hear Caine’s voice floating down to her.
“Long ago, Ara, you said Isabella did not die alone. Was that also a lie?”
Her head stayed bowed. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t face the judgement in his eyes. “I was in the room the whole time. In the corner. I cowered, Caine. Cowered. Terrified. I did nothing to stop them. By the time they were done with her…”
Ara’s body went into trembles, her voice shaking, but she forced the words to the air. “Blood everywhere—sheets, walls, me. Her body was limp when the wolves left. It took me so long…I was so scared and it took me so long to move to her, to touch her hand. But it was already cold. Dead.”
Ara crumpled into herself, a sob gagging her words. “I only cowered. Weak. In the corner. Nothing against the wolves. A coward. I am so sorry, Caine. I could not help her.”
Only silence above.
Desperate shame erupted in Ara’s gut, flooding her body. Shame at the past—shame at Caine knowing the truth of her cowardice. Her arm flung up, gripping a shelf and she scrambled to her feet. She kept her head down, her body folded to hide from his eyes.
“I lied to you and I am so sorry, Caine. You just…you just loved her so much, and I did nothing to help her. Nothing.” Tears blinding her, Ara staggered toward the French doors. “You love her and I am so ashamed of my failure—my cowardice.”
She managed to fumble open the door, stumbling down the few stairs to the ground. Her feet sped, running. Running back between the townhouses. Running through the mews. Running until she collapsed on the back metal steps of a random townhouse.
Caine did not follow her.
It took an inordinate amount of time before she could catch her breath and right herself enough to stand again.
When she finally gained her feet, the sky was slipping into darkness.
She walked to the end of the mews, looking around the main thoroughfare to place herself in the streets. For a moment, Ara considered walking to the right, straight to the docks where she could get on a ship and leave this country. Run away from every blasted memory, everything she had suffered, including her own failure.
Leave everything and start anew.
But then her feet started moving to the left. To Baker Street. To her girls.
For all her failures, Ara knew she had done one thing right in the past six years. Her girls. Her girls she had not failed. And her girls needed her.
{ Chapter 16 }
Ara shot straight up in bed. Her eyes whipped to her window, ignoring the cold sweat covering her entire body.
Still dark.
Thank the heavens.
But hell. Her mind flew in a whirlwind.
The duchess. The depressed little sister. The lion brooch with the vines. The golden lion crest over the thick gates at the estate in Kent. All one and the same. They had to be.
The whole of it fell together perfectly in Ara’s mind, speeding from her subconscious to her conscious mind.
The Duke of Dunway. Caine was about to duel the bloody Duke of Dunway.
She had thought she could do nothing, could not force Caine from his course, did not even know where he was at, but now…
Her thoughts flew into hysteria. What did she know about duels? They were at dawn. Caine could get shot. He could die. That was what she knew.
Her gaze darted to the window again. Dark. There was still time.
Flying about the room, she was dressed and out the door of the Baker Street house within minutes. She ran, praying that the harlots and drunks were long gone from the night, and she would only encounter the very early respectable workers on the streets.
Gasping for breath, she gripped the front wrought iron fence of the duke’s townhouse, sliding to a stop. Darkness still filled the sky and Ara knew she was well beyond propriety, but she would wake the devil himself if it meant saving Caine.
Even if he was an ass—even if he now hated her for the coward she was—she was not about to let him get hurt—or die—because he had an absurd need to save the girls from scandal. Each one of the girls they had saved—including herself—had already weathered the worst in that brothel, and each of them would survive any scandal life brought.
Ara’s eyes rushed across the exterior of th
e townhouse. Lights burned brightly on the main level of the home, unusual for this time of the early morning.
Hope flickered in her chest.
She ran up the front stairs, slamming the door knocker as hard as she could. If she was wrong about this, she would be putting everything with the House of Vakkar at jeopardy, demanding to see the duchess at this unholy hour. The duchess could easily reward the rudeness by disavowing Greta’s creations, and the rest of society would follow suit.
That fact, though sobering, didn’t stop Ara’s hand from its mission on the knocker. She slammed it again.
The door yanked open, the disheveled—and furious—butler peering out at her.
“The duchess, I need to see her.”
“I do not need to tell you, Miss Detton, that the duchess does not take visitors at this hour.” He started to close the door.
Ara stuck her boot between the door and the jamb, her hand pushing back against the door.
“Please, sir, I beg you. Only a moment. It is a matter of saving a life, and only the duchess can help me.”
“Wilford, who is there?” The duchess appeared behind the butler, pulling her robe tight about her body. She went to her tiptoes, spying over her butler’s shoulder to Ara. “Miss Detton? Why are you here?”
Ara shoved at the door, gaining a wider angle. “Please, your grace, I need your help. I am desperate.” She paused for a second, blinking back caution, but then took a breath—damn the consequences, she needed to do this. “The duel. I need to stop it.”
With a gasp the duchess pushed the butler to the side and grabbed Ara’s hand, dragging her into the house. “Miss Detton, good heavens, what do you know on that?”
The duchess didn’t release her hand, pulling Ara as she scurried into the well-lit Pearl drawing room.
“Your sister is Lizzie, your grace?”
The duchess dropped Ara’s hand, spinning back to her with narrowed eyes. Ara knew that look—she had often worn it herself. Defenses drawn, the duchess’s visage fortified in fierce protection of her loved one. “Yes. What do you know of her?”
“I know that your husband is making a terrible mistake this morning. He is very wrong about the man he means to kill. Very wrong about what happened with Lizzie.”
“How do you know all of this, Miss Detton?”
“I know because I was there. I was with Lizzie when we brought her to your estate in Kent.” Ara leaned toward the duchess, her voice going to a whisper. “I was with her when Lord Newdale saved her from the brothel.”
The duchess’s hand flew to flatten over her mouth. “A brothel?”
“I will tell you everything, your grace, but please, where is your husband?”
“He is already gone.” The duchess shook her head, her wide eyes terrified, the color nonexistent in her cheeks.
Ara snatched her hand. “I pray you know where to, because I need your help, Duchess, and I need it right now.”
~~~
Twelve paces, marked by Southfork’s counting, and Caine spun, his arm extended, pistol high.
He fired before fully turned, his aim high at the tree over the duke’s shoulder. The delope went wide enough to avoid the duke, but close enough to not cause further offense.
Unarmed, a target, a slice of cowardice shot up from Caine’s belly that he fought. His instinct was to dive, save himself. But Ara’s face filled his mind and he banished the cowardice.
His spine straightened, steadying him. Ara was what was most important. She always had been.
And there was no way now—especially after what she had told him the previous day, after all that she had suffered—that he was going to let the slightest breach happen upon her impeccable reputation.
For her, he would do this with honor. If he was to be felled, he would go down with integrity, knowing Ara was safe from ruin. Safe from him.
His arm dropping to his side, he stared at the barrel of the duke’s pistol in the dusty light. Waiting. The aim was square on Caine’s chest. There wasn’t a doubt that the duke would hit his target. Caine hadn’t even bothered to turn his body to make himself thin.
Funny, that for as many bullets as he had dodged during the war, now he stood, impatient for that very thing.
He waited. A second passed that lasted five lifetimes.
And then Caine saw the duke’s arm flex, his forefinger slowly squeezing the trigger.
Time to kiss death. What Fletch had always said during the war. It had always made Caine chuckle in a wry, I-would-prefer-to-avoid-death manner, but Fletch had it right. Time to make death his mistress.
The shot fired at the exact second a peach ball of fury flew out of nowhere, ramming into the duke.
Pain seared through Caine’s shoulder, sending him flying backward. Falling…falling…falling. His head hit the ground.
Darkness.
Nothing.
~~~
Ara watched, stunned, as the duchess flew across the field, barreling into her husband just as he fired. The woman hadn’t even taken the time to change from her robe, or to put proper shoes on.
The shot echoed across the park, and the duke and duchess landed, tumbling. Ara’s eyes darted to Caine. Except there was no Caine.
He had been standing there. And now he wasn’t.
She ran to the dueling field, searching the ground.
No. Please no.
His body deep in the grass. Blood splattered on the side of his head.
She raced to his side, skidding onto her knees beside him. There was screaming going on behind her. The duchess. The duke. The other man. Fletch. All of them yelling.
But all she could see, all she could hear, all she could feel was Caine before her. Prone. Still. Bloody.
Her hands found his face, gripping it. No reaction.
She dropped her ear to his chest, pressing her head hard against his jacket, straining to hear a heartbeat. His body jerked.
Ara lifted her head, realizing her cheek was now wet. Her fingertips ran alongside her face, and then she looked at her hand. Bright red. Blood.
Her eyes scoured Caine’s body. In panic, she had thought the blood on his face was from a bullet to the head, but she had been wrong.
She found it almost instantly, the hole in his black jacket on his shoulder—the fabric hiding the red color, but becoming darker with the wetness seeping from the hole. She smeared the wetness onto her clean hand, proving to herself that was where the blood came from. Scooting around his body, she hefted his shoulder up, searching for another hole in the fabric. Yes. Another tear. The bullet passed through.
“Caine,” she yelled in his face. Blast it. If he was shot in the shoulder, why was he unconscious?
Ara grabbed his face again, giving him a little shake. No response.
His head lolled to the side, and that was when Ara saw it. A jagged rock—wide—sat just above the surface of the ground. Blood tainted the light grey ridge of the rock’s surface.
Quickly wiping her hand clean, she sent her fingers into the dark hair on the back of Caine’s head. She felt the tear along his skin, the blood re-soaking her fingers, and she rocked back on her heels.
“Dammit, Caine.” Ara twisted, searching for Fletch in the mayhem of flailing arms and bellowing behind her. “Fletch, dammit. Get over here, Fletch.”
Fletch heard her and was by her side in a second, dropping to his knees. “I was attempting to make sure the duke didn’t come over here and finish Caine.”
“The duchess will take care of that.” Ara didn’t spare one glance in the duke’s direction. “Help me get him to your carriage, Fletch. You grab him by the shoulders and I will take his feet. That bullet just went through his shoulder, but the rock cracked his skull.”
“Shit.”
“Yes. And I am not about to lose him to a bloody rock, Fletch.”
Fletch looked at her, gravity in his smile. “No. I don’t imagine you are, Ara.”
{ Chapter 17 }
Caine cracked his eyes
open.
Ara.
Ara staring at him. Watching him.
Heaven.
That was where he landed. By some grace, he had landed in heaven.
She moved, her mouth drawing into a tight line, her green eyes blazing.
She was irate. As furious as he had ever seen her, the air crackling around her, and she hadn’t even spoken a word.
Damn. Maybe this wasn’t heaven.
And why did his feet feel like they were weighed down by twenty stones?
His eyes shifted to his feet. A furry monster.
He squinted. No. That was Patch curled on top of his feet. The dog lifted his head at Caine’s movement, then resettled himself, his snout curling over Caine’s shin. He gave one lick onto the coverlet above Caine’s leg.
So he was in bed with a mutt holding him captive. And his head was pounding. And his shoulder hurt like hell.
Definitely not heaven.
Caine looked back to Ara. Her rage hadn’t quelled.
“The bullet went through your left shoulder, and you fell and cracked your head open on a rock, you bloody fool.” Her words shook in fury.
Caine lifted his right hand, slipping his fingers behind his head. He found the cut, the thread holding his skin together.
“The surgeon stitched your head and looked to that hole in your shoulder. The bullet made a clean pass through, and he stitched those as well.”
Caine’s hand fell down along his side, heavy. “How long have I been asleep?”
She smoothed back an errant lock of hair into her chignon. “The entire day. I have been waiting for you to awaken.”
“To castigate me?”
“Yes.” Ara leaned forward in the wide leather chair someone must have dragged over from the fireplace in his room. “Do you realize that the bullet was only this far from your heart?”
Vow: A Lords of Action Novel Page 19
