The Devil in the Duke

by K. J. Jackson

  He looked to her, water dripping off his dark eyebrows. His steel grey eyes turned guarded and he shrugged.

  “You shrug like it’s nothing, but you aren’t the one with years of missing memories.” She tore another bite-size chunk from the bread, staring for a long moment at the blue sapphires in her ring that she had rewrapped with a snippet of blue ribbon and set back upon her ring finger where it belonged. “But maybe you have it wrong, Logan—maybe if you tell me something—anything of our youth, maybe it will spark a memory. Maybe it will spark all my memories.”

  His forehead furrowed and he grabbed a washcloth and soap to start scrubbing his arms. “I have always admired your tenacity, Sienna, but on this score, I wish you weren’t so determined.”

  She popped the bread into her mouth, chewing as she contemplated him. She just wanted something from the past—anything tangible she could plant herself in and hope it would inspire more memories. “Then tell me how I knew what to do with that knife I stabbed you with. I have never in my life stabbed anything, but I knew where to stick it into you to drive you back. My arm—my hand—they knew the motion without thinking.”

  His left eyebrow arched as he looked to her, a sure denial on his lips. But then a smile spread across his face. “That, I can tell you. You already know that we grew up in a whorehouse, so you can imagine why knowing how to wield a knife may come in handy?”

  “I had surmised as much.”

  “Granted, you were Bournestein’s only child, and he forbid anyone to touch you—but there were too many patrons coming and going that didn’t know that rule.” He bent his knee up in the tub to scour his leg. “So you needed to know how to protect yourself and I was the one to teach you. You and Robby both.”

  “How old was I?”

  “When we started practicing, you were six, maybe seven. I had gotten one of Bournestein’s men to carve us some wooden daggers to practice with. You pouted about that. You wanted a real blade.” He switched legs. “The top rooms of the Joker’s Roost were where we spent much of our time—so that’s where we practiced. And it was hot, much like this room was before we opened the window—hot all the time because the chimneys converged around the rooms.”

  “Was I good with the blade?”

  He chuckled, his eyes lifting to her under hooded eyebrows. “Not so much. Not at first. Robby was better—quicker because he had such long arms and yours were so short by comparison. He’d beat you every time you had practice bouts with him.”

  “I don’t believe it.” She set the chunk of bread down and picked up her fork and knife, cutting into the beef on her platter. “I feel like I was really good at wielding a dagger for how natural it was when I stabbed you.”

  He laughed. “It’s true. You were awkward. But you got better, and quicker, and then Robby’s long arms didn’t mean as much. He was still a bit clumsy, but you grew into grace fairly quickly.”

  “So I bested him often?”

  “As often as he would best you.” Logan shook his head, a wry smile on his face. “And you two would fight—quibble for hours on end and I would constantly be trying to keep the peace between you two.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “It usually ended up with me putting Robby in a chokehold.”

  “You’d hurt him?”

  “Not so much hurt as restrain him.” Logan tossed the washcloth into the water and stood from the tub, water slicking down his naked skin. If her stomach was not still grumbling she would have tackled him from across the room in that moment.

  He reached for a towel as he stepped out of the tub and began to dry off. “Remember, you were off-limits. The only person that could lash you was Bournestein after your mother died, and he never did—even though you probably deserved it now and again.”

  The memories, so wrong and yet so fond, reflected in his steel grey eyes. So much so that she was taken aback at how precious a memory like that could be.

  A memory she didn’t have.

  She took a bite of the beef, chewing it slowly as she tried to rein in her emotions—tried to rein in her demands that he tell her everything of her childhood. Futile, for she already knew he wouldn’t answer her thousand questions.

  She swallowed the beef and it sat in her throat, slow to move downward. “Where is Robby now?”

  Logan immediately spun away from her, the towel rubbing furiously across his back. Silence.

  “Another thing you won’t tell me.”

  He turned around to her, his eyes pained. “Sienna—”

  “So then tell me something happy.” She plastered a bright smile on her face. “Tell me of a time when we were so happy you couldn’t stand it.”

  He stood for a long moment, his skin still damp, staring at her. Clearly wanting to say more, but holding himself back. He drew a deep breath and wrapped the towel around his waist, then nodded, moving across the room to her.

  “After our wedding, we had time before I had to report to my regiment and we went to visit the high cliffs off the Yorkshire coast.”

  “By Scarborough?”

  “Yes. It was a sight to behold, the waves crashing against the cliffs. And it was cold so there were very few people about. And you decided you needed to follow the skinniest path down the side of the cliffs to the sea so you could see the view from below of a cliff that jutted into the sea. Granted, it was a sight to behold with the rock worn down underneath creating a precarious archway. You were almost to the bottom and you were looking up at the rock formation.”

  She blinked as a flash flickered across her mind of catching a face full of frothing, freezing water. She cringed. “Did I slip into the sea?”

  “Not quite. A rogue wave caught you—caught us—blasting us with icy water. You slipped and I just barely caught your wrist before the wave took you with it.”

  Her shoulders shook as shivers ran down her back.

  “Exactly. It was cold, and I was furious with you and all you could do was laugh through the shivers. You were freezing, but you were happy. You were happy because we were free of everything—there was just us and that stupid sea.” The smile on his face went distant and he was clearly living in those moments again. “So we followed the trail the rest of the way down and found a nearby sea cave. It was empty, but it must have been a smugglers’ cove because there were lanterns and logs for making a fire in it. We got the fire going and I peeled your wet clothes off and then mine and I wrapped you next to my skin and we sat there for hours.”

  A grin slid onto her face. “We did more than just sit there, didn’t we?”

  “Maybe—yes.” He moved to her, bending down to set his lips on the tiny dip behind her ear. “I believe I did this.” His tongue traced a lazy circle on her skin.

  Sienna closed her eyes, fighting her way back to the memory.

  “And this.” His lips went downward, trailing along her collarbone as his thumb slid along the side of her left breast, finding the nipple and rolling it between his fingers.

  Her eyes still closed, she smiled. “And then you tried to stop—not finish what you started.”

  “I didn’t want anyone to find us. We had been there too long as it was.” His mouth still on her shoulder, his words mumbled into her skin.

  She reached forward and slid her hand up his inner thigh. “And then I did this and you didn’t care about anyone finding us.” She went higher, cupping his sack, her fingers dancing along his already hard member.

  “I feel the same today. Be damned anyone seeing or hearing us.”

  She chuckled. “You’re trying to occupy me with sex again to curb my questions, aren’t you?”

  “Possibly. You don’t seem to mind.”

  She reached up with her free hand, her thumb under his chin as she cupped his face with her fingers to draw his attention to her. His silver eyes on her, her breath caught in her throat. “I want that freedom again, Logan. Freedom with you. I can almost feel it. Feel it like it was.”

  “So let’s have i
t, Sienna.” He dropped to his knees, his hands sliding behind her lower back to pull her body toward him, her legs wide on either side of him. He kissed the center of her chest, looking up at her. “I only have to attend to some matters in London at the Revelry’s Tempest, and then we can be free. No entanglements with anyone but each other.”

  Her hand went into his dark wet hair, running through it. “Yes, except I feel as though there is still this unfinished business—the weight of my lost memories haunting me.”

  His head shook, his eyes vehement. “The memories aren’t worth it, Sienna—aren’t worth trading our chance at happiness for it.”

  “But what if I never remember, Logan?”

  His arms tightened around her back. “Then I hold the memories for both of us.”

  His lips went to her right breast, teasing the nipple until he was satisfied and she was mewing. Downward, along her skin, his mouth trailed until he was at the crux of her. And all thoughts of memories too difficult to remember left her, the moment at hand consuming her.

  He would remember for them both. She had to trust that.

  { Chapter 10 }

  “Logan, you are back in London early.” Cassandra, one of the three proprietresses of the Revelry’s Tempest, stood from the table she sat at in the ballroom of the gaming hall. Card and hazard tables punctuated the ballroom, the copper edges of the felt-lined tables gleaming.

  Sitting with her back to him, Violet, one of the other proprietresses, was quick to turn around and come to her feet at Cassandra’s exclamation. Violet’s movements were slowed by the mound of her belly preceding the rest of her body upward. Her latest babe would be coming soon and she was well past due for confinement.

  A pang of guilt sliced through Logan’s chest. Violet hadn’t been this large when he’d left a month and a half ago. She’d insisted that she would spend very little time here at the Revelry’s Tempest helping to manage it while he was away in Northumberland, yet here she was, helping prepare for a gaming night. He wondered how many days she’d spent here at the Revelry’s Tempest in the past fortnight. He should’ve known she’d stretch her promise.

  No one was better with the books than Violet, yet still, she shouldn’t be here, not when she should be at home resting. He never should have believed her promise to limit herself. Though he imagined her husband, Lord Alton, was irate enough with his wife for the both of them.

  Cassandra smoothed the front of her functional yellow day dress and stepped quickly to him. “We didn’t expect your arrival for at least another month.”

  “I had a change of plans,” he said, a scolding look still centered on Violet’s expanded womb.

  Cassandra looked past him, eyeing Sienna as she trailed a step behind him. “Who is this?”

  His look jerked to Cassandra, noting her honey brown eyes had narrowed. There was no bandying about this announcement. Not with these two. Logan stepped to the side, setting his hand along the back of Sienna’s shoulder and prodding her forward. “This is my wife, Sienna.”

  Violet choked, coughing, as she moved next to Cassandra, her look flying between Sienna and him. “Your wife? You left for two months and instead, you come back weeks early with a wife? How?” A second round of coughing captured her throat.

  He had to wait for Violet’s hand to flatten against her chest, tapping it until her fit of coughing dwindled. “Sienna, this is Lady Alton, and Lady Vandestile, Violet and Cassandra respectively.”

  Sienna conjured a bright smile even though Logan knew she didn’t feel it. While he only saw her beauty—rumpled, yes, from four days riding—she had shied back in the mews wanting to wait with the horses because her riding habit was muddy from the journey. He wouldn’t let her. This place, these women, his guards—all of it had been his life for the last ten years, and his pride bursting, he couldn’t wait to introduce his wife to the lot of them.

  Her smile steadfast, Sienna looked between the two women and opened her mouth. “I am del—”

  “But why? How?” Violet’s gaze continued to flicker back and forth from Logan to Sienna until she shook her head suddenly, seemingly remembering her manners and realizing she had just rudely cut off Sienna. She stepped forward, grabbing Sienna’s hand and clasping it. “Oh, I apologize, Sienna. I did not mean to cut your words.”

  Stepping to her left, Violet swung her arm wide, ushering them into the drawing room attached to the ballroom of the Revelry’s Tempest. “Please, forgive my rudeness and let us sit. This…this was just an unexpected shock.” She looked to Logan. “I had no idea there was the possibility you would be getting married, Logan. Did you, Cass?” Her gaze travelled to her friend.

  Cassandra’s manners had not fully returned to her, as her wary look was centered solely on Sienna, calculating. Her eyes didn’t veer to Violet. “No. No idea, Violet. None at all.” The hesitant coolness in her voice told Logan all he needed to know.

  Cassandra’s guard was fully up. She was protecting him. Protecting him, just as she’d been protecting him from her husband since the couple had returned to England from America six months ago. It was innate in her nature. She was fiercely protective of those she loved.

  Logan moved to slide his hand to the small of Sienna’s back and nudged her forward with him into the drawing room. “Cassandra, Violet, I apologize at the unexpectedness of this sudden introduction. I know it is a gaming night.”

  Violet waved her hand in the air, sitting on a wingback chair as Logan and Sienna sat on the settee. A wide smile filled her face. “Posh on that. Gaming is hours away and your guards have had everything under control—Greyson, specifically, has been a godsend. You were right to leave him in charge. I daresay he manages this place better than any of us.” Her hands clasped together. “Now you must tell us how this wedding came to be.”

  Logan glanced at Cassandra. Refusing to sit, she remained standing next to an empty wingback chair, her arms crossed in front of her. Her dark hair and flawless face combined with her utter stillness made her look like a painting come alive. He looked back to Violet, finding her friendly, though confused, smile. “The wedding was actually about eleven years ago, Violet.”

  Violet’s smile froze in place, her words escaping past her frozen jaw. “You have been married this entire time, Logan? This entire time we have known you? But you—you never once thought to mention you had a wife? Truly?”

  “I didn’t think it necessary.” He glanced at his wife, grabbing her right hand that she had clenched on her lap. “I thought Sienna was dead. I believed I had lost her during the war in Spain.”

  “But she was alive?” Cassandra finally spoke, her left eyebrow arched in disbelief.

  Just when Logan opened his mouth, Sienna cleared her throat, drawing Cassandra’s scrutinizing look. “I was. I was in the village of Sandfell in Yorkshire and I had no memory of Logan, no memories of anything other than waking up there. I have been with a woman that claimed she was my grandmother since then. She also claimed that I fell off a horse and hit my head and forgot everything of my life.”

  “But that is not what happened?” Violet leaned forward, her smile having faded and her attention rapt.

  “No, I don’t believe so. Not so far as the few memories I have regained tell me. I believe I was tossed into a wall and hit my head, but I am not sure as to why. Most things I don’t exactly remember.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t remember?” Cassandra asked.

  Sienna looked up at Cassandra, meeting her piercing gaze. “Some of my memories have returned—some of Logan, some of what happened in Spain, small flashes of people here and there—but most memories have not. All I have seen so far are snippets, disparate memories that are jumbled and make no sense.”

  “How can your memories make no sense?” Cassandra shifted on her feet, her arms tightening around her middle as her look bored into Sienna.

  “They…the memories are like a story without a narrative, without context…slivers here and there of people and places and fee
lings and emotions. But I cannot figure out who everyone is and what they mean to me.” Sienna looked at Logan and her eyes softened. “Except for Logan. Him I remember.”

  “How did you find him?” Cassandra asked.

  “I didn’t,” Sienna said. “He found me in Sandfell. He followed me from the baker’s shop.”

  Cassandra’s look finally lifted from Sienna, shifting to Logan. Both of her eyebrows were now raised, stretched high on her forehead.

  Logan nodded at her. “I did. I saw her and then I nearly accosted her, for which she stuck a knife into my belly for my troubles,” he said.

  A laugh spurted from Violet and she covered her mouth. “I am sorry, Logan. But you appear to have recovered well enough and she seems like exactly the wife I would expect you to have.” She chuckled, leaning forward over the mound of her belly to pat Sienna on the knee. “This is remarkable, truly remarkable. And the duchess is going to love you, my dear.”

  “The duchess?” Sienna looked to Logan.

  “The original proprietress of the Revelry’s Tempest, Adalia, the Duchess of Dellon,” Logan said. “She is in residence at Dellon Castle at the moment. She was the one that started the gaming house and the one that hired me. Which in turn, let me create my guard.”

  “Men which are the envy of every gaming house in London, I might add,” Violet said. Her gaze landed on Sienna. “So you must have remembered something if you went from sinking a knife into his gut, to what I now see before me?”

  “I did.” She nodded. “Just as he was leaving town, I remembered.” Sienna looked at Logan, a soft smile on her face. “Remembered enough.”

  Hell. The heat in his wife’s blue eyes when she looked at him was beyond anything. She’d always had this softness under the fire about her. If he could shove Violet and Cassandra from the room, he would damn well take his wife on the settee in that instant.