She had told Logan of this exhibition, and he had just nodded, running off like he didn’t even care that she was desperate to see the art inside. But he’d also been secretive for months and then this morning he’d declared it her birthday, since they never knew when their birthdays actually were. Sometimes she had two or three in a year depending how Logan and Robby surprised her.
Logan took her hand, ready to cross the street when fast footsteps echoed down the alley behind them. “Wait—wait.”
Logan dropped her hand and spun around.
Robby ran full speed at them, his hand waving, words flying fast. Robby always spoke fast, sometimes so fast she didn’t understand him “Wait, Logan. I want to take her in. Why didn’t ye tell me it was today? That it was open and this was it?” He looked at Logan’s legs. “I was the one that found the trousers. I want to take her in.”
“I'm already in the clothes, Robby,” Logan said.
“But they're too small for ye.”
“No, Robby. We’re ready to go.”
Robby pointed at the gap showing around Logan’s ankles. “Just look at yer legs, they're too short and ye ain’t got stockings.”
Logan sighed. “Yes, but I don't want you to ruin this for her—do you even know how to act in there, Robby?”
“It's not like you do."
Robby bounced up and down, his legs never yielding springs. “Please, Logan, I just want to see inside, just let me go—let me go and I promise I won’t knock nothin’ down or nothin’.”
Logan glanced at Sienna.
She looked at him with wide, pleading eyes.
Words she couldn’t say in front of Robby pounded in desperation in her head. Please don’t let him. Please. He’ll ruin it. He can’t be still. He’ll ruin everything. Please, Logan, please.
Logan looked back to his little brother. “You're going to ruin everything, Robby.”
“No, I won’t. I swear it, Logan. I swear it. I’ll be still. I can do it. I swear I can.” He grabbed Logan’s arm through the rumpled overcoat he wore, tugging at him. “Please, Logan, please. You get to do everything and I don't get to do nothin’.”
Logan sighed, his fingers running though his dark hair and mussing the carefully combed hairs he had set in place for the occasion. He’d even stolen a swipe of wax from her father’s jar.
He was breaking. No. Please no.
She opened her mouth to protest just as Logan’s hand flipped up in a wild swing. “Fine. You go in. But if you ruin this for Sienny I’m going to beat you, Robby.”
Her heart sank, all her excited energy spinning into dread. This wasn’t going to work. Not without Logan.
Robby jumped and the two of them moved deeper into the alley to a doorway they could partially hide in. Arms and legs flew as they changed clothes.
She watched them, glancing back over her shoulder at the exhibition hall again and again while biting her lip. She should have said something sooner. She knew Logan would get them in, but Robby—Robby was too quick to get bored, too quick to cause a fracas.
She needed this. She needed to get in there and study the paintings Miss Kitty told her about. If she didn’t, she would never understand perspective and she would never get better. She needed this, and she needed it not ruined by Robby.
Logan and Robby came back to her, Robby almost skipping.
“Let’s go, Sienny. Logan told me what to say.” Robby grabbed Sienna’s hand and started dragging her out of the alley. Bouncing in excitement, he tugged her around the horses and carriages as they cut across the street.
Sienna looked back over her shoulder, searching through the passing wagons and carriages until she found Logan.
He had settled himself on a bench in front of a milliner’s shop. An odd bench, the metal on it scrolled along the back, almost is if two butterflies were dancing. Logan looked sad—sad deep in his grey eyes where he hid it. Hid it from Robby because he was always giving Robby everything and not keeping anything for himself. She wanted to push Robby down and run back to him. Run and dodge the traffic and make him come in with them.
She wanted Logan.
She wanted him to see this too. See it with her.
Robby pulled her hand, tugging her forward.
~~~
“Perspective.”
Her eyes opened to slivers, the word on her lips.
Fingers stroked her hair, the gentle touch a tickle along her scalp that she never wanted to end. Her head was cradled by something soft. Soft but with a twitch. With a heartbeat. A lap?
She cracked her eyelids fully open, only to see the most beautiful man above her. His features so strong, so perfectly sculpted that Michelangelo couldn’t have crafted a finer form.
Her husband.
Her husband held her head in his lap. His fingers in her hair. And for one fleeting moment, the world was perfect.
He looked down at her, his eyes concerned, but not frantic. “You fainted again.”
“I seem to be doing that as of late.” She shifted and a rock jabbed into her lower back just above her hipbone. The stab of pain was enough to spark her into action, to leave that moment of perfection behind as the memory of the current state of affairs between her and Logan flooded her mind. She sat up, scooting away from him even though it made her head swirl. “And you said you wouldn't touch me.”
He shrugged, not the slightest bit apologetic. “I thought my leg a better pillow than the rocky soil.”
She eyed him, unable to argue the point as her head still felt as though it was no longer tethered to her body.
"Perspective."
“What?” She blinked, confused.
“You said the word perspective just before your eyes opened.” Though his face stayed nonchalant, there was a spark in his steel grey eyes, a spark that looked almost like hope.
She nodded, still trying to right her head. “I did, didn't I?” There was something she was supposed to remember. Something she had just grasped onto.
What was it?
She looked around her and spied the wrought iron bench. She gasped. “The bench, I remember it.”
“You do?”
She moved to get to her knees, but Logan was to his feet in an instant, lifting her to standing. He kept a hand on the small of her back as she walked over with jelly legs to the bench.
But she didn’t want to sit. She couldn’t.
She reached out to touch the iron along the top scroll of the back, her fingers dragging softly along the rough, rusty edge.
“I remember you sitting on it. Except you were so much smaller. I was small.” She looked up at him. “When you brought me to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition so I could learn about perspective. There was a Miss…a Miss Kitty? She said I needed to learn perspective. And you were to sneak us in, except Robby showed up and made you change clothes so he could go in with me instead. I didn’t want him to. I wanted you."
Logan nodded, a flash of sadness crossing his grey eyes.
“What happened?”
His brows lifted. “To the bench?”
“To us? Did Robby and I get in? I woke up before I remembered what happened—the last thing I saw was you on the bench.” Her palm patted the top scroll. “This bench.”
Logan’s lips pursed for a long moment. He wasn’t going to tell her.
But then he nodded. “You both got in and were in the building for ten minutes before Robby knocked over a statue of Mercury.”
A chuckle bubbled up her throat. She could hold no ill will toward Robby when one, she couldn’t remember how horrified she must have been, and two, one way or another, she’d obviously learned how to sketch with perspective throughout the years.
She met Logan’s eyes. “He was gangly at that age, wasn't he?”
A hesitant smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “He was.”
She motioned to the bench with her head. “Why is the bench here?”
“I bought it and brought it here when I discovered this spot a few ye
ars ago. It was still sitting in front of that milliner’s shop.” He reached out, setting his hand along the black iron scroll, the tips of his fingers almost touching hers. “I didn't come up to Shadowmoor at all for a long time. Not but once a year and for a day or two at most. And then I was held here by storms one year, so I took some time to explore the lands and I found this spot. It looked just like the oil painting by John Constable that you loved from the exhibition. The way the air moved into the lands.” His free hand swept outward to the view.
Sienna’s look followed to where his fingers pointed. “This is what the painting I was so desperate to see looks like?”
“To my eye. We got into another exhibition again six months later once there was a new guard hired there that watched the door. You sat and looked at that one oil—Dedham Vale Evening—for three hours. So it’s imprinted into my mind.”
A sad smile, full of melancholy, crossed his lips. “When I stumbled upon this ridge, the view mirrored it so, that all I could think of up here was you. I worked so hard in those days not to think of you constantly. You’d been dead for seven years at that point. But up here, I was powerless against it. It crushed me so—so much so that I couldn’t leave this very spot on my own. Hunter had to drag me down the ridge in the middle of the night.”
His palm patted the top of the bench. ”So I bought the bench and had it transported and set here in this spot.” His eyes lifted, looking around them. “It is the one place that I love in this land."
Her chest contracted, his pain sending ice through her bones. “Logan...”
His steel grey eyes pinned her. “You have always been my heart, Sienna. Always.”
The vehemence in his eyes, the strain of muscles along his neck, his jaw flexing—he looked as though he wanted to grab her and crush her to him and was only barely holding himself back.
With a jerk, he brusquely stepped away, clearing his throat. He moved to pick up the box of charcoals, his strong fingers brushing off dust as he set it on the bench. “I will leave you to your sketching. The box survived the drop with but a small scratch on the bottom.”
Without another word, his limbs stiff, he turned and walked down the side of the ridge.
She didn't move for long minutes after he left. She could only stare at the space he vacated.
This man had loved her her entire life.
He had loved her—he had told her that and she had felt that.
But she had no idea.
No idea as to the depths in which this man had always loved her.
When she could finally move again, she sank to the bench and her fingers found their way to open the box and pick up charcoal and a sheet of vellum.
Without thought, her thumb and forefinger immediately set to create an outline.
But not of the rolling hills. Not of the trees. Not of the clouds streaming long against the water-blue sky.
No, this vista held nothing against the only thing her fingers could create.
The only thing her fingers would allow her to create.
The outline of her husband’s exceedingly handsome jaw.
{ Chapter 18 }
Sienna stood before the tall bookcase, her eyes glazed over as she tried again to read the titles of the leather-bound tomes in front of her under the glow of lit sconces positioned symmetrically along the wall.
She had come into the Shadowmoor library to find something to read. Something to take her mind off her husband—for he had already monopolized all of her thoughts that day.
Lifting her right hand, she traced with her forefinger the gold embossed words on the maroon leather of the book in front of her. If she pointed at each word specifically, maybe she could make her mind concentrate long enough to actually read the words.
Her gaze landed on the darkened color of her forefinger. The charcoal stain still tinged her skin from the day she’d just spent sketching.
She exhaled a long sigh. Sheet after sheet of vellum on the top of that ridge, and there had been only one thing could she draw. Logan’s eyes. Logan’s ear. Logan’s chin. Logan’s neck. Logan’s torso.
Logan. Logan. Logan.
She’d wasted far too much of that precious vellum on her husband today.
But every time she had attempted to draw the panorama before her, she could only sit, staring at it, unable to start. And then her fingers would go rogue with a mind of their own and before she knew it, she’d be sketching some nuance of her husband’s body again.
The door opened behind her, making her jump. Every ancient door in this castle was heavy, creaking with the weight of hundreds of years every time they moved. Her fingers snapped down to her stomach, curling into her peach muslin dress as if she needed to hide the evidence of what she had spent the day doing.
“Sienna—here you are.” Logan closed the grinding door behind him. “You disappeared so quickly after dinner that I was worried when I didn’t find you in your chambers.”
She didn’t turn around to him, her breath lodged in her chest as his footsteps on the wide-planked wooden floor echoed about the stone walls.
Her breath held until words she had no intention of ever saying escaped her mouth in the softest whisper.
“Did you kill her?”
Dammit. She hadn’t meant to say the words—hadn’t been able to.
She’d been refusing to speak the question out loud, paralyzed by the fear that Logan would validate everything she knew. Everything her father had told her.
She didn’t want it to be true, even though she knew it was. Logan would have defended himself against it long ago if it was a lie.
“Sienna?” Logan’s deep voice held caution, low and gentle as though he didn’t want to frighten her.
There was no going back.
She had finally spoken the question—sent it into the air between them and she couldn’t stop now.
Slowly, she turned around to face him, though she couldn’t lift her eyes to meet his. She could only focus on his chest, staring at the deep V of the cut where his dark waistcoat overlapped in front of his white shirt.
“Did you kill her, Logan?” Her voice shook, the heft of the question sending a tremble she couldn’t control through her body.
He didn’t answer. But she could see his body tense, his muscles tighten under his lawn shirt, his shoulders pulling back.
Her gaze crept upward. Neck. Chin. Mouth. Nose.
His silver grey eyes. Eyes that reached into her soul every time he looked at her.
The second her eyes met his, he opened his mouth. “Yes.”
Yes?
A pain shot through her stomach, hitting her with such force she doubled over, leaning back against the bookcase as her arms clenched to her belly.
She knew the answer. She knew he wouldn’t deny it.
But to hear him actually admit to it. To admit it to her directly.
She gasped breath after breath, trying to force air into her lungs when her lungs only refused the air. Every gasp only made the next one harsher—air not reaching past her throat.
Choking—she was choking on her own air. On her own body.
A hand splayed wide on her back and Logan’s boots appeared under her face.
A hand she didn’t want—couldn’t want.
Not now. Not now that it was no longer a possibility that it had all been a fabrication by her father. Not until that moment did she realize how desperately she wanted to believe it had all been a lie concocted to tear her away from Logan. How she’d lied to herself for weeks on it. How she’d refused to accept it.
No. No. No.
There had to be some explanation. She didn’t understand something. Logan loved her—she knew that down to her bones. He couldn’t have done it. He had to explain.
She latched onto a breath and forced it as hard as she could down her throat. Her lungs finally broke free, expanding with the breath.
Two more gulps of air and she was able to straighten slightly—enough to crane her neck to look u
p at him, her eyes skewering him. “You lied about it, Logan. You gave it to her, didn’t you? Too much laudanum you told me—but you never said you were there. You never said…”
Her voice cut off, the horror of it collapsing her throat. She swallowed hard, standing straighter as she jumped away from him. Away from his hand on her back. Her brow furrowed as her eyes narrowed at him. “Did you always lie about it, Logan? My whole life? Or did you tell me what you did and I can't remember?”
“I always lied about it, Sienna.” The stoicism on his face struck her. Did he not care? Not care at all that he had murdered her mother?
“You…you always lied about it?” Her arms retightened around her middle, protecting herself from the flat tone in his voice. “No. It had to have been an accident. It had to have been. Tell me it was. Why aren’t you defending yourself, Logan?”
He shook his head, his face an immovable mask. “I cannot. I cannot defend my actions.” His head flickered back and forth in a wince. “Your mother always saw it in me, and she told me it to my face. ‘Death is about you, boy,’ she said. And she was right, Sienna. She was right.”
“But…but how could you keep this from me?” She took a step toward him, her voice rising. “You said you would remember for both of us. Remember everything for me. But your memories were a lie. You killed her, Logan. You killed my mother. And you never told me. Never admitted to it. You took her away from me.”
He nodded, his emotionless mask securely back in place. “I did. I loved you too much to tell you the truth, Sienna.”
She stared at him, his revelation reverberating through her body and setting her nerves on fire. Her lip curled. “Or not enough.”
She ran around him, her muscles twinging as she yanked the heavy ancient door open. She escaped from the library, running up to her chambers.
He didn’t follow.
The Devil in the Duke Page 17
