Talen’s hand slammed against the stone wall of the castle. “Why didn’t you mention that right away? Are they still a threat?”
Evan shook his head. “They’ve been taken care of.”
“Do you know of anything else Gilroy may have set into motion?”
“No. And it’s been three months.” Evan’s voice dipped low. “But let me know if any threats still exist and I’ll take care of them. I do not care for how I failed Ness so completely. That I let what happened to her happen under my roof and I did not know—did not think to see. That is a regret I will carry with me to my dying day.”
Talen lifted his hand and clamped it on Evan’s shoulder with a slight nod. They both understood words could not take the guilt away, especially words said to placate the moment, so Talen said none.
Arms linked, Juliet and Ness walked out of the drawing room.
Ness’s gaze found him immediately, and he saw it clear in her amber eyes without her uttering a word.
Thank you for not killing him in front of me.
Thank you helping me find the strength to face him.
And then a wicked smile curved the right side of her lips.
You will be rewarded handsomely for this when we make it up to our chamber.
Talen’s chest swelled almost as much as his cock at her look.
All he’d ever wanted to see in her. She’d forged herself a spine of steel and the pride he felt was ridiculous and only shadowed by his love for her.
Ness’s gaze shifted to Evan and she stepped from Juliet to thread her arm along Evan’s elbow. “Thank you for arranging this meeting with him. It has been months in coming and I’m beyond relieved it’s over.”
They started walking deeper into the castle ahead of Talen and Juliet.
“It was the least we could do.” Evan patted her forearm linked with his. “You know I’ll never forgive myself for all that you suffered here. If I had known—”
Ness shook her head. “You didn’t. I’ve told you, you mustn’t flog yourself for it.”
“I can flog myself if I wish and you can’t do a thing about it.” He leaned down to half whisper to her, “I can even supply some cat-o-nine-tails for you if you’re in the mood, as long as you don’t let your husband near them.”
Ness laughed, the glorious chiming bells of it lifting into the castle, creating cheer against the heavy ancient grey stones. The sound of it so light, Talen’s feet stopped, his head tilting as he listened to the echoes of it.
There was no better sound in the world, even if he hadn’t been the one to just make her laugh like that.
Juliet clamped her fingers along the crook of Talen’s arm. “I am proud of you.”
“How is that?”
“You didn’t kill that old cur. I don’t know that would have been the case if we were in London at the Den or at the Alabaster.”
A frown crossed Talen’s mouth. “Probably not. Though I’d never wanted my fists in someone’s face more.”
Juliet flashed him the smile that had sunk thousands of hearts in London. “You are a better man now, Talen. I like that.”
He took her smile and the compliment as gracefully as he could as they walked. In front of them, he watched with amusement the difference in height between Evan and Ness, though it did little to hinder their conversation. He angled his right ear forward, then shook his head as he realized they were talking about, of all things, the lambing of sheep.
He glanced at Juliet, then nodded forward. “Why did you send Ness to me, of all people?”
She shrugged, a grin playing about her lips. “I had my reasons.”
“Which were?”
Her eyes lifted to the ceiling. “I don’t know if I can tell you without you becoming insufferable for knowing what I actually think of you.”
His mouth pulled back in a chuckle. “Try me.”
“Well, I couldn’t think of anyone more equipped to be a hero for Ness than you.” She leaned into the side him. “You take care of yours, Talen. You always have. I only hoped Ness would become yours.” She looked up at him, her dark blue eyes serious. “You are a hero, even when you don’t think you are. Anyone with two eyes can see that.”
His throat closed up.
Juliet truly did see people. Saw them for what they themselves never knew they could become.
“Thank you, Juliet. You have my undying gratitude for that, for sending her to me.”
“As I should, and I do feel like you owe me a new favor for this one.” The grin on her face was entirely too self-satisfied. “But seriously, this was never the place for her. I am only happy that she has finally found her place in the world with you.”
Talen chuckled to himself. For how many times Ness had proclaimed again and again since they’d married three months ago that he was her place in the world, he knew better. Much better.
She was his place in the world.
With a nod, he stepped away from Juliet, his eyes locked on Ness.
He had a wife to take upstairs.
Don’t want to leave Ness & Talen just yet? Get the Extended Epilogue of Dangerous Exile now to find out where and how their happily-ever-after is going!
~
Want more escapes into another time and place? Check out my Revelry’s Tempest series, filled with hot, wounded, alpha men that are determined to not need love and women who love to gamble (on both coin and love). Check out the sneak peak of the first in this series: Of Valor & Vice.
{ Chapter 1 }
London, England
March, 1813
The marriage, on all accounts, had been a disaster.
The web of black lace on her veil tickled the tip of her nose, and Lady Pipworth stared at the black box being lowered into the ground, determined not to sneeze. The ropes under the coffin creaked under the strain, several of the frayed cords snapping. Her right cheek lifted in a half cringe.
Her husband always had been generous in the belly.
She had come to the burial against the advisement of her late husband’s cousin. Sitting in the confines of the drawing room, sobbing—as was usual and proper in this situation—was for a wife that would actually miss her husband.
Adalia would not.
Nor did she wish it to appear so. She would see her husband into the ground. Pay him that respect. And then attempt to wash the last two years from her mind.
Dirt thumped onto the black wood. One thud. Two. Three. Four. Until the dirt fell quietly into the hole, piling in covert silence upon itself.
The dirt began heaping above the gravesite and the small crowd around her started to shift, dispersing. Six more shovels dumped, and the black mound was complete. Adalia was the last to turn from the gravesite.
Due respect, whether he deserved it or not.
She walked slowly down the serpentine path of the graveyard, lifting her gloved fingertip to scratch her nose. As long as she kept the crowd in front of her, she could avoid the distant relatives of her late husband that had appeared at his death. They would have questions for her, and she had no answers.
She could already tell by the pursed lips, the looks of curiosity during the funeral, that they had discovered how thoroughly her husband had driven the Pipworth estate into the ground—never a creditor he could not charm, or a bauble for his mistress he could not resist. His second cousin, the new Marquess of Pipworth, had inherited a mess along with the title. But that was the extent of Adalia’s knowledge on the matter.
She looked up to the trees dotting the hillside between the rows of neat granite headstones, slowing her gait as she avoided the pointed, backward glances of the relatives. They were rabid for a target to unleash their anger upon, and she preferred to escape the day without being torn apart.
The sudden steps next to her made her jump. A quick glance up at the tall man appearing at her right told her he was not a relative of her late husband. Or at least not one she had been introduced to.
“Forgive my presumption of speaking to yo
u before introductions, Lady Pipworth, but this appears to be the one moment in time at which I will have easy, private access to you.”
Adalia continued walking, her steps speeding up slightly as she looked up at his face, not quite believing the gall of the stranger. Fearing her cocked, scathing eyebrows were hidden too well behind her black veil to make an impression, she laced her words with as much haughtiness as she could muster. “Sir, you go beyond all measure with your uncouth presumptiveness.”
“I am aware, Lady Pipworth. I would prefer this to not be my only access to you. But it is.”
She stiffened. “Who, sir, do you think you are to approach me at this time?”
“Careful, Lady Pipworth.” His look stayed forward, casual, as though they were old friends out for a stroll and a chat on a crisp spring day. “Your late husband’s family is ardently studying you at the moment. Best to pretend we are acquaintances so they do not question our association.”
Adalia glanced forward, scanning the group milling about the line of carriages. Unabashed glares were still focused her way. “My husband’s family is the least of my concerns, sir. Now I ask you again, who are you?”
He nodded, clearing his throat. His height gave length to his stride, which he was clearly not accustomed to reining in. Especially to the snail’s pace she had committed to. “Forgive me, Lady Pipworth. I should have started with my name and purpose. Your brother, Theodore, was my good friend. I am the Duke of—”
“You know Theodore?” Her feet stopped, her look whipping to him. “Have you heard word from him?”
“I do know him, but I have heard little word from him since he left for the Caribbean. Much as I imagine is the same for you.”
His tone, incredibly arrogant, made her bristle. “You know nothing of my correspondence with my brother.”
“That is true. But if, as I suspect, you have not heard from him in the past months, I am here to fulfill a vow made to him.”
Adalia exhaled a slight sigh, the sudden hope for Theo’s return that had flared in her chest extinguished before it could catch fire. She needed Theo back on English soil. Her two oldest brothers dead and buried, he was her last remaining brother, and she needed him. Desperately. “What was the vow?”
“To offer my assistance to you, should you need it. You have just lost your husband, so this appears as though it is the appropriate time to come forth and extend my help.”
For an excruciatingly long, dumfounded moment, she stared at him through the black threads of her veil, her mouth slightly askew.
A blackbird squawked, landing on the weathered point of an obelisk gravestone behind his head. It spurred her from her stunned state.
“This is the appropriate time, sir?” Her arm flew up, pointing to the gravesite at the top of the hill as her voice went slightly shrill. “Did you not notice I was just walking away from my husband’s grave—his very fresh grave? And you think to approach me here? You think this appropriate?”
His look flickered up the hill and back to her face. “I—well—”
“Well nothing, sir. I do not care who you are, or what my brother asked of you. This is my husband’s funeral. And why would my brother ever ask a vow such as that of you? I do not even know you, sir. I have never heard of you. So please take your assistance and move out of my sight.”
“Adalia, come, you must ride in my carriage.” The soft voice of Adalia’s friend, Lady Vandestile, wrapped her protectively—calm against her storm. Violet moved to her side, her hand on Adalia’s elbow, prompting her forward down the path.
It snapped Adalia out of the sprouts of a rant before it became an actual tirade, and she looked to her friend. “Yes, Violet. Let us take our leave.”
She gave one curt nod to the man that had accosted her and then turned, starting down the path with Violet.
Her hand still on Adalia’s elbow, Violet leaned in as they walked, her voice hushed. “I did not recognize that man. Who was that?”
Adalia shrugged. “He told me, I think, but I did not hear him.”
“Why not? Your veil is not that thick.” The edge of Violet’s lip curled in a mischievous smile. Of course Violet could not keep a solemn façade, even at a funeral—particularly when she knew how Adalia truly regarded her late husband.
“He mentioned Theodore, and then I heard not another word he said.”
“Theodore?” Violet pointed backward over her shoulder with her forefinger. “That man has heard from him?”
“No. That man was of no use. No use at all.” Her fingers clasped over Violet’s hand on her elbow. “I did not expect a vulture to descend so quickly upon me.”
Violet snorted a stifled chuckle. “Exactly—wait at least a day, please.” She squeezed Adalia’s elbow, steering her off the path and toward the Vandestile carriage. “You, my dear friend, have enough madness in your life dealing with Pipworth’s family. They are a sorry lot. I do not envy you the task at hand.”
Adalia’s eyes went to the family members slowly entering the carriages. “Once they are convinced I know nothing, have no pots of coins stashed away, I will be useless to them. Just another drain on the estate to contend with.”
“Lady Pipworth.”
The sudden voice in her ears spiked hackles onto the back of her neck, and Adalia turned to see a small, wiry man approaching her. He tugged his ill-fitting black tailcoat against his chest, attempting to right it as he approached her.
There would be no avoiding him this time.
“Lady Pipworth, please, a moment of your time.” Hired by her eldest brother long ago, the current solicitor of the Alton estate scurried in front of her and Violet, effectively blocking her path. She stopped.
“Can this not wait, Mr. Chesire? As you can see, I have other matters to attend to this day.”
The man didn’t budge. “I fear not, my lady. As you have refused to see me the last three times I have come for an audience with you, this is the moment I must seize.”
Adalia knew she should be more generous with the man. She knew he had kept the Alton estate afloat for as long as he could. Valiantly so, even. But she didn’t want to hear the news. She didn’t want to hear what she had been avoiding for the past month.
His lips tight, Mr. Chesire glanced pointedly at Violet.
Violet looked to Adalia, her pretty blue eyes questioning. Violet knew all about meddling solicitors. “You will be fine? I can stay.”
“You can excuse us, Violet.”
“Cass and I will wait for you in my carriage.” With a nod and a searing glance at Mr. Chesire, Violet stepped away.
Adalia looked to Mr. Chesire.
He wasted not a second. “I will come to the point, my lady, lest you escape me again. The coffers have been spent near to dry. There is not a thing left to leverage for more funds.”
She stared at him through her dark veil, the lace sending a web of black strokes across his weathered face. The familiar feeling of her chest curling inward upon itself, growing thick, slowed her breath. After her husband’s death, she’d had a reprieve from the constant fatigue caused by her heavy heart, but now it was back. She had only been granted two days of respite. “You are positive? There must be something we have not looked at.”
“There is not, my lady. We have already let most of the staff go at Glenhaven House. Only three servants remain here in the London townhouse. And we do not have the funds to continue the tutor for the twins.”
“No, we will not disrupt my nieces’ education, Mr. Chesire. That is unacceptable. Whatever it takes, their education is the most important thing—that tutor is brilliant and it was very hard to convince him to take on the twins. That is the first place any income must go to.”
“But, my lady, they are only girls and the creditors have been most insistent—”
Adalia took a quick step forward, lifting onto her toes to gain enough height to bear down upon him. “Do not ever—ever—speak those words again, Mr. Chesire.”
“My words, my
lady?”
“They are not ‘just girls,’ Mr. Chesire. They are my nieces. They are my brother’s legacy, and they are intelligent and witty and proud little girls, and they will remain so. They come above everything. Do you hear me? Do not ever dare to dismiss them again—not in front of me, and most certainly not without my knowledge.”
He wavered for a breath and then shuffled a step backward, his head bowed. “Of course, my lady. I apologize.” He hazarded a glance up at her. “But the money—”
“I will get you the funds, Mr. Chesire. The girls will continue with their tutor and you will keep up all appearances until Theodore returns to assume the title.” She glanced to her left to see the Pipworth carriages moving away from the cemetery. Her look went back to Mr. Chesire, pinning him. “And you will keep this private between the two of us, Mr. Chesire. If I hear so much as a whisper of slander on the Alton name, I will come down upon you with a vengeance unknown to man.”
His face visibly paled. “Of course, my lady.” He backed away from her, because of the threat, or because he suddenly believed he was dealing with a madwoman, she wasn’t sure. “I await word from you on the funds, my lady.”
She waved her black-gloved hand in his direction, dismissing him. He turned and hustled past Violet’s carriage, hurrying down the street. She stared at his back until he disappeared around the far corner, attempting to calm the boil in her body that tried to steal all her breath.
What mad world had she stumbled into where random men thought approaching her at her husband’s funeral was appropriate?
She shook her head and stepped into Violet’s carriage.
Madness of addled men she could deal with. She’d done so for the past two years.
The madness of creating coin out of thin air—now that was to be an actual challenge.
~~~
Gripping the weathered chunk of galena in her right hand, her left palm mindlessly tapped the top edge of the rock—the very first ore pulled from the lead mine that had produced the wealth her family’s estate had enjoyed for eleven generations. Adalia stared at the portrait of her parents on the wall adjacent to the door as she sat upon the edge of the desk in Caldwell’s study.
Dangerous Exile (An Exile Novel Book 3) Page 22
