Achingly slow, he lifted his eyes to her.
Her face had blanched, her arms wrapping around her stomach. For a long second, she looked as though she were about to retch.
As much as he wanted to say words to ease the truth of the past for her, he steeled himself. He needed to leave and he was going to be as brutal as he needed to be for her to let him go.
“Your mother always saw it in me, Sienna. She told me to my face when I was young. ‘Death is about you, boy,’ she said. ‘It always will be.’”
“My mother said that?” Her arms unfolded from her waist. “You knew my mother? But Grandmother said she died when I was young—before I could even speak.”
Logan’s mouth clamped shut. He hadn’t meant to mention her mother.
“What are you not telling me, Logan?”
He drew in a deep breath and swallowed a sigh. “You are at peace, Sienna. Please, let us leave it at that. Go home to your grandmother and Roselawn. Go home to your life. Forget I ever came through this town.”
He turned from her and walked toward his horse.
Her steps were quick behind him. Her fingers snatching his forearm were even quicker. “No. I am your wife.”
His wife? Now she said it?
He spun around, fury flying. “This is killing me, Sienna. Can you not see that?”
“Is it? From where I stand, this isn’t killing you at all. You know everything and I know nothing.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing.” His voice went into a yell, thundering into the surrounding trees and fields. “I’m doing this for you, Sienna.”
“Are you positive on that fact?” Her hand jerked away from his arm. “Because from my vantage, this is all about you. What you want. What you think I need. I am your bloody wife, Logan, and you’re the one now refusing that.”
She stomped around him, reaching her horse and snapping the reins into her hands. Without bothering to mount her horse, she led her mare past him, moving back along the road into the forest.
Every step a blow to the ground, every step a blow to his will.
{ Chapter 5 }
Blasted man.
Humiliation still wrapping her neck in hot fury, Sienna slowed her pace, glancing back at the white nose of her mare.
Maybe now she was close to being able to ride without panicking her horse. She had stomped away from Logan knowing she couldn’t trust herself on her sidesaddle.
She had walked for twenty minutes and still had not been able to shake the humiliation that had enveloped her.
He didn’t want her. Didn’t want his wife.
He had made that abundantly clear.
He had convinced her of it—that she was his wife—and it had taken such bravery to finally admit to herself she believed him.
To chase after him.
And then he rejected her. Coldly.
Telling her of the deaths she’d caused.
Her shoulders shook in a shiver that skipped down her spine.
What it had taken for her to come after him, to offer herself to him, had tested her like nothing ever had. She’d had to draw upon courage she didn’t know she possessed. Take a leap of faith so frightening that she had turned her horse around three times after she set out after him.
He had rejected her.
She wasn’t the same person she’d been before she lost her memories of him. She wasn’t the person he wanted as his wife.
The blow of that fact wasn’t lessened by what he had told her about the war. Not only was she not enough for him now—she had been the cause of numerous deaths. Indirect or not, he had come after her. For what? Maybe he was right. Maybe death did follow him and she was better off without her husband.
Her husband. She had just brought herself to believe those words. That she had a partner in life that she never knew. That the missing piece of her could be filled.
She never should have tried.
She lifted her left hand, rubbing the softness of her worn glove along her neck. The heat of her skin seeped through the leather to warm her hand.
If only she could remember. Remember who she was. Remember who he was. Maybe then.
Maybe then, what?
It didn’t matter. He had rejected her. He didn’t want her. She had to scrape together some dignity—what little she could at this juncture.
Warm orange rays of sun cut through the grey clouds as they moved low into the sky, the light filtering through the trees from an open field ahead. It would be an excruciatingly long slog home if she walked the rest of the way. She hoped her anger had dissipated enough she wouldn’t make her mare skittish—but for that to happen, she had to stop thinking about Logan. Put him out of her mind.
Sienna spotted the small, thatched roof of the abandoned gamekeeper’s cottage nestled into the woods ahead. Why had she chosen this horse when she had raced to the stable? This mare was particularly tall—not to mention skittish. Good timing in that there was a block outside the gamekeeper’s cottage to help her up onto her sidesaddle.
She veered right onto the overgrown trail that led to the cottage, trying to control her breathing that still seethed despite her best efforts. She didn’t want to aggravate the skittishness of the horse. She was always conscious of the fact that she’d fallen off of one horse and lost all her memories—her life and everything she knew of it. She wasn’t looking for it to happen again.
Almost to the cottage, branches behind her crunched and speeding hooves on the mossy ground vibrated the dirt below her boots. She spun, and barreling toward her was Logan on his horse. Logan coming at her far too fast to slow down on the narrow path.
She jumped to the side of the trail, her hand yanking on her mare’s reins to move off the path. Logan and his horse brushed past her, his boot almost skimming her chin.
Five steps beyond her into the clearing around the cottage, his horse reared high, spinning in a circle on its hind legs.
Her breath held, she watched him grip his pommel.
Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
The front hooves of the horse dropped to the ground, the steed dancing at the abrupt halt. Logan stayed seated firmly in the saddle.
She exhaled.
He managed a full stop without falling. Ten steps too late. But a full stop.
What did the idiot think he was about?
She stomped forward, yanking the reins of her horse behind her. “What of you, Logan? You could have trampled me.”
He stared down at her. “I lost you, I couldn’t see you through the woods and…” His mouth clamped shut and he looked to the side, his jaw flexing. “I cannot let you go, Sienna. Not even for six hours. Not for a half hour.” His head shook, his eyes closing for a long breath. His steel grey eyes opened to her, the tormented depths of hell reflecting both in the dark flecks and in the vicious tremble of his voice. “I cannot let you go.”
He exhaled, his lips parting as his teeth gritted, and a low whistle escaped his lips. A whistle so low, so distinct, she’d never heard anything like it.
Never, except that she remembered it.
Remembered the distinct pitch. The set line of his lips, as though he was exhaling every bit of anger and frustration filling his chest.
A spark ignited somewhere deep in the recesses of her brain and she remembered the sound.
Remembered the first time she had ever heard it.
Flashes of the memory tunneled forward in her mind. Blurred faces. Anger. Arms flying in a fight. She swayed, her eyes closing, trying to reach out and touch the memory—grab the snippets of the fuzzy scene in her mind.
She opened her eyes, her look slowly traveling upward to Logan, high on his horse. “You hated me.”
His head snapped back, his forehead crinkling. “Sienna?”
“You hated me.” She exhaled the words in a wispy breath, the reality of the scene taking root in her mind. She gasped air, swallowing, trying to create moisture in her dry mouth. “You hated me. Your face, I can see it clearly. Except
you were little and you hated me. You whistled just as you did now. Just as…just as…”
Her voice trailed off, words floating away from her head as if they were no longer hers. No longer her tongue, no longer her sight.
The sway of her body went wide and blackness swallowed her whole.
~~~
Cold. Wet.
On her brow, seeping down into the crevices about her eyes.
Cold water.
Her eyes cracked open. She was upright. On the ground, but upright. Her arms tucked into her sides. Something hard behind her. The cottage. She sat propped upright against the wooden boards on the outside of the cottage.
The cold splashed across her forehead again.
A blurry figure in front of her came into focus. Logan bent over in front of her. Concern furrowing his brow, his mouth pulled to a tight line. A dripping wet cloth in his hand.
“You fainted.” His words were gruff, sinking slowly into her head.
She shifted, her palms going to the ground on either side of her to steady herself against the side of the cottage. “I don’t faint.”
“I agree.” He eased slightly away from her, giving her space to breathe. “But you just did. A rock dropping to the dirt.”
She sighed as she tugged off her gloves. Her fingers went to her wet forehead. Her bonnet was gone. She rubbed her eyes. “I did the other day as well.”
“You fainted? When?” The concern etched in his forehead deepened.
“After you accosted me on the lane to my home. I made it to my room and I couldn’t breathe and I found myself in a crumpled ball on the floor.”
“Sienna—”
“Prove it to me.” Her hand slipped away from her eyes and she focused on his face. On his mouth. “Whistle for me again.”
“What? That is ridiculous, Sienna.”
“No. Please. I need to hear the sound again. Just as you did when you were on your horse. Please.”
He stared at her, his grey eyes assessing her.
Walking her hands up the side of the cottage for support, she pushed herself to her feet. His hands at the ready, Logan watched her, his hawk-eyes scrutinizing every movement as though she were china ready to break and he would need to swoop in.
She ground the heels of her boots into the ground until she was solid and she lifted her gaze to meet his stare. “I am not mad, Logan. Please.”
He took a step back from her and drew a deep breath. With one long exhale, he whistled.
“No. Not like that, Logan.”
His eyebrow cocked. “My whistle did not please?”
“Do it as you did earlier—angry—when you were furious and you whistled.”
“I wasn’t furious.”
Her hand waved through the air. “You weren’t furious with me—you were furious with yourself—I saw that. But I need you to whistle as you did.”
His chest lifted in a deep sigh, and he exhaled the same low, teeth-gritted whistle.
Her legs gave out and she collapsed backward to the side of the cottage, sliding down toward the ground. Jelly in her legs, but at least she didn’t faint.
His hands were instantly under her arms, breaking the fall and setting her backside gently down onto the dirt.
“I—I remember.” A mere whisper left her lips as her eyes lifted to him. “I remember. There was a golden penknife I had hidden in my skirts. I stole it and I was so scared. And you hated me because I took the pen knife and he thought it was you.” Her head shook. “He? Who is he? Who was I terrified of? It wasn’t you.”
Kneeling in front of her, Logan’s hands moved to her elbows and tightened to an iron clasp. His head dropped, his eyes hiding from her as his breaths came fast and hard.
Her face crumpled as memories flashed forward in her mind. Flashed in snippets, in random bits and pieces, in surges of emotion, of pain. “The war…” She gasped against the pain flooding her with each horrid image—gasped again and again, trying to send air into her barren lungs.
She grabbed his forearms, gripping with all her might. Gripping so she didn’t faint, didn’t leave the world for the pain that was coursing through her body. “The—the war—the man—you—you—Spain—I followed you and you were going to send me home and then—oh, hell, Logan—the fire—Boney’s men—the wall—he threw me into a wall—”
He lifted his head to look at her. “You remember? You remember what happened in Spain?” He shook her. “How did that woman—the charred one—get your ring? How did you get out of there? Back to England?”
Her hand lifted from his arm, and she held it up feebly between them. “Slow—I—I am trying.” Her eyes squinted shut, her head swinging back and forth as she fought to find a thread of continuity in the flashes firing in her brain.
“The ring.” A whisper more to himself than to Sienna, and Logan’s hand jerked away from her arm and dove under his loose cravat, pulling free the ring on a chain. With a snapping tug, he yanked it off his neck, breaking the chain and thrusting the ring in front of her.
She looked at the gold. At the blue sapphires circling the band, evenly embedded in the smooth surface of the gold. Her ring. It belonged on her finger. Ribbon. Ribbon should have been on it. Wrapped to hold it tight to her finger.
“I knew—I knew they were coming, and I knew I wouldn’t get away so I asked Mrs.—Mrs.—Mrs. Clavel to hide me in her larder and she was so afraid. There was so much confusion and she was yelling. So I begged her and begged her and then I was desperate so I offered her the one thing I had of value—my ring.”
Sienna reached out, her fingertips shaking as she grasped the ring, slowly, almost as though it would burn her, burn away her memories if she touched it.
Her forefinger and thumb clasped it, taking it from Logan’s grip and she lifted it close to her eyes. “She took my ring. She grabbed it from me. And then just when it left my hand a man—”
A gasp swallowed back her words.
“A man?”
Her eyes clamped shut as she attempted to conjure the scene in her mind. It took her long, heavy breaths before she could continue. “A man came—he came for me—me, not her, because he pushed Mrs. Clavel aside and came after me. But he wasn’t wearing a uniform. No. He was different. An Englishman.”
Logan’s hands moved down to wrap the sides of her ribcage and they tightened, near to cracking her bones. “Who was he?”
Her eyelids fluttered open, and she found Logan’s face. Something steady, steady against all the madness in her mind. “I—I don’t know. That man—he grabbed me, and then Mrs. Clavel jumped on him—fought him.” Her eyes squinted shut. “He hit her, yanked her to the ground and kicked her head. And then he—he grabbed my hair and then the wall—the wall was coming at my face.”
Her head dropped, her chin to her chest as she tried to still the fear rolling through her body. She was safe. Safe in the woods. Safe with Logan directly in front of her.
She didn’t know how long she sat there crumpled into herself, trying to calm her thundering heart.
Logan’s voice, low and calm, broke into the rustling of the forest. “What happened next?”
Her head shook slightly, her chin rubbing on the lace bodice trim of her riding habit. “I don’t remember anything after that. I woke up on—” Her eyes squinted shut and her head tilted to the side as she searched the dark recesses of her mind. “On a boat, maybe, it was rocking—or a wagon—” She shook her head. “And then I was at grandmother’s home. And she told me what happened, that I fell off a horse and hit my head and I have been at Roselawn ever since.”
Her eyes flew open to escape the chaos of her mind and she stared at Logan’s steel grey eyes. “Except, except, Grandmother—she’s not my grandmother. Or is she? And I didn’t fall off a horse. Or did I?” She shoved her ring onto her pointer finger and lifted her hand, gripping her forehead. “None of this makes sense, Logan. It’s all a jumble.” Her head started to shake, her eyes closing again as her breathing sped. “I don’t know—
none of it makes sense and it’s all just snippets, images that don’t make any sense. And blasts of pain running through my gut, my chest, again and again.”
“Pain?”
“As the snippets flash.” She nodded, bringing her other hand to her head, trying to hold the images from flashing and retreating. “But then the opposite, also.”
“Opposite of the pain?”
Her fingers tightened on her scalp. “No one is who I think they are. You hated me. Hated me, but then…” Her eyes opened and she looked up at him as her hands fell away from her head. “Except you. You are…” She stopped, gasping for breath and looking away, staring at the horses at the edge of the clearing.
“I am what, Sienna?” Logan’s voice went hard, his fingers digging into her ribs. “What?”
She dragged her look back to his face, overwhelmed by what she was seeing in her mind, even as unsure as she was of it. “Every snippet I see of you. It is the opposite of pain. It is…love…this brutal sense of staggering love every time I see you in my mind. Love that cannot be touched—cannot be denied it is so powerful.”
He let loose an audible exhale, his hands lifting from her to catch himself on the cottage wall. In one harsh move, he shoved himself up to his feet and away from the wall, staggering backward away from her.
His feet planted, his shoulders heaved with every breath as he stared at her.
She saw it instantly. He stood, unable to be near her, to touch her, not until she was certain. Not until she knew it in her soul just as deeply as he did.
She set her hands onto the outer wall of the cottage, pushing herself to her feet. But she couldn’t step toward him—couldn’t step away from the support of the wall.
Her look dragged from his boots upward, scrutinizing every whit of his being. Every muscle in his body resisted. Trembled with the sheer power it took for him to stay three steps from her. Every breath he drew, ragged, brutal.
The Devil in the Duke: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 5