She didn’t flinch once. Didn’t hesitate in where her fingers travelled. And they touched all of his ragged, mangled foot. Her blue eyes lifted to him, wide with unshed tears. “I wasn’t there.”
He exhaled his held breath. “Sienna—”
“I wasn’t there.” Her head shook. “I’m just so heartbroken you suffered this alone—the pain it must have taken to maul your flesh so. And I wasn’t there for you.”
Her look dropped down to his foot, her forefinger following the zigzagged stripes of scars along his heel—where all the skin had torn away and had been painstakingly sewn back together.
A sad smile came to her face. “The scars of these stitches—now these are beautiful—straight and even. Whoever the surgeon was, was a marvel.”
“He—they—were.”
“Do you know my grandmother liked to tell me I used to have wonderful, straight stitches before my accident?” Her look lifted to him, confusion still clouding her blue eyes. A flash sparked in her face, and her eyes narrowed. “Which wasn’t an accident and she had to have known that. She had to have known I was thrown against a wall in Spain. So who is she? She’s not my grandmother—I feel very certain of that.”
She lifted his foot from her lap and set it to the ground, moving up to crawl onto him again. Curling into him, she settled her head along the crook of his chest. “Is that true, do I have a living grandmother, Logan?” She craned her neck to look up at him. “Do you know who the woman at Roselawn is?”
Logan shrugged. “She’s a mystery to me as well—she’s the woman that’s been taking care of you for the last ten years. That is all I know of her—what you’ve told me.” His eyes shifted from her face to the grasses growing along the edge of the woods. He didn’t want to start telling her about family she didn’t have. That was something he never wanted to have to broach with her. But she would demand at least this answer from him.
He sighed, cheating on his promise to himself not to tell her anything of the past. “And no, you have no living grandparents.”
She nodded, a frown taking over her face. “I don’t want to go back there, Logan.”
“What?”
“Back to Roselawn. I want to leave. Leave with you right now. Were you on your way to London?”
“Yes.” His eyebrow cocked. “But you don’t want to go back there to pack anything? To tell her—or ask her anything? I want to know the answers of who she is just as much as you do, Sienna. And I will be at your side the entire time.”
“No. I don’t want that woman and I don’t need her.” She shook her head. “That woman—as kind as she’s been—has been lying to me for ten years, so I am done. Done.” Her hands splayed on his chest as she paused. Drawing a deep breath, she pushed away from him to meet his eyes straight on. “You were out there, and I didn’t know. I didn’t know you existed. She must have known of you and she kept me from you.”
His mouth set to a frown. “But if we don’t go back to Roselawn, to that woman, we may never have any answers about your time here. Answers I need to know.”
“I don’t care. I have a horse, you have a horse, and we can leave.” Her fingertips pressed into the muscles of his chest, imploring. “I know what happened these last ten years, and it was much of nothing. Of me being told I was fragile. But I’m not fragile, am I?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “No.”
She shook her head, her eyes going to the sky. “And I was convinced that I shouldn’t stress myself with friendships or dalliances or anything normal.”
He leaned forward to kiss the tip of her delicate nose. “Well I, for one, am happy about the curbing of the dalliances.”
She swatted his chest. “Of course you are.” She grinned. “Me too. This would be horribly awkward if I had another husband waiting for me.”
His hands tightened around her backside. “Don’t even utter such words.”
She laughed. “You’re the jealous type—I think I’m recalling that now.”
“I am. Unabashedly so. I am nothing but the you-are-mine-and-I-will-skewer-any-man-that-dares-to-look-at-you-crooked type.” He leaned to the left and nipped her ear, sending her squealing. “And I don’t apologize for it.”
She squirmed, laughing, until he pulled away and she could see his eyes. “I also think I remember that I always adored that in you.”
“Good. Then you’re remembering well.” His face went serious. “But you are sure you would like to leave here without confronting the woman at Roselawn? There may not be another chance.”
“I need to go back to London, Logan. With you. There is a pull to it and I feel as though I might remember more there.” She wrapped her hands behind his neck. “I want to come with you. Now. Today. This moment. Because I belong with you, Logan. Nowhere else.”
{ Chapter 7 }
His little brother came crashing into the room, all floppy legs and arms flailing in madcap fashion. Dirt from the tussle in the muck on the street was still caked on his face.
Dirt…and blood?
For eight years old, Robby looked at least twelve. People demanded more out of him because they thought he was older. Logan knew exactly what that was like. Bournestein had treated him like a grown man for a long time already, and he was only ten. Or at least Logan thought he was ten. He may have lost count and his mother didn’t remember.
Logan pushed his voice low, hissing, not wanting to believe what Freddie Joe had run in and told him. “Dammit, Robby.” He snatched his brother’s arm, dragging him past two of Bournestein’s brutes and out the side door of the room and into Mable’s room. Mable was downstairs. They had a few minutes of it being empty.
Logan spun Robby into the room, sending him tumbling. “Dammit, Robby, I told you to whistle—the whistle works—you do it when you’re angry or scared or huffy or irked and you just want to attack and beat something and it takes all the heat out of it. It—”
“It don’t work, Logan. It don’t work none.” Robby spit into the corner, not even aiming for the chamber pot. Blood strung along with the spittle. “I tried and I can’t even whistle like you. Nothin' bothers you and everything bothers me and that’s just the way we are.”
He grabbed his little brother’s upper arm, shaking it. “You gotta figure something out, Robby. I don’t care if it’s whistling or digging a poker into your leg or crossing your arms and squeezing your chest, but you gotta find something that works. You can’t just attack everything you see—you’re gonna get stuck by a beast like Wally if you can’t stop going screwy all the time.”
“Or I stick him first.”
Logan stepped back from Robby, stilling, his eyes boring into his little brother. “What do you mean, you stick him first?”
Robby’s eyes dipped, his look going to the lower corner of the room like a beaten dog.
“What the hell did you do, Robby?”
His steel grey eyes, a perfect match to Logan’s, flickered up for a second, then his look dropped back to the floor. “I did it. I stuck him. He wouldn’t stop and he tried to grab the coin I stole from the drunk on Thompson’s stoop.”
Logan jumped forward, grabbing his little brother’s arms and shaking him. “What did you do, Robby?”
“I stuck him, Logan. I stuck him and he bled and bled and bled in front of me.”
“He’s dead?” Logan’s shaking hands ceased, his fingers gripping into Robby’s arms.
It took an eternity for Robby to lift his look to Logan, and his little brother’s eyes hardened, aging a thousand years directly in front of him. “It was easy, Logan. He was going to kill me. So I killed him first.”
For the shortest of moments, Robby’s eyes turned terrified, the little child he truly was both horrified and frightened.
“It went in easy, Logan. Too easy.”
“Bournestein.”
Logan’s head swiveled to his wife, breaking him out of the past. She sat atop of her horse, her eyes widening as he looked to her.
“Wait
—what were you thinking of, Logan? Your face is ashen.”
He shook his head. “Nothing of note. I was thinking of the whistle that I did—the one that brought you back to me. It was from a different time—I haven’t whistled like that in years, but by the grace of the fates, I did it and you heard it.”
He managed a half smile.
He wasn’t about to tell her the story of the moment he lost his little brother. She already knew it—or at least she knew it long ago. She had snuck into Mable’s room after them, hiding along the purple velvet curtains and had heard the whole thing.
With any luck, she would never recall the story.
With any more luck, she would never recall anything of their childhood. Wouldn’t recall how he’d failed Robby. How he’d failed her.
She hadn’t remembered much more in the two days that they had travelled on horseback towards London. And for that, he’d been grateful.
He gave himself a shake and adjusted himself in his saddle as he attempted to widen his smile. “What about Bournestein, Sienna?”
She had mentioned the name several times during the past two days, and he’d deflected all her questions. And not only the questions about Bournestein, but all her inquiries about what happened before she got slammed into a wall and injured her head. He’d protect her from recalling the painful memories for as long as he could.
“I think…no…it’s just…” She shook her head, interrupting her own ramblings. “I don’t know what memory I just had, but I need to just speak it out loud—Bournestein—he—he’s not my uncle, is he?”
Logan shook his head, careful to keep his mouth sealed tight.
A cringe crept onto her face. “He’s my father, isn’t he?”
Hell.
His heart thumped hard in his chest. The one thing he prayed she wouldn’t remember. The one thing, the one man he’d been trying to—needed to—protect her from their whole lives.
But he couldn’t protect her from the truth and he knew it. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yes.”
She took his answer stoically, not flinching. “Who is my mother?”
Logan looked away from her, searching the road ahead. The next village with a coaching inn was within sight. If he could stall her long enough, he could get her eating and into bed. That had been the best way to curtail her ravenous mind during the past two days—get her fed and into bed where he would wear out her body, satiating her again and again until she murmured herself to sleep, wrapped in his arms.
She’d more than enjoyed it—rediscovering what their bodies could do together. The heights they could push each other to. But that wasn’t the peace that she was searching for—she was desperate to regain her memories.
It would do by him, his current practice of evading her during the day and distracting her at night. But his wife was too canny for the routine to work indefinitely. The only hope he held onto was that the roads had been fairly busy, so that had curtailed many of her questions during the days—and they would only get busier the closer they got to London.
Logan looked about them. That the road was void of other traffic at the moment was an uncommon occurrence and of little help to him.
He glanced at her. “Have you remembered something of your mother?”
“Possibly. I have an image, but I don’t know if it is of a random woman or not.”
He offered a quick nod, looking forward as he adjusted his hand around the leather of his reins. He had to give her something. “Her name was Vivian and your mother was beautiful. She had red hair—it is where you get the russet locks in your hair. She had flawless skin and her eyes were a match to yours. That clear, exquisite blue, except your eyes have more dark azure strands shining through than she did.”
“That sounds like the image I have in my head, but it is fuzzy.” Her mouth tugged to the side. “Why do you remember her so well but I only have a vague picture of her?”
Logan looked to her, meeting her blue eyes and bracing himself. “She died when you were five, so while you loved her, I imagine the image of her may have faded over time.”
“I loved her? She was a good mother?”
“You did.” He set his gaze forward, hoping that would be enough. He wasn’t about to tell her that her mother was a horrid person—wasn’t anything like a mother to Sienna. She didn’t need to know that. Didn’t need to know she was unwanted.
The horses took a few more steps before her voice broke through the silence. “But you didn’t say she was a good mother, Logan.”
He glanced at her. Her eyes had narrowed at him.
“And you didn’t say how she died.”
Hell. Logan shifted his focus straight ahead, his mouth clamped shut. His horse kept moving. Sienna’s did not.
He kept forward until he was convinced she wasn’t going to set forth again. He stopped his horse, turning it sideways on the road so he could look back to her.
She sat, motionless, glaring at him.
“Sienna, is something amiss with your horse?”
“No. There is something amiss with me and you are refusing to help.”
“Sienna—”
“No, Logan. You have put me off with half-mumbled answers for days now and I can see the village ahead of us. You plan to shut my mouth with food and sex and sleep again instead of answering my questions.”
He cringed. So he hadn’t been covert about it.
He nudged his horse back to hers and stopped it, facing her. “Sienna, it is as I said it was when you first started remembering things. Our past is not kind. If you remember things, fine—but if you don’t, you will be better for it.”
“Or will you be better for it?”
“Yes, I will, and I happily admit to it.” His voice dropped to a hard timbre. “I’ll be protecting you from things better left forgotten.”
“And you get to make that decision for me?”
“Yes.”
“No.” Her mouth pulled back in a terse line. “If there’s one thing I have realized about myself in the past few days, it is that I don’t think I ever would have allowed you to browbeat a decision like this upon me.”
“And I never thought I would have to, Sienna.” His voice took on a cold edge he couldn’t control. “But here we are. I am protecting you.”
“You are controlling me.”
“Protecting.”
“Controlling.” She lifted the reins in her hands. “And I’m not letting this mare take another step until you tell me what happened to my mother.”
He took a deep breath, a low whistle bubbling from his chest.
“Stop.” Her hand flew up, her voice pitching high. “You don’t get to whistle—you don’t get to calm—you get to damn well tell me what happened to my mother, Logan, or I swear—”
“She died in a whorehouse from too much laudanum, Sienna. Is that what you want to hear?” he yelled. “She died in the whorehouse where we all lived. How desperately do you need to know that?” His mouth clamped shut, horrified.
Dammit. She was the one person that could get him to do that. To push him so far past his control that he exploded in a raging mess.
Her jaw dropped, the horrification he felt reflected on her face. “She…we…she…” Her head shook—trying to recall or trying to strike his words from her mind, he couldn’t tell.
Her head suddenly stilled, her eyes half closed as she looked at him in a slight daze. “Logan, we grew up in a whorehouse? I am a by-blow?”
{ Chapter 8 }
His look pained, Logan nodded.
She was the daughter of a whore.
For all she’d expected Logan to tell her, this was not something that would have ever occurred to her. Her grandmother—her fake grandmother—had said they were of the gentry. A wealthy merchant family that went back ages. Her great-great-grandmother the daughter of an earl. That was why Sienna had been so skilled at needlepoint and Latin and the pianoforte.
Except she wasn’t skilled at needlepoint and Latin
and the pianoforte. She was horrible at those things.
She was skilled at drawing—and gutting a man. Those things she knew how to do. Those things her hands were born with.
But to be the daughter of a whore. To grow up in a whorehouse.
Her skill with a blade suddenly made much more sense.
Her gaze flew up to Logan. The concern in his eyes was heartbreaking, stealing her breath. He didn’t want to tell her anymore, she could see that, but she needed to know.
“This…” She had to stop, swallowing a breath before she could form words. “This Bournestein that I keep seeing images of—the man in purple—he is truly my father—you know that? For if my mother was a whore…”
Logan exhaled a long sigh, almost to a whistle.
“There is no turning back from this now, Logan, you have to tell me.”
His lips pulled inward, gritting for a moment, and then his head tilted to the side, acquiescing. “He owns the whorehouse, Sienna. Your mother was his favorite—his exclusive woman for a long period of time. You are his child.”
Her fingers went to her forehead and she rubbed it for several long breaths. Her hand dropped and she looked at him. “Then who are your parents, Logan? Is your mother a whore as well?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then why did you grow up in a whorehouse with me?”
“Unfortunate circumstances.”
“Which were?”
Logan looked around, searching. There was no one on the road to overhear—or save him from this conversation. His gaze settled back on her. “My father was wealthy, but my mother was his second wife and he married her when he was rather old. I had three older half-brothers that resented—strike that—hated my mother, and in turn, hated me and my younger brother, Robby, when we were born.”
“Robby?” She blinked hard. “I know that name—I know him, don’t I?”
“You do.” His horse nickered, sidestepping and he tugged on his reins to still it.
Her gut started to sink, as she could already guess how things turned for his mother. “I assume your father died?”
The Devil in the Duke: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 7