Desiring the Devil of Duncraven (Secret Wallflower Society Book 3)

by Jillian Eaton

  That horrific admission was enough to break the dam holding back Helena’s emotions. With a soft cry, she buried her face in Stephen’s shoulder as tears, hot and filled with guilt, dampened his coat. He rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles while she wept, and held out his handkerchief after her sobs had finally subsided.

  “Thank you.” Loudly blowing her nose, she handed it back. “You know I never cry.”

  “I know,” he said solemnly.

  “But these are extenuating circumstances.”

  “I know.”

  “If you tell Calliope about this, I’ll deny it.”

  “I know.” He tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Let’s get you home, lamb. It’s been a long night. We’ll resume our search in the morning.”

  “At dawn,” Helena corrected as they started towards her townhouse. It pained her to think of Percy out there somewhere, all alone. She was probably scared out of her wits. Even when they rescued her–not if, Helena refused to entertain the notion of if–this was going to set Percy back months, if not years, in her recovery. They’d finally gotten to a point where the duchess didn’t leap out of a chair every time someone entered the room, and now this! Helena could not imagine how terrified she must have be.

  Percy was a sweet woman. The sweetest, kindest soul Helena had ever met. But she wasn’t exactly brave. Helena could only pray that whoever had taken her was understanding of Percy’s meek, timid nature.

  Poor Percy.

  The duchess couldn’t stand to hurt a fly.

  How was she ever going to defend herself against a blackguard?

  Chapter Four

  “LET ME OUT, YOU SPINELESS, SNIVELING COWARD!” Looking wildly around the room for something to throw, Percy yanked off her shoe and beat it against the door. When that didn’t work, she picked up the dinner tray her kidnapper had oh-so-kindly delivered before he’d locked her away, and threw it as hard as she could.

  Maybe a little too hard.

  With a startled yelp, Percy dove to the side as the metal tray ricocheted off the door. It clattered to the floor and went sliding under the bed, the only piece of furniture, aside from a wooden dresser, in the room that had become her prison.

  After her kidnapper (she still didn’t know his name) had dragged her away from Helena’s house, he’d tossed her into a carriage, drawn the curtains closed, and driven all the way across London to a narrow house with a peaked roof and blue shutters. He had brought her upstairs, given her a glass of cool water and a plate full of warm food, and then told her to get some rest before he’d locked the door and disappeared.

  By her count, that had been nearly eight hours ago. Long enough for the night to pass and dawn to pinken the sky outside the window. Although the glass pane lifted easily–the first thing she’d checked after a restless sleep–there wasn’t a ledge or even a tree branch that she could use to climb down to the ground below. It was too far to jump safely, which meant until her captor returned and opened the door, she was effectively trapped.

  Like a songbird in a cage, Percy thought sourly as she knelt to retrieve the tray from under the bed. Setting it on top of the dresser, she went to the window and peered out. At least the sun was shining, and her view wasn’t an unpleasant one.

  When Percy had been still living under the same roof as Andrew, she’d learned to search for tiny signs of hope even when everything felt hopeless. Sometimes a cloud shaped like an elephant or the smell of lilacs on the breeze were the only things that had allowed her to make it through the day without collapsing into a heap of dread and despair.

  If she could survive her husband’s unbearable cruelty, she could get through this as well. All she needed to do was continue searching for those pieces of hope. Because the light was always there, waiting to be found, even in the darkest of days.

  When Percy heard the distinct turn of a key, she stiffened and kept her gaze on the window even as fear threatened to paralyze her limbs. But right behind all that fear was anger. As unfamiliar as it was potent. And it was that anger she grabbed onto, like a sailor desperately clinging to a raft in the middle of a stormy sea, as the door slowly creaked open.

  “You’re awake,” her kidnapper said in surprise. “I thought you’d still be sleeping.”

  Percy’s eyes narrowed on him over her shoulder. While she was still wearing the same yellow dress as yesterday, he had changed into gray trousers, a navy blue waistcoat with pewter buttons polished to a dull shine, and white cravat with a silver pin stuck through. If not for the length of his hair or the bristle on his jaw, it might have been easy to mistake him for a member of the peerage. Or at the very least, a gentleman.

  But Percy knew better.

  “I was kidnapped, thrown in a carriage, taken across town, locked away in a strange room for hours on end, and you thought I’d still be sleeping?” She whirled around. “Where have you been? Where have you taken me? What are your intentions?” She spat out each question with all the force of a bullet, and then waited, arms crossed, small bosom heaving, for the answers.

  Unfortunately, her captor did not seem to be in any great rush to supply them.

  “I’ve brought you sweet muffins,” he said, holding up a white square box tied with a simple red bow. “Blueberry.”

  “I don’t want muffins,” she cried. “I want to go home!”

  The hard brackets around the edges of his mouth softened. “I’m sorry, love. I can’t let you do that.” He put the box on the dresser besides the dinner tray, then glanced at her feet. “What happened to your shoe?”

  “Does it matter?” she asked. “By your own accord, I am not leaving.”

  He shrugged. “Sheer curiosity, love.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Calling you what?” he said innocently.

  “Love. It implies a certain level of affection between us that most decidedly does not exist.”

  A roguish grin claimed his lips. “And here I was under the impression you adored me.”

  “Hardly.” Although Percy was forced to admit she was oddly comfortable around him. It didn’t make any sense. She should have been quaking in her shoes. Well, her one shoe.

  Even before Andrew had raised his hand to her the first time, she’d been nervous around men. Nervous around everyone, really, but the opposite gender in particular. She had never liked the way they’d looked at her. As if she were a possession instead of a person. A pretty thing to be admired, but never taken very seriously.

  Once her marriage had dissolved into cruel taunts and closed fists, her unease had rapidly manifested itself into crippling anxiety. Even after she’d left Andrew, she had still gone stiff as a board whenever a man entered the room. It hadn’t mattered whether they were friend or foe. Their very presence had been enough to steal the breath from her lungs, and she’d been frozen with fear until they went away. Which was what made her reaction–or rather, her lack of a reaction–to her captor so very strange.

  Fingers curling into the soft folds of her muslin gown, the garment wrinkled beyond repair and streaked with dirt from her brief foray into the bushes, she scowled at him. “I want to know what you plan to do with me.”

  “And I want to snap my fingers and find a thousand pounds under my pillowcase,” he replied cheekily, “but we don’t always get what we want, love.”

  Oh, she did wish he’d stop calling her that! It made her feel all warm and flush, as if she’d stepped out into the afternoon sun without a hat.

  She didn’t like it.

  Not one little bit.

  Or maybe…maybe she didn’t like that she did like it.

  More than just a little bit.

  Setting her jaw, she turned her head away from him to stare blankly at the wall. “My friends will be searching for me, you know.”

  “I know,” he said, not sounding the least bit worried. “But they won’t find you.”

  Percy gasped. The sheer arrogance in his tone was breathtaking. Who did he think he was, this dark
-haired criminal with golden eyes and a ruffian’s smile? Where had he come from? What did he want, if not to turn her over to Andrew? She could only imagine what the duke was paying for her return. Why, then, wasn’t she on her way to Glastonbury Park? Unless her husband was coming here.

  And there it was. The fear she’d somehow been keeping at bay. It swept over her in a heavy wave. All of the blood drained from her face, leaving her dizzy and pale. She blindly reached for something to hold her upright, and when her hand touched nothing but air her knees wobbled and she began to teeter sideways.

  In an instant, her captor was there, his strong arms wrapping around her trembling body in a tender embrace. “Easy, love,” he murmured into her hair. “Breathe. In and out. That’s it. In and out. In…and out.”

  Percy’s shaking slowly eased as she listened to the soothing, rhythmic flow of his voice. Pinching her eyes closed to stave off the tears that wanted to fall, she drew in a deep lungful of air, and then another, and another.

  “That’s it,” he said approvingly. “That’s a good girl.”

  As her panic eased, she gradually became aware of the hand on the small of her back and the other looped around her shoulders. His satin waistcoat was smooth against the side of her face. His chin was heavy on top of her head. He did not wear cologne, but she found his earthy scent, a combination of leather and cedar, pleasing. Andrew had worn cologne as religiously as he’d worn a cravat, but the smell had been nauseatingly overpowering. She’d come to hate it, for it meant he was close. And when he was close, pain was never far behind.

  But she certainly wasn’t in pain now.

  And she was no longer afraid.

  Instead, she felt safe…and protected.

  Two emotions she’d never experienced in the arms of a man before.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, lifting her head from his chest.

  “You’ve nothing to thank me for.” The hand at her back trailed up her spine until he reached the nape of her neck. He squeezed lightly, massaging the corded muscle until it was all Percy could do not to sigh with pleasure. “Do you have them often? These…”

  “Attacks?” she supplied with a humorless smile. “They aren’t as common as they used to be.”

  His thumb pressed into a knot at the base of her skull. “That’s good.”

  “Yes, I suppose.” She like to not have them at all. But then, there were a lot of things she would like to do. Such as go to the local market without startling at every single noise. Or attending a house party and without hiding in the corner. Or going for a walk in the park without constantly looking over her shoulder.

  Andrew had taken those things from her. With every push and slap and punch, he’d taken more and more until there was nothing left. Nothing left of the young, carefree girl she’d been when they’d first met. Nothing left of the confident, self-assured duchess she’d hoped to become.

  He had turned her into someone she didn’t recognize. Someone who flinched, and scurried, and begged forgiveness for the smallest of grievances. Someone terrified of men.

  Except, it would seem, for the one holding her.

  Percy frowned. She didn’t have a single reason not to be frightened of her captor. He had kidnapped her, for heaven’s sake! Taken her away from her friends and her home in the dead of night. But he’d also vowed to keep her safe.

  And he had brought her sweet muffins.

  “I still don’t know your name,” she said, gazing up at him from beneath her lashes.

  “My enemies call me the Devil of Duncraven.”

  Of course they did.

  “Are you?” she asked. “A devil, that is.”

  Having worked the tension from her neck, he moved on to her shoulders, his fingers sinking into five years’ worth of pressure and strain. It felt heavenly.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  What did she think?

  “I’m not sure,” she replied honestly. “I suppose it depends on what your intentions are.”

  “Oh, love. My intentions are always wicked.” His eyes darkened to bronze, her only warning before he lowered his head…and kissed her.

  Chapter Five

  Sweet.

  Persephone tasted so very sweet.

  Like a perfectly ripe peach, or a cake that was warm from the oven, or sweet honey drizzled over porridge.

  Lucas hadn’t planned to kiss her. But then, he hadn’t planned to take her to his secret hideaway on the outskirts of the city, either. Having already broken one cardinal rule…why not another?

  Why not indeed, he thought as his fingers tangled in all that dark, silky hair. The duchess quivered, like a bowstring being pulled taut, and he stilled, allowing her to dictate what direction they would take. If she resisted, even for a second, he would instantly halt. Some women liked to be pressed. To be restrained. They enjoyed the thrill of it. The danger.

  But Persephone wasn’t like those women.

  She wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever met.

  All of his past female acquaintances had been experienced. Bold. Audacious. The delicate brunette in his arms was none of those things. She frightened easily as a rabbit, and didn’t have a brazen bone in her entire body. But she wasn’t fragile like a glass vase; she was fragile like a wild rose. A rose that had found a way to keep blooming despite all of the adversity it had been forced to endure.

  There was fear in Persephone. Fear that had been put there by the hands of her husband. But there was strength as well. And that was all her own doing.

  When her lips hesitantly parted beneath his, Lucas was careful to keep the kiss tender. Soft. Gentle. He wanted to take. God, did he want to take. But more than that, he wanted to give.

  He cupped her face, tracing her high arching cheekbones with his thumbs as he ran his tongue across her bottom lip before drawing it between his teeth. He sucked lightly, small little pulses that summoned a moan from the depths of her throat.

  That tiny whimper was nearly his undoing.

  He wanted to go further. Faster. But with great reluctance–and a hard bulge in his trousers that wasn’t soon to quit–Lucas made himself step away.

  Persephone touched her mouth, following the curved outline with the tip of her nail as her sooty lashes swept up, revealing violet eyes heavy with confusion…and desire. Morning sun spilled in through the window, surrounding her in a halo of glimmering light. She looked like a fairy queen with her dewy skin all aglow, ebony curls falling around her shoulders, and lips still plump from his kiss. A fairy queen that had been sent from the wilds and the woodlands to torment him.

  “I’ve never kissed anyone but my husband,” she shared in the wondrous tone of someone who had endured a life of black and white, only to have finally been shown all the colors that existed within a morning sunrise.

  It was humbling.

  And, if Lucas were completely truthful (which he strived to be from time to time), more than a tad gratifying. To know he was the man who had put that dazed look in her eye. It made him want to take her into his arms and kiss her again immediately.

  And again.

  And again.

  He saw no reason to stop, really. Except Persephone wasn’t the sort to be rushed. He shouldn’t have kissed her to begin with. He probably wouldn’t have, if he weren’t the rakish sort. But he was, and he had, and there would be no apology for it. Even though he knew better than to mix business with pleasure. But when the pleasure was this delicious…how could he possibly resist?

  Skimming a hand through his hair, Lucas walked across the room and opened the box he’d set on the dresser. Pulling out a sweet muffin, he removed the wax paper wrapping, split it in half, and offered the larger piece to Persephone.

  “Tell me about him.” Leaning against a bedpost, he took a generous bite of muffin.

  “Who?” she said warily as she retreated to the windowsill.

  “Your husband.” Two simple words, and Lucas could see the moment Persephone’s walls dropped into
place.

  Her gaze shuttered, and crumbs fell onto her skirt as her fingers tightened around the muffin he’d given her.

  “I have nothing to say about him.”

  Nothing good, Lucas would wager.

  If he’d had any lingering doubts as to Glastonbury’s treatment of his runaway wife, they were dispelled with a single glance at Persephone’s ashen countenance.

  Women, talented creatures that they were, could feign any manner of emotions when it suited their purposes.

  Happiness.

  Distress.

  Anger.

  Hell, a wench could fake an orgasm if she had half a mind to. Not that he had any personal experience with that particular trick. Lucas understood how to please a woman, and please her well. He knew his past lovers had a litany of complaints against him. His inability to commit to a serious relationship lasting longer than a few weeks seemed to be the most popular. But not a single bit of fluff had ever complained that he’d left her unsatisfied.

  Yes, females (at least the ones in his association, which was to say mostly criminals and whores) were intrinsically talented at portraying exactly what they wanted others to see.

  But the one emotion that could not be contrived?

  Terror.

  And it was written across every inch of Persephone’s beautiful face.

  “Why did you run from him?” he asked quietly. “Why were you in hiding?”

  “I didn’t run from anyone.” Twin splashes of pink painted her cheeks. “I was thrown out of a moving carriage in the pouring rain. I then chose not to return.”

  Son of a bitch.

  For that transgression alone, the Duke of Glastonbury was a dead man.