And Lucas was going to enjoy playing the part of the executioner.
Instinctively wanting to comfort Persephone as he’d once comforted his beloved chestnut mare, he started towards her, only to pause mid-step when he saw her stiffen. The duchess might have needed compassion more than any other living soul he’d ever met, but she didn’t want it. At least not from him. And who was he to blame her? Glastonbury was the villain of this tale, but Lucas possessed enough self-awareness to know he certainly wasn’t the hero. He might have kidnapped Persephone to keep her safe, but he’d still bloody well kidnapped her.
She had every right to be frightened of him, which only made him more determined to win her trust. He had told her he would protect her, and he meant it. There weren’t many codes he adhered to. Particularly where morality was involved. But when he gave his word, he kept it.
No matter what.
“I’m sorry you haven’t been treated kindly, love. The last thing I want to do is add to your discomfort. Keeping you here…” He gestured around the bedchamber. “It’s not intended as a punishment.”
Her lips thinned. “Then why does it look like a prison?”
The room was a tad stark, Lucas did have to admit. When he’d won the house in a game of cards nearly four years ago, he had intended to sell it for a tidy profit. Then he had reconsidered the benefit of having a residence no one knew about in a part of London no one would ever think to search for him.
His decision had come in handy whenever he’d found himself in need of a place to go underground for a few days, sometimes as long as a week or two. But he was a bachelor with no taste for fashion or decoration. Thus the house had gone largely unfurnished save a table for drinking, a sofa for sleeping, and this bedchamber which, until yesterday, had been his own.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll bring you a catalogue. You can select whatever furnishings you’d like. Drapes, rugs, paintings, chairs. Anything that catches your eye. It’s high time I liven the place up a bit, and I trust your judgment more than my own when it comes to wall hangings and the like.”
She looked at him strangely. “You want me to buy furniture?”
“I suppose I could steal it,” he frowned. “But an armoire might be a little hard to sneak down a staircase.”
“That’s not what I–never mind.” She shook her head. “I think you’ve stolen quite enough, don’t you? Bring me the catalogue, and I’ll go through it. It will give me something to do.”
“I’ll get one now. Oh, and love?” He paused in the doorway, a wolfish grin toying with the edges of his mouth when her slender brows drew together in irritation. It was obvious she did not care for the romantic endearment, which was why he continued to use it. He’d rather see Persephone flustered than forlorn.
“Yes?” she said through clenched teeth.
“My name is Lucas.” With a wink, he turned and sauntered out of the room, taking care to lock the door behind him.
Lucas.
It suited him, Percy decided.
At least far better than the Devil of Duncraven did.
Although he was very devilish.
His kiss being a prime example of his demonical tendencies.
A line marred her temple as she swept her thumb across the seam of her lips. Lips that were still tingling from their unexpected moment of passion.
She’d never had an unexpected moment of passion before.
Or an expected one either, now that she knew what a kiss was supposed to feel like.
It felt…it felt as if she’d touched the sun. All fire and flame and long licks of heat.
When Andrew had kissed her, it had always been cold and barren.
“Frigid,” he’d called her on their wedding night when she’d been shy and nervous and hopelessly awkward. Because he was her husband, and a duke besides, she had believed him. And when he’d finished rutting on top of her and rolled off to take a piss in the wash basin beside the bed, leaving her to clean up the blood on the sheets, she’d believed that was lovemaking. All hard grunts and painful thrusts and misery. She’d quickly come to hate Andrew’s evening visits and was relieved when they began to occur with less and less frequency.
Within a year, he’d stopped entering her bedchamber all together, and she didn’t even care that he’d taken up with a mistress. Because she believed–he had made her believe–that there was something wrong with her. Something broken.
After all, other women could please him. A fact he’d never made any effort to hide. On the contrary, he seemed to take dark delight in making sure she knew about every single affair he had.
And there were a lot to keep track of.
But while she should have been hurt and embarrassed (and part of her was), she was also happy to be left alone. When Andrew was with his mistresses, he wasn’t with her, and she came to treasure those days and weeks he would spend in London while she healed from her bruises in the country.
And there were a lot to keep track of.
Now, because of Lucas’s kiss, she finally knew the truth.
It wasn’t her.
It was never her.
Andrew was the broken one. Behind that striking façade of blonde hair and blue eyes, he was cracked into a hundred different pieces, each sharper than the last. He’d used those jagged shards to make her believe she was small, and weak, and unimportant. Both inside the bedroom and out of it.
But she wasn’t any of those things.
She wasn’t.
She wasn’t.
She wasn’t.
With a soft murmur of distress, Percy curled her hand into a fist and pressed it against her stomach as tears pricked her eyes. She didn’t know why she was crying; she wasn’t sad. She also wasn’t frigid, no matter what her husband had told her.
Lucas had proven that.
But she was overwhelmed and exhausted, both physically…and emotionally. Dashing away her tears, she crawled into bed on top of the blankets, hugged a pillow against her chest, and was asleep within moments.
When Lucas returned with the catalogue, he discovered Persephone curled on her side in the middle of the large mattress. Not wanting to disturb her rest, he started to close the door…but something stopped him.
As if drawn by a magnetic force beyond his control, he approached the side of the bed. At the creak of a floorboard her temple furrowed, and he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her facial muscles relaxed, and with a murmur she slipped deeper into slumber while Lucas stood guard.
He couldn’t say for how long he remained by her side. Long enough to memorize every freckle, every eyelash, every beauty mark. Long enough to notice the pale, nearly translucent blue smudges beneath her eyes. Long enough to start falling in love with a dark-haired fairy queen.
A fairy queen who was married to another man.
With a silent curse, Lucas snatched his hand away and stood up as if he’d been burned. And in some ways, he supposed he had.
Falling in love?
The Devil of Duncraven didn’t fall in love.
He fell in like.
He fell in lust.
But he never, under any conditions, fell in love.
Being in love meant marriage. Babies. A house in the country. It meant settling down, and Lucas wasn’t the settling type. Even if he were, that sort of life, the one with a cozy cottage and a dog sleeping in front of the fireplace and three brats sleeping upstairs tucked between their parents, wasn’t for the likes of him. In his line of work, he’d be lucky if he made it to thirty years. And he couldn’t–he wouldn’t–subject a wife to that sort of uncertainty. Especially not one as delicate as Persephone.
He’d make sure she was safe. He’d make sure she was protected. Then he’d do what he always did whenever his heart was in danger of becoming too involved.
He’d walk away.
Chapter Six
“We need to find Percy.” Green eyes filled with determination, Helena sprang out of her chair and began to pace back and forth across the parlo
r. Dots of sunlight caught on the little swirls of dust spiraling into the air, kicked up by her emerald skirts as they swished between her ankles.
“It’s been nearly twelve hours,” she continued, venting at large to the room, which was comprised of Stephen, Calliope, and Calliope’s husband Leo, the Earl of Winchester. After a night spent tossing and turning, Helena had called everyone together for an emergency congregation at Stephen’s townhouse in Grosvenor Square. “And we’ve done nothing. She’s depending on us! We have to come up with a plan.”
From an adjacent sofa, Calliope nodded in agreement. Ever since she’d learned of what had happened to Percy, she’d been sick with worry. At the sound of her troubled sigh, Leo reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. She smiled gratefully at him.
The tall, striking lord was everything she could have ever dreamed of. Despite a tumultuous courtship, they’d been married for three months. Calliope knew she’d found the one person her heart was meant for, and if not for Percy being missing, she couldn’t be happier. Especially given what she’d come to suspect over the past few days after her menses had failed to appear.
Calliope hadn’t shared the news with anyone yet. Not even Leo. She’d planned on surprising him this evening over supper, but then they’d received Helena’s note first thing this morning, and all the rest–including pregnancy and babies–had been put by the wayside.
Percy.
Kidnapped.
Calliope could still scarcely believe it.
“Has anyone questioned the Duke of Glastonbury yet?” she asked.
“Stephen won’t let me call on him.” Helena glared at her betrothed. “He thinks I’ll shoot the bastard.”
“You will shoot him,” Stephen said mildly. “And as I don’t fancy having our nuptials in Newgate, I believe it’s best if Leo and I pay him a visit. We can leave this afternoon, and be at his estate by tomorrow morning.”
“Fine,” Helena said, but she didn’t sound happy about it.
Neither was Calliope.
“We can’t we go as well?” She frowned at Leo. “Percy is our friend. You and Stephen aren’t even members of the Secret Wallflower Society.”
“The Secret What?” Stephen asked.
“Nothing,” Helena cut in with a warning glance at Calliope, who blinked in surprise.
“Oh. I didn’t realize it was really a secret,” she said.
“What’s a secret?” Leo said.
Helena rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s a secret. It has ‘secret’ right there in the name!”
“Well, no one told me,” said Calliope.
“I’m telling you now. And I’m telling you,”–Helena pointed a finger at Stephen’s chest–“that we’re going to Glastonbury Park.”
“No,” Stephen replied without hesitation. “You’re not. It’s not up for discussion.”
“Why?” Calliope demanded.
“Because it would be too dangerous,” Leo told her in the kind, placating tone men had used for generations when they took it upon themselves to protect their women.
Even if their women didn’t need–or want–protecting.
“Calliope,” Helena said ominously.
“Yes?”
“Get my pistol.”
“How are we going to decide who to shoot first?” Calliope wondered.
“We’ll flip a coin. Heads, my stubborn idiot of a future husband. Tails, yours.”
“That sounds fair.”
Stephen threw up his arms. “No one is going to be shooting anyone.”
“Then you can leave,” said Helena with an imperious toss of her head.
“Leave?” The earl’s eyes narrowed. “This is my house.”
“Yes, but you’re traveling to Sussex, and Calliope and I need to practice our embroidery and our dancing and whatever else well-behaved ladies are supposed to do when their brave men march off to war. So be gone with you. Shoo.” She waved a hand dismissively at the door. “And don’t even think about returning without Percy.”
Calliope pressed her lips together to suppress a snort of laughter as Stephen glowered at his tempestuous bride-to-be. Although they tended to fight like cats and dogs, she’d never seen two people more in love.
Just not at the moment.
“Let’s go,” Stephen said with a curt nod at Leo, who gathered his jacket and stood up.
“Please be careful,” Calliope whispered, resting her hand on top of his when he caressed her cheek. “Glastonbury is not to be underestimated.”
“Neither are we,” Leo said matter-of-factly. Then his gaze softened. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Unconsciously Calliope’s hand drifted to her belly, where it remained until after the men had quit the room. She gathered a handful of muslin, then released it with a tiny, nearly imperceptible sigh. She dearly wanted to share her excitement with her husband, but she knew it would have to wait until after Percy had been found. There wasn’t anything more important than the safe return of their friend. Speaking of which…
“Well?” she said as soon as Stephen and Leo’s footsteps had faded away down the hall. “What’s the plan?”
Flouncing over to a large, gilt-framed mirror perched upon the mantle, Helena met Calliope’s expectant stare in the silvery reflection. A mischievous grin teased the edges of her mouth. “What makes you think I have a plan?”
“Because you always have a plan.”
“True,” Helena agreed. Then she sobered. “I have a feeling Percy may still be in London.”
“Then why send Leo and Stephen to Sussex?” Calliope asked, confused.
Helena tugged a tendril of hair from her coiffure. Lips pursed, she quickly pinned it up again. “Because they wouldn’t like my plan.”
“Which is…?”
The countess turned around. “It’s simple, really.”
“You say that about all your plans,” Calliope reminded her.
“This one’s no different.” She nibbled her bottom lip. “Except it could be a little dangerous.”
“And by a little…”
“I mean a lot.”
“Helena–”
“You’d do whatever it took to get Percy back, wouldn’t you?”
“That isn’t even a question. But what makes you believe she’s here in the city?”
“Call it a feeling.” Helena shrugged. “All I know is that whoever took her, it wasn’t Glastonbury. At least not directly. She was allowed to collect several of her belongings, including the pendant you and I gave her for her birthday. The duke would never have thought–or cared–to do anything of the sort. I’ve no doubt he’s somehow involved, but he’s not the one who physically kidnapped her, which means there’s a chance she’s being held somewhere in the city.”
“But why wouldn’t Glastonbury just have her sent to him in the country?” Calliope asked.
Helena scowled. “Do you not understand how feelings work?”
“All right, all right.” From personal experience, Calliope knew arguing with Helena once she had her mind made up was only a waste of both breathe and time. “Let’s say she is here. Somewhere. This is one of the most populated places in all the world. How are we supposed to find her? It’s going be like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“Glastonbury’s not a fool. He would have hired an experienced criminal. And you know what they say about criminals.”
“No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
Helena rolled her eyes. “Very amusing.”
“I couldn’t help myself.” Calliope grinned. “But I’m listening. What do they say about criminals?”
The countess rubbed her hands together. “If you want to catch a criminal, you need to hire a criminal. Fetch your cloak, darling. We’re going to Seven Dials.”
Calliope gulped. “Seven Dials? But that’s–”
“A crime-infested den of iniquity? I know. It’s perfect.”
If Percy had known her friends were headed for London’s m
ost notorious slum, she would have stopped them. In their little trio, she was the voice of reason, even more so than Calliope, who had the unfortunate habit of letting herself be drawn into Helena’s schemes.
Instead, she found herself waking up in an unfamiliar room, and in those moments of grogginess between sleep and consciousness, she believed she was back at Glastonbury Park.
With a cry of panic, she bolted upright, her gaze darting wildly as she searched for a way out. Then she saw the white baker’s box still sitting on the dresser, and her racing heart began to slow as she slumped back onto the pillows.
Andrew didn’t have her.
Yet.
Her elbow brushed against something flat and smooth. Glancing to the side, she saw a thick catalogue from Beauchamp House, a new (and already renowned) store on Savile Row that sold everything from men’s cravats to armchairs.
Lucas.
He must have delivered it when she was sleeping, along with a pencil tucked between the pages, presumably to mark whatever furniture caught her eye.
It was such an odd, intimate request. Something a husband might ask of his wife. Not a kidnapper of his prisoner. But with nothing better to occupy her time, she rolled onto her belly, flipped open the catalog, and got to work.
By the third page, she was surprised to find she was actually enjoying herself. Maybe because even though she’d become the mistress of four separate houses when she married Andrew, he’d never let her pick out as much as a tea saucer. He had overseen every facet of their lives.
Including her.
By the time they celebrated their first wedding anniversary, his control over her had been absolute. He had successfully estranged her from her family and friends. He dictated what she wore. When she went out. Who she called upon. And the most pitiful part was that she’d let him.
On the rare occasions she had tried to stand up to Andrew, he’d rapidly quelled any notions of defiance with a closed fist. So she’d learned to go meekly along, like a little duck paddling obediently downstream, never mind that the farther she paddled the more she isolated herself from all the things that made her feel safe and happy.
Desiring the Devil of Duncraven (Secret Wallflower Society Book 3) Page 4