But she’d survived, hadn’t she? Percy’s fingers tightened reflexively around the pencil as she pushed herself into a sitting position. She’d survived, and that wasn’t pitiful.
That was strength personified.
“Come in,” she called out when she heard a knock at the door. There was a brief pause, and then the door swung inward to reveal a plump woman with russet hair threaded with gray, sparkling brown eyes, and a warm smile that grew tenfold when she saw Percy.
“Aren’t ye a dear?” the woman exclaimed. “Even prettier than Mr. Black said! No wonder ‘e is so taken with ye. My name’s Elizabeth, but you jest go right on ahead an’ call me Bessie. Everybody does.”
“Hello, Bessie.” Bemused, Percy tucked the catalogue under her arm and slid off the bed. “Who is Mr. Black?”
“Why, yer sweetheart, of course.”
“My sweetheart?” Percy’s brow furrowed. “But I don’t have a–”
“She means me,” Lucas drawled as he appeared in the doorway and gave Bessie a wink. He’d changed yet again, this time into a simple white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms and snugly fitting black breeches. His hair was pushed back off his temple, as if he’d been wearing a hat, and his Hessians were splattered with mud. “Did you enjoy your nap, love?”
“As much as I could, given the circumstances,” she replied stiffly.
“Excellent.” His teeth flashed in a grin. “I’ve brought Bessie in to be your lady’s maid. Anything you need, she’s your gal. Isn’t that right, darlin’?”
“That’s right.” Bessie beamed when Lucas looped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I’ve never worked fer an honest to goodness duchess afore. It’s an honor, Your Grace. A real honor.”
Percy’s lips parted. “Oh. I…that’s nice of you, Bessie, truly, but I don’t need a lady’s maid. And I’m not…that is to say…I prefer not to be treated like a duchess.”
Bessie gave a peal of laughter and slapped her thigh. “That’s a good one, Your Grace. ‘Not be treated like a duchess.’ Aye, I’ll have to remember it.” She nudged Lucas with her elbow and gave him a sly smile. “Beautiful an’ a sense of humor. I can see why you’re smitten with the lass.”
“Did I say I was smitten?” he asked mildly. “I can’t seem to recall.”
“Maybe not in so many words,” said the maid with a conspiratorial glance at Percy. “But I’ve been around long enough to know a thing or two. Trust me, Your Grace, the man is as infatuated as they come.”
Your Grace.
How Percy despised those two words.
They were a piece of a past she didn’t want to remember. A part of a woman she never wanted to be again. Her title was like a splinter under her skin. She would have yanked it out if she could, but it was buried too deep for her to reach.
“Should we draw ye a bath, Your Grace?” asked Bessie, blissfully oblivious to Percy’s rising discomfiture. “I’ve some rose soap that will make yer hair shine like a mirror. Made it myself. Easy enough, if ye have the patience. And ye have enough roses. I’ve found it’s best to combine the petals with the lard before they’ve completely dried out. Brings out the sweetness in them. Unless there’s another fragrance ye would prefer, Your Grace?”
“Please stop calling me that,” Percy whispered, her stomach twisting unpleasantly.
Lucas’s gaze sharpened.
“Bessie, darlin’,” he murmured without taking his eyes off of Percy, “could you give us a minute?”
“O’ course,” the maid chirped. “I’ll be right downstairs preparing dinner if ye need me. Herb-roasted chicken with garlic potatoes and some of that asparagus ye like picked fresh from the garden this mornin’, so if ye do any hanky panky be quick about it.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” As soon as Bessie had left the room, Lucas walked up to Percy and gently took the catalogue from her trembling hands. Setting it aside on the bed, he nudged her chin up with his finger.
“What’s wrong, love?”
If he’d made some witty remark, she might have been able to hold onto her composure. But the genuine concern in those wolfish eyes proved to be her undoing. On a muffled sob she whirled away from him and would have run to the corner of the room like a wounded animal seeking shelter, had he not caught her in his arms and dragged her against his chest.
Percy didn’t fight him. Oddly, the thought never crossed her mind. Maybe because some part of her recognized that Lucas wasn’t a threat, and as tears streamed down her cheeks she clung to his strong frame as if he were a mast in the midst of a wild, turbulent storm.
When the worst of the clouds had rolled away and the seas had once again calmed, she took a deep, shuddering breath, and peeked up at him from beneath her wet lashes. “I’m sorry. I–I don’t know what came over me.”
“You never need to be apologize to me.” He brushed her hair out her face, and although his touch was soft, his voice was stern. “Do you understand?”
No, she didn’t.
She didn’t understand what she’d ever done to deserve Andrew’s contempt. She didn’t understand why he’d derived such pleasure from her pain. She didn’t understand how she could have done everything so right and have it turn out so terribly wrong.
Ever since she was a little girl, all she’d ever wanted was to fall in love.
Instead, she’d fallen into a pit of misery.
No, she corrected herself. She hadn’t fallen.
She’d been pushed.
And now a scoundrel…a…a common thief…was offering his hand to pull her back out.
It didn’t make any sense. Then again, maybe it wasn’t supposed to. Maybe there was some grand plan she wasn’t yet aware of it, and all would be revealed in due time. But until that happened, there was one thing she did understand.
She’d felt good when Lucas had kissed her.
Better than good, she’d felt alive.
And she was tired of being dead.
“Persephone?” Lucas said cautiously when she dug her fingers into the collar of his jacket and rose on her toes. “What are you–?”
She pressed her mouth to his.
Chapter Seven
Lucas could count on two fingers the number of times he’d been shocked by women. As a man well acquainted with depravity, it took a great deal to catch him off guard. The McMullan twins had managed to do it when they’d climbed into his bed one night.
Naked.
With rum.
Truthfully, he never thought he’d be that surprised again. But then, he hadn’t counted on Persephone.
Her kiss was completely unexpected, which only made it all the more delicious. Like finding a red apple in a bin of bruised fruit. Or a piece of ginger candy in the bottom of his pocket. Or stepping outside prepared for rain, and basking in the sweet glow of sunshine.
He followed her lead, parting his lips only when she hesitantly ran her tongue across them, gathering her close only when she leaned into him, skimming his fingers down her spine only when she clutched at his hair and gave a tiny pull.
As a lick of flame raged through him, Lucas was astounded to discover himself struggling with his self-control. As an experienced lover, as well as a skilled one, he prided himself on his exquisite restraint. He could linger over a woman’s body for hours. Days if he had the desire. All the while holding himself back from the brink. But with that little tug at the nape of his neck, Persephone had very nearly obliterated every ounce of discipline he possessed.
With a snarl, he wrenched himself free of her embrace and staggered back, dragging his hands down his face as he sat numbly on the edge of the bed. What the hell was wrong with him? He was the Devil of Duncraven, for God’s sakes.
And a doe-eyed duchess had just brought him to his knees.
He was ill, he decided. On the brink of death, most likely. That was the only explanation that made sense. The alternative–that he actually was falling in love with his pretty prisoner–wasn’t
even worthy of consideration.
“I–I am so sorry.” Looking every bit as stunned as he felt, Persephone started to touch her lips, then tucked her hand behind her back as a guilty pink flush unraveled over her cheekbones. “I…I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“Stop apologizing,” he growled.
Her face paled. “I’m sorry. Oh, dear. I did it again. I didn’t mean…”
“I’m not him.” Lucas lifted his head, wanting–needing–her to look into his eyes and see the difference. To see that he might have been a ne’er-do-well, and a rogue, and a right bastard, but he wasn’t a monster. “You don’t need to grovel. You damned well don’t need to keep saying how sorry you are. Not to me. Not to anyone. And sure as hell, not to your husband.”
The rest of the blood drained from Persephone’s countenance, leaving her as white as the bed linens he was sitting on. Linens that still smelled of her perfume, a delicate combination of lavender and vanilla with a touch of lemon.
The scent suited her. Floral at the onset. A bite of citrus at the end. He couldn’t recall her putting any small bottles into her valise when she’d been hastily packing, and made a note to retrieve her perfume at his earliest convenience. It would be dangerous, some might say even foolish, to return to the scene of the crime (such as it were). But such an alluring fragrance deserved more than to sit in a bottle collecting dust.
Before he gave into temptation and buried his face in Persephone’s pillow (an indignity he’d never be able to live down), Lucas sprang off the mattress. His sudden movement caused the duchess to cringe away from him, and he cursed himself for his carelessness.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me.” He held out his hand, with his palm turned upwards.
She stared at it for a moment, then slowly lifted her head.
“I’m not a dog searching for a treat,” she said scornfully.
Lavender and lemon, he reminded himself.
Sweet and sharp.
Some might not have appreciated the distinction, but he did.
He appreciated everything about Persephone.
Her beauty. Her courage. Her gentleness. Her spirit.
It would be easy to look at her and just see the frailty and brokenness. But there was so much more. She was so much more. And there were other ways to comfort than holding out a hand. Other ways to soothe. Other ways to gain trust. He’d do them all, if he had to. Hell, he’d crawl over shattered glass if it meant putting the light back into Persephone’s eyes.
And that knowledge, that awareness, of just how far he was willing to go for a woman he’d just met, struck Lucas like a punch to the gut.
“You’re right.” He dropped his arm. “You’re not. And if you don’t want to be a duchess, then I’ll tell Bessie to take it easy on all of the Your Graces. I will admit, they were a tad over the top.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to be a duchess.” Persephone’s lashes swept down, concealing all the troubled thoughts swirling about in that brilliant, tortured mind of hers. “It’s more that…I’ve never felt like a duchess. Not really. And it feels like a mockery to be called one after the fact.”
“Why wouldn’t you feel like one?” he asked.
Her gaze rose. “Because he never let me.”
“Your husband.”
“Yes.” She ran her thumb across her chin. The gesture seemed out of place, until Lucas glanced closer and saw the sliver of a white scar he’d never noticed before. It started half an inch beneath her bottom lip before disappearing underneath the edge of her jaw, almost like a hook.
Red blurred the edges of his vision. He didn’t need to ask how she’d gotten such an unusual mark. The answer was obvious. And enraging.
How many other scars did she have? Scars put there by the husband who should have protected her.
Who should have kept her safe.
Who should have treasured her.
Who should have loved her.
Instead, he’d beaten her. Degraded her. Made her feel like less than what she was. He’d hired a dangerous criminal to track her down, and smirked while he’d done it.
Never mind that Lucas was the criminal in question. He had more virtue in his pinky finger than Glastonbury did in his entire worthless body. The duke was worse than a monster. He was pure, unadulterated evil. And by the time Lucas was finished with him, he was going to wish he was dead.
“Mr. Black?” said Persephone uncertainly.
He followed her fretful gaze to his hands and realized he’d curled them into fists. Fists he planned on using to pummel her husband into a bloody pulp.
“Glastonbury is never going to touch you again,” Lucas vowed fiercely. “You’ve my word.”
She frowned. “Then…what are you going to do with me?”
All things considered, it was a damned good question.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” Calliope said with a nervous glance over her shoulder. She was thankful it was still daylight, or else there would have no question as to whether or not she and Helena should have been standing outside a shoddy looking tavern in the middle of Seven Dials.
As dingy and dark as the rookery appeared in the middle of the afternoon, she was loathed imagining what it must have been like at night. If she wasn’t murdered in the next hour for the coins she carried in her reticule, Leo was going to kill her when he found out where she’d gone.
“It’s a proper public establishment, the same as any other we might find in Berkley Square.” Brushing off Calliope’s concern with a flick of her wrist, Helena drew back the hood of her cloak, revealing her fiery red hair.
“This is not Berkley Square,” Calliope noted as they stepped to the side to allow two burly men to exit the tavern. They leered at her, revealing teeth blackened with rot, and were it not for Helena’s ironclad grip on her arm she would have been hard-pressed not to turn on her heel and flee in the opposite direction.
This, she thought silently, was a very bad idea.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Helena said cheerfully. “Could we have a moment of your time?”
The first brute peered uncertainly at the second. “Is she talkin’ to us?”
“Dunno,” his companion grunted. “Sounds like it.”
“I am, indeed, talking to you. My friend and I are searching for someone, and we were told he often frequents this place. A man called…”
“Mr. Bishop,” Calliope supplied when Helena paused, her brow knitting. “Mr. Art Bishop.”
“That’s it!” Helena snapped her fingers as the men exchanged a quick look, the corners of their mouths twitching. “Mr. Art Bishop. We’d like to employ his services.”
They’d received the name at the last “proper public establishment” they’d frequented. Which had just so happened to be a house of ill-repute. Calliope didn’t know if she’d ever forget the lascivious acts she’d witnessed…several of which she had half a mind to try with Leo.
If he didn’t strangle her before she had the chance.
He was going to be positively furious when he discovered the danger she and Helena had willingly subjected themselves to. Stephen as well. But it was worth remembering that no matter how angry their husbands were, they’d never actually hurt Calliope and Helena.
Unlike the Duke of Glastonbury.
Calliope squared her shoulders. She might have been scared witless, but she knew her fear paled in comparison to what Percy must have be experiencing. If tracking down and hiring a renowned thief-taker was what it took to get their friend returned safely, then that’s just what she and Helena would have to do.
“Have you seen Mr. Bishop?” she asked the brutes. “We really need to speak to him.”
“We might ‘ave. Aye, we just might ‘ave.” Again they looked at each other, and their grins grew. “Might need somefin to jog our memories, though.”
“Something to jog your memories?” Helena asked, puzzled.
“Money,” Calliope hissed, poking her
in the ribs. “They mean money.”
“Oh!” Helena’s face brightened. “Naturally. This really is very thrilling.” Her expression turned stern as she withdrew a handful of shillings from her reticule and held them in a closed fist. “If I give these to you, gentlemen, I expect results.”
“And you cannot murder us,” Calliope put in for good measure.
“Yes. Under no circumstance is there to be any murdering.”
“Or maiming.”
“None of that either,” Helena said firmly. “Do we have an agreement?”
“Aye.” The larger of the two men held out his ham-sized hand.
After a brief hesitation, Helena dropped the coins into it.
“The person yer searchin’ for is sittin’ at the bar,” he said with a nod at the tavern. “Come on, Jack. Ye up for a flyer at Molly’s? Heard there’s a new girl. Real pretty like.”
The other brute grinned and groped his crotch. “Always.”
“Sitting at the bar,” Helena grumbled as the men sauntered off. “I paid five shillings for nothing!”
“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” said Calliope. “Surely, that’s something.”
The door creaked noisily when they stepped inside. Immediately Calliope was overwhelmed with the smell of ale and sweat. Shuddering, she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth as she followed closely behind Helena and did her best not to touch anything. A difficult feat, as the small, windowless room was cluttered with tables. And was that a…bear?
She gave a startled yelp.
Helena whirled around. “What is it?” she asked with some alarm.
Calliope pointed a trembling finger at the hairy beast standing on its hind legs in the corner, its enormous brown face perpetually frozen in a menacing snarl.
“Oh dear,” Helena gasped, and for the first time since they’d ventured into Seven Dials. she actually appeared a little bit afraid. “That’s quite a sight, isn’t it? I’ve never seen one before. I wonder where it came from?”
“A traveling zoo, most likely,” Calliope said as they gave the mounted animal a large berth on their way to the bar.
Desiring the Devil of Duncraven (Secret Wallflower Society Book 3) Page 5