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.
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 parlor. 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 y
et. 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.
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