“Excellent. I will be certain you have what you need there. Will you have servants to contend with? We’ll need an explanation for Willowby’s arrival.”
She shook her head. “I do not keep a servant. I can manage myself well enough.”
Stalwood’s brow wrinkled as if he did not understand. Of course he would not. Men like him had a dozen servants. This duke would probably expect white-gloved treatment too.
She sighed at the thought.
“I will make sure you have a driver. Safe and vetted by my department. He will take you to London and be at your disposal there. If you want no one else, I will not interfere. The fewer people involved in this situation, the better.”
She nodded. “I agree.”
“Then I shall leave you to your readying. With my thanks,” he said, moving toward the door where he had entered less than half an hour before.
“Stalwood,” she said before he could leave her.
He turned. “Yes?”
“You will find whoever is responsible for my father’s death.”
His expression softened a bit. “I will do everything in my power, my dear. Everything in my power.”
“Good day,” she whispered past a suddenly thick throat. He tipped his hat to her and then he was gone, leaving her alone to think of what she had agreed to.
And ponder what a terrible mistake it would likely turn out to be.
Lucas shifted as the carriage turned and he was rocked against the wall. Every muscle in his body protested with screaming pain and he gripped his fists against the leather carriage seat to keep from crying out.
How he hated being injured. Being weak. How he hated that it all felt so commonplace to him now. Pain was just part of life.
The carriage came to a stop and he looked out the window as the servants began to move to help him. It was a small cottage that they’d come to. One that looked like every other cottage in The Hale, a part of London he’d never been to before. He knew all the worst parts through his job, and the best thanks to his upbringing.
He hated them both equally. But this place was suspended somewhere in between. Not too high and mighty, but neat and tidy, well maintained. Anonymous.
The door opened and the men Stalwood had tasked with helping him appeared. Their faces were grim as one said, “Ready, Your Grace?”
Lucas winced at both the recognition of the pain about to come and the title that was used to address him. “Yes,” he ground out, his voice rough as he reached out to steady himself on waiting arms. He staggered forward, trying in vain to keep his grunts of agony in as he was helped down.
The men looked away as they guided him up the stairs to the cottage door. They were spies, like he was, sent to do this menial task because they were the only ones to be trusted with the secret of his location. He knew what they saw when they looked at him: their future. And it wasn’t one they wanted, so they distanced themselves.
The door to the cottage was already open and the men helped him in. They didn’t hesitate as they all but carried him up another short flight of stairs and down a hall to an open door. Lucas had to believe this had all been prearranged. He did not yet even know who it was who would be taking care of him during his time here. Stalwood had said a healer, but nothing more.
A healer. Internally, he scoffed. He’d been poked and prodded and tortured by many a man who called himself that. The amount of healing that had followed was laughable. He was broken, perhaps irretrievably, and that sent a wash of rage and pain through him more powerful than any caused by the physical.
“Let me go,” he snapped, staggering from the arms of those helping him and all but collapsing against the edge of the bed.
The men seemed unmoved by his ill humor. All but one left him there. The last was named Simmons. Lucas glared at him. He’d trained this particular pup years ago, and now the boy stared at him like he was a dotard, lost to his youth and usefulness.
“Is there anything I can do?” Simmons asked, all that pity heavy in his mournful tone.
“No,” Lucas said through clenched teeth as he turned his face. “Just get out.”
“Well, that is a pretty way to talk to someone who is helping you!”
Lucas turned at the sharp, feminine voice that had said those harsh words. There, standing in the doorway, staring at him like he was a monster, was a woman. Not just a woman, a goddess, it would seem. She had dark hair with deep red highlights, a finely shaped face and full lips. Her eyes were the most spectacular green he had ever seen. Like jade stolen from faraway lands that he could only dream of now.
At this moment, those green eyes were narrowed and filled with anger as she folded her arms and shook her head. Her censure made him feel a strange sense of…shame. An odd sensation he rarely experienced. He’d cut that away a long time ago.
“Mr. Simmons, is it not?” she asked, turning to the other man in the room.
“Yes, miss,” Simmons said, and his gaze flitted over their companion. Lucas recognized the interest that lit in his eyes. The same he felt in his own belly.
Only the younger man likely had a better chance than he did in his current state.
“Thank you for your help. I believe I can handle the situation from here. Please send word to Lord Stalwood that we are settled.”
Simmons glanced at Lucas and then back to the woman. “Of course, miss. I will be one of the guards rotating here. If you have any trouble, if you need anything, put a candle in the front window and I will come at once.”
The young woman nodded, and seemed oblivious to Simmons’ regard as she motioned him toward the hallway. “I appreciate that kindness. Good day.”
Simmons shrugged ever so slightly and left. Once he was gone, the young woman turned toward Lucas, those sharp eyes still filled with slight disgust and judgment.
“Hello,” she said, stepping into the room. “I trust the room will be comfortable, even if it does not meet your standards.”
Lucas leaned on the bed with his undamaged arm, mostly because he was not entirely certain he could stay upright on his own. “I have no standards, I’m afraid. Ask anyone in my acquaintance.”
Her lips pursed in what seemed like annoyance at his quip and she moved toward him. “Let me help you.”
He recoiled as she reached out. “I can get myself into the bed.”
Her brow wrinkled, and when her gaze swept over him, he felt her judgment even more powerfully. She glanced at his face and shrugged. “So you say. Then I shall let you get settled on your own if that is your choice at present. I will return in an hour to bring you some food.”
She said nothing else, nor did she wait for his answer to her statement. She merely turned on her heel and marched from the room, tugging the door behind herself as she left.
When she was gone, Lucas collapsed against the mattress, too exhausted and pained to even try to remove his boots. He had no idea who the lady was, nor her role in the next few weeks of his life. Perhaps she was the healer’s wife or daughter. Perhaps she was a servant. He supposed he would find out soon enough.
Whatever the answer, her presence, as lovely as it was, did not change the facts of his life. He did not want to be here, and he was going to do everything in his power to get away from this place as soon as possible.
Chapter Two
Diana cursed herself as she walked up the stairs toward her father’s old chamber, the room where the Duke of Willowby now waited, and she hoped in a better mood. Not that it had been his mood she’d been pondering since she left him a few hours before.
No, she hadn’t been thinking of that at all. She’d been thinking of how different the man had been from the image she’d created in her head. Thanks to her father, spies had come in and out of her life for decades. She had no romantic notions about them, no sweeping ideas about them all being young or handsome. Most she’d known had been thinkers, not fighters. Men who were good at puzzles and could talk about pedantic questions for hours, ev
en days.
So when her father had talked about the Undercover Duke, when he’d described the titled spy, she’d had a picture of a pampered, middle-aged popinjay. Someone…soft.
But this man was anything but soft. He was hard. His face was hard, his jaw was hard, his eyes were hard. He had a scraggly beard and long hair that curled wildly around his face. He was obnoxious too. She would grant him some allowances for the pain he was obviously in, but he had no call to speak so unkindly to those who helped him.
And yet, despite all that, he was handsome. Yes, handsome. She’d been trying to avoid that observation, pretend it away, but there was no way to do so. The Duke of Willowby was undeniably handsome and unmistakably young.
And she was going to be spending copious amounts of time alone with him. Any ladies’ handbook would speak to the wildly inappropriate nature of that fact.
“Thankfully, I’m not a lady,” she muttered as she shifted the items in her arms, drew a steadying breath and opened the door to the chamber once more.
She gasped as she did so. The duke had found a place on the bed, sort of cockeyed across the mattress so that his still-booted feet hung off the edge. What he had managed to remove was his shirt, and as she entered the room, he made a pained sound and stood, giving her a good look at a masculine and well-formed chest.
One with a very ugly scar across the left shoulder. It was red and ragged, not completely healed. In fact, it looked as though it had been opened and reopened over the months. She could only imagine the horrible pain that this man had endured.
“This is most inappropriate, Miss—Miss…Miss,” the duke said with a shake of his head. “I must insist you fetch one of the men at once.”
She managed to lift her gaze from the handsome chest and the ugly scar, and met his gaze. “The men?” she said with a laugh as she set her tray with her supplies and a plate of food on the table by the door. “Aside from the guard outside, who I have no intention of calling, there are no men here, Your Grace.”
A look of pain washed over his face. “Don’t call me that.”
She tilted her head. “Not Your Grace?”
His lips pressed together hard and he shook his head slowly. “I prefer not.”
She considered that a moment and then took a step toward him. “Very well. What would you like me to call you, then?”
“Lucas is fine,” he ground out, and she could see he was trying to control the same snappish tone he’d used earlier on the men helping him.
Lucas. She thought of the name, rolled it around in her head. Calling a duke by his Christian name was almost as inappropriate as hanging about alone with him in her cottage. Especially considering the wide variance in their positions.
“Are you certain I could not call you Willowby?” she pressed.
That pained look crossed his face again. “That is the same as calling me Your Grace.”
She did not respond, but stepped forward again and reached out with the intention of beginning her examination of the wound on his shoulder. She knew he had another on his leg, but for now she would focus on the easiest one to deal with.
But before she could touch him, he backed away. She tilted her head as irritation flowed through her. “Your Grace—”
“Lucas,” he snapped, and there was the harsh tone.
She pursed her lips as she fought her own sharp tongue. “Fine, Lucas. You knew you were coming to a healer, I assume you understand that I must touch you.”
His eyes went wide. “You are the healer?”
She blinked at the utter confusion and disbelief in his tone. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Did Stalwood not tell you?”
“Bloody Stalwood,” Lucas muttered. “No, he only told me I was being moved for my safety and so that I could be attended to by a healer. He never said it was a woman.”
She spun around, holding her arms out. “And yet here I am. And this is what I was asked to do by Stalwood. What I must do to honor my father and his memory.”
Once again Lucas looked anything but certain. He leaned closer, exploring her face before he said, “Who is your father?”
She swallowed. It seemed Stalwood had left her to a great deal of explanation. “He didn’t tell you that either? I—my father was…George Oakford, Your Grace. My name is Diana.”
All the blood promptly exited the face of the handsome man before her, and he reached out to steady himself on the nearest pillar on the four-poster bed. He stared at her, his eyes wilder now.
“George Oakford,” he repeated after what felt like an eternity. “George Oakford, the surgeon for the crown?” His voice shook. She heard all the emotion in it, the emotion that matched her own. Grief and loss, anger and guilt.
Slowly, she nodded. “Yes. That’s the very one.”
His hands gripped into fists, and for a moment she thought his knees might go out from under him. Then he stepped around her and headed for the door.
She pivoted and reached out, catching his good arm. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“I-I must leave,” he said, his tone distant, almost like he was telling himself rather than her. “I can’t stay here.”
“Why?” she said, holding tight even when he moved his arm to try to extract himself from her grip.
He stopped fighting and instead looked down at her. His dark brown eyes met hers with an intensity that pinned her in her place. Made her stop breathing.
“Your father is dead because of me, Miss Oakford. He’s dead because of me.”
Emotions Lucas had fought hard to gain control over all his life were now washing over him like a violent storm. He had made his confession, thinking this woman would recoil or cry or call him names. Instead, she was just staring at him. The silence that stretched between them was worse than any condemnation he had expected.
As was the look on her lovely face that was so pained and confused. Now that he knew who she was, he did see her father in her. In her eyes, mostly. Her eyes were like Oakford’s.
“Stalwood told me that you were injured the day my father died,” she said at last. Her tone was very calm. “But he did not say that his death was your fault. I want an explanation.”
Lucas nodded. “You deserve that,” he admitted as he pushed away from her and limped across the room to a chair before the fire. With an apologetic look for the rudeness of his action, he sank into the cushions and drew a deep breath to gain some control over the pain.
She was silent as she moved to take the opposite chair from his own. Those jade eyes flitted over him, observing like the best of spies. He found himself wondering at the outcome of her assessment.
“Tell me,” she repeated. An order, not a request.
His mouth felt dry as kindling and his tongue felt thick. Somehow he managed to speak. “I was pursuing a traitor to the Crown. One within our own ranks.”
“Stalwood suggested as much,” Diana said. “And that things went wrong.”
“I was told not to pursue, but to observe,” Lucas said, bending his head as memories washed over him like a tsunami. “I didn’t listen. I should have listened. I should have requested more help. Your father wasn’t even supposed to be there. But you know him.”
A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “Yes, I do know him,” she said. “He was not one to follow orders.”
“No, but this time we should have.” Lucas scrubbed a hand over his face. “I thought something massive was about to happen. Something dangerous. I decided to go in instead of simply observe. Your father was covering me. But we were both shot, I in the leg while I was climbing up a building. I fell and was even more injured. When I turned, your father had already been hit. I was trying to help him when I was shot a second time.”
Her face was still impassive, but he saw the glitter of tears brighten her eyes as she dipped her head and stared into her clenched hands in her lap. “It does not sound as though what happened was your fault,” she said at last.
<
br /> That little absolution hit Lucas in the gut for a moment, but he shook away the forgiveness he did not deserve. “I was the one who should have decided to act more prudently. I should not have asked your father to help me violate my orders. But for me he would still be with you. He died trying to protect me.”
She was silent again, and he allowed the silence, despite how much he wished to recoil from it. At last she said, “That seems like all the more reason for me to wish to help you, Your Grace.”
He wrinkled his brow. “You cannot mean that.”
She stood and looked down at him. “I certainly do. I have an obligation not to let my father’s sacrifice be for nothing. As do you. You will not leave, Your Grace. You will stay and you will allow me to help you. For my father.”
“Miss—”
She turned away. “Rest again. I have left food by the door. Tomorrow will be a better time to discuss our next course of action. Good night.”
She didn’t wait for his response this time any more than she had the last time she walked away. And he did not offer any, but just watched her depart and leave him alone with his guilt and his rage and his pain.
Chapter Three
Diana had not lived in her bedroom in London for almost exactly a year. Even when she’d come for her father’s service, she had stayed at an inn, her room paid for by Stalwood. The last time she’d been here, her heart had been broken and she’d never wanted to return to this place and all its horrible memories. Now she sat on her bed, and that same heart was broken all over again, not just by memories, but by the details the Duke of Willowby had just shared about her father’s death.
“It’s too much,” she whispered out loud into the silent darkness that offered no comfort or solace. “It’s just too much to bear.”
Grief overcame her then, and she sank against her pillows, her sobs racking her body as she relived every broken moment of the last few years of her life. All the pain, all the loss, all the shattered dreams washed over her in an unrelenting wave.
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