Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  Empty.

  Furrowing his brow, he stuck his head out of the room and peered into the hall. From the corner of his only eye, the flash of white skirts caught his notice and he swung his head about. White skirts fluttered at the end of the hall as a small creature disappeared around the corner.

  Derek frowned. With a deliberate show for the girl who, no doubt, lingered at the edge of the corridor, he slammed the door with such force, it rattled in its foundation. This had not been the first time she’d crept into his sanctuary. Eventually, she always fled, which was good. He didn’t have use or need of the child his sister had saddled him with.

  Then, what manner of girl was she that she did not have a suitable fear and horror?

  He lurched across the room but paused to swipe another note left by Harris. This from St. Cyr. The familiar inked scrawl stared back at him. Good God, why did the man persist? Had Derek not suitably severed that lifelong friendship recently? With uneven movements, he limped over to the hearth. He stood, transfixed by the crimson and orange fire. It possessed that same, powerful hold upon him that it always did. Do not turn yourself over to that fear. Do not. Do not… As the heat touched his skin, his mouth went dry. A rapidly growing disquiet stirred within him, ushering in a familiar panic. He drew in slow, rhythmic breaths and concentrated on those ragged airflows to keep from descending into the pit of madness that had followed him since that day. Derek pressed his eye shut to keep the memories at bay. But Toulouse would always be there. Just as the scars and the eye patch and the useless leg would always be there.

  The screams of men blended in a hideous symphony with the explosion of cannon fire and filled his senses, deafening. Derek thrust the note into the fire and the flames eagerly licked at the ivory velum until the note was no more. He spun on his heel so quickly, his left leg nearly buckled with the suddenness of his movement. Relishing the pain that radiated up his thigh and momentarily distracted him from the memories of battle, he limped across the room, escaping the fire.

  Escaping when he’d been unable to on the field of battle. Derek drew to a jerky stop beside the window and, in a reflexive movement, pulled the curtain back. Light streamed through the crystal windowpane, momentarily blinding him. He jammed the heel of his palm into his remaining eye. White orbs danced within his vision and he blinked frantically. Derek made to release the curtain and then stopped.

  The London streets below bustled with activity as lords and ladies went about their daily business. Carriages rumbled by. Phaetons being driven by dandies rattled along. Life was…the same and yet, not. For those satin-sprigged ladies and perfumed dandies in the streets below, the world carried on as it always had and would continue to do so. The hideous visage he went out of his way to avoid reflected back at him in the windowpane. Only this time, he did not look away but stared boldly at the stranger, burned for his efforts on the fields of Toulouse, forever transformed into a person not even a mother could love. Nausea twisted in his belly; a deep sickness that had nothing to do with the memories and everything to do with the beast before him.

  “You are the same bloody, weak fool you always were,” he whispered into the quiet. Thrusting aside the maudlin thoughts, he let the curtain go, just as a hackney came to a quick halt directly outside his townhouse.

  Derek adjusted the band of his eye patch that bit painfully into his temple. A hired hack? No one had business here. He opened the curtains once again and cursed as the sunlight streamed inside, temporarily blinding his eye once again. His vision cleared just as the driver opened the door. A flash of blue penetrated the opening of that carriage; that color so vibrant and powerful, it conjured memories of summer in the country, traipsing through the hillside, while he’d hidden from his tutors.

  The driver reached inside the carriage and handed down the owner of that flash of color. All the breath sucked from his chest and he pressed his brow to the warm windowpane.

  The young woman, a stranger in a wool cloak took several tentative steps toward the front of his townhouse and then, as though she felt his beastly gaze upon her, paused. Tilting her head toward the sun, she raised a hand to her eyes and stared at the front façade of his townhouse. Only, what would one such as she have business with here?

  Derek quickly ran his gaze over her. A powerful surge of desire slammed into him, at the sight of her lean, lithe frame and generous décolletage pressing against the fabric of her cloak. The man he’d been had appreciated beauty. He’d relished the satiny perfection of a woman’s skin, celebrated the silken tresses of a woman’s hair as it had fanned about them upon satin sheets. The man he was now still appreciated beauty, even knowing he would never again experience the taste of passion he’d sampled through the years. And this woman, frozen outside his townhouse, evinced the heart-stopping beauty that drove men to sonnets.

  The silly straw bonnet atop her head did little to conceal the raven color of her curls. Several strands hung haphazardly over her shoulder. Taller than most women, she had the look of a Spartan warrioress. Just then, the captivating stranger inched her gaze up higher and found his window.

  Derek cursed and let go the curtain with such alacrity it snapped noisily in the quiet. Tightening his jaw, he thrust aside his fleeting appreciation for the stranger outside his home. There was no business she could have here. After all, Polite Society and impolite Society all knew—you never stirred The Beast of Blackthorne.

  After her most recent shameful fall from grace, Lily had become attuned to gaping stares; none of those looks were kind and all condemning. That acuity was how she’d known someone had been staring at her.

  She raised her gaze up the white façade of the Duke of Blackthorne’s townhouse. The faint flutter of velvet curtains in the top window lent proof to her earlier feeling of being watched. A slight shiver of unease raced along her spine. The first real stirring of anxiety since she’d rented a hack and left the shameful life she’d lived these past years, ran through her. Granted, it would be the height of foolishness to not be attacked by doubt. After all, what powerful duke known as The Beast would turn the care of his ward over to a woman ruined by his dead brother?

  “This is lunacy,” she whispered to herself. Foolishly, she’d not allowed herself to think of, once again, setting foot inside these halls. Despite the warmth of the spring day, her teeth chattered. Her fingers curled hard around the handle of her valise. She stared dumbly at the door as her past converged with her future, whirring and twisting so she could not sort out that long ago night from the now. A pressure weighted her chest, restricting airflow as she recalled climbing those same steps, pleading, begging…hoping. I cannot do this. A heavy wind slapped at her skirts, as if nature concurred.

  She wheeled around to flee.

  Holdsworth’s leering face flashed to mind. The glimmer in his brown eyes, the feral grin on his lips, a ruthless smile that spoke to her future if she failed to do this deed. To not climb the Duke of Blackthorne’s steps and demand this post would result in her becoming whore to some other. Or worse…

  Failure to comply would destroy what remained of Lily’s living spirit and she’d not be destroyed again at another man’s hands. Squaring her shoulders, she turned back and started forward. Unlike that proverb uttered so many times by her father during her youth, she’d rather face the devil she did not know.

  Lily stopped beside the black wood door. Or in this case, the beast she did not know. She lifted a hand and knocked.

  …Surely you did not believe I would marry you…

  The door opened almost instantly cutting into the memory of George’s mocking laughter. A younger butler with warm eyes stared back. His chestnut hair tousled and his cheeks flushed, the flustered man appeared to be near his thirtieth year. “May I help you?” Out of breath, as though he’d run a great distance, he spoke with far more kindness than owed a stranger. Particularly one who’d shown up by hired hackney, no less.

  She drew in a breath. “I—”

  “Please come down,
” a young woman cajoled, momentarily distracting Lily. She tipped her head and the evil deeds that brought her here this day forgotten, she leaned curiously around.

  The butler promptly pulled the door in her face, just as it had been shut years earlier. Lily shot a hand out to stay that movement, but he merely closed it enough to block her view of the unfolding tableau at his back. She braced for icy contempt. Instead, the servant shot another quick glance over his shoulder and then returned his focus to Lily. “Miss?” he asked.

  After her years with Sir Henry’s nasty servants, she’d come to expect they were all as condescending and cold as the gentlemen and ladies they worked for.

  She opened her mouth, when shouts went up behind the man. The color leeched from his cheeks and he looked back. Lily followed his stare and caught the trace of a small girl before she then dashed down the hall. “Miss?” he prodded.

  “My name is Mi–Mrs. Benedict,” she swiftly amended. After all, there was a certain respectability afforded those women with a proper form of address before their names. Lily set her valise down. “I am here regarding the position of governess.”

  The servant cocked his head.

  According to Holdsworth, and now also by the chaos enfolding on the other side of that wooden panel, the position of nursery governess was open to applicants. “I am here to speak with the Duke of Blackthorne about the post,” she said on a rush. Once more, she stuck her hand out, braced for the door to shut in her face.

  Except, the duke’s butler scratched his puzzled brow and then motioned her inside.

  Lily stood unblinking, with the curious stares trained on her back by passersby, and then, before the servant realized the folly in his hasty admittance, swept her valise up and sailed inside. The eerie familiarity of it all chilled her. Her insides twisted with a rush of a long-buried terror as the sense of stepping back in time sucked away all logic and thought. Wordlessly, she set the worn cloth bag that had traveled from Carlisle to London on her hellish road to ruin down next to her. Which merely served to draw the butler’s attention to her feet. And her bag. And the obvious fact that no woman simply interviewing for a post would arrive with the entire contents of her life contained within a worn valise.

  Lily mustered a long-practiced smile and loosened her bonnet strings. She tugged it free and several stubborn curls popped loose of her artful chignon. Her actions served the necessary purpose. The butler stared transfixed, his attention shifted away from the damnable sack between them. “The duke,” she said again on a soft whisper. “I am here to see His Grace.” Guilt needled at her conscience for this underhanded scheme Sir Henry’s son would embroil her in. I am just as guilty…

  He jerked his gaze to her face. “Were you sent by the duke’s man-of-affairs?”

  With all the sins she’d added to her list in life, lying had not been one of them, until now. Unable to utter more lies to the mountain she’d build in this household, she allowed her smile to serve as an answer that wasn’t an answer.

  “Of course, of course,” he said and inclined his head. He motioned with a hand and a young footman seemed to materialize out of the shadows. The liveried servant came forward and collected her bonnet.

  Holdsworth, the man complicit with her in this crime, had indicated the duke did not have a large staff and, yet, here in this opulent foyer she’d already met two members of his household. She steadied her trembling fingers. What had she expected, a duke to have no maids and footmen? No, there would likely be plenty of eyes about to take in people lurking within the household to steal from under his ducal nose. The young footman looked between Lily and the butler.

  Her cheeks warming, Lily gave her head a clearing shake and shrugged out of her cloak. She turned the garment over to the man’s hands. The young man rescued her valise and a protest formed on her lips. That piece served as the last link to her innocence and childhood…and more—her family. She’d not been parted from it in nearly eight years. There was something poignant and painful in entrusting it to these strangers.

  “Mrs. Benedict, if you’ll allow me to accompany you to your rooms?” He motioned her to follow.

  Her mind raced. She’d allowed him his erroneous conclusion that she’d been sent here by the duke’s employer. And yet, in order to set up a temporary place in this household, she at least required a position granted by the new Duke of Blackthorne.

  “Mrs. Benedict?” the butler asked, a question in those two words.

  “I daresay I would appreciate an audience with His Grace beforehand.” After all, there was the whole matter of requesting a position on his small staff.

  She’d have to be blind to fail to see the look that passed between the footman and butler.

  A slight frown formed on the butler’s lips. “I am afraid His Grace is not receiving visitors.” Hmm. Not receiving visitors. “You will find that His Grace welcomes his privacy and does not care to be disturbed.”

  “Well, I am not really a visitor, though, am I?” She raised an eyebrow. “Mr….?”

  He gulped. “Harris.” His voice emerged as a high croak.

  “Harris,” she murmured. Lily sidled closer to him. “Surely His Grace will not begrudge me an introduction.” She smiled at the wide-eyed footman, then turned back to Harris as she toyed with one curl.

  The butler dipped his gaze downward and the column of his throat worked as he stared, transfixed. Then… he cleared his throat. “I am afraid he is not receiving guests or visitors, including members of his staff,” he said evenly. He inclined his head. “If you will allow me to lead you to your rooms?”

  Oh, well blast and double blast. He’d rush her above stairs where she’d wait in her rooms, until the duke discovered she’d wheedled her way into his home. Then she’d have no hope of being granted any position.

  Lily tugged free her gloves and dusted them together. “I am eager to begin in my role of caring for the duke’s ward. The sooner I can,” find that blasted gem and be done here, “ascertain what is expected of me and review my responsibilities, the sooner I can begin caring for Lady Flora.”

  The man shifted back and forth on his feet and looked to the hovering footman as though in support of some decision. Unspoken words passed between those two and then the head of His Grace’s household capitulated. “P-Perhaps, a very brief meeting.”

  She smiled. “Splendid.” And the sooner she could acquaint herself with The Beast of Blackthorne, the sooner he would become more man than monster—and as such, a person not to be feared.

  Lily turned her gloves over to the footman with murmured thanks and then quickly fell into step behind Harris. As they made their way through the duke’s townhouse, her satin slippers padded quietly over the white marble floor. With the cold penetrating the soles of her delicate shoes, she kept her gaze forward. For with each step down this same corridor she’d stolen down as a girl, her cries echoed off these walls. To keep from giving in to the horror of the night, she looked to the details that had previously escaped her about this home; the lavish wealth reflected in the fripperies adorning the walls.

  Her previous two residences could have both fit comfortably within the palatial home of the Duke of Blackthorne. Gold sconces lined the corridors. Gilt frames of country landscapes and ducal ancestors hung upon walls done in satin wallpaper. Still, for all their wealth, they’d turned a young woman out, without a care for her safety or survival into the streets. That old, healthy hatred drove back the indecision in being here. With each step she took, bitterness burned her throat as if she’d downed a glass of acid.

  They turned right at the end of the hall and continued on. A long, Chippendale table flush against the wall with an immense, gold urn filled with white flowers slowed her steps. As they moved on past it, she shot a glance over her shoulder at the stark white lilies filling that piece; the irony not lost upon her. This was the home of the man who’d ruined her. What was the sin of wishing the late Duke of Blackthorne to wither in hell for his crimes, considering all the
others to come before it?

  While he’d lived, his life had been filled with urns of flowers and crystal chandeliers and carpeted floors, and hers had been one of uncertainty until Sir Henry saved her from certain death. Saved her. From maid to mistress in but two years in the man’s employ. How many days had she thought the latter alternative would have been preferable?

  The butler drew to a slow halt at the end of the corridor and she froze, looking questioningly up at him. He eyed her with a somber expression and when he spoke, she strained to hear his whispered words. “Mrs. Benedict,” he said in hushed tones. “It is my fear once you…meet His Grace that you will turn and leave just as the previous governesses have.”

  She’d likely wish that, but desperation drove people to recklessness. She could no sooner leave this household than she could support herself without two coins on a cold winter’s day in London. The look Harris gave her indicated he expected some form of response. “I assure you, Harris, I am not weak-hearted and I do not frighten easily.” That was, at the very least, true. She was a woman who’d survived on her own since sixteen, with no skills to recommend her. And in a world where women either perished or sold their souls to survive, she’d not perished.

  He gave an approving nod. “I hope for Lady Flora that is the case.” Doubt reflected in his eyes. “For you see, he is…”

  She wanted to shout for him to conclude that sentence. “He is what?” she gently prodded, needing to know as much as she could to prepare her for the beast she’d call employer. The man she’d steal from to avenge the wrongs committed by his kin. And at last, she’d have that freedom she’d hungered for from the moment she’d been turned away from this very townhouse.

  Harris went stone-faced. “You shall see for yourself, Mrs. Benedict.” The cryptic edge to his tone raised the gooseflesh along her arms.