Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  “You are quite welcome, Your Grace. Please bring both young ladies back,” he said as he pulled open the front door.

  Derek swallowed hard. How loyal his servants were to her. Because they’d seen what Derek, blinded by his own hurt, had failed to note. She was all that was good and honorable, who’d been reduced to desperate acts in order to survive. Never again. When he brought her back, she would be his duchess and never know struggle or suffering again.

  He made to take a step forward and then froze. After years of being shut away, stepping out into the world riddled him with a mind-numbing terror of the like he’d not even known upon the fields of battle. I cannot do this. He’d been closeted away so long, a recluse for so many years. His one foray into the light had only brought more darkness. Dusting his trembling hand against the side of his leg, he tried to make his limbs move.

  For them I can do anything.

  “You are ready.”

  He blinked. Did those words belong to him?

  “It is time.”

  Derek turned back to where Dr. Carlson stood. The other man gave him a slight smile and then notched his chin at the entrance. And Derek stepped outside into the light.

  Chapter 25

  Were anyone to enter the cozy, modestly decorated cottage, the persons assembled could have been taken as a bucolic family amidst a country setting.

  Having cajoled him into untying their bindings earlier, Lily sat beside Flora on the chintz sofa; the girl curled against her side, while the gentleman at the window stood with his back presented to them. Hands clasped loosely behind him, he stared out, as he had been staring for the better part of the morning.

  Another tremor shook the girl’s frame and Lily made a soothing noise, patting the top of her brown curls. “It is going to be all right,” she whispered close to her ear, unsure of whether she sought to reassure the child…or herself. For the reality was, after being closeted away all morning in this miserable cottage she’d called home for six years, Lily knew not what twisted purpose her late protector’s son had with her.

  Bait…I am the fat bait, no different than the fish I hooked as a girl.

  Flora cast wide, fearful eyes up at her. “I miss Uncle Derek.”

  Her chest tightened painfully. “I do, too, poppet.” To provide a useless distraction, Lily grabbed for the book resting on the side table and popped it open. “What if I read to you a bit more, would you care for that?”

  Flora managed a nod and as Lily shuffled through the pages of the book, Holdsworth whistled an eerie tune that in its cheer belied the thick tension blanketing this room.

  “You know, you really should have just given me what I required, Miss Bennett.”

  Lily paused mid-movement and looked up from the small, leather volume. The little girl at her side shook like a leaf in the midst of a violent storm and Lily forced her next words into a semblance of calm. “You want the diamond, Mr. Holdsworth, and it is not mine to give.”

  The man pursed his lips like a frowning Society matron. “It was my diamond, Miss Bennett, and I’ll not explain my need of it.”

  She flared her eyes and took in those details she’d previously missed about the man; his threadbare clothes, the condition of this aged little cottage. Why, the man was in dun territory and saw that diamond as the answer to his financial salvation. “Do you expect you might simply take the Duke of Blackthorne’s niece and not be held accountable for it?”

  His mouth tightened all the more and as fury snapped to life in his cruel eyes, Lily jumped to her feet and moved away from the girl, deliberately putting distance between herself and this tiny target he’d absconded with. “I expect he’ll exchange something that I care very deeply for, in return for two somethings he cares very deeply for.”

  A shudder ran along her spine at the emotionless delivery of his plans. Why, this man had abducted her and Derek’s niece all with the intentions of forcing the return of that coveted diamond. Madness. The man was utterly mad.

  “You think I am mad, do you?”

  Lily stitched her eyebrows together.

  “You spoke aloud, miss,” Flora whispered at her back.

  Holdsworth relinquished his place at the window and strode over. As he approached, Lily retreated until she collided with the opposite wall. “You think you are so different than me, do you? Hmm?” he needled. “You would call me a madman because I would have retribution for the theft committed against my family. Tell me, Miss Bennett.” He folded his arms. “How was your or Claudia’s willingness to enter the duke’s home any different than my own?”

  Claudia? Her mind turned slowly. “Claudia?” she asked, fishing about for an answer as to how a trusted maid in Derek’s small but loyal contingent of servants had so deceived.

  Holdsworth chuckled. “Come, surely you don’t believe you are the only young woman wronged by the late, powerful Duke of Blackthorne.”

  …The world is not a kind place, is it, ma’am…? Claudia’s words filtered around her memory.

  She’d looked upon the young woman and seen a figure of innocence, devoid of Lily’s own inner ugliness. How quick they all were to see the façade they so desperately needed—an honorable protector, a trustworthy governess, a loyal, innocent maid.

  “Yes, you are no different than me,” Holdsworth taunted. “You are as easily a thief.” He flicked a hard gaze over her. “The only difference, Miss Bennett, is that my family was the rightful owner of that piece, where you, well, your actions against Blackthorne were driven by nothing more than a matter of revenge.”

  Nausea turned in her belly. The fact Holdsworth wasn’t entirely wrong shamed her and she looked over to the girl, seated on the sofa, taking in the entire exchange with wide eyes. Would any innocence remain if…nay when, Flora escaped Holdsworth’s clutches? Or would she at last see the world through lenses jaded by life. I did this… I visited this evil upon Flora and Derek… Unable to meet the girl’s eyes, she looked away.

  As though bored, Holdsworth tugged out his watchfob and consulted the time.

  “Let her go.” Lily tried once more as he stuffed the piece back into the front of his jacket. In a flurry of skirts, she rushed over to him. “Your actions against the ward of a duke and the daughter of a former marquess will never be forgiven, but your actions against me,” a vicar’s daughter, turned mistress, “they can be explained away.”

  Her words gave him pause. Fear danced in his eyes. The man was not entirely stupid. He knew he played with a hangman’s noose by his actions here. Lily grasped at that fear and twisted it. “What good will a diamond or wealth be, when you are discovered?” She paused. “Which you will be.” She let that truth sink in and then continued. “But if you release her now, no one will know.” No one except the equally black souls—Claudia, her, Thomas….

  Holdsworth cursed. “You are a fool if you believe that. Even now, I’ve had him summoned.”

  Her heart started. “Him?”

  “Blackthorne.”

  Lily smoothed her features to not allow this monster a glimpse of the tumult raging within. He had summoned Derek here. He would expect the duke, in all his terror of venturing out, to come to the edge of London and retrieve his ward and her—a woman he’d rather see to the devil than anything else.

  A knock split the quiet and she looked to the door, blinking slowly as Holdsworth strode over. He peered around the curtain and then pulled the door open. The man who’d clouted her had since divested himself of his too-tight livery. He didn’t spare a look for the other occupants of the room. “He should arrive any moment.”

  Her heart stuttered. Let it be another he. Let some other man be even now awaiting.

  Holdsworth gave a pleased nod. “And the note instructed him to arrive alone?”

  “It did.”

  An ugly smile twisted his lips that chilled Lily from the inside out. And staring at the greedy man with the glint of madness in his eyes, the truth struck hard in her chest—none of them would survive. He intende
d to kill them all for his material gain. “No,” she whispered, staring on in horror as the two men casually spoke, periodically nodding to one another. It was why he did not worry about discovery at Derek’s hands. She slid her gaze over to Flora who sat huddled on the sofa, her chubby cheeks pale, and then cautiously Lily slipped across the room, not taking her gaze from the two men engrossed in discussion.

  She reached the side of the sofa and leaned down. “I need you to come with me,” she whispered. Lily held a hand out and helped Flora up. Leaning down, she put her lips close to her ear. “You are to make your way down the hall.” To those hated chambers she’d called her own for too many years. “There is a latched window. You are to go out it. Do not wait for me. You are to run and continue running.” While she issued the directives, she kept her gaze trained on the two men at the front of the room. “When you find someone, you need to tell them you are the Duke of Blackthorne’s charge and they will help you. Do you understand?”

  “I’m—”

  She pressed her fingertip to the girl’s lips muffling that sound. “Go,” she mouthed as Holdsworth and his lackey concluded their discussion. They turned back to her just as Flora disappeared down the hall.

  “Tie them…” Holdsworth looked about. He flared his eyes in panic.

  Lily gave a triumphant smile and strolled to the opposite end of the parlor, guiding their attention away from that fleet-footed child. “Is something the matter?” she jeered, placing a sofa between them.

  Holdsworth roared and flipped a nearby side table. “Find the bloody girl,” he thundered to Thomas who set off in search.

  She raced to put herself between the lumbering brute and Flora, momentarily halting his search. He growled and hurled her out of the way as though she were nothing more than a child’s toy. Lily slammed hard into the plaster wall, wincing as pain shot down her shoulder. She cried out as Holdsworth grabbed her by the forearms and dragged her up so their noses touched. Her skin throbbed under the viciousness of his grip. “Where in blazes is she?” he shouted, shaking her so hard, her teeth rattled.

  Lily grinned through the pain. “She is gone, Mr. Holdsworth, and you have nothing left to barter His Grace for other than me.” Agony carved away at her heart. “And I am afraid for you; you’ve the one person he’d rather never again see.”

  He cursed roundly and then punched her in the head. She crumpled to the floor. The metallic taste of blood flooded her senses, sickening and sweet, nearly choking her. She blinked past the stars dotting her vision and raised a trembling hand to her nose. Warmth coated her fingers and she looked down at her crimson-stained fingers. “You had better hope for your benefit that when he arrives that is not the case,” he hissed. “Because your life is forfeit, then.”

  And yet, as he made quick work of tying her limp body and tossing her to the floor, Lily sat staring at the empty hearth rather suspecting her life already was.

  Derek stared through the thick copse, straining with his eye to bring the modest, thatched-roof cottage into focus. Tucked away as it was, the stone-front home with its cheerful, if overgrown, gardens settled in the woods, may as well have been a fey creature’s castle. He strode closer and with each step, his leg buckled and groaned in protest.

  Before this moment, he’d despised himself for that imperfection for reasons of his own bruised ego. Now he wanted to be whole again, the man he’d been on the battlefield who’d earned commendations and inspired awe so he could be the person Lily and Flora deserved. Derek grimaced and came to a stop beside a towering elm. Shielding himself behind the massive trunk, he rubbed the stiff muscles of his leg and stared at the cottage. What if they were now dead? What if…?

  He shoved aside the torturous musings and drew forth the years of battlefield experience that had turned him into a ruthless killer of soldiers. It mattered not whether this man had harmed Lily. His life was forfeit. He fueled himself with that safe truth and when a young, very familiar-looking man stepped out of the cottage, his mind went numb as he recognized him as one of the servants in his employ. He’d allowed this man into his home and any number of others who’d set out to destroy him and those he loved. This is what comes from separating myself from the living.

  “Where are ye, girl?” the man’s quietly spoken words filtered through the quiet. “If ye don’ come back ’ere, I’ll kill the lady. Ye want me to kill her?”

  Off to the man’s right, a thatch of trees rustled and the brute of a fellow spun back. Derek’s heart stilled at that faint whimpering from within. A slow, evil grin twisted the man’s lips as he walked slowly toward the piteously crying bushes. “That’s a girl. I’ll not ’arm ’er, as long as…” Derek drew forth the gun in his boot, straightened his arm, and then as effortlessly as he’d done upon the fields of Europe, pulled the trigger. The countryside echoed with the thunderous shot, the man’s final cry, and then silence.

  The whimpering bushes went silent and Derek would have given up everything he possessed as duke to have Flora in his arms. As he abandoned his weapon and relieved the dead brute of his, Derek touched his fingers to his lips, willing her to silence. She gave a slight nod and he skirted the trees, keeping his gaze fixed on the front door of the cottage. When at last, that door opened again.

  Derek tightened his grip on the weapon, as the nauseating acrid scent of fire wafted about his senses. It stole his logic, froze his movements, and kept him captive to the horror of long ago. The gun trembled in his fingers and then fell quietly into a pile of aged leaves. Through the fog of horror, he registered the man stepping outside and looking about.

  Swallowing hard, Derek forced back the bile stinging his throat. Memories threatened to transport him back to that terrifying battlefield horror when fire had burned his skin and hands as he’d slapped at the flames in a bid to tamp out the blaze.

  “I was expecting your call.” The casual greeting filled the copse and pulled Derek back from the brink of madness. Derek swiftly retrieved the gun and pocketed it. The man spoke with the words of a gentleman, however, the tattered fabric of his garments and the weapon he now waved about spoke an altogether different story.

  Then the stranger looked through the thick of the trees and Derek stilled. Could the man see him even now? As quietly as his imperfect limbs allowed, he continued forward. “Come along, Your Grace. Surely you’ll not keep me waiting, not with Miss Bennett waiting so patiently for you.”

  And with that, all the battlefield logic and calm deserted him. Derek stepped out of the copse.

  The red-haired stranger swung about, waving the gun in his hands. “Do not move,” he cried, shaking that unsteady weapon in his direction. “Do not move unless I say.”

  Derek came to an immediate halt. Tufts of smoke spilled from the fireplace and he focused in on this man who’d sought to steal the only happiness he had found. “What do you want?” he asked quietly. In war, he’d learned there were all manner of fighters. There was the ruthless, proficient soldier who could kill on command, without any compunction in the moment. There were fearful, desperate men like his friend St. Cyr had been in his youth. And then there were the skittish fellows with beady eyes, searching all about. Those were the men who inevitably were the first to fall. This man before him now, his eyes aglow with panic, was one of the latter. It was why Derek knew he would survive and this man would inevitably die.

  “You know what I want,” the man snapped. “Your family stole something belonging to me and I want it back.”

  The weight of the diamond burned heavy in the front of his pocket. What an evil artifact, craved by black-hearted souls like this man and his brother.

  “If Miss Bennett had simply turned it over as she pledged then it would have never come to this.”

  Tendrils of fear licked at the edge of his thoughts and he forced his breathing into a semblance of calm. “Where is Miss Bennett?” In her innocence, Lily had been no match for this merciless, ruthless bastard. Alone, dependent upon no one but herself, she would have been e
asy prey for a man such as Holdsworth. Derek swallowed hard, damning himself for not having been more for her, when everyone else had failed her.

  The man waved his gun. “We are discussing the diamond.”

  Derek leveled the man with a ducal glare that properly cowed him. “Where is she?”

  Holdsworth audibly swallowed. “Sh-she is inside and you should be quick. I’ve set a fire.”

  A ringing filled his ears and his nose picked up that acrid scent of fire once more. Oh, God in Heaven. He swung a horror-filled gaze to the front door of that thatched-roof cottage. He imagined her as the flames licked at her skin and the air rent with her cries. She would perish in there. Derek fought through the panic that threatened to pull him into an empty vortex. I love you, you spirited minx. Don’t you dare die. “Is this what you wish to exchange?” He reached into the front of his pocket.

  “Stop!” the man cried. He pointed his gun at Derek and he stilled with one hand tucked inside his pocket.

  “Calm,” he said as though soothing a fractious mare. “I have something I think you would care to see.” In one fluid movement he drew forth that diamond then tossed it to the ground.

  Holdsworth gasped and let his arms drop to his sides. He staggered forward. His greed was his undoing. With a smoothness better suited to the youth he’d been in battle, Derek shot the man through the heart.

  The man’s mouth went slack and then he crumpled to the earth in a noiseless heap.

  Heart racing, Derek lurched forward, racing through the remaining distance to the small cottage. He stepped into the entrance and a wall of smoke clouded his vision, blinding him as he searched about frantically. “Lily!” he cried. He limped deeper inside and terror warred with determination. “Lily,” he called again.

  A muffled whimper cut through the snapping and hissing of the fire licking away at the mahogany furniture at the front of the parlor. Derek lunged toward that sound, his chest burning from the thick smoke blanketing the room. He staggered to a halt. Lily lay upon a floral sofa with her hands tied before her and her face bloodied and bruised. Oh, God. The sight of her suffering was greater than any flame to have touched his skin. He grabbed for her and catching his breath, swung her into his arms. He grimaced at the exertion of each step as he walked through the room rapidly being engulfed in flames.