Duke of Secrets (Moonlight Square, Book 2)

by Gaelen Foley

  He did not want her to notice, after all, that he was trembling, his composure standing on a very knife edge.

  Because deep down, in this place, he could well believe he was every bit as evil as his father ever was.

  Maybe worse.

  For what sort of monster felt joy—even as a child—to watch a parent bleed to death?

  Lady Serena apparently noticed his slightly unhinged mental state. “I shouldn’t have asked this of you,” she said, her breath clouding on the cold air. “Wh-where are we going?”

  “Mausoleum. It’s just ahead.”

  She followed the direction of his finger as he pointed, and then she looked at him with surprise. “He built his tomb in the shape of a pyramid?”

  “Father liked pyramids,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Oh. Is that why he had one in his portrait?”

  “Something like that. Come on,” he muttered.

  “What’s so great about pyramids?”

  He gave her a look of annoyance for asking questions, but he supposed she probably thought it helped him to talk about it. He shook his head and focused on answering. It was easier, after all, than reliving those bloodied moments over and over again as they walked.

  “He went to Egypt on Grand Tour as a young man. Made the pilgrimage. He was obsessed ever after. Swore the shape holds great power. Something to do with immortality, I hardly know. But I can assure you that, like the pharaohs and the Caesars, my father thought he was some sort of self-created god. Turned out he wasn’t,” he added drily as they arrived at the mausoleum.

  There, Azrael took out the key ring again and found the smallest key. It opened the iron grate that barred the black granite door to the third duke’s mausoleum.

  As he lifted the key to unlock the grate, Serena laid her hand on his forearm. “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

  He turned to her, incredulous. “Now you say that?”

  “You’re angry. Please—”

  “You know nothing about it. Let’s just get this over with.”

  “But I don’t want you to hate me. It’s not worth it to me.”

  He looked into her hazel eyes, warm and brownish-green, like the forest around them would’ve been in any other season.

  He managed to soften his demeanor, and touched her gently on the cheek. “I could never hate you, Serena.”

  “You’re scaring me,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry.” He gathered himself and willed calm. “I’ve brought you this far, let’s check this one last place, and if it’s not here, then we’ll leave.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded, but said no more as he unlocked the rusty grate, pushed and heaved with all his might to open the granite slab of a door, then went ahead of her into the charnel house.

  Inside the tomb of the would-be pharaoh, the sepulcher sat in the center. On top of it lay a black bronze sculpture of the slain duke, with a perfect likeness of his face cast from his death mask.

  The sight of that arrogant nose, the memory of those cold, cruel eyes, the nearness of his bones twisted Azrael’s stomach. He tried not to look at the face.

  Ignoring the portrait of his father on the library wall in his Moonlight Square house had become habitual. It was easy enough, and, after all, having one’s esteemed ancestors on display somewhere in one’s dwelling was expected.

  Indeed, if he had not memorialized his sire somewhere in his home, it would have looked suspicious to Stiver and company. They thought he’d loved his father as much as they did, and that witnessing the great one’s murder was what had skewed his poor, young mind.

  If they only knew what really happened in those woods.

  He swallowed hard.

  Serena came tiptoeing into the tomb behind him. More for the sake of male bravado in front of her than anything else, he propped his fists on his waist.

  “Well, you mad old bastard, where are they?” he said, glancing around the inside of the small, dark pyramid. The only light streamed in from the open door.

  By its weak illumination, he noticed Serena’s frown from the corner of his eye. Yes, that was good, he realized. Focus on her, he encouraged himself. That was the only way he was going to get through this.

  Then he began to hunt around the tomb.

  There wasn’t much to see inside the little pyramid. A few shelves for urns full of ashes and coffin niches built into the sides, awaiting future dead Rivenwoods.

  But not even Mother had wanted to be buried there.

  “What happened,” Serena spoke up hesitantly, “when he died?”

  Azrael gathered that she was asking about his sire’s demise, but he was not discussing that day, ever.

  So he deliberately misconstrued the question. “As I told you, I was put in the care of guardians. Trustees. Friends of my father just as bad as him. Maybe worse.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Maybe one of them your own father.”

  She sighed and let the mystery go, thank God. Perhaps she sensed it was futile to push him on this point.

  “Perhaps we’ll never know who my father really was.” She paused, glancing around, rubbing her slender arms as though she’d taken a chill. “I am sorry for putting you through this, in any case.”

  “Would you stop apologizing?” he growled.

  “I had no idea I was asking you to come back to the place where your father was killed. I know you never speak of it. How painful that must’ve been. It must’ve scarred you for life—”

  “Nonsense,” he interrupted coolly. “’Twas the day of my liberation. I told you that before, as well. Now, if you don’t mind, we are here for a purpose.”

  Azrael avoided her gaze, perusing the mausoleum.

  “Ah,” he suddenly said, his gaze homing in on a bit of the carving around the base of his father’s sleeping statue atop the sarcophagus. “Why, you canny old bastard,” he murmured as he spotted an almost imperceptible seam between the black marble effigy and the smooth, polished teak of the surrounds.

  “What is it?” She stepped beside him as he bent down for a closer look.

  “Unbelievable,” he muttered to himself. A lid within a lid. A lie within a lie. Everything with his father had always been inside out and topsy-turvy.

  That was the Promethean way. Black was white, up was down. As above, so below. Life in death.

  Azrael took hold of the edge of the black sculpture and began struggling to pry it upward.

  Serena gasped. “You’re going to open his coffin?”

  Before he could answer, the whole sculpture of the duke lifted with a creak, revealing a hidden compartment beneath it, just as he’d suspected.

  Secreted away in between the sculpture and the coffin’s real lid, there sat the snakeskin box he remembered seeing as a boy in his father’s possession, then Stiver’s.

  “Get it out of there, would you?” he said, straining.

  Shaking off her amazement, Serena quickly assisted as he held up the heavy lid, his shoulders and biceps burning as he braced it up with both arms.

  She lurched into motion, reaching in and snatching the small leather trunk out of the shallow compartment by the twin handles on its sides.

  She set it on the cold flagstone floor at once. Azrael felt a twinge in his back as he lowered the heavy bronze effigy of his father.

  Figures his old man would take one last jab at him even in death. A metallic thud rang out as the statue banged back down onto its resting place.

  “Go on, open it,” he said, dusting off his hands, then stretching his back a bit.

  She winced, like she didn’t want to touch it a second time. “What is that made of, alligator leather?”

  “Snakeskin. Python, I believe. On second thought, best allow me.”

  “Gladly. I didn’t even know they make things out of pythons. How charming.” She stepped back from the box with a shudder. “And they say you’re eccentric.”

  He looked askance at her, though he was grateful for the comment lighte
ning the mood ever so slightly.

  Probably best not to mention he’d once heard about a Promethean grimoire of medieval vintage that had been bound with leather made from the skin of a Benedictine monk. Sickening to be tied in any way to such a heritage.

  Azrael crouched down and opened the trunk, taking a moment to confirm that the papers and books he’d seen in Stiver’s possession in the past were indeed inside.

  He nodded at Serena, pleased. At least the trip had not been in vain. “If we are going to find the identity of your real father, what’s in here will be our best hope.”

  “I can’t believe we actually found it.” She gave him a wide-eyed look so full of gratitude and admiration that it went a long way toward soothing the pain that being here had reawakened in his soul.

  “Let’s go.” He shut the box and handed it to her. “Hold this while I pull the marble door shut.”

  She took the sinister box with a grimace, then they both stepped back out of the pyramid. Azrael swept the inside of the tomb with a grim parting glance to make sure they hadn’t left any evidence of their intrusion behind.

  Satisfied, he pulled the heavy stone slab shut with a resounding boom, then traded Serena the key ring in exchange for the leather box.

  “You lock the outer grate,” he said. “I’ll take this to the carriage. Use the smallest key. Oh, but before you do…” He shifted the box under one arm, reached into his pocket, and handed her his handkerchief. “Wipe the edge of the marble door where I touched it. Shiny as that surface is, I don’t want to leave any handprints in case anyone else comes here.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Who else would come here? Your mother?”

  “No, she’s passed away,” he said absently. “I meant Stiver.”

  “Very well.” She nodded. “I will.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered. “Then I’ll see you at the carriage, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  # # #

  Serena watched him walk away, startled and uneasy to see he was truly leaving her alone beside this horrid tomb. But she supposed he was even more desperate to get away from here than she was.

  Well, she thought, laying hold of her courage anew and regrouping with a shrug, whatever I can do to help.

  With that, she lifted the handkerchief and erased Azrael’s handprint from the cold black marble of the mausoleum door. She couldn’t help shaking her head, though, still half in shock.

  No wonder the poor man never talked about his life and stayed away from people. Who would want to make small talk in Society about a past like his?

  Like ours, you mean, she corrected herself. For whatever he was connected to, apparently, she was, too—by blood. But at least they were also connected to each other by these secrets and by their childhood betrothal, she thought. That made it somewhat better.

  Stepping back out through the small space between the marble door and the wrought-iron grate, Serena pulled the latter shut behind her with a rusty clang.

  She searched out the smallest key on the ring, as instructed. Her hand shook slightly as she inserted it into the lock and turned. This done, she gripped two bars of the grate and shook it to ensure it was secure before stepping away, glad to put it behind her.

  To be sure, it was her first time tomb-raiding, and her knees still trembled from the unnerving experience. What a relief to be out of there.

  Obviously, Azrael felt the same. She frowned as she glanced down the path by which he’d gone.

  He had already disappeared, obviously eager to start the journey back. For her part, however, Serena still had many unanswered questions.

  She was thrilled that they’d found the material they’d come for, but she wasn’t ready to go back to London quite yet.

  She decided that Azrael probably wanted a few minutes alone after that ordeal. Herself, she was feeling better merely to be free of the claustrophobic space inside the bizarre pyramid.

  Indeed, she now felt ready to explore a little further. And though she knew Azrael was anxious to leave, she wanted a closer look at that barrow, just for a few minutes.

  She could see it through the trees. The path they had followed to reach the mausoleum continued on through the woods toward the open fields, where the barrow waited.

  With a final glance toward the house where Azrael and his carriage waited, she turned away and followed the trail cautiously until she stepped out of the woods and beheld the great green burial mound rising from the flat field.

  Her heart beat faster as Toby’s account of this ancient site came back to her.

  Leaving Azrael to recover from the day’s misadventure, she walked out into the field alone, welcoming the tepid warmth of the bleak autumn sun.

  Lifting the hem of her carriage gown a bit, she traipsed through the tall, dead grass, and when she reached the base of the mound, she slowly walked around it, searching for an entrance, just like Toby had done.

  And just like Toby, Serena did not find one.

  As far as she could tell, the barrow appeared to have lain undisturbed for however many centuries it’d been here. Heavens, even a small sapling had grown into a full tree halfway up one side of it.

  Shading her eyes with her hand, she tilted her head back and studied the barrow, standing at the foot of it. It looked like nothing more than a small, misplaced mountain. She wondered why the ancient barbarian tribe had chosen this precise spot to build upon, and how many of their ancient dead were buried inside.

  What manner of people had they been? she wondered. Vikings? Anglo-Saxons? Celts?

  She shook her head, mystified. She was no archaeologist. But the sheer mystery of the mound compelled her to at least try to learn something useful about it.

  With that, she decided to climb up on top of it. Lifting her hem out of the way, she began at once, glad that she had worn her ankle-bracing half-boots.

  The hill was steep but not impossible to scale. She simply had to lean forward as she hiked up the side, and watch her footing as she went.

  Perhaps it was irreverent to be climbing atop a burial place, she mused, but then again, she had just invaded a nobleman’s tomb. This seemed a minor violation by comparison.

  Several minutes later, she reached the summit of the barrow. The wind was brisker at this elevation. Above her, a flinty gray-blue sky smeared with white clouds spanned the horizon, and as she stood on top of the little mountain, she could see for miles.

  She turned slowly, taking in the landscape, the patchwork countryside. As she did so, she counted four additional grand manor houses in the distance, evenly spaced out around the barrow.

  How strange.

  They all looked as abandoned as this place. The nearest one, a brownstone thing, sat dejected. It had a large stagnant pond out in front of it.

  “My lady!”

  Serena looked down to see Azrael walking out across the flat field below. “What are you doing up there?” he shouted over the wind. “It’s time to go.”

  Serena didn’t answer. He had been acting so strangely here—even strange for him—that she had been glad to have a few minutes away from her traveling companion.

  She had been doing her best to remain calm and steady for them both while he struggled against his inner demons, but it wasn’t easy, considering she had never encountered such dark things before.

  At least being out of the Rivenwood mansion, and certainly, out of the tomb, was a vast improvement.

  “Climb up with me!” She beckoned to him as the wind rippled through her skirts.

  He only came as close at the base of the barrow, where he stood, hands on hips, squinting up at her against the gray glare of the day. “We need to get going if we’re going to make it back to Town by the early evening.”

  She glanced at her locket watch, which she had taken from her reticule and put around her neck. “It’s only half past noon.”

  Azrael didn’t argue.

  “Toby said the local folk told him that our parents held certain meetings in the bar
row.” She shook her head as she went to stand at the edge of the hill. “But I couldn’t find an entrance.”

  His shoulders lifted in a bored shrug. It was very clear the man wanted to go home.

  “You should come up. There’s a really good view from up here,” she said, but His Grace was having none of it.

  He shook his head and stayed planted exactly where he was.

  She pointed around the horizon. “I can see houses, the village, the river. Farms, lots of farms. London is that way, I should think,” she said, gesturing toward the east, but her comments were not enough to lure him up.

  “If my brothers were here, they’d want to roll down the side of this like children.” She paused, remembering. “Half-brothers, I mean.”

  “Can we go now, please?”

  “Azrael?” Steeling herself, for she feared she already knew the answer to her question, she pointed at the nearest estate. “Whose house is that over there? With the pond out front?”

  He glanced in the direction she pointed to, though she was sure he could not have seen the place from down there. He looked up at her again, as though loath to answer the question. But God bless the man, once again, he told her the truth: “That was your parents’ estate.”

  I knew it, she thought, flinching.

  That was all she needed to hear to persuade her to start carefully making her way back down the barrow.

  The going down was considerably more precarious than the climb up, she soon learned. Thankfully, Azrael caught her in his arms as she came clambering down the steep grade, and slammed into his chest.

  “Steady.” He stopped her near-tumble and righted her. “You all right?”

  “Yes.” She let out a breathless laugh of relief at her near-miss, grateful she hadn’t fallen down and broken her crown like Jack and Jill. “Thank you.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, dear,” he said drily as he secured her in his arms.

  She beamed up at him, thrilled by his embrace. “That’s the second time now you’ve rescued me.”

  “Third by my count. I just got you your papers, didn’t I? How soon we forget.”