The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo

by Byrne, Kerrigan

  The capitulations of joy coursing through her were tempered by a dread wrought of too much loss and tragedy. “A lot can happen between now and never.” When she’d said it before it had been a declaration of hope, now it was a caution.

  “Yes, a lot can happen between now and never.” He kissed away a tear that held no pain or sadness, but joy and hope and the fear that once found, it could be lost. “But time will end before I stop loving you.”

  “Truly.” She sighed. Could this be real? Could the love she bore him actually be returned, not once but a hundredfold?

  “I love you,” he whispered, pressing his lips to hers, enchanting her with soft drags of his mouth. “I could be—I have been—sent to the other side of the earth, and it doesn’t even matter, because I’ll always find my way back to you. I etched the ebony wings on my back years ago because I have always been your raven. Your mate.”

  She understood now. He’d never truly been the Rook.

  He’d always been …

  “Your Rook.”

  EPILOGUE

  Six Months Later

  “My, would you look at those handsome men.” Lorelai clutched his arm as the gangplank lowered in order for them to disembark the steamship.

  Ash scowled. “Don’t look too closely. We’re still newlyweds, or need I remind you?”

  Her merry laugh still invoked a strange tickle low in his chest. “Don’t worry, darling,” she soothed. “I just find it amusing because from this distance, those men look more like pirates than peerage, what with the eye patch and the other with a metal hand. Perhaps if they give me a peg leg and you a parrot, we’d complete the set.”

  Ash smiled down at her with infinite indulgence. “Whilst we are guests of the Duke of Trenwyth and his lady wife, I’ll thank you to remember that I’m not a pirate anymore,” he rejoindered with a bit of haughty melodrama. “I am His Grace, Ashton Weatherstoke. Duke of Castel Domenico, Comte de Lyon et de Verdun, Earl of Southbourne, and so on and so forth.”

  “I suppose, as your wife, I should be impressed, but all those flashy titles still seem like such a demotion from the King of the Seas.” She flashed him a teasing pout.

  “No.” He tucked an errant curl back beneath her cobalt traveling hat. “Not if you’re at my side.”

  Ash kept her steady as she leaned on him down the unstable gangplank, silencing anyone who might remark upon her tedious progress with an evil glare.

  She was swept into Farah Blackwell’s awaiting arms the moment they touched solid ground, and introduced to Lady Imogen, the Duchess of Trenwyth.

  “Your Grace,” Blackwell greeted him, and Ash had to give his old friend credit because he said the title with much less wry humor each time. “Allow me to introduce His Grace, Collin Talmage, the Duke of Trenwyth.”

  They exchanged pleasantries as though the entirety of the surrounding society were not gawking at them.

  “I’m indebted to you and your wife, Lady Imogen, for agreeing to use your contacts at St. Margaret’s Royal Hospital to examine Lorelai’s case,” Ash said as the men fell in line behind their respective ladies, who all adjusted their speed to match that of Lorelai.

  She’d been getting worse lately, slower, and experiencing more pain. There were stormy days, such as this one, where she resorted to using a cane if she could walk at all.

  Every time she winced, a part of Ash died a little. If he could lend her strength, or health, or take some of her pain, he would.

  Trenwyth, an unusually tall, bronzed Adonis of a man with a paradoxically forbidding expression, regarded the Lady Trenwyth with equal parts adoration and respect. “I’d be just as desperate for a miracle, were Imogen similarly afflicted.”

  The men strolled behind their wives toward a row of well-appointed carriages, silently admiring the view of the three uncommonly lovely women.

  Farah was dressed in bloodred velvet trimmed in black that sparked silver notes into her riot of curls.

  Lorelai, in the middle, favored cobalt blue to match the sapphires in her cane and, of course, her eyes. Ash had watched her pin her spun-gold locks into a fashionable chignon, as she hadn’t wanted to bring her lady’s maid on this particular trip.

  Imogen was a lithe beauty with an open, expressive face and sleek strawberry-blond hair. She had an air of capability about her that set others at ease and, judging by the temperament of her war-hero husband, was likely necessary.

  It wasn’t any wonder that Ash, Blackwell, and Trenwyth had to hover like morose statuary behind them as they gushed and tittered over each other like long-lost friends, all but oblivious to the attention, both male and female, such a stunning array of ladies attracted.

  The appointment at St. Margaret’s with a Dr. Longhurst would have gone a great deal faster if Lorelai hadn’t had to talk Ash into letting another man take off her stocking and examine her ankle.

  “Aren’t specialists supposed to be old and blind?” Ash had made what he thought was a very salient point.

  Apparently used to protective husbands, the young, serious, and imperturbable doctor agreed to allow him into the examination room with her.

  After a painful and rigorous inspection that left Ash more pale and sweaty than his wife, he asked anxiously, “Do you think it can be fixed?”

  “Certainly.” Dr. Longhurst covered her bare ankle and gently let it rest back on the bed. “All we’d have to do is break it, again.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Lorelai put a staying hand on his arm. “If we do this, I’ll be able walk normally again?”

  Dr. Longhurst nodded. “It’s risky, but if I could find where the initial break happened, then I could break it with a small hammer, realign the bone, and coax it to heal the way it should have years ago.”

  “Did he say hammer?” Ash boomed.

  Both his wife and the doctor infuriatingly ignored him.

  “With some time, and some strengthening excercises, you might not only walk again, but run.”

  Ash swatted the desk with the flat of his hand, garnering him the startled attention of them both. That was more like it. “You said risk.” He narrowed his eyes at the doctor. “What kind of risk?”

  Longhurst’s eyes reminded him of a deer’s, or a bunny’s. Soft and brown. They were eyes of prey. Shifty, if intelligent. “There’s always a risk associated with anesthesia,” he stuttered. “But it’s less and less frequent the more we learn about it. Then infection is always a worry, but with modern sanitation techniques, it’s also becoming—”

  “Get your things, Lorelai, we’re leaving.” Ash gathered his coat and her hat.

  She stubbornly stayed where she was. “I’m getting the operation, Ash.”

  He scowled at her. “Did you conveniently miss the part with the hammer?”

  Her gaze was steady and resolute. “I want to do this. I want to go all the places you can take me, and I can’t…”

  “I already told you, I’ll carry you, if I have to.”

  “I want to walk beside you.”

  Ash had to swallow three times before he could speak. “It’s not worth losing you.”

  She reached up to pull him down next to her, where she took his clenched jaw in both of her hands. “Let this be, my love. Sometimes, one must be broken, in order to be healed.”

  Sniffing away vision clouded by emotion, he turned to Longhurst. “Whatever fate befalls her, I’ll visit upon your bones threefold, you mark me.” That taken care of, he slammed out of the office, but not before hearing Lorelai’s sweet apologies.

  “Do pardon him, Doctor, he really is working on making fewer death threats on my behalf.”

  “It’s all right,” Dr. Longhurst replied. “I’m physician to many of Blackwell’s associates and their wives and children. That isn’t even the worst threat I’ve received this week. And here I am. Still alive.”

  * * *

  A year later, Lorelai was able to cajole Ash to attend Veronica’s second wedding, despite her shocking selection of g
room.

  Lorelai didn’t merely walk or hobble down the sunny lane in the South of France to greet her beloved sister.

  She ran.

  Read on for a delicious sneak peek at all the books in the unforgettable

  Victorian Rebels series!

  THE HIGHWAYMAN

  “In his arms she will never be the same again…”

  The beats of her heart echoed as loud as cannon blasts in her ears as she entered the private lair of Dorian Blackwell.

  Farah tried to imagine a man such as the Blackheart of Ben More in this room, doing something as pedestrian as writing a letter or surveying ledgers. Running the fingers of her free hand along a bronze paperweight of a fleet ship atop his enormous desk, she found the image impossible to produce.

  “I see you’ve already attempted escape.”

  Snatching her hand back, Farah held it to her heaving chest as she turned to face her captor now standing in the doorway.

  He was even taller than she remembered. Darker. Larger.

  Colder.

  Even standing in the sunlight let in by the windows of the foyer, Farah knew he belonged to the shadows in this room. As if to illustrate her point, he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, effectively cutting off all sources of natural light.

  An eye patch covered his damaged eye, only allowing glimpses of the edge of his scar, but the message illuminated by the fire didn’t need both eyes to be conveyed.

  I have you now.

  How true that was. Her life depended on the mercy of this man who was infamous for his lack of mercy.

  The black suit coat that barely contained his wide shoulders stretched with his movements, but what arrested Farah’s attention was the achingly familiar blue, gold, and black pattern of his kilt. The Mackenzie plaid. She hadn’t known that a man’s knees could be so muscular, or that beneath the dusting of fine black hair, powerful legs tucked into large black boots could be so arresting.

  She backed against his desk as he stepped toward her, evoking once more the image of a prowling jaguar. The firelight danced off the broad angles of his enigmatic face and shadowed a nose broken one too many times to any longer be called aristocratic. Of course, despite his expensive cravat, tailored clothing, and ebony hair cut into short and fashionable layers, nothing at all about Dorian Blackwell bespoke a gentleman. A fading bruise colored his jaw and a cut healed on his lip. She’d missed that last night in the storm, but knew it was Morley’s fists that had wounded him. Had that only been days ago?

  What had he just said to her? Something about her escape? “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  His good eye fixed on the tarts she’d all but forgotten she clutched in her hand. “My guess is you attempted to leave through the kitchens, and were thwarted by Walters.”

  Oh, damn. The air in the study was suddenly too close. Too thick and full and rife with—with him. Determined not to be cowed, Farah raised her chin and did her best to look him square in the eyes—er—eye.

  “On the contrary, Mr. Blackwell, I was hungry. I didn’t want to face you without being—fortified.”

  That earned her a lifted eyebrow. “Fortified?” His callous tonelessness set the hairs on the back of her neck on end. “With … pastries?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” she insisted. “With pastries.” To make her point, she popped one in her mouth and chewed furiously, though she instantly regretted it as moisture seemed to have deserted her. Swallowing the dry lump, Farah hoped she hid her grimace as it made its slow and unpleasant way into her stomach.

  He moved a little closer. If she wasn’t mistaken, his cold mask slipped for an unguarded moment and he regarded her with something like tenderness, if a face such as his could shape such an emotion.

  Farah had thought it wasn’t possible to be more confounded. How wrong she’d been. Though the lapse proved fleeting, and by the time she blinked, the placid calculation had returned, causing her to wonder if what she’d seen had been a trick of firelight.

  “Most people need much stronger fortification than a strawberry tart before facing me,” he said wryly.

  “Yes, well, I’ve found that a well-made dessert can do anyone a bit of good in a bad situation.”

  “Indeed?” He circled her to the left, his back to the fire, casting his face into deeper shadows. “I find I want to test your theory.”

  Of all the conversations she’d expected to have with the Blackheart of Ben More, this had to be the absolute last. “Um, here.” She extended the tart toward him, offering him the delicacy with trembling fingers.

  Blackwell lifted a big hand. Took a deep breath. Then lowered it again, clenching both fists at his sides. “Put it on the desk,” he instructed.

  Puzzled by the odd request, she carefully set the tartlet onto the gleaming wood, noting that he waited until her hand had been returned to her side before reaching for it. It disappeared behind his lips, and Farah didn’t breathe as she watched his jaw muscles grind at the pastry in a slow, methodical rhythm. “You’re right, Mrs. Mackenzie, that did sweeten the moment.”

  A burning in her lungs prompted her to exhale, and she tried to push some of her previous exasperation into the sound. “Let’s dispense with pleasantries, Mr. Blackwell, and approach the business at hand.” She put every bit of crisp, British professionalism she’d gained over the last ten years into her voice, quieting the tremors of fear with a skill born of painstaking practice.

  “Which is?”

  “Just what is it you want with me?” she demanded. “I thought I’d dreamed of you last night, but I didn’t, did I? And there, in the darkness, you promised to tell me … to tell me why you’ve brought me here.”

  He leaned down, his eye touching every detail of her face as though memorizing it. “So I did.”

  THE HUNTER

  “There was no one more dangerous for her heart … or soul.”

  He gazed at her with unparalleled intensity, watching the movements of her fingers with undue interest.

  Clearing nerves from her throat, she met his eyes in the mirror and was startled to see that he was the first one to look away.

  “Do you enjoy the theater, Mr. Argent?” She ventured a moment of civility.

  “I’ve only attended the once,” he replied, seeming to study a wig of long crimson ringlets, going so far as to reach out and test its texture between his thumb and fore-finger.

  Millie had to look away. “And … did you like it?” she prompted. When she gathered the courage to glimpse at him again, she was surprised to see him seriously considering the question.

  “Your performance was without a single flaw,” he said with no trace of flattery or farce in his voice. “But I find myself unable to suspend disbelief in the manner that is required to truly enjoy a production. I don’t understand why people dress in their in their finest to watch others pretend to be in love. To feign jealousy and cruelty and even death. Why play at fighting and killing? There’s plenty to be done out in the real world.”

  And he’d done plenty of his own.

  Millie swallowed audibly, trying to decide whether to be pleased at his honest compliment, or to be offended by his dismissal of her entire profession. “Not all of us live a life as exciting and treacherous as yours, Mr. Argent,” she said as she added a few more jeweled pins to her intricate coiffure, if only to give her restless hands something to do. “Most of us merely like to be kissed by danger or violence or death. Maybe even let it kiss us, upon occasion. We like to make it a spectacle at which to gasp and laugh, or cry. Though it is only the thrill we want to take home with us, not the reality. We still desire to return to our warm beds, all safe and sound, when the night is over.” She considered her words only after she’d said them. She was taking the danger home with her tonight, wasn’t she? There was a very good chance her bed would be anything but safe.

  And, Lord forgive her, it was more thrilling than she’d like to admit.

  “But not everyon
e makes it home safe and sound,” he rumbled.

  Not with men like him about.

  Millie’s heart stalled and her hand froze halfway to her hair. “True…” She drew the word out, searching for what to say next. “But we expect to. We hope to, don’t we?”

  “I know nothing of hope.” He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his long, powerful legs. “So people attend the theater to feel afraid and safe at the same time?”

  Millie chewed her lip, considering her words carefully. “Sometimes, surely, but mostly they go to play voyeur to the human experience. Drama, I think, does one of two things for a person, it allows us to be a little more grateful for the humdrum of the everyday, or makes us yearn for something above whom and what we are. It can remind us to not let every moment slip into the next without reaching for more. Whether we reach within ourselves or for something we want out in the world. A dream, a home, money, adventure … or love.”

  Feeling impassioned, she turned in her seat to gesture at him. “Drama can make you experience the very extremes of emotion. A good playwright, Shakespeare, for example, can use language to allow an actor to convey an emotion that resonates with the audience. That allows them—sometimes even forces them—to feel. Coupled with the performance and the right music and lighting … I think that emotion is contagious and complex, and often a person doesn’t know which until they experience it under the Bard’s very own tutelage. It’s quite extraordinary, really, almost magical and—” Millie let her voice die away, noticing that Christopher Argent hadn’t blinked for an astonishingly long time.

  In the middle of her dressing room, done in all shades of chaos and color, he was a monochromatic study in dove and granite. All but for his eyes and hair, both of which were uncommon in their variegation. His jaw was too wide to be called handsome, his mouth too caustic for its fullness, surrounded by brackets that made him look alternately cruel and somehow inanimate. His eyes made him appear ancient. Not so much in years, but in experience.