He raised his hand to rap, but the door was yanked open. The old butler, his face a stark mask of worry, reached past the driver and helped usher Andrew inside. Nick murmured his thanks as a sharp cry went up.
“Andrew!”
A tall, slender woman with auburn hair came rushing down the stairs, tripping over herself in her haste to reach the younger man. She ran frantic eyes over his face and cupped it between her hands. His lashes fluttered.
“Mattther,” Barrett slurred. The mother. “You’ve returned. You missed the festivities of Justina’s wedding.”
My mother would never dare limit what I read. She has always lived to see her children happy…
“Myy chum, Huntly here, isss taking wahnderful care of me, isn’t that riiiight?”
Some of the panic receded in the older woman’s sapphire blue eyes and she blinked slowly. Then she seemed to register Nick’s presence. “My lady,” he greeted with a bow.
Her lips parted and she dropped her hands from her son’s face. “You are Justina’s husband.” The rotted one. Or the rotter. Either worked for him, as well.
“I am, my lady.”
She quickly gathered his hands in hers and, with far greater generosity or kindness than he deserved, she smiled at him. “Your Grace, we received word from Justina’s friends about my…” Her smile withered and she dropped her voice, speaking in hushed tones. “My husband’s intentions for Justina and the Marquess of Tennyson. We came as quickly as we were able.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Thank you for saving her.”
Oh, God. This was his penance; to be ripped apart with the guilt of his own lies. Lies that contained kernels of truth. “Your daughter saved me far more than I ever saved her,” he said hoarsely. Justina had rekindled parts of him that he’d believed long dead. She’d reminded him of the joy and wonder he’d found on a printed page and in a lecture hall. He’d repaid those gifts with lies. And would repay that by ruining her family.
These people before me…
“Theyyyy’re in love,” Andrew said loudly, his head lolling against the broad shoulder of the butler.
Nick’s face went hot with the younger man’s admission. A twinkle lit the lady’s kindly eyes. “I must see Andrew taken abovestairs, Your Grace.”
With a nod, he turned the future viscount over to several servants who started abovestairs with their drunken master. The viscountess dropped a curtsy and then started up the stairs, pausing on the second step. She glanced back. “Thank you for everything, Your Grace.”
“There is nothing to thank me for,” he murmured. What hatred would she feel for him if she learned the truth? When she learned the truth. She smiled at him once more and followed after her son.
Nick turned on his heel and then stopped. Disquiet spread through him. We came as quickly as we were able. The duchess’ words rang in the foyer.
Rutland.
Heart picking up a maddening beat, Nick rushed to the door, and the servant in wait pulled it open. Nick flew down the steps and bounded for the baron’s carriage. Of course, by now, Rutland would have likely received word and made for London. And where he’d once been filled with a breathless anticipation for the inevitable meeting, a sick dread filled him now. He yanked the carriage door open and pulled himself inside. For there was no doubt the relentless marquess would know precisely who he was…and why he’d done what he had.
All guilt and remorse for Justina’s unfortunate role in his scheming was briefly obliterated as Nick was filled with a thirst for this long-awaited justice—
for himself, and Cecily, their mother. Father.
A moment later, the carriage rattled along through the crowded streets of London. Frustration gripped him as he looked out the window, cursing the sudden throng of conveyances. After an interminable stretch of time, his townhouse came into view and Nick rapped once on the ceiling. Before the barouche had rocked to a full stop, he yanked the door open and jumped out. A jarring pain shot from his feet up through his legs and, ignoring it, he moved past curious passersby to the front of his residence. He looked back and ordered the carriage driver to see his horse tended.
He pushed through the front door and then stopped. The Devil is here. The same way he’d known as a boy of fourteen from the ominous darkness lingering in the air, so, too, did Nick know it now, walking down a different set of hallways. In a different house. A palatial mansion. Possessing a new title and a wife. And a family forever destroyed.
His butler came forward. “You have a visitor, Your Grace.” The servant’s skin paled. “The Marquess of Rutland arrived a short while ago and insisted on waiting until you’d returned.” He gave his employer a pained look. “I took the liberty of showing him to your office.”
Nick glanced frantically about. “My wife?” he demanded harshly.
“Has still not returned, Your Grace.”
Some of the tension left him. He gave thanks that she’d be shielded from this long overdue exchange. Nick stared down the hall. Then feeling not unlike the boy who’d snuck about, seeking a glimpse of the Devil, he prepared to face the demon once more. Dismissing the other man with a curt thank you, Nick made for his office. With each step that brought him closer to the man who’d ruined his family, a vital thrumming surged in his veins. The last he’d seen the marquess, he had been a cowering boy, huddled on the floor at his feet. No longer. Now, he’d become a man of equal stature and power.
He reached the oak panel and stopped, his gaze frozen on the doorway. For years, he’d dreamed of and planned this meeting. Had sustained himself through his grandfather’s verbal and physical assaults with the hunger for revenge. Today, I can have my revenge and let those dreams be at last realized. Schooling his features into a hardened mask, Nick pressed the handle and stepped inside.
The hated figure standing in the center of his office spun around. Lord Rutland.
They assessed one another. Time had aged the marquess. His frame heavier with muscle and, if possible, his eyes harder than they had been thirteen years earlier, Lord Rutland stood before him with several days of growth on his face. His clothes were dusty and wrinkled. In short, a shadow of the smooth, flawless young lord who’d so casually ripped his family asunder.
All the hatred he had built himself up with enlivened him and renewed a long-ago pledge he’d made. Blotting out even the memory of his new wife. For in this brief moment, he was transported to another office. His father’s. Where his sire had met with Rutland and then taken his life for the terms put to him. Nick drew the door closed. “Lord Rutland,” he said in a silky soft greeting that could rival the smooth edge of a blade.
The marquess glanced him up and down. “Tallings,” he said gruffly. That one word, Nick’s name, said more than all the volumes in his vast library. The marquess knew.
He tamped down a frown. What was the other man feeling? Did he know the same panic and terror that had riddled his once-young self? Or was this jaded beast incapable of those weak sentiments? Yet again, Rutland showed nothing and Nick was shredded, still, on the inside. Determined to elicit some response from his nemesis, Nick widened his cold, practiced smile. “Ah, you remember me, then?”
…Your family isn’t my responsibility, Tallings… Your failings, are… Those words twisted around his mind like a vicious cancer, destroying him all over again.
“I know who you are.” That concession came as though physically pulled from the marquess.
Nick smirked. “I am honored. I was but a boy.” Did he imagine Rutland flinching? Surely the Devil was incapable of guilt. “After all, what is it you said, hmm?” He creased his brow and then held a finger up with a false dawning. “Of course, I recall.” He leveled the Marquess of Rutland with a hard stare. “You said, you would leave this house and my family and never think of us again.”
The color seeped from the marquess’ skin. Nick found strength in that slight crack in the other man’s remarkable composure. His wan complexion made him human. Proved Rutland was, in fact, possessed
of the same weaknesses that riddled every man’s soul. It made him human. Unnerved, Nick glanced away first and tried to reconcile his discovery.
He had sustained himself on the vision of a monster. Monsters, however, were pretend. Reserved for the pages of books and children’s inventive imaginations. Seeing him now with this unwanted, powerful lens marked Rutland as a man who experienced compassion…and mayhap love. To hide the faint tremble in his hands, wrought by that realization, Nick clasped them at his back.
Rutland’s clever gaze took in that slight movement. Of course, he’d miss nothing. Discomfited by the other man’s stony silence, Nick forced a chuckle. “In fairness, it wasn’t this house, was it? It was an entirely different one and my father was a mere baronet.”
“You do not know all the details of my dealings with your father,” Rutland said, his words coated in steel.
“Ah, but I do not need to know all of them. All I need to know is that every member of my family suffered because of you and, now, I will quite gleefully destroy your father-in-law and your brother-in-law.” Nick dropped his voice to a low whisper. “And as I do, Rutland, and your wife bears witness to the suffering brought about because of your actions, know that it is because of you.”
Rutland offered him a pitying smile that sent heat rushing up Nick’s neck. Why wasn’t the man enraged? Fearful? “You still have not learned, have you?”
Nick fought the question hovering on his lips. It spilled out, anyway. “Learned what?”
“That in our every dealing, we are responsible, if at the very least, in some part, for the outcomes. Your father is not free of absolution. And yet, you’d seek to destroy the Barretts in some twisted game of revenge on me.” The mask lifted and, at last, that desired regret and shame paraded over Rutland’s visage. Only, there was no victory or solace for Nick. Uninvited, the marquess came forward. “I know games of revenge. Better than you ever can.” The ghost of an empty grin turned the man’s hard lips. “I’d wager I’m the only man you’ve sought revenge on.”
His muscles jumped reflexively inside his coat at that accurate supposition. “It hardly matters how many but, rather, the deservingness of the person you’ll exact justice on.”
Rutland chuckled. “But that is where you are wrong.”
“Regardless, I’ll not debate with you,” he said dismissively. Nick’s teeth set at the audacity of the marquess and his bloody suppositions. “You’re out of time here.” He took a perverse pleasure in hurling those final words given his father back at the man who’d destroyed him.
Rutland took another step closer until only a handful of paces separated them. When Nick was a boy, the marquess had towered over his small, reed-thin figure. With time, Nick had added nearly the same amount of height and muscle to his frame. They remained locked in a tense battle of silence. The marquess eyed him through razor-sharp slits. “Is that what this is about then, Tallings?”
“Tsk, tsk,” Nick chided, mockingly. He spread his arms wide. “It is Huntly now.” He flashed a hard grin and, with that, Lord Rutland was restored to the unflappable beast that had entered his family’s home all those years ago.
“I am too old for games.” Lord Rutland seethed. Despite himself, unease skittered along Nick’s spine. The marquess’ voice, still gravelly and harsh, momentarily froze him, pulled him back to another office, another exchange.
And goddamn Rutland for transforming Nick into that sniveling coward, shaking on the hallway floor. Pointedly ignoring him, Nick wandered over to his fully-stocked sideboard. Feeling the marquess’ intent gaze on his every movement, he made a show of studying the decanters the way he might evaluate his estate reports. Then, selecting the finest bottle of French brandy, he poured himself a snifter. Still presenting the other man with his back, he swirled the contents of his glass in a circle, raised it to his lips, and slowly sipped.
All the while, he stared blankly at the gold satin wallpaper.
…I need more time… You promised I had more time…
He pressed his eyes closed briefly, blotting out the marquess’ mirthless laugh from years ago, but it was futile. The bastard had reentered his life, as planned, and the door had been opened, letting in memories he’d long buried. Behind clenched eyes, his father’s lifeless visage danced in the air, suspended on that noose. Bile stung his throat.
“Tallings,” the marquess commanded. It spoke levels of the man’s conceit and power that he should enter Nick’s office, nay, now a duke’s office, and issue directives. “Is it money you want?” he asked curtly. “Name your amount.”
Nick counted several moments, refusing to allow the black-hearted bastard any control of the exchange. He then wheeled slowly around. “The night you walked out of my father’s office, he hanged himself.” All the color leeched from the marquess’ face. “I cut him down myself,” he said, his voice hollow. “Dragged a chair over and sawed the scrap of my mother’s curtain he’d used to do it.” Lord Rutland’s throat muscles moved. Was it fear for what this now meant for the Barretts? Or was it regret? As soon as the thought slid in, he scoffed. Men like Rutland weren’t capable of regret. “My mother died shortly thereafter of a broken heart,” he continued in a methodical recounting, determined to have this at last said. As much as for him, as the bastard before him. “My sister was forced to wed a doddering lord at fifteen; an old, heartless man who hasn’t had the grace to die and, through it, do you know what strengthened me?”
The other man’s shoulders went back in the only real indication he’d heard that statement.
Give me some response. Some bloody reaction. For then, surely there would be some triumph to this moment. “I was made stronger by the words you gave me, Rutland.” Did the bastard even recall that utterance?
The marquess drew in a jagged sigh. All these years, Nick had imagined Rutland to be invincible only to find that the man’s armor had also cracked. Then, mayhap that was the sorcery of the Barrett women. It only marked him more like this man he’d long despised. In ways he didn’t want to be. In ways they were both men who’d been forever changed by women.
“When my world was crumpling, your words of revenge and hatred were the only ones that sustained me.” With Nick’s telling, all the old nightmares flared to the surface. Nightmares he’d foolishly believed he’d mastered. “Do you remember what I promised you all those years ago?” he rasped.
The gold flecks in Rutland’s eyes glinted with…remorse. So, he was capable of it. The mask lifted and, at last, that desired regret and shame paraded over his visage. Only, there was no victory or solace for Nick. “I do not.”
How odd those words had been so formative as to who and what he had become. Yet, this man didn’t even so much as recall uttering them. It rekindled his hatred for the marquess. “To destroy all those you loved.” Only now…Justina is one of those people. He fought through that mocking reminder and fixed on his need to inflict hurt on the ruthless bastard standing before him. “You once told me you didn’t love anyone. But by your presence here, well, I’d say that is no longer true, is it?”
Rutland’s face contorted. And the absolute desolation and despair stamped in his harsh features should bring the ultimate joy. But Nick stood back, feeling like the bastard he’d spent years professing Rutland to be. “It is why you wed Justina.”
It was Nick’s turn to register surprise. Of course, word had found its way to the marquess.
“I received mention of your name from the lady’s friends,” Rutland sneered. “But the missive was delayed.”
If not for the lost note, Nick’s marriage would never have been. For Rutland would have ridden his horse to death to stop it. Justina, when learning his connection to the marquess, would have never gone through with it. The thought left him bereft inside. For these weeks with her, she’d reminded him of what it was to laugh again. Had driven back all the darkest nightmares and left in their place this lightness which was at odds with the man he’d thought himself to be. “For years, I vowed to dest
roy you,” he said, more to himself.
“What do you want?” the marquess repeated. There was a faint entreaty there that matched the desperation Nick’s father had shown all those years ago.
He found strength in that. “Why, I already have everything I need, Rutland.” He motioned to his spacious office that could fit the whole of the Home Office inside it. “I’m obscenely wealthy, not because I bankrupted other families to build my power,” A muscle jumped at the right corner of Rutland’s jaw, “but because of work I actually did with my hands.” He turned his palms up, revealing the callused flesh, marked by years of toil. Nick folded his arms and rested them at his chest. “And do you know what else I have?” He took a perverse delight in taunting the other man with the retribution at his fingertips.
Rutland remained stonily silent. Questions, however, snapped in his brown eyes.
“I have your father-in-law’s unentailed properties as well as his son’s.” The remaining color leeched from Rutland’s cheeks. “I own every vowel both men have ever held outstanding. Not a creditor will extend them a line should they sell their soul for that coin.” Where was the sense of victory? The thrill of triumph? Everything had changed. A cinch was cutting off his airflow. Making it impossible to draw breath. For not only was there Justina, but also the trusting, always affably smiling Andrew Barrett.
The marquess slid his eyes closed.
Checkmate.
Only, with his stomach twisted in agonizing knots, it felt very much like he’d lost everything all over again.
Chapter 18
“I swear you are the only newly, happily married woman who’d go off to see to matters of business.” Gillian’s mutterings were nearly lost to the busy Lambeth Streets.
Justina carefully picked her way over a murky puddle. “Ah, but as long as I claim control of my life, I’ll always know happiness,” she pointed out, echoing the gypsy Bunica.
To Enchant a Wicked Duke Page 24