Owen looked up from the far end of the table where he was sectioning off a large map, placing thick black X’s over areas the Runners had already searched for The Slasher and circling where they had yet to venture. “Why is that of significance?”
“Because,” Juliet said, her voice tinged with excitement, “I managed to track down a maid who used to work for the Tattershalls, and every single time the duke was supposedly traveling abroad on one of his hunting expeditions do you know what happened in London?”
Grant stood up so quickly he knocked over his chair. “I think I can guess.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Owen looked back and forth between them. “Because if you are…” He didn’t finish, but then he didn’t need to.
Grant understood the implications of what Juliet had just uncovered. Just as he understood what would happen if they brought this information to the magistrate and they were wrong.
It would be the end of the Runners.
Once and for all.
“Do we have any other evidence?” he asked quietly.
Juliet shook her head. “No. But it’s too much of a coincidence to ignore.”
“I agree.” Owen stood up. “The problem is going to be proving motive.”
“The problem,” Grant interjected, “is that he’s a goddamned duke.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Then Juliet gasped.
“What?” Grant’s stare immediately went to his wife’s flat stomach and he pulled her into his arms. “Is it the babe? Is something wrong? Should we send for a doctor?”
“No, it’s not the baby. Not everything is about the baby, Grant.” She patted his cheek. “But it’s kind of you to be concerned.
“What is it then?” he demanded.
“Lady Amelia.” She looked past him at Owen who had apparently just reached the same conclusion if his vicious curse was any indication. “What if her attack wasn’t random? The man had a knife. It was dark. She couldn’t see his face.”
“You honestly suspect…no.” Grant shook his head. As someone who was soon to be a father himself, he couldn’t imagine any parent intentionally harming their child. “Lady Amelia is his daughter.”
“Hannah Kent was someone’s daughter. Lilly James was someone’s daughter. All the rest were someone’s daughter. And if I’m right…”
“If you’re right,” Owen finished grimly, “it means that instead of keeping Kent away from The Slasher we’ve sent him right to his bloody doorstep.”
That evening Amelia declined dinner. She didn’t have an appetite, and even if she did she wouldn’t have been able to sit across the table from her mother. Not after what Vanessa had done.
Instead she locked herself away in her room and whiled away the hours by alternately pacing a hole in the rug, staring blindly at the pages of a book, and concocting a plan to run away with Tobias. The problem with that, of course, was he’d already run away.
Without her.
She didn’t know why she was surprised. A part of her had known this might happen. After all, their relationship was practically built on him leaving, her forgiving, and him leaving again. Except this time…this time there would be no forgiving.
Amelia was done with second chances. She’d given Tobias her heart, and he had taken it with him after plunging a dagger right through the middle of it. She hated her last memory of him would be of them fighting. But there was nothing she could do. He was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.
Dashing angrily at the tears that threatened to rain down her cheeks, Amelia picked up a pillow and hugged it tight to her chest as she fell face-down onto the bed. Pressing her cheek against the smooth coverlet, she released a muffled sob and pressed a knotted fist against her mouth. If her mother had hoped to prevent her from experiencing disappointment and heartache by sending Tobias away, she’d failed.
Miserably.
Amelia couldn’t remember ever feeling this lost. Loneliness washed over her like a wave, drowning all of her elation at having finally gotten Tobias to admit how he felt about her in one giant splash of freezing cold water.
A ghrá geal.
She remembered the words now.
It means my bright love. Which is exactly what ye are, Duchess. It’s what you’ve always been.
“Liar,” she groused, thumping her palm against the mattress before she rolled over to stare at the ceiling. Long shadows crept up the sides of the four-poster canopy, spilling darkness across the lower half of her body as day gave way to night and the sweet chirps of the songbirds were replaced with the long, eerie call of a barn owl that had taken to roosting in the tree outside her window.
On a heavy sigh she squeezed her eyes shut and began to count sheep, the best way she’d discovered to lull her mind into sleep. It was still relatively early, but she couldn’t face her parents, or even Aunt Constance. For the undeterminable future the only company she wanted was her own, at least until she could find a way to purge herself of all the unwanted feelings she still had for Tobias. Because even after this most recent betrayal, the cruelest one of them all, she loved him. She feared a part of her would always love him. And it infuriated her and saddened her that he hadn’t even given her the courtesy of a goodbye.
After everything they’d been through, after all the hurdles they’d faced, he’d simply…left.
The rotting bounder.
Pulling the pillow against her chest, she bit down hard on her bottom lip and prayed for sleep. But it never came, and instead she was left counting the seconds and the minutes and the hours as they ticked by one after the other, rolling through a night that seemed as long as a year.
Twice her lady’s maid checked in on her, alerted to the fact that Amelia was still awake by the light flickering beneath her door. Not wanting to be disturbed further, she blew out the candle on the bedside table and told herself she was being silly when a shivering chill raced down her spine as the room was plunged into inky darkness.
There were no monsters lurking in the shadows. No hooded men with knives hiding beneath her bed. What had happened before was not going to happen again. Besides, the real beast was on his way to London. And a small part of her hoped it poured the entire length of his journey. Surely a little rain was no less than he deserved for what he’d done. What he continued to do, for even though he was gone the ache in her chest remained.
“This is ridiculous,” she said aloud as more tears gathered on her lashes. Furious with Tobias for eliciting such a response, but more furious with herself for allowing it to happen, she sprang to her feet. WWACD, she asked herself as she drew on a silk wrapper.
What Would Aunt Constance Do.
Her aunt had her heart broken in a similar fashion, but she’d gone on with her life. She’d found happiness in her cottage and her cats and her favorite niece. But not, Amelia suspected, before eating lots of crumpets and drinking wine. Which at this point seemed as good an idea as any.
After two failed attempts at trying to relight the candlestick on her table, she left it alone and walked barefoot towards the door, gliding her fingertips along the wall so as not to stumble over a piece of furniture. It was darker than usual, the moon obscured by a rolling blanket of clouds. Thankfully, Amelia could navigate the manor with her eyes closed, and she found the door with little difficulty.
When she went to turn the knob, however, the door was unexpectedly pushed inwards, causing her to lose her balance and stumble back. A terrified gasp clung to her lips when she lifted her head and saw the dark, looming shadow of a man hovering in the threshold. Immediately her mind went to the night she’d woken to discover a knife slashing down towards her throat, but before she could scream the shadow spoke.
“Amelia dear, I did not know you were still awake.”
“F-Father?” she stuttered. “What are you doing?”
The duke closed the door behind him as he stepped into the room. “I’ve come to save you.”
“Save me? I - I don’t under
stand.”
“Not yet, my dear. But you will soon.” A sliver of moonlight pierced the clouds, shining in through the window and reflecting off the curved silver blade her father held in his right hand. Amelia’s eyes widened, then jerked to his face. In the moonlight she saw his madness, and it turned her blood cold.
“It was you,” she whispered as the horrible truth unveiled itself. “It was you, that night. You attacked me. You - you tried to kill me!”
The duke frowned. “I tried to help you.”
“By stabbing me?” she exclaimed.
“By cleansing you of sin.” He looked down at his knife, his expression thoughtful as he lightly ran the pad of his thumb along the sharp edge. When he looked up his eyes were black and empty, like two chunks of coal in the bottom of a fireplace. “I prayed you would be different. But your mother’s influence was too strong, I fear.”
“What does Mother have to do with this?” Despite the fear choking her from the inside out, Amelia’s voice was shockingly steady. Keep him talking, she told herself. Keep him distracted. With nowhere to run and nothing to use as a weapon, it was the only thing she could do. Keep him talking, and hope that help arrived. Keep him talking, and hope that his sanity returned. Because this man, whoever he may have been, was not her father.
“Everything.” His head tilted quizzically, as if he found the question baffling. “She has everything to do with it, my dear. And after I absolve you of yours sins, I shall finally free her from her own.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Her hair came undone from its braid and spilled over her shoulders when she frantically shook her head from side to side. “What sins? I’ve done nothing wrong. If this is about Tobias–”
“You dare speak the name of your lover in front of me?”
Amelia darted back when he stepped forward, her heel colliding painfully with the corner of her desk. “Stop it!” she cried. “You don’t want to me hurt me. I know you don’t. I’m your daughter!”
“No,” he snarled as his eyes lit with fury. “You’re not.”
Raising the knife high, he plunged it towards her heart.
Chapter Twenty
Tobias made it halfway to London before he came to his senses.
“What the bluidy hell am I doing?” Cursing, he tightened the reins and wheeled the lathered grey in a sharp circle. Ahead of him he could just make out the soft glow of the city where it rose out of the countryside like a mountain, all sharp edges and sloped roofs and towering church steeples. Behind him there was only darkness and a long, winding road that would take him back to the woman he loved.
The woman he never should have left.
What the devil had he been thinking? Aye, Amelia deserved to live in a grand mansion and wear beautiful gowns and never have to work a day in her life. But she also deserved a man who stood by her side. One who didn’t make decisions for her, but with her. One who didn’t flee like a scolded dog at the first sign of trouble.
By abandoning Amelia for her own good, he wasn’t helping her. He wasn’t saving her. He was just repeating the wrongs of his past, albeit with much higher stakes.
When he made the decision to cut his family out of his life, the only thing he accomplished was wasting time. Months of it. Years of it. Half a decade of time he would never be able to get back. He didn’t want to make the same mistake with Amelia. He didn’t want to waste years of time.
He didn’t even want to waste one more second.
The path before them wouldn’t be easy. There would be tears, and pain, and frustration. At some point, he’d be willing to bet all he owned that one, or both of them, would want to walk away. But they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t because they were stronger together than they were apart, and their love could conquer any obstacle fate might put in front of them.
Even this one.
“I’m sorry, mate.” Leaning forward, Tobias stroked the gelding’s neck. “We’re going to have to travel a little further.” And clucking his tongue, he sent the gray galloping back down the road from whence they’d come.
When he reached Webley Castle it was well past midnight. Handing the exhausted gray off to a sleepy stable hand with the instructions to rub him down and give him every bluidy treat in the barn, he headed straight for the manor, but before he’d made it two feet through the door Tommens was there to stop him.
“Mr. Kent.” The butler may have been wearing a long white nightshirt and matching cap instead of his proper black uniform, but his voice still rang with authority when he said, “I believe I made it clear when I told you that your services are no longer required.”
“Ye did.” Tobias didn’t want to knock Tommens on his arse – the older man seemed like a good enough fellow – but he wasn’t going to allow anyone to stand between him and his heart. Not even himself. “But you don’t get tae tell me what to do, I’m afraid.” His teeth flashed white in the foyer’s dim interior. “That’s for my future wife to decide.”
Tommens lifted a craggy brow. “And does your ‘future wife’ know that you’ve returned?”
“No. But she’s about to.” He started to push past the butler, but with a surprising show of strength Tommens grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him back.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you up those stairs, Mr. Kent.”
“Then it seems we have a problem, because that’s where I’m going.”
“Over my dead body,” Tommens said mildly.
“That can be arranged,” Tobias growled.
Both men froze when they heard a woman’s terrified scream from somewhere above them.
“Amelia,” Tobias breathed before he ran for the stairs.
Amelia screamed when her father launched himself at her. Whirling to the side of her writing desk, she grabbed the first thing her fingers encountered – a heavy book – and threw it at his head.
It struck his shoulder instead (she’d never had very good aim) but it was enough to deflect the path of the knife as he stabbed at her neck. The blade glanced off her collarbone instead, slicing all the way down to bone in a deep cut that stole the breath from her lungs.
An awful feeling of déjà vu overcame her when she covered the wound and saw blood drip from between her fingers. On a howl of fury the Duke of Webley raised his weapon again, this time striking the desk when Amelia dropped to the floor at the last second and scrambled out of the way.
Hair flew into her face, sticking to the tears racing down her cheeks when she jumped to her feet and tried to fling herself at the door. Her father intercepted her just as her hand grasped the knob. Wrenching her arm back, he slammed her with his body and sent her staggering across the room. She landed at the foot of the bed, only to roll quickly to the side when she caught the silver flash of the knife out of the corner of her eye.
The duke cursed as he stabbed the mattress. But then he looked up and smiled when he saw her cowering in the corner with nowhere else to run.
“I’ll make it quick,” he promised. “A small mercy you do not deserve, but never let it be said I am not a benevolent servant when I am called to be.”
“At least tell me why.” Amelia’s nails skittered across the wall as she looked for a means of escape. Her heart was pounding. Her pulse racing. A thin line of perspiration coated her skin, and she could taste the fear on her tongue. Fear…and confusion. “Tell me why you’re doing this!”
The duke blinked. “Because you’re a harlot. A harlot born of a harlot that should have been killed in infancy. But I was too weak to do what needed to be done.” His smile widened as his eyes gleamed with lunacy. “I’m not weak any longer.”
He lifted his arm. Amelia threw her hands up, her last defense against the father who had raised her. The father who had loved her. The father who was going to kill her.
But before he could bring the blade down the door slammed open and an inhuman force hurtled across the bedchamber and tackled her father to the ground.
Tobias.
Amelia’s knees buckled at the sight of him and she would have wept in relief if he hadn’t been locked in a fierce battle to the death. The Duke of Webley may have been twice his opponent’s age but he fought like an animal possessed, and the two men were swallowed up by the shadows as they rolled over the floor, each muffled thud of flesh hitting flesh causing Amelia’s panic to spike as she struggled to see through the darkness.
“What in heaven’s name is – Amelia!” Vanessa gasped when she appeared in the doorway, Tommens right on her heels, and saw the blood running down the front of her daughter’s nightdress. Light spilled into the bedchamber from the candle Tommens held over his mistress’s shoulder. “Whatever is going on?”
“F-Father,” Amelia choked out, looking away from the fight just long enough to meet her mother’s horrified gaze. “It was him. He was the one who tried to kill me.”
Vanessa covered her mouth. “I – I don’t understand.”
Without warning the writing desk flipped onto its side with a loud crash as the duke grabbed the front of Tobias’ shirt and shoved him into it. Vanessa shrieked. Tommens drew her back from the door. Amelia, seeing the knife slip from her father’s hand and clatter underneath a chair, sprang into action.
“Amelia, get out!” Tobias ordered before he took a sharp blow to the left side of his jaw. His head snapped back, blood spraying from his nose. On a vicious snarl he launched himself at the duke and both men slammed into one of the bedposts with such force it snapped in half.
The canopy fell inward, the fabric catching her father across the upper half of his face, and Amelia saw her chance.
“Tobias! Catch!”
His neck swiveled and his eyes locked with hers as she desperately heaved the knife, praying she wouldn’t hit him by accident. With lightning speed his hand flashed up and he plucked it out of the air by the handle. He turned towards her father. Amelia squeezed her eyes shut, unable to watch…and then opened them in stunned surprise when she heard Tobias grunt and saw him fall back, his hands wrapped around the hilt of a small dagger protruding from the middle of his chest.
A Dangerous Temptation (Bow Street Brides Book 5) Page 21