“Sienna, you don’t know the whole story.”
She jumped past him and grabbed the paring knife that sat next to the cheese on the tray. In the next breath, she rushed Logan, pressing the knife to his neck.
“You’re not going to hold me captive, Logan. Never. I’m not your plaything to stick in a cage and twiddle with whenever the mood strikes you.”
His mouth stretched to a thin line. “You’ve never been my toy, Sienna. You’re my damn wife.”
Rage at the very thought—that she would say those words—surged through his limbs. His fingers itched to grab her arm and twist the blade from her hand. It would be easy—she’d apparently never recalled how to hold a blade to someone’s neck properly. The edge might nick him at most. But he kept his hands at his side, staring down at her.
She had a right to her anger. He’d abducted her and tossed her into a locked tower and if a blade on his neck was how her ire manifested, he’d take the blade on his neck.
He tried to simmer his rage—hard when he couldn’t whistle, for he didn’t dare do that and coax her fury any higher.
His voice low, just barely in control, his eyes cut into her. “Where are you going to go, Sienna? Nan Rose is gone. My brother is gone. We are in the middle of nowhere and you don’t know where you are. You could take a horse from the stable, but then what? Travel to where? Back to London with no money? Back to your father? Or…”
“Or what?” Her hand fidgeted on the handle of the blade, yet her blue eyes still flung azure-tipped spears at him.
“Or you could kindly remove the blade from my neck and give me a week.”
Her eyes narrowed at him, the fire in them not tempered at all by his words. But the pressure of the blade on his neck slightly eased. “A week for what?”
“Give me a week. A week where I won’t touch you. Won’t talk to you if you demand it. A week where you are here, near me, taking meals with me, and if at the end of that week you want to leave…I will let you go.” As much as his words tore his gut in two, he forced them out. This was the gamble he had to take. “I will give you everything you need to live a life without me. Wherever you want. Back to London and your father. To the countryside. To Roselawn.”
She eyed him, studying his face. “You won’t touch me?”
“No.”
She took a step backward, her hand on the blade falling to her side. “One week and I can leave?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
She looked around the room, contemplating.
For as dank as some of the chambers were in the castle with the stone walls, these rooms with plaster walls were warmer and he’d had fresh furnishings and linens delivered from Leeds to appoint the room. He’d never thought to have it redecorated until this ill-advised plan to steal his wife away was concocted. But the room appeared to fit Sienna well, with its silks of soft yellows and blues draping the tester bed and matching curtains and coverlet. The furniture pieces, a desk with delicate lines of rosewood, several upholstered chairs of blue damask, and an armoire with elaborate carvings atop, finished the room. All of the choices courtesy of Cassandra’s impeccable taste, as they had stopped in Leeds to order the linens and furniture after visiting Roselawn.
Sienna’s wary gaze travelled back to him. “Where are we?”
“In my ancestral home.”
“This is your castle in Northumberland?”
“It is. This is Shadowmoor.”
She looked away and then glanced back to him. “A week?”
“A week.”
“And you won’t touch me?”
“I won’t touch you.”
Sienna moved to the table and set the knife down on the silver platter. “Fine. Agreed. I go in a week.”
{ Chapter 17 }
Sienna looked upward along the rocky trail, inhaling the scent of wildflowers—rockroses, forget-me-nots, and mountain avens—tucked along the trail. Clouds dappled the sun, half of the bright summer rays bursting down upon the land.
“I almost feel guilty for sneaking away, but it is a glorious day.” Bridget Crawford walked next to Sienna, her lively gait keeping Sienna from dawdling on the trail that stretched up to the craggy bluff.
Sienna looked past the line of hedgerow to her left, and she could see the castle in the distance, a mound of grey stone rising from the center of an emerald green earth circle ringed with oaks. Even from this distance the heavily fortified medieval castle with its four tall towers —a stark remnant from a long-ago time—stood coldly imposing. Desolate. But even as a captive to this place, she had to admit it had an odd, soothing calm about it. She glanced at Bridget. “You feel guilty?”
Bridget chuckled. “Almost. But I’m not that much of a martyr—I cannot quite manifest guilt for coming out here and enjoying this view. I’ve never been up into these ridges—I always travel around them. Hunter has been attempting to get me up here for some time, but there always seems to be too much to do.”
Sienna smiled at her new friend. Bridget’s husband, Hunter, was Logan’s steward of the lands and clearly one of his most trusted men.
She and Logan had eaten with Hunter and Bridget and their three children at every meal since she’d arrived at Shadowmoor—a buffer that Logan graciously offered—or hid behind. She wasn't sure which.
She’d been quiet, sullen for the first two meals as Logan and Hunter and Bridget chatted on about the lands and the tenants as though she wasn’t there. A former guard of the Revelry’s Tempest, Hunter had moved here with Bridget at Logan’s request to take care of the estate. Bridget was close to the same age as Sienna and was a remarkable woman—she’d been trained in surgery and medicine by her physician father, and now she served the area as their surgeon and healer.
Hunter and Bridget were a splendid match—finishing each other’s sentences, they held an easy, teasing banter between the two of them that captured what a content life could look like. Though contentedness and three children had in no way mollified their marriage, if the scorching looks they gave each other was any indication—each had eyes that settled solely on the other.
Sienna had been determined to dislike everything about this place—but she was powerless against the Crawfords. They were delightful people. And they were obviously adored by the staff as well, as they enjoyed an easy rapport with everyone that worked at Shadowmoor.
Before Sienna had realized it, her sullenness at the meals had dissipated and she had engaged with Hunter and Bridget just as easily as Logan did.
Even with that, she did manage to remain distant to her husband, never speaking to him directly unless she needed the butter passed to her.
That was what he would get—cold detachment—and that was far more than he deserved.
She saw Logan at meals and that was it. He didn’t approach her and she avoided any part of the castle that held the slightest whiff of him.
Four more days and she would be free of him. Free of the torture he brewed within her gut every time she saw him. Her love for him shrinking against a lifetime of lies. His most brutal betrayal.
Four more days.
Sienna and Bridget crested the top of the ridge and Bridget stopped, only slightly winded as opposed to Sienna’s panting. Where the woman got her energy, Sienna wanted to know. Three children, a duchy full of tenants needing her healing services. It was a wonder Bridget managed the time away with Sienna today.
Bridget set her hands on her hips, looking outward as the breeze caught the light brown strands of hair framing her face. “The top. We walked faster than I thought we could.”
They looked out upon a flawless pastoral scene from their vantage, the land rolling down below their feet, low rock walls zigzagging across the fields, hillsides jutting up behind hillsides in rolling composition. Gainsborough had never painted a more beautiful scene.
Sienna studied the land, her throat catching at the beauty of it. “It's breathtaking.”
Bridget gave an odd smile, looking out to the vista. “It is
that. It is a peculiar thing how quickly these lands become a part of one's bones. We have only been here for seven years and yet I feel as though this was where my bones always needed to be.” Her head shook. “With the children and patients I rarely come this way, and never to this height, and it seems as if I have been remiss in doing so."
Sienna nodded. “I can see why this land would get into your soul. There is a peace here that is unusual. And nothing like London.”
Bridget guffawed. “No. Nothing like London. And I am grateful for it.” She stood for a long moment, taking in the sight, and then gasped and abruptly turned to Sienna. “I almost forgot—I said the word patients and that reminded me I promised Mrs. Landon I would check in on her and her gout today.” She grabbed Sienna’s hand and squeezed it between hers. “I must get back, but I insist you stay and enjoy the respite up here for the two of us. You will be able to find your way back to the castle? As long as you stay to the left on the trail downward, it will lead you directly to the stables."
Sienna’s gaze drifted out to the panorama. She didn’t want to leave this spot. Ever.
She nodded. “I will make my way back to the stables fine.”
Bridget released her hand, a smile on her face. “Good. Just be sure to start down before sunset or Logan will have my head for taking you up here and leaving you alone.”
Sienna chuckled. “I doubt it. I think your head is safe, as Logan is almost as enamored with you as your husband.”
Bridget’s eyes went to the sky. “Posh that. I just save him from the headache of keeping his staff and tenants healthy.” Her head tilted to the side, a grin filling her face. “Which, I must say, he does appreciate. Maybe he is enamored with me.”
“What?” Sienna’s head snapped back.
Bridget’s grin went wider. “Just making sure I could pique a spark of jealousy regarding your husband. That is a good sign.” She inclined her head before Sienna could protest her reaction. “I shall see you tonight at dinner.”
Bridget turned and walked down the rocky trail, disappearing quickly behind the trees with her springy gait.
Sienna looked out at the landscape, taking in the lines of the trees, how they broke, the hills of fields layered behind one another. The summer haze of the sky sweeping through the puffy clouds. The furthest hill, fuzzy in the distance, holding the promise of grandeur beyond it. There was something so familiar about the scene. Something that tugged at the bottom of her heart, waiting to be remembered.
The boots crunching on the rocks of the trail reached her long before he appeared around the bend in the trees.
Logan.
His steel grey eyes found her instantly as he crested the ridge, and he moved up the remaining trail to her, a leather satchel slung over his shoulder. Foregoing his overcoat, he was clad minimally in buckskin breeches, a dark waistcoat over a lawn shirt open at his neck, no cravat in sight. She watched him silently until he reached her, stopping in front of her, his eyes braced for her wrath.
Sienna looked past him and down the trail where Bridget disappeared. “Does everyone around me have ulterior motives?”
Logan followed her gaze, then shook his head. “Forgive Bridget—she didn't know I would be following you two.” He let the satchel he carried slip from his shoulder and he set it on the ground beside his boots. “And she needed a break from the castle and all her responsibilities more than anyone. Hunter was glad to see her taking the walk with you. Plus, the look she gave me as we passed on the trail was all the scolding I needed.”
“She doesn't approve of you kidnapping me and holding me hostage?"
He winced. “No, she didn’t care for how you arrived here at Shadowmoor. Nor did Hunter. But as they can see you are not locked in a room against your will, they have promised to not interfere.”
“Interfere with what?” Sienna’s right eyebrow stretched high in suspicion.
“Interfere with the chance I am asking you to take, Sienna. Interfere with the week.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “Bridget has threatened to saddle up two horses and take you back to London herself if she sees you distressed by me.”
The thought was oddly comforting. She’d never had a true female friend. Only the Nowheres Boys when she was young if she was to believe the stories Robby told her on the way to Shadowmoor. And Nan Rose would never let her tax herself by becoming too friendly with the townsfolk in Sandfell. “Bridget seems utterly capable of that.”
“She is.”
Sienna nodded and her gaze moved from Logan to look out at the scenery. While her initial rage at him had tempered from when she’d first arrived at Shadowmoor, her anger still simmered just below the surface of her chest, threatening at any moment to explode again whenever she looked at Logan. His face—the face she loved—and the constant heat in his eyes when he looked at her made her forget everything.
And then she would remember. Remember the betrayal. What he did. And her anger would surge brutally through her veins.
A thousand daggers in her gut. Again and again.
She avoided his face and concentrated on the vista stretching out before them. If she didn’t look at him, she wouldn’t forget, and then she wouldn’t have to remember. She needed benign thoughts, far away from Logan and what he had done—desperately needed them.
Her hand lifted to sweep the air in front of her. “This is magnificent—the perfect scene. Especially with the clouds dappling the sun. The casting shadows add such depth to the land. I wish I had my charcoals. Nan Rose had my things packed at Roselawn and we left just minutes after Robby arrived. She was remiss in packing them.”
Logan leaned to his side to pick up the satchel he had set to the ground and held it up to her. “Actually, you do. I come bearing gifts.”
Her eyes, but not her head shifted to him “Gifts will buy you no favors with me, Logan.”
“No, but your happiness makes me happy, Sienna, and that is a favor to myself.”
When she wouldn’t take the bag from him, he set the leather satchel down and opened the top flap. He pulled free a rectangular mahogany box and flipped it in his hands. The deep grain of the wood shone in the sunlight, and as he turned the bottom of the box to rest on his hands she saw the fine lines of an orchid inlaid in white nacre on the top of the box.
“The lacquer on the top seals it so there are no seams with the inlay. It’s completely flat and smooth.” He stood straight, holding the box out to her. “Take it. It's yours. It would have already been in your room, but it was late and just arrived.”
Her eyes wary on him, she stepped forward and wrapped her fingers along the edges of the box, taking it from him. Heavier than she anticipated, she balanced it on her forearm and then she flipped open the S latch that clasped the lid closed.
A gasp escaped her as she looked at the assortment of vine and compressed charcoal sticks, rubber erasers, and a thick stack of creamy vellum in the box. She couldn't hide the smile that spread on her face, not that she wanted to.
“You can use the top of the box to support the paper when you’re drawing—that was important to have—but the whole thing should be light enough for you to carry anywhere,” Logan said.
Her smile grew wider as she closed the cover and latched it, rubbing her thumb across the surface and tracing the inlaid orchid.
She couldn't be bought with gifts—but this…this was more than a gift and Logan knew it. This was peace. This was imagination. This was the fire within her.
“You could own the moon and the stars with that smile.” His voice rumbled low, his words wrapping around her head and seeping into the crevices where she knew she could not defend against him.
Her eyes lifted to him. “Not fair.”
“There were never any promises of fairness when you agreed to stay the week.” A grin touched the corner of his mouth. “You should have bargained harder.”
She nodded with her head to the rolling hills. “This spot, these charcoals, and I don't think you will see me
the rest of the week.”
“Then I will happily bring you food and carry you home when you fall asleep with blackened fingers."
She smiled, shaking her head at him.
Damn those crevices. Damn him.
Remember what he did.
Remember.
Logan motioned to the line of trees that held to the far crest of the ridge they stood on. “Come, there is a spot to sit.”
She followed him across the grasses that sprouted up between the craggily rocks jutting out at her boots until he stopped in front of her and stepped to the side.
Perched along the crest of the hill sat a bench. A black, wrought iron bench with a lattice seat leading up to a back of intertwining scrolls reminiscent of butterflies courting. The outer edges of the soft lines were rusted, almost thinned away to breaking.
A bench she knew.
She staggered a step backward, her fingers struggling to hold onto the box in her palms, even as all feeling left her hands. Left her limbs. Left her body.
The box dropped to the ground.
The crash of it the last thing she heard before blackness overtook her.
~~~
“Are you sure this will work, Logan?” Sienna looked past him, her look creeping along the edge of the alley and then to the building across the street.
“We dress the part, no one will ask us anything, Sienny,” Logan said. “We just say our father brought us and we lost him inside, so we looked outside for him. They won’t even think on it.”
Her fingers curled, clutching into themselves as she hopped from one foot to another—terrified and excited. She’d wanted to go into the building for so long. The only person she’d told about the place was Logan, and that was months ago when Miss Kitty had told her about the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
Sienna’s drawings didn't have depth to them, and she needed to see what the world outside of London looked like. Except she'd never been out of the city, and even with the descriptions from the whores about what grand fields and rolling hills looked like, Sienna couldn't get it right. Miss Kitty had told her she needed to learn perspective, and Miss Kitty had been the one to teach her how to sketch with charcoals, so she knew what she talked about. Perspective was what Sienna needed, but she didn’t know how to get it.
The Devil in the Duke Page 16