The Devil in the Duke

by K. J. Jackson

  ~~~

  He had left her alone for two days.

  No gifts. No trying to catch her in the hallway. No surprise appearances at the top of the ridge.

  Nor was he present at any of the meals.

  Sienna was fine with it.

  In her first few days at Shadowmoor, she had started to hope. Hope that it was all a lie. Hope that she had it wrong. That her husband hadn’t betrayed her years ago, then lied about it their entire lives together.

  But he had.

  And she could tell herself no more lies on the matter. She could allow herself no more hope.

  No matter how much she loved him.

  Now she just needed to uphold the agreement. Two more days, and she could leave this place forever. Leave him forever.

  Sienna looked out across the countryside, her fingers sending swoops of thin lines of charcoal to create the furthest hill away. Muted, fuzzy, so far from her eye she could barely see it, except for the unusual deep green it possessed—so very different than the slopes closer to her.

  Footsteps crunched up the rocky trail. But they weren’t heavy and painfully even as Logan’s steps were—as they needed to be because of his foot. No, these steps were light, springy.

  She watched the path, forcing a smile onto her face as Bridget appeared around the line of trees that flanked the pathway.

  Several more quick steps, and Bridget’s face lit up when she finally spied Sienna. She walked directly to her, stopping in front of her. A quick glance at the sketch on the vellum, and her gaze lifted to Sienna’s face. “That, my dear, is one strained smile you just gave me.” She moved to sit next to Sienna on the bench. “Is it because the hills aren’t doing what you want them to do, or is it another matter entirely?”

  Sienna gave her a look out of the corner of her eye.

  Bridget chuckled. “So it is the other matter. I imagine it’s the same reason Logan has been absent from anything and everything the past two days?”

  Sienna shrugged. “I imagine.”

  Bridget patted her forearm. “Surely, though, it is something that can be mended?”

  For a long breath Sienna looked straight ahead, far off into the distance. She slowly shook her head. “It cannot be fixed.”

  “I understand.” Bridget’s hand lifted from her arm and she looked out at the vista for a long moment. Her head tilted to the side. “Do you know that I see things all the time that cannot be fixed? But then they are. It is a surprise every time.”

  Sienna glanced at her. “With your patients?”

  “Yes. There was one in particular, years ago, during the war on the continent.” Bridget leaned back against the bench, her hands settling in her lap as she looked to Sienna. “I was there, helping my father hobble back together these men that had lost arms and legs and faces. It was heartbreaking every day. But there was one patient that was seared into my memory.”

  “Unfixable?”

  “To say the least.” A half-smile came to Bridget’s face as she nodded. “It was in Spain, in a little village. We only had ten patients, but all of them were far too gravely injured to travel to the main hospital by the coast. So they found an abandoned traveler’s inn and set us all in there. We were there for a month. My father saved each and every one of those soldiers’ lives with his skill. But there was this one.”

  She paused, looking out to the rolling landscape. “He was under bandages from head to toe, it seemed. There were so many blade wounds on his body. Too many to count. Too many for him to survive the battlefield, but he did. He lost part of his foot to a bullet shattering his heel. His thigh was fractured. Left arm broken. Wounds on his scalp that swelled and sent him into madness time and again.”

  “I helped my father set all of his bones, and the man didn’t scream, didn’t even make a whimper.”

  Sienna cringed. “Men usually scream when their bones are set?”

  “Absolutely—a bit of leather between the teeth and a few swallows of brandy can help, but there are still whimpers.” Bridget glanced at Sienna, her green eyes haunted by memories Sienna couldn’t even imagine. Bridget looked back out to the sloping hills. “At first, I did the minimum I needed to with that soldier. It sounds harsh, but I thought he was so far gone it wouldn’t matter—and there was so little time to attend to all the wounds of all the men. So I changed his bandages, and I changed them quick.”

  “But after a week it was evident that his body was going to heal itself. He passed by a few days without a raging fever, so I started to tend to him better. That was when he started talking to me. His face was always covered with bandages because of the wounds and swelling. One of the worst I have ever seen—his broken face was bruised and swollen, his eyes were so enflamed he could barely open his eyelids. He was quite a mess. So all I could look at were these two lips peeking out of the white cloth.”

  “What did he talk about?”

  “He talked about dying. About wanting to die and how his body wouldn’t let him. He thought it terribly unfair. Especially as he truly believed it was what he deserved for his sins.”

  “How awful.”

  “Exactly. He was unfixable, both in body and mind. But by the third day of his rantings, I finally figured out why he wanted death so badly. He had just lost his wife and quite simply, he wanted to die because she did.”

  Sienna blinked, her lips pulling inward.

  “He kept talking of her, telling me all about her, all the while willing his body to give up. A body that refused to give in. So I started to talk to him. It took days, but I finally convinced him that if his wife’s spirit was as beautiful as he said, then he would be failing her memory by giving up on life. That she wouldn’t want him to follow her into death.” Bridget shook her head, her eyes glazing over. “So he lived—against all odds—against a broken body. He lived to pay tribute to her. It was a heart-wrenching thing to witness. He was broken beyond all measure, yet he mended. The unfixable fixed.”

  Sienna let a long exhale breach her lips, her words breathless. “I know the man, don’t I?”

  Bridget smiled, her hand moving to clutch Sienna’s forearm again and she squeezed it. “It was Logan—though I didn’t know who he was then, nor how our lives would entwine again as they did years after the war. But I forever held his story close to my heart, because I always thought how lucky you two were to find each other. Even if it was for a short amount of time. Yours was the sort of love poets write about, dreamers dream about. And you had that.”

  “This isn’t the same thing, Bridget. There are some things love cannot fix.”

  Bridget’s right cheek lifted in a smile. “Actually, it can be quite the same thing, if you decide for it. I do think this can be the mending of the impossible.”

  Sienna’s head swung back and forth, her fingers snapping the charcoal in her hand. “There is too much that cannot be erased.”

  Bridget squeezed her arm, then released it as she shrugged. “Maybe you don’t need to erase anything. Maybe you just need to forgive and move on. Maybe that is all it takes.”

  “You don’t know what I need to forgive—unless he told you?”

  She shook her head. “Logan didn’t tell me anything—hasn’t told me a thing about what has transpired between you two. Clearly it is a grievous chasm that needs to be bridged. But as much as I despise his actions in kidnapping you and bringing you here, I do come down on the side of love above everything else.”

  Bridget paused, taking the sheet of vellum balanced on the box and looking at the sketch of the rolling landscape for a long moment. “You capture the land so well—this skill is in your soul, isn’t it?”

  Sienna shrugged.

  Bridget set the vellum down onto the box on Sienna’s lap, then her green eyes pinned her. “You are Logan’s wife, you know his spirit better than anyone. But I think you should also know what has happened in the years you were missing.”

  “What?”

  “I start with the fact that Logan saved my life. He
saved Hunter. We would not have our life, our children, as we do now without him. He’s saved countless other men—his guards at the Revelry’s Tempest. Whether it has been saving them from bullets or their own demons, he’s been a steadfast beacon to countless people that had nothing to hope for, nothing to live for. That was how he honored your spirit, Sienna. He did it by saving others, never setting himself and his own interests first.”

  “You’re trying to convince me he’s a good man?”

  “I don’t think I need to convince you of that.” Bridget stood abruptly from the bench, looking down at Sienna. “But what I would like to see, for once, is for him to reach for happiness of his own and actually get it. Get it as he has helped so many others around him achieve it.”

  Bridget pointed over her shoulder to the trail, chuckling to herself. “I apologize if that sounded like a sermon. Why I actually came up here to find you was I wanted to let you know Hunter is taking me to the village of Peddington. It is a half-day’s ride, and we’ll be leaving when I get back down to the castle. I make it a point to get there every month, which helps combat the traveling apothecary that preys upon the town, doing more harm than good every time he comes through. The children will stay here with their nanny and we won’t be back for a day or two, depending on how many patients I need to see there. I did not want to miss you if you should be gone when we return.”

  Sienna nodded. “Thank you for telling me—telling me everything.” She lifted her box of charcoals off her lap and set them to the bench, then stood. “If I am gone by the time you arrive back, I do promise to write.”

  “I hope that is not the outcome, but if it is, do count upon me as a friend for life.” Bridget pulled her into a hug.

  Sienna had never been hugged by a female friend before and was discombobulated for a moment at how comforting the bond was. She managed to produce a true smile for Bridget. “Thank you.”

  Bridget nodded, and then moved her way down the path, her footsteps springing just as lightly as they had on the way up.

  For long minutes, Sienna held her breath, half expecting Logan to appear after Bridget’s disappearance.

  He didn’t.

  And she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disheartened at the fact.

  { Chapter 19 }

  “I’ve been here before.” Her fork paused halfway to her mouth, Sienna’s eyes went wide. She looked at the gaping hearth at the far end of the table from her, scenes flashing in her mind.

  Even though they had eaten in that cavernous stone hall every evening with Hunter and Bridget, Sienna had never taken the time to truly look about her. She’d been too preoccupied with her anger at Logan, and then with the conversations with Bridget and Hunter.

  But since Logan had sat down across the table from her a half hour ago—sans his overcoat and clearing the staff from the room as he had entered—Sienna had spent the entire meal in silence, looking everywhere but at her husband.

  She wasn’t ready to face him.

  Not yet.

  Maybe not ever.

  Sensing it, Logan had remained silent as well. Though his agreeable silence didn’t stop his steel grey eyes from scrutinizing her every movement.

  She could have simply left the dining hall, but she was hungry after hiding up along the ridge all day and she didn’t want to cause a commotion by having her meal delivered to her rooms when she was perfectly capable of eating in silence.

  So instead, she’d passed away the minutes at the table, eating quickly while pointedly avoiding direct eye contact. She watched the fire in the enormous curved fireplace, its low flames flicking high, attempting to stretch up into the chimney. Her gaze moved onto the wide ancient tapestries lining the coolness of the thick cut grey limestone wall across from her. Unicorns, maidens frolicking in the flowers, epic clashes of steel and horses—all of the scenes held the fantastical romanticism of the Middle Ages.

  Far above Logan’s head, her look had drifted to the circular stained glass window that reflected the light from the main wrought iron chandelier hanging high in the room. A heavy rain had started, a sheet of it slashing so viciously at the window it made her jump in her seat.

  Her heart had started to thunder, her mind whirling.

  “I’ve been here before.” Sienna repeated the words, her fork clattering to her plate of roasted grouse.

  Her head whipped around in a circle, her look frantic at her surroundings in the great hall. Her hands slammed onto the table, making her plate bounce. “This—this table wasn’t here—it was over there.” She pointed to the opposite end of the hall. “And it was a big table. Thick and heavy. Not this one. One for a lot of people. Old. Ancient.”

  Her gaze flew back to the hearth. “And there was a raging fire in there. Raging and I thought it would burn me with the popping from the wet wood.”

  She looked at Logan. He had frozen on the opposite side of the table, concern evident in his eyes. “Am I right? Do I remember this?”

  His eyes narrowed at her and he gave a slight incline of his head. “What else?”

  Pushing her chair back from the table, she stood, stumbling over to the hearth, needing to be in the spot where she could feel her skin singeing. “It…it was raining—a torrential rain just like now—and we were soaked. We were in the rain, and then in here.” She pointed up. “And the rain slashed at that window above me, and I kept looking up, scared it would shatter and the glass would land on me.”

  Pain shot through her and her hand lifted to her breastbone, fingernails curling into her bare skin above the bodice of her dress. “And it was horrible—why—what was it—it’s in my chest—and it was horrible—my chest squeezing the breath out of me.”

  Gulping air, she closed her eyes, the scene from years ago flashing in her mind.

  Her eyes popped open and she found Logan.

  He sat still at the table, watching her closely, his face not betraying what he knew of the event.

  “And you. Oh hell, Logan.” Her voice cracked as her eyes closed against the memory. “We were soaked, chilled to the bone and it was freezing and you—you were groveling. There was a man, and he looked like you except older and he told you to get to your knees.”

  She gasped, the pain in her chest exploding, sending furious shards to cut her insides to shreds. “And I didn’t want you to. I wasn’t worth it. We could go back—back to London. I wasn’t worth it. And I wanted you to stand, I wanted to leave, but then you fell to your knees.”

  Her eyes flew open and she looked at her husband. He had stood from the table and moved toward her, stopping two arm lengths away.

  “That was your brother—your half-brother, the duke—and he, he hated you—hated me—and he made you grovel—grovel for the scraps he was to give us—grovel for your commission in the army.” Her words tumbled, furious. “You threatened to tell every one of his associates in society about how he cast out and ruined your mother and you and Robby. But still he demanded you sink—sink to the floor.”

  Her voice trailed as her jaw dropped. The agony in Logan’s steel grey eyes told her this was true. Was real.

  She choked back a sob. “He made you drop to your knees, Logan, and I wanted to kill him and you wouldn’t let me. I had a knife in my hand and you grabbed my wrist and stopped me.”

  He nodded, his face tortured.

  “And in the next instant you were sinking. Sinking to the ground. To your knees.”

  Logan flinched, but his voice was steady against the fury in her words. “For as much as we needed a way out, I would have given anything in that moment to keep us safe from Bournestein. To give us a way out. And my knees on this floor were our way out, Sienna. I needed that commission.”

  She shook her head, the fury she’d felt in that moment years ago still coursing through her. “You didn’t need to do it, Logan.”

  “It wasn’t a choice. We didn’t have anything, Sienna. No money. No way out. And winter was descending.”

  “Why…” Her head sho
ok for a moment, and she froze, her eyes going wide as she stared at him. “No way out because of my father—because of Robby—he told him.” Her hands went to her head, clutching the sides of it as it rattled with a thousand stones rolling about in her skull. “Robby told him where the money was hidden. The money we were going to escape with. Father came into your room and cut it out of the floor with an ax, and Robby—he—he dragged me away, tossed me over his shoulder. And he was drunk and he shoved me into my room…and…”

  She had to close her eyes against the fear in Logan’s eyes—the fear she would remember everything.

  She gasped a trembling breath. “And he shoved me into the room and he was so mad—furious—that we were going to leave—leave without him—and we weren’t but he wouldn’t listen and he…he…he said he was the one that deserved me…he…” She hiccupped a gasp.

  “He tore your dress and you fought him.” Logan’s anguished voice echoed against the stone walls around them. “He thought we were leaving him behind and he was out of his mind.”

  She opened her eyes to him. “But I screamed and I hit him over the head with the pitcher and you came—you kicked in the door and your face was bloody and you ripped him off of me.”

  He nodded. “And we left. We ran out of there that night with your torn dress and my bloodied face and broken ribs. And we ran. We ran as far and as fast as we could.”

  “But this.“ Her hand swept around her. “This didn’t need to happen, Logan. You didn’t need to break, didn’t need to drop to your knees. Not before that hideous man that called you a bastard.”

  Logan’s chest lifted in a deep breath. His words came with his exhale, soft. “We had nothing, Sienna. We sold the horse I stole to leave London and then we had nothing. We had nowhere to go. I had no way to feed you other than what I could steal—and that was the one thing I swore I would never do again once we escaped Bournestein—never steal, lie or cheat again. I swore it to you. So something had to give, Sienna, and fighting was the only thing I was good at.”

  Her lips parted, her words deflated. “So you needed the commission. We needed it.”