She nodded and then pulled back suddenly to pin her husband with a look. “Oh, and I have one more item to set to rest with you.”
His eyebrow cocked.
“What were you going to do if I had left after those first seven days here at Shadowmoor per our agreement? Would you have truly let me go?”
His mouth clamped shut, but the edges of his lips quivered, hiding a smile.
“Logan?”
“Do you want me to answer that?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to answer truthfully?”
She swatted his chest.
“Then yes. And no.” He exhaled a long sigh. “Yes, I would have delivered you to anywhere you wanted to be. And then no, I wouldn’t have let you be. I would have set up camp at your front door.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as it took, Sienna.” He pulled her back against his body. “I was not about to be far from you when you forgave me. Or when your memories came back.”
She swatted his chest again. “Part of me hates that answer, but mostly I love it.”
He chuckled. “You’ve always been a complicated one, Sienna.”
“Except in one thing.” She had to crane her neck to look up at him he held her so close.
His eyebrows lifted.
“My love for you, Logan. That has never been complicated. Our lives, what was around us, yes. But you—my love for you was never complicated. Only right.”
He set his lips to her forehead. “Always right, my love.”
She nuzzled her head against his chest and looked out across the purples and pinks dancing in the sky above the vista. This was always her favorite time of day at Shadowmoor. “For as much as I always loved that Constable painting, this is so much better in person. Bridget was right about this place—it has gotten into my bones far faster than I imagined it could.”
“Does that mean you’re not looking forward to our trip to London next month?”
She grinned. “I do rather enjoy being the recluse duchess.”
“Cass wrote to report the renovations on the house that will hold the new Revelry’s Tempest are moving along nicely, so we may be able to postpone our trip by another month.”
“Did the solicitor manage to buy that house directly next door to the old one?”
“He did.”
“Did Cass mention if it was difficult to buy that townhouse? It would seem lucky to get it.”
Logan chuckled. “She wrote that the owners were delighted to sell. Apparently, a house next to a gaming hall is not the most desirable thing to sell. They’d been trying to do so for years.”
“Imagine that.”
“Yes.” He grinned. “Imagine that.”
“And Greyson is doing well at managing it all?”
“Cass wrote that he is better than all of us at managing the construction and he has grand plans for the future. That, and he is holding the guard together well. He’s even adding some men to the ranks as there have been plenty of special assignments rolling in.”
She looked at him. “So we can just send the investment funds and not have to be there?”
“I see the twinkle in your eye.” He smiled at her scheming. “So yes, hopefully. Greyson is doing so well our presence in London should only occasionally be required.”
Her grin went wide, beaming. “Excellent.”
Logan’s bent leg shifted down and he stretched out his legs. “Though you do realize Cass and Violet and Adalia are all planning the next London season for you, duchess—one beyond all measure of restraint and good taste? A season to break all seasons.”
“That sounds like fun,” she said with a chuckle.
“Too much so, if you ask me. Not that they did.”
She poked him in the chest. “As fun as I imagine it would be to make you suffer through balls and dinners and chitchat with the chortling peers chomping on cigars, I’m afraid the season to break all seasons will have to be placed on hold.”
His eyebrows lifted in hope. “You’re taking pity upon me?”
“Something akin to that.” She reached across his chest and grabbed his hand, then clasped it to her belly, holding it flat against her skin.
He jerked upright, turning fully to her on the bench, his fingers curling over her belly, his silver grey eyes wide. “This? A babe?”
She smiled, nodding. “You work quickly, my husband.”
He laughed, wrapping his arms around her and clutching her tight to his chest.
She had to wiggle her head backward to look up at him. “Our time was never before. But it is now.”
“It is our time, isn’t it?” His lips came down, meeting hers, the heady scent of him stealing her every thought. He lifted up slightly, his eyes intent on hers. “You are my heart, Sienna, and I thank the stars every night for bringing you back to me.”
Her hand wedged upward to set her palm along his face, her favorite rough scruff of his beard tickling her skin. “The stars, I think, are finally our friends, my husband.”
“That they are. May it always be so.”
~ From K.J. Jackson ~
Check out the sneak peek below of my next new book The Iron Earl, Valor of Vinehill, the start of a new series that will feature Robby from The Devil in the Duke in the third story. So we’ll have to wait a bit for Robby’s HEA, though he does make an appearance in this first novel.
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I found you and you found me—let’s not lose each other! Finding readers that like your work is hard, but if you’ve gotten this far, hopefully you liked The Devil in the Duke and want to read more by me. Because of the constant changes in social media, the BEST way to keep up with my latest works is through my newsletter. So be sure to sign up for my VIP List for news of my next releases, sales and freebies. You’ll get my FREE starter library when you sign up—three full-length books!
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If you liked reading The Devil in the Duke, please consider leaving a brief review. Even if it is only a line or two, that word of mouth is an enormous help and crucial to a book’s success—all of which allows me to keep doing this job I love! I thank you so much!
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Don’t miss!
All the stories in the Revelry’s Tempest series:
Of Valor & Vice, Revelry’s Tempest
Of Sin & Sanctuary, Revelry’s Tempest
Of Risk & Redemption, Revelry’s Tempest
To Capture a Rogue, A Logan’s Legends Novella, Revelry’s Tempest
To Capture a Warrior, A Logan’s Legends Novella, Revelry’s Tempest
The Devil in the Duke, Revelry’s Tempest (Logan’s story, Fall 2018)
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The sneak peek of The Iron Earl…
{ Prologue }
Stirlingshire, Scotland, in the scattered lands between the Highlands and the Lowlands
March 1816
Late.
He was too late.
A mile away over a rocky outcropping the smoke snaked into the sky. A stream of blackened dust billowed into a ragged cloud, then vanished as the wind snatched it into oblivion.
Lachlan set his heels into his horse, thundering across the last field toward the small croft houses just out of his view.
His brother and sister hadn’t waited for him at Vinehill. Not as they should have. Not as they said they would. He was the soldier. They should have waited for him.
But no, Jacob and Sloan had taken off, following their third cousin, Torrie, to get to her family’s croft before the clearing men came.
How Torrie’s family had put off the brutes that were clearing the Swallowford lands for as long as they had was a miracle.
A miracle that was ending in front of his eyes.
Baron Falsted’s men were intent on removing one of the last families in the area. There would be no further reprieve.
The stench of the fire charred his nostrils before he could see the flames.
He crested the last hill.
Worse than he ima
gined.
Five buildings were now torches flaming from the ground, the air about them undulating with heat.
Yanking on the reins, Lachlan leapt from his horse before it stopped. He tore toward the hellfire, searching the flames. Searching for people in the sooty haze.
Three men. Two on horses. None he recognized and all a distance back from the raging flames.
His brother. Where the hell was Jacob?
Lachlan ran across the wheat field, flying straight between the barn and a cottage, both in flames. Heat singed his skin and his arm flung up, shielding his eyes from the heat that enveloped him.
There.
Far at the opposite end of the buildings, the main house. Two bodies sprawled prone on the ground in front of it, blackened blood across one man’s face.
Not Jacob. Not Sloan. Not Torrie.
Lachlan spun, squinting against the embers spewing into his face. Where the hell were they?
He spun again. Movement out of the main cottage.
Jacob. Jacob carrying Sloan on his hip, her arms stretched out, dragging a screeching Torrie with her. Flames engulfed Torrie’s skirts.
Five steps from the cottage, Jacob dropped Sloan. She scrambled to Torrie’s skirts, swatting at the flames with her arm, screaming as she tried to squelch the blazes.
“Jacob.” Lachlan ran toward them. “Jacob.” But his bellows didn’t stop his brother—didn’t slow Jacob for one step.
His forearm covering his face, Jacob plunged back through the flames licking out the cottage door for air and he disappeared into the inferno of the house.
Hell, Torrie’s family had to still be inside.
Lachlan ran past Sloan and Torrie. Two steps from the door, a terrifying creak filled the air and the roof of the cottage collapsed inward.
The surging blast of heat and flames sent Lachlan flying backward and he landed on his back.
Seconds slowed to lifetimes. One after another.
His ears ringing from the blast, he managed to push himself up from the dirt as embers spun through the air, sizzling onto his skin.
No. Not Jacob. It should have been him.
Sloan. Where the hell was she? He twisted his body to see behind him. Where?
On his knees, stumbling to his feet, he searched through the choking smoke, nothing but pounding in his ears, reverberations shaking his skull.
Sloan.
She’d rolled away from Torrie, the flames on their cousin’s skirt now dampened.
Screaming. Sloan was screaming. He couldn’t hear her, but he could see her through the blackened debris floating through the sky.
Screaming, she struggled to her feet and charged directly at one of the men holding a torch that stood just beyond the reach of the heat of the flames.
The brute tossed the flaming stick to the ground a moment before Sloan blasted into him, her arms swinging in attack.
A blade. A blade flashed silver in the smoldering air, high in the brute’s hand.
His brother dead and now Sloan—no not Sloan.
Lachlan found his feet and lunged at the two of them. Instinct from the years fighting on the continent engulfed him and his hands stretched out, reaching with one purpose. Stop the knife.
Lachlan crashed into his sister and the brute and sent all three of them sprawling to the ground.
But the blade was in his hand—he’d managed that.
Red flashed in his eyes, taking his sight, taking his mind.
He rolled to his knees and plunged the dagger into the brute’s neck in one quick motion. His arm lifted and drove the blade into him again. And again. And again.
And again.
Lost. Lost in a netherworld of rage for how long, he didn’t know. A hell where he didn’t know anything other than the blade sinking into flesh again and again.
“Lach.”
“Lachlan.”
The slightest whisper of sound broke through the pounding in his ears.
“Lach.”
Something hitting his back. Pounding on him.
His hand on the hilt of the blade stopped, high in the air.
He spun.
Sloan. Her face terrorized. Her eyes tortured in pain. Her mouth screaming at him.
Her arm—hell—her arm was bloody, festering.
He blinked, shaking his head.
He was too late.
Again.
The purgatory of fire and ash surrounded him, swallowing him.
Swallowing him whole.
{ Chapter 1 }
Lincolnshire, England
October 1816
The gravel granite of the pathway crunched under the heel of her slipper betraying her presence.
Devil it. Too soon.
Evalyn wanted the man further set into the secluded alcove ringed with tall evergreen hedges. It would be far easier to corner him. Far easier for her plan to work if she could hold him captive deep into the alcove.
Her heel lifted from the gravel as she stilled in place, steadily breathing in the crisp night air flush with the scent of recently trimmed boxwood hedges. He didn’t move. Didn’t turn around. She dared a long look at her prey, staring at the wide expanse of his dark tailcoat stretching snug from the twin boulders of his shoulders.
Never mind that the Scotsman was twice her size and could step directly over her if he so chose not to be trapped.
Trap him? Hell, it’d be easier to trap a demon in a windstorm.
His shoulders swayed slightly and his head cocked to the side, his left ear lifting to the moonlit sky. His light brown hair curled about the curve of his ear and reflected a glimmer from the torch lit above her head on the pathway.
She turned into a statue, attempting to move his feet further in the garden alcove by her thoughts alone. Just three steps further, sir. Three was all she asked. Three tiny steps.
The man turned fully around and the rage she’d witnessed in him as he walked through the ballroom still pounded deep lines into his forehead. His head tilted down, his eyes pinning her.
Her lips parted, her words lurching over her dry tongue. “My lord, I was hoping to have a word.”
“I don’t think you want it with me, lass.” The low rumble of his words shook through her belly.
The timbre of his voice was more than enough warning. She should run and she knew it.
But there was nothing else for it.
She charged forward, straight at the impossibly wide chest of Lord Dunhaven.
She’d barrel into him if she had to, but she would get him deep into this alcove.
A step before she crashed into him, he jumped backward one, two, three steps.
Far enough.
They were secluded, or at least enough so.
Her heels dug into the gravel, skidding to a stop, her breath leaving her in a whoosh as she looked up at him.
The anger on his forehead relaxed, a knowing smile curving onto his lips. “You’re not out here for word, are you, lass?”
Before she could answer, his hand lifted, wrapping about the back of her bare neck and he descended, his mouth meeting hers.
Warmth juxtaposed with the hardness of his lips while the faint smell of brandy and spice filled her head. Without thought, without resistance, her mouth fell to his—fell deep into a well of desire instantly out of her control.
Blast it.
She didn’t know this man. Didn’t know him at all, and he was kissing her?
Not only that, she was letting him.
The momentary loss of her senses sent a jolt of fear down her spine. She yanked her head backward, breaking the kiss, though she refused to let her feet retreat.
She had him cornered and she meant to keep him so.
He pulled up, his hand falling from the back of her neck as his eyes searched her face. A lascivious smile danced about his lips. “Why so nervous, dove?”
The murmur of far-off voices floated through the night air and over the evergreen hedge.
“My name is Evalyn—Eva.
” She glanced over her shoulder, her hands settling across her belly, the golden embroidered silk of her gown soft under her fingers. She would have to talk fast.
“Then my name is Lachlan.”
Her head swiveled back to him and she met his eyes, now hooded deep in the shadows of the alcove. Shadows that masked whether the anger that had been palpitating from him just moments ago was truly gone. “You’re also soused, Lord Dunhaven.”
“Lachlan, sweet lass. I want to hear the name from your exquisite lips.” His fingers lifted and his thumb settled onto the center of her lips, then dragged slowly across the delicate skin still pulsating from his kiss.
Her shoulders pulled back, her spine stiffening. “Lachlan, then my lord. And it does not negate the fact that you’re foxed.”
“My lips and hands still work the same, dove.”
She snatched his wrist, tugging his hand from her face. “No. I did not approach you for this, Lord Dunhaven.”
“Lachlan.”
She stifled a seething breath. “I did not approach you for this, Lachlan.”
“No?”
“No. I understand you and your companions intend to leave the duke’s estate tonight?”
“Aye. We are done with Wolfbridge.” His head tilted to the side. “You said your name was Eva?”
“Yes. You are leaving post haste?”
“In a number of hours. Aye.”
“Take me with you.”
He laughed, a low rumble that vibrated though his body and shook the gravel under her toes. “Take you with us?”
“Yes,” she said the word with simple, unshakable determination.
“Forgive me, Eva, but do I forget making introductions with you?”
“No.”
“You are serious.” The smile slipped from his lips and he straightened, sobering, all amusement at her request vanishing. “It won’t happen lass. Not how we travel.”
“Why not?”
“One, I don’t kidnap spry young chits from their marriage mart minded mamas. Two, I don’t know you. Three, I have a band of eight men with me.” He leaned down, setting his lips next to her ear, his breath tickling her skin. “Eight healthy, virile, single men.”
He stood straight, his mouth pulling tight in a smug frown.
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