Moonlight Square: Books 1-4 (Plus Bonus Prequel Novella), page 165
No remorse! She shot him a glare over her shoulder.
Thankfully, the next door had a key sticking out of it. She yanked it open. “Goodbye, whoever you are!”
“Portia, please don’t go.”
She flinched at the note of despair in his voice, but refused to give in. “You will not manipulate me again,” she informed him, then she stalked out.
He did not bother following right away as she strode down the corridor of what was to have been her home.
She found her way to the entrance hall and rounded the newel post, hurrying up the staircase, the blood pumping in her ears.
She heard Luke’s slow, weary steps some distance behind her as she reached the upper landing, and was grateful that he had at least enough respect for her to hang back and give her some breathing room.
As she headed for the drawing room, Azrael’s warning echoed around and around in her head. “He is a very dangerous man.”
More than you know, my friend! she thought. To women’s hearts and Scotsmen’s health. Well, where she might have been willing to marry a stranger weeks ago, this was different.
Everything had changed. Luke’s deception cut her to the quick. And now that she knew what he was capable of, the thought of marrying the highwayman-duke simply unnerved her.
How could she ever trust him again—or herself, after falling for his ruse?
Even if she went through with the wedding, how could they ever get past this? It would probably stand between them for the rest of their married lives.
A wave of grief washed over her as she approached the drawing room, for he was right about one thing: she was not innocent here either. She was angry at him, angry at herself.
Their whole match so far suddenly seemed like nothing but a downy bed of lies.
Her chest felt hollow, her wits were still bewildered, and it was all she could do to school her face into a stiff, emotionless mask when she walked into the drawing room without her fiancé. “Mother, Father, it’s time to go. Darkness has fallen, and we must be on our way.”
“Oh!” Her mother looked up absently from her hand of cards. It was clear that the foursome had been enjoying their game of whist. “Are you sure, darling? Lady Sedgwick and I were just discussing the possibility of us staying the night here, after all, as the duke originally suggested.”
“No, no, no, I don’t think that would be a good idea at all,” Portia said, aghast at the notion.
Instantly, from across the room, her father’s gaze homed in on her, suddenly alert.
The Marquess of Liddicoat might be a sleepy fellow, but he always sharpened to complete awareness when one of his brood gave any sign that something was wrong.
“Are you all right, dear?” he asked, keeping his tone casual.
“Yes, Papa.” She sent him a reassuring look to let him know it was nothing like he probably assumed. Far be it from the Duke of Fountainhurst in any of his personae to take undue liberties with her.
At least he had that much honor.
“I am merely tired,” she forced out. “It has been a long day.”
“Oh, but darling”—Mama pouted—“they have plenty of room for us here. And besides, I’m not sure we ought to travel at night. They say there are highwaymen about.”
Portia bristled at that.
Indeed, from the corner of her eye, she saw one enter the room at that very moment.
So she answered in the coldest possible tone. “Oh, believe me, Mama, they won’t bother us in the slightest. I’m sure they wouldn’t dare.”
Tavi’s eyes widened at those words; she, at least, understood Portia’s cryptic answer. So. His sister knows, too. Portia was outraged, for Tavi’s guilty look revealed that she had been in on Luke’s deception from the start. A whole family of liars? What great actors they were, these Wakefords!
Portia sent the countess a brief, withering stare for her role in the matchmaking. She wasn’t sure what was worse: Luke hiding his secret identity, or Tavi knowingly pledging an unsuspecting young woman to the head of a criminal gang.
Papa, meanwhile, was studying Portia from across the room with a look of deepening concern. He pushed out of his chair and rose. “Come, Samantha, our daughter is quite right. We should not wish to wear out our welcome, and besides, I can hear my bed calling me.” The marquess took his lady’s elbow and lifted her firmly from her chair. “Up you go, then, dear.”
“Oh, George,” Mama said, fussing at him. But, gentle soul that he was, the Marquess of Liddicoat was still the man of the family. Indeed, it was from him that Portia had inherited her stubbornness.
They walked out twenty minutes later.
Mama was still at the doorway gushing with thanks to Lady Sedgwick and her brother, while Papa escorted Portia out into the night.
“What happened?” her sire asked discreetly. “Should I be worried? Especially with Hunter coming home? Should I expect another duel?”
“Oh God, Papa, no, it was nothing like that. We quarreled, is all.” She did not wish to alarm him, and she certainly didn’t want her rough-and-tumble brother jumping to conclusions and taking matters into his own hands.
Silversmoke versus Hunter Tennesley? That was one fight that she never wanted to see. They’d probably kill each other.
“Aha.” Papa looked relieved. He sent her a sideways glance, while Mama trailed behind them, making sure she had all of her things.
“Do give the children kisses for us, darlings! Night-night!”
“We certainly will. Goodbye, Lady Liddicoat!”
“Well, try not to take it too hard, butterfly,” Papa murmured as they walked toward the carriage. “Wedding jitters are to be expected. Tension does tend to build before the big day. But don’t worry—it’ll all be forgotten by tomorrow, I’m sure. That’s how marriage is, you’ll find.”
I don’t know about that, Papa, she thought, but held her tongue. This was not the time or place. She needed some time to absorb what had happened and figure out if she could really live with a liar and a deadly, wild barbarian for a husband.
It didn’t look promising.
Before she stepped up into their coach for the drive back to Moonlight Square, she glanced back at him—Luke, Lucas, Silversmoke, Redclaw the Terrible, their mysterious host, whoever the devil he was.
The man she loved.
The stranger.
The sight of him standing there in the moonlight, so familiar and yet so completely unknown to her, made her heart ache. Her chest felt hollow, and just for a moment, she wished she had never heard of the Duke of Fountainhurst.
She looked up one last time at the elegant castle that would probably never be hers. Not now.
Nor the beautiful man.
Then she tore her gaze away from him and his lying family and Gracewell, and stepped into the carriage. She had no idea in that moment what the future held.
She only knew it would be a long, dark drive back to Town.
~ PART III ~
CHAPTER 25
Deepening Shadows
Monday. Luke awoke in hell. The world looked the same—his house, his reflection in the mirror—but everything had changed.
He had not felt the weight of such dark emotions crowding around him since the days of his hunt for revenge. Damn it, this was why he had never wanted love. Because he had known what it would do to him someday.
Now that that day had come, what could he do but face it, live it, like any other day? So he did. He rose from his bed, got dressed, went down to see his family in a fog, going through the motions. His head was in the clouds. Dark clouds, murky and menacing. Thunderheads.
A storm was coming. He could feel it.
Axewood. Joel. Now Portia… Everything was coming to a head, and he was filled with a growing sense of danger. He was fairly sure he’d lost her and ruined his own life with his lies.
His trust in his own judgment had been shaken like never before, just when he needed to be sure about his next moves.
Sitting at breakfast, staring down at his empty plate, forgetting to put the usual splash of milk in his morning tea, for once, doting Uncle Luke could not abide the constant babbling of the children, and merely grimaced at the food on the table, his stomach in knots.
Beyond knots.
No, he felt like some overconfident leviathan of the deep who had swallowed a ship’s anchor, which now sat in his gut like a giant hook, weighting him down in the lightless fathoms of some watery abyss.
Such a heaviness came over him, such a cold sense of doom, that he felt like he was drowning, bit by bit. Soon he would run out of air, but there was no more to be had, for she was gone.
The woman he had let himself fall stupidly, painfully in love with had stormed out and left him in front of both their families, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could really say in his own defense.
She was right; he was wrong. He had lied. Pretend as he liked to be an easygoing chap, he was a killer and a stone-cold bastard, and there was no escaping it. Worse still, he wasn’t even sorry about the men he’d slain up north and never would be.
Should’ve at least lied about that part, he thought. But it was too late now.
He had a very bad feeling that her decision was final, and he would not be given a second chance.
After all, she had never really wanted him in the first place, had she?
She had wanted Joel Clayton, and there it was.
Now Luke had given her the perfect excuse to back out of their match. He had also given her hope of being reunited with her beloved bloody suitor before the week was out.
To be sure, the writing was on the wall. He’d best start thinking about finding another bride.
Well, perhaps Portia would at least forgive him someday if he could bring Joel back to her as promised. He would rather be flayed alive than see her with that blackguard, of course, but at least then Portia might be happy.
Though it irked him that she refused to see things from his point of view, Luke had no choice but to harden his defenses and get on with his day.
Ruing the daft, reckless folly that had inspired him to bare his soul to her in the first place, he left his sister and her family to enjoy the hospitality of Gracewell while he left for London by noon.
Sitting around being sociable would have been impossible under the circumstances. His sister did not protest; she knew things had gone disastrously wrong, a mere fortnight before the wedding date.
Luke still had the sapphire ring in his pocket, but he hadn’t the slightest inkling if the wedding was still on. He hoped his maybe-bride would not keep him in suspense for too long on that point, or he might well lose his sanity, and that could be dangerous for the world.
In any case, he made his apologies and left Gracewell to return to his house in Moonlight Square. He knew Portia wasn’t ready to see him yet, but he needed to be near her, just in case.
Besides, he had so much to do before they left for this Carnevale on Wednesday. He wanted to see if Finch had had any luck yet going through his father’s papers.
By now, of course, Luke was fairly sure that Axewood had both abducted Joel and killed his parents, and he meant to vent his current unhappiness with life on the earl as soon as he knew for certain.
And yet, with Portia having abandoned him, there was a part of him that barely gave a damn about all of this anymore. What did it matter if he finally completed his revenge down to the last jot and tittle, if he’d lost the trust and respect of the only woman he had ever loved? The only one who had ever found the chink in his armor, as Tavi had said, and captured his heart.
Well, Portia must’ve taken it with her, because he already felt as hollow inside as the bloody Trojan horse. Promising one thing on the outside and delivering quite something else, indeed.
You deceitful bastard. You don’t deserve to be forgiven.
He stared broodingly out the carriage window for the hour or so it took his carriage to deliver him once more to Fountainhurst House. He neither saw the overcast landscape nor felt the motion of the coach this time, utterly numb.
Still moving in a daze, he got out in front of his house when they arrived.
For once, he did not bother with his stupid spectacles. In fact, when they fell out of his pocket, he deliberately crushed them underfoot, ground the glass into the pavement with his heel, and walked on, his posture rigid, his face stark, his heart in shambles.
He permitted himself the briefest of glances across the square at Marquess Row, where Portia lived. He did not see her, but worried over her, wondering how she was and what she was doing right now.
Cursing him? Crying? God, he hoped not.
Taking a breath, Luke pulled his gaze away and continued on into the house. He did not know if she’d ever speak to him again. But if it all came to nothing, he told himself that at least he had the consolation of knowing that, for a few moments underneath the willow tree, he had been his real self with her.
Maybe that was why today felt so terrible. His real self, which he’d finally revealed, was the one she had rejected. It made him want to shrivel up and die.
He willed his heart to be stony and marched inside, where Howell was startled to see him on account of his early return to Town.
The butler blanched when he saw Luke’s face.
Loyal as he was, the old fellow’s wrinkled countenance filled with the need to know what was troubling his master so he could help, but Luke was not in a sharing mood. Yes, something had gone wrong, but no way in hell did he wish to discuss it.
She hates me. I hurt the woman I love. What more was there to say?
Picking up on his taciturn mood, the butler politely feigned ignorance and told him Mr. Finch was in the library, so Luke walked in and joined the redhead there, trying to pretend that things were vaguely normal.
It didn’t work with his trusty quiz of an archivist.
“Good God, sir, what’s the matter with you?” Finch cried the moment he looked up from his papers and saw Luke’s grim face.
“Nothing,” Luke said in a deadened tone.
“Nothing?” Finch started to scoff, lifting his glasses onto his head to peer skeptically at him.
Luke’s stare turned icy. “Never mind it. What have you found?”
“Oh…oh dear,” Finch said under his breath, drawing his own conclusions. “Er, right.” He cleared his throat and perched his glasses once more upon his freckled nose. “Let’s see…”
Luke walked over to the stacks of boxes that the staff must’ve located for him. Finch had been arranging them in piles by topic and year, small towers of old records spread out across the Aubusson carpet.
“I haven’t got terribly far yet, sir.” Finch stepped over a stack of yellowed receipts, carefully picking his way toward the desk. “I only just now found the box of notes about the budget committee. Copies of the minutes are in there from all their meetings, but there are years’ worth to go through. I’m only on 1806.”
“Give me 1807.”
“You’re going to help?”
Luke nodded and took off his tailcoat, then accepted the folio that Finch held out to him in surprise. The task would help to take his mind off Portia, provided he could get his blasted brain to concentrate.
He sat down on the ottoman nearby and got to work.
Lord, it was dry stuff. Page after page of details and figures, projections and estimates, explanations and bygone deadlines. Dull as hell. The sheer boredom of it lulled Luke into a calmer frame of mind, but it also put him half to sleep, after his night of insomnia.
He took the odd years; Finch took the evens. They got through one box and then moved on to the next without really getting anywhere.
The sun rose high over London, and Luke finally managed to eat a little. He even admitted to Finch that he and Portia had quarreled.
Badly.
“I-I’m sure she’ll come ’round, sir.”
“I doubt it. I told her everything.”
“But…not about Scotland, surely?”
Luke shrugged, at a loss. “She already knew. How, I have no idea.”
“Damn.” Finch offered a sympathetic wince.
Luke nodded, then lay back on the library floor in a carpeted patch of sunlight to keep reading.
He tried to keep his attention fixed on the folio from 1809, but eventually, he dozed off at around six in the evening, the papers tented over his face.
The material was so damned boring, plus he had hardly slept a wink last night, and, of course, he was wrung out from his own quiet, grumpy form of heartbreak.
Without even noticing he had fallen asleep, Luke drifted out of consciousness until the nearby grandfather clock bonged seven and nearly made him reach for his pistol, scaring the hell out of him.
He awoke with a jolt, pulled the papers off his face, and sat up, groggy and surprised—and not a moment too soon, for he had barely come back to his senses when he heard a light but urgent tapping at the door.
“Who is it? Come in,” he said, still out of sorts.
At once, the door swung open and Howell and Finch both appeared. Luke had not realized that his assistant had left, no doubt to let him rest.
“What is it?” Luke climbed to his feet as Finch hurried into the room.
“Not to disturb you, Your Grace—”
“It’s all right, I’m awake,” he said, shaking himself. “I must have drifted off.”
“No doubt you needed it, sir,” Howell said kindly.
“What is it?” Luke pushed his fingers through his hair.
“This.” Finch held up a leather-bound journal.
“Would Your Grace like some tea?” Howell interjected.
“Yes, that would be welcome, thanks,” Luke replied.
Finch crossed the room and handed Luke the small book.
He took it, still disoriented. “What is this, then?”
“It appears to be a journal of your father’s.”
Luke stared at him in surprise, then he was suddenly wide-awake. “Where did you find it?”
“In the attic.”
Howell hovered anxiously. “Your Grace, we debated extensively about whether we ought to look inside, but we had to verify—”
