His Duchess at Eventide Page 4

  “We’ll see.” She did not return his smile. “Won’t we?”

  “You tread on ground far more treacherous than you can imagine.” His nostrils flared. “Do you think you can run to Hurtheven as you have in the past? I imagine he’ll be more than a little disappointed, especially as your change of heart came so soon after you rejected him. And, as for Cheverley’s other devoted friend…the Duke of Ashbey has recently wed. How much time to you think he’d devote to a childhood friend’s widow?” He folded his hands behind his back and then swiveled on his heel. “You are alone, my dear. Once you consider the alternative to my offer, I’ve no doubt you’ll change your mind.”

  He left the room.

  She shut the door behind him, turned the key in the lock, and then backed away, rubbing the palm he’d kissed against her skirts until she could no longer feel his lips.

  How had Anthony known about Hurtheven’s marriage proposal?

  She’d given Hurtheven serious consideration—who wouldn’t? Hurtheven had been kind and solicitous to her, and a life-long friend to Chev. He was handsome, powerful and, as his wife, she’d never have to worry about Thaddeus’s upbringing or Pensteague’s finances again.

  In the end, however, she’d declined. Chev would always cast a long shadow, and Hurtheven deserved someone who could place him first in her heart.

  He’d accepted her decision with grace. How would he respond now?

  If Anthony’s attempt to drive a wedge between her and Cheverley’s friends succeeded, what was she to do?

  Take Thaddeus and run.

  But that was exactly what he wanted, wasn’t it? To render her powerless, either by seizing control of her purse and person through marriage, by frightening her enough for her to leave, or by sending her to—she swallowed—an asylum.

  He must be afraid. Otherwise, he would not be working so hard to separate her from Cheverley’s friends.

  Her calm returned, wrapping around her like a cloak.

  She wasn’t going to run. Not yet.

  She was not powerless. The duke was improving. Thaddeus was strong, and smart, and brave. And, no matter what rumors Anthony had spread, her bond with Cheverley’s friends could not be swayed.

  Mrs. Renton’s suspicions had been correct. Anthony not only craved control of Ithwick, he wanted control—through her—of Thaddeus and Pensteague as well.

  But Pensteague’s riches were nothing compared to Ithwick—so why?

  She’d gather what information she could at the soiree. She’d enlist Emmaus—the strongest and most trustworthy of the sailors at Pensteague—as her eyes and ears in the village. And, she’d continue to scour the records.

  Whatever Anthony and Thomas had set in motion, she would stop.

  She was no longer the frightened young woman she’d been. She was a widow, a mother alone. She had survived more challenges than Anthony and Thomas had ever known. If they thought she would be easily intimidated, they would soon find they were very much mistaken.

  Her future—and Thaddeus’s—depended on her success.

  Chapter Four

  CHEVERLEY RECREATED A mental image of the pirate—black hair, malice-cursed eyes, and full, feminine lips in a misleading, practiced pout. Ignoring the cold sweat beading at his temples and soaking his nape, he overlaid her image on his target and focused his enmity at the center of her putrid heart.

  He balanced the lower curve of his longbow against his boot and located the leather mouthpiece he’d tied around either side of the copal beads fused around the nock point. Using his right arm as a counter-weight, he nocked his arrow with his left, then shifted that hand to the bow. Then, with his back teeth, he bit down on the mouthpiece.

  Feeling Hurtheven’s gaze but refusing to acknowledge his fascinated stare, he pushed away on the bow at the same time he pulled back the string. The muscles in his neck corded as the already taught flax strained to breaking.

  He unlocked his jaw. The arrow whizzed through the air, hitting the target with a thud and a subsequent low-toned, thoroughly satisfying pulse.

  “Huzzah.” Hurtheven whispered—not so much a cheer as an exclamation of awe.

  Chev spit. The lingering taste was disgusting, really. Then again, after spending years believing he’d never shoot again, disgust was a small price to pay.

  In the past few months, he learned to use every part of his body as he rebuilt his strength. But even his newly honed skills were not enough to silence the voice that besieged in nightly shadow, gnawing like a rodent, whittling away the hopes of family and home that kept him alive in the pirate’s sunless cave.

  Tu pourrais t’échapper, mais tu m’appartiens, maintenant et toujours. You might escape, but you belong to me, now and always.

  He spit again.

  No matter how hard he worked, the pirate’s words—as much as her surgeon’s saw—left him branded. Enraged. Broken.

  Thaddeus believed his father a hero. Thaddeus did not need the truth.

  And, Penelope, well, she’d proven she did not need him at all.

  Not only did Penelope own a now-thriving Pensteague, the papers recently claimed she’d set an intention to wed.

  With eyes fixed to the red-centered target, he agonized again.

  The night he’d arrived at the Admiralty, he’d found those in charge deeply embroiled in scandal. Their greatest hero—Chev’s former commander, Admiral Stone—had died, and the Admiralty’s plans to use Stone’s funeral to rouse nationalist pride were threatened by Stone’s wife, his mistress, and their dual claims to Stone’s estate.

  Chev had knowledge of all three—the admiral, his wife, and his mistress. Consequently, the Admiralty “requested” he resolve the matter using a false name. The last thing they needed was a concurrent scandal—one that would explode when a gently bred captain they had “lost” and proclaimed dead returned very much alive.

  Chev fulfilled the Admiralty’s demands—a task which had been neither as simple nor as easy as anyone expected, especially when Chev’s friend, Ash, had compromised—then married—the admiral’s widow.

  Now, however, the thorny problem had been resolved, and Cheverley was left with a choice: He could reclaim his title at the expense of the lives Penelope and Thaddeus had created, or he could use the alias the Admiralty provided—Captain Smith—and risk his life hunting down the pirate witch.

  One option would destroy the lives of those he loved, the other would destroy his soul. Both left his tight-fisted, non-existent hand in pain.

  “How long did that take you?” Hurtheven broke Chev’s reverie.

  “Which part?” Cheverley snorted. “Finding a proper bow, or figuring out how to fashion a mouthpiece?”

  “The strength,” Hurtheven replied. “Your neck swelled as if you had fish gills.”

  Chev looked away. “I’ve practiced daily since I returned.”

  “Just since you returned?”

  Chev ignored the question. He’d used his teeth to wrestle with his restraints the entire time he’d been captive.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  Hurtheven made two attempts to pull back the bow string. Both failed. Cheverley corrected Hurtheven’s stance, and then Hurtheven tried again. This time, he made the shot, but missed the target, though not by much.

  Cheverley clapped his hand against his thigh. “I’m impressed.”

  “Impressed I failed at what you accomplished with your teeth?”

  Chev shrugged. “Necessary adjustments.”

  “I see...” Hurtheven paused, eyes fixed on the place Chev’s hand should have been.

  Acid bitterness burned within—hatred for his assigned part as The Wounded Man, frustration he could be stranded on an island of solitude even when standing next to his oldest friend.

  And then there were Hurtheven’s unasked questions. All unasked questions charged the air much like an impending storm—force in want of a target. Everyone—even Hurtheven—expected him to absorb the strike.

  “Ask for heav
en’s sake,” he demanded. “I feel the question, regardless.”

  Hurtheven looked off into the distance and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “You want to know how it happened,” Chev said. “Well, there was a lead ball, you see, which a flint spark sent hurtling through a small barrel directly into my wrist. And I suppose you want to know how it feels to have pieces of sinew-dressed bone too small to pick one’s teeth strewn across one’s breeches, too. The answer? Plenty pleasant.”

  The pain had been excruciating. The humiliation, worse.

  Pourquoi as-tu couru? Why did you run? Tu es à moi. You are mine.

  The pirate always used tu not vous—you, familiar. You, intimate. You, shattering.

  “A surgeon took it off,” he finished.

  “And what of prison?” Hurtheven asked, unperturbed.

  “Prison?” If Cheverley had merely been in prison, he’d have been released during the Treaty of Amiens, something Hurtheven would have already guessed.

  Chev kicked the earth. He hadn’t been in prison. Not as men defined the word.

  He’d been captive, yes. Held by a band of privateer pirates led by a woman who called herself Calypso. A woman whose husband Chev accidentally shot and killed. He regretted firing that ball more than he regretted the ball that had cost him his arm.

  The latter was proof he’d tried to escape. Proof he’d never given into despair.

  Until now?

  He clenched his teeth.

  Is that what he’d be doing if he did not return to Pensteague? Giving in to despair? A low buzz sounded in his ears.

  “One would think,” Hurtheven said, “learning to shoot with your teeth is a task more difficult than trusting your oldest friend.”

  Chev pursed his lips. Then, he shook his head no. “Can’t.”

  “Can’t,” Hurtheven repeated. “You survived a wreck that destroyed a sixty-four-gun ship, crossed the bloody English Channel in a makeshift raft, taught yourself to fire arrows with your teeth but you cannot tell me where the devil you’ve been the past six years?”

  Chev considered. Then, he shook his head again.

  “I’m finished with patience, Chev. The Admiralty insisted you remain hidden for a time. But that business with the Admiral Stone, his widowed wife, and his mistress is over.” He paused to catch his breath. “Don’t you think it’s time you return to your wife?”

  “Can’t,” he repeated, voice cracking. This time, he didn’t need to consider. How could he return to Penelope’s pity? Her scorn?

  “Can’t,” Hurtheven scoffed.

  He grasped for something to staunch the onslaught. “Penelope has chosen to move on. You read the story in the gazette.”

  Hurtheven sighed. “I have good reason to doubt that bit of gossip.”

  She is unwed. Yet.

  Hawk-like creatures batted their wings inside Chev’s mind, clogging his throat and ears and setting his stomach to churn.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Do you need me to spell it out? I wager you’ve already guessed.” Hurtheven scowled. “You know how I feel about Pen. You’ve always known.”

  “You love her.” Hurtheven’s image broke into two. Chev swayed. “You offered for Penelope, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Hurtheven held his gaze. “You were dead. Your cousins were practically drooling for her estate. You know if I had an inkling you were alive, I never would have offered.”

  “Why aren’t you with her, then? Did you decide she was not good enough for you?”

  “Lord, you are an ass. She’s too good for us both. She always has been. But, to answer your question, I would have moved heaven and earth to make her mine.” His cheeks darkened. “However, there are some things even I cannot do.”

  “Like?”

  “Like make a woman love me. When she’s still desperately in love with someone else.”

  The buzz grew louder.

  Pen did not still love him.

  She couldn’t.

  Thirteen years.

  How could he want to hear something so badly, only to have the words singe and crackle in his ears?

  “Even if Penelope wasn’t still in love with you,” Hurtheven continued, “her lack of affection wouldn’t be cause to deprive your son of a father, and your father, on his deathbed, of his proper heir.”

  “I don’t give a damn about Ithwick.”

  “Liar.” Hurtheven trudged off to collect the arrows and target.

  Anger exploded in a constellation of red dots behind Cheverley’s eyes.

  Hurtheven couldn’t understand.

  Chev had done unspeakable things to survive. For Hurtheven. For Ash. For Penelope. For his son. In excruciating irony, the very capitulations that kept him breathing rendered him useless to anyone he loved, useless for anything but vengeance.

  The thought of telling Penelope what he’d done—what he’d allowed the pirate to do—left his blood cold, his arms tingling, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his parched mouth.

  “You’ve left me no choice.” Hurtheven cast the quiver at Chev’s feet, raised his hands and shoved.

  Hard.

  “What the devil?” Chev demanded, stumbling.

  “That was for Pen.” Hurtheven shoved again. “I told you. She needs you.”

  She did not.

  “At first,” Hurtheven continued through heavy breath, “I thought you complied with the Admiralty’s preposterous demands because you needed time to regain your strength. But it wasn’t that, was it? You became consumed with the Admiral’s estranged wife.”

  “Aren’t you confusing me with Ash?”

  “He fell in love with her. You—you put her concerns above your own.”

  Hurtheven wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t right, either.

  “I did take the matter to heart”—Chev’s vision blurred—“but it wasn’t for the sake of Lady Stone.”

  Admiral Stone abandoned his wife—the woman he’d sworn to protect. Just like Chev had abandoned Penelope. He’d thought—God it seemed stupid now—righting that wrong would silence his nightly terrors.

  He’d been wrong.

  Nothing would silence the pirate but her death...or his.

  Hurtheven shook his head. “If you feel guilty, you should.”

  “I’m dead!”

  “Stone is dead. You are very much alive. Go”—Hurtheven shoved again—“home.”

  “Hit me again and I will hit back.”

  “Good,” Hurtheven replied. “Violence is the only thing you understand.”

  Hurtheven had no idea.

  “Coward,” Hurtheven scoffed.

  The buzz’s pitch heightened—feverish, unbearable. The red spots behind his eyes merged into blinding rage.

  With a guttural roar, Cheverley charged. He collided with Hurtheven, and for an awful, timeless moment, both were suspended in air. Then, they hit a patch of muddy earth in a tumbling, pummeling mass of muscle and sweat.

  Hurtheven pinned him. But he didn’t see Hurtheven. He saw her. The pirate witch. Calypso.

  C’est bien que tu ne puisses pas bouger. It’s good you cannot move. Je n’ai besoin que d’une partie pour prendre mon plaisir. I need only one part to take my pleasure.

  Chev’s neck muscles bulged, then came the hideous retching.

  “Jesus.” Hurtheven leapt aside.

  Gagging, Chev dragged his torso from the mud. His empty stomach heaved, and then heaved again. He wedged his head between his knees.

  Even if Pen wished for his return—and that was still very much in doubt—how could he go home?

  He’d thought survival would be enough...that if he regained his strength, what happened on that island could remain buried in the dark of the past. But shame ran like an underground river, bursting though the most thickly packed earth when least expected.

  Without vengeance, violence would forever rise up, destroying everything—innocent or no—in its path.

  In remaining dead, he would be protecting
everyone he loved.

  He knew only one way to make Hurtheven understand.

  “You want to know what happened?” Shaking and weak and with the taste of bile on his lips, Chev had nothing left for the truth to steal. “I’ll tell you what happened, though God help us both if you tell anyone else—I was plucked from the wreckage by the wife of a man I’d just killed. She kept me alive...barely.” He shook as he inhaled. “The part of me she was interested in rousing did not involve my strapped down limbs.”

  “Jesus,” Hurtheven repeated, this time in a whisper.

  Chev fixed his gaze to the mud. “My one attempt at escape cost me my arm.” He swallowed. “It took three more years before I weakened enough for her to lose interest. She set me adrift to die.” He clenched his teeth. “Call me a coward again, whoreson. And then tell me how the hell I am to protect my wife when I embody the danger.”

  Chev lifted his head.

  He had expected revulsion. Instead, Hurtheven held his gaze with neither pity nor censure, but with fierceness, the embodiment of a demand for justice.

  “What can I do?” Hurtheven whispered.

  Fuck.

  Chev nearly wept.

  He turned away, gazing into the perpetual mists that cloaked Ashbey’s land and shrugged. He had no answers, only mocking shadows of the man he had once hoped to become, the things he had once held dear, and the hollow mottos he’d once perpetuated as truth.

  “Nothing,” Chev replied. “I am dead, though I live.”

  “No!” Hurtheven inhaled, ragged. “The moment I saw you in that—that hovel”—Hurtheven’s voice cracked—“was the god-damned happiest moment of my life. And one thing I know for certain—what I felt is a fraction of what Pen will feel when she sees you.”

  “You don’t,” Chev forced, “know that.”

  “I do, actually. I know it better than anyone.” Hurtheven ran his hand through his hair. “You survived. Everything else can be sorted.”

  Sorted.

  What did that even mean? But, by God, he’d give anything to be whole—Cheverley closed his eyes—resting in the circle of Penelope’s arms.

  “Trust me,” Hurtheven said. “She and Thaddeus need you. I had hoped...but nothing can take your place. They need you.” He laid a hand on Chev’s shoulder. “But not as much, I think, as you need them.”