A low, wicked chuckle crackled forth then. “Did it not occur to you I may have been otherwise engaged, Miss Governess?”
She stiffened, knowing instantly what he suggested. To her great shame, she had not imagined such a depraved scenario, though she now had to admit to herself it was not far removed from reality. “I… forgive me for the egregious error, if you please, Your Grace. It was not my intention to intrude upon your solitude or privacy in any fashion. Please rest assured I will never again make such an inexcusable mistake.”
“What would you have done, my dear, if you had entered the chamber only to discover I was not alone?” Wicked amusement underscored his tone.
Only he would pose such a shocking question. She supposed she would not have been at all surprised to find such a scene of corruption. Why, then, did the thought of the Duke of Whitley beingotherwise engagedwith a nameless, faceless female make her stomach clench?
“I have offered you my sincere apology, Your Grace,” she said, coolly refusing to answer his query, for she did not wish to examine the answer herself. “If you will excuse me, I would very much like to return to the sanctity of my own chamber now that I am assured of your good health.”
One of his hands moved from her shoulder to skim over her neck, settling at her nape. Long, thick fingers parted her hair, cupping the base of her skull. “No.”
No?Surely, he could not intend to keep her here against her will, in his chamber?
“Your Grace, I beg you. It would be most improper for me to remain, and I—”
“Crispin,” he interrupted.
Crispin.The name fit him, beautiful and stark. She longed to try it on her tongue. But she could not make her lips form it. “Your Grace.I must return to my chamber at once before my presence here is remarked upon. It would be quite ruinous indeed for the household to learn of my injudiciousness.”
“Why did you come to my chamber tonight?” he asked, his voice vibrating with an intensity she could not decipher.
“You sounded as if you were in pain.” The truth fled her, all she could give him. “You sounded… as if you needed someone.”
To her surprise, he did not mock her or somehow render her words indecent. Instead, he did the most shocking thing of all. He leaned forward and lowered his head so their foreheads touched. His hot breath fanned over her lips.
The gesture was at once intimate and yet tender. He had not kissed her. He did not seem intent upon seduction this night. Her in the unlit stillness of his chamber, with no pretense or distractions between them, he seemed somehow different. Softer, perhaps.
“Do you know what the Spanish fighters do to their enemies, Jacinda?”
His low, bitter question, seemingly torn from him, shocked her. She expected anger from him, coldness and condescension. But harsh revelations—confessions, even—seemed incongruous for the man she had come to know.
“I am sure I do not wish to imagine,” she began hesitantly, unsure of what to say.
“They bury men alive up to their necks. They nail them to church doors and trees. Rip their bodies apart and let the ravens peck them to death.”
His words robbed of her breath and speech. She wanted to embrace him, but she was not sure if he would push her away.Dear God, the atrocities he must have witnessed at war. She was newly thankful she had never known what James had endured. His letters home had always been hopeful, filled with how much he missed her. She had always suspected he sheltered her from the vile truth of his circumstances, but he had done so knowing it would be easier for her.
“Battle is hell on earth, swords and cannon and blood and bodies, horses falling, the wounded screaming.” A violent shudder tore through him, so strong she shook with the force as well. “But the savagery of the guerillas was different. They attacked field hospitals and hacked wounded French to death. They burned men alive.”
The urge to comfort him could not be contained. It grew, a living thing, bigger than she was, until she could not keep herself from touching him. Her hands settled on his upper arms. Bare, firm male skin seared her palms. When she inhaled, it was his breath, and when she exhaled, hers became his.
“I am so sorry, Your Grace,” she whispered, wishing with all her might there was some way she could take his pain from him and lock it away so it could never plague him again. But pain was not so easily removed once it had lodged itself in the heart, and she was not omnipotent. “I read many accounts of the war and your bravery, along with your comrades, but I cannot fathom what you must have endured.”
“Ah, yes.” His tone was grim. Cutting. Yet, he did not distance himself or reject her touch. “The reports of the fabled war hero. Such rot. And here I am, so sick with guilt that I cannot face my reflection in the glass. So shattered by the recollection of what I have seen and done I cannot even sleep through the night without drinking myself to oblivion or crying out like a babe in the night.”
Her heart stuttered for a moment, her entire being curiously hit by the sensation she was balanced upon the head of a needle. A breath in the wrong direction and she would fall. Surely it could not be he was admitting his role in Searle’s death after all, and in spite of her inability to uncover even one piece of evidence against him. “Guilt, Your Grace?”
“I am responsible for the death of my best friend.” The low admission sounded as if it was torn from the deepest depths of him. “That bloody day will haunt me forever.”
Trying to understand, desperate to believe she misunderstood his words, she cupped his face, wishing she could see his eyes and read his gaze. His beard stubble pricked her palms. “You cannot have been responsible.”
“Oh, but I was. Searle and I were tasked with running intelligence with the Spanish guerilla fighters. The guerillero we met on the day he died was the most ruthless, untrustworthy blackguard on the entire Peninsula.” He shuddered again, his breath catching. “I should have known something was amiss, that something about that day was different. I should have required a stronger force to accompany us. But I was too damned proud, and Searle and El Corazón Oscuro were arguing. Someone clubbed me over the head from behind with a musket. When I woke, the charred body of a French captain hung above me, and there was blood, so much blood. Searle’s hand, still wearing his signet…”
Dear, sweet God.The tiny seed of doubt vanished, obliterated by the visceral hideousness of his recollections. No man as broken and racked with guilt as the duke could actually be guilty of arranging his friend’s death. The two disparities did not equate. “Your Grace, you need not speak of it,” she urged, hating the anguish in his voice. Hating he had been a witness to such barbarism.
Hating anyone would dare suspect him of treason when it was clear he had loved his friend like a brother. His desperate anguish could not be feigned. What he had seen could never be unseen, and it was a scar he would forever bear upon his psyche.
“Those murderous pigsbutcheredhim, and I had no recourse. No bloody way of finding or helping him.” His breath hitched. “By the time I woke on the floor, left for dead, he was already gone in every sense of the word. There was nothing I could do save remove the signet ring from the hand so I could send it to his mother. I never told her the manner in which I came to have it in my possession. And Christ on the cross, she cannot know. It would kill her as it has me. Each day since then has eaten me alive from the inside. I cannot forgive myself for failing to see we had been led to our slaughter, no better than cattle.”
