In the murky days following her husband’s murder, she and Edward had been removed from Dublin with an armed escort, but she had imagined that they had left all danger behind them in Ireland.
“Assassination, Your Grace.” Carlisle’s tone was quiet but deadly serious.
Those three words, so succinct and cold, struck her heart.
Edward could not lose both his parents in the span of three months. Her heart squeezed at the thought of her son alone in the world. Her beautiful, kindhearted boy. She would do anything to protect him.
Her mouth went dry. “I see.” She paused, attempted to collect herself, an odd mixture of discomfit athiscontinued presence and fear swirling through her. “My son, Your Grace? Has he been included in the threats as well, or do they only pertain to myself?”
“Your son was not referenced in the threats, Your Grace,” Carlisle said.
“You have a son?”
She flinched, the angry lash ofhisvoice striking her. Still, she would not look athim. “I do not understand the reason for your…associate’s presence, Your Grace. Indeed, I would far prefer to conduct this dialogue with you in private, as befitting the sensitive nature of the circumstances.”
Ara refused to sayhisname. Refused to even think it. Would not speak aloud the true nature of what and who he was. A bastard. The half brother of the Duke of Carlisle. The man she had lost her heart and her innocence to. Her son’s father.
No.Freddie had been Edward’s father, the only one he had ever known. And it must—would—remain that way until she went to her grave.
The Duke of Carlisle appeared unperturbed by her uncharacteristic outburst. “Pray forgive me again, Duchess, but Mr. Ludlow’s presence here today is necessary as he is the agent who has been assigned to your protection.”
“No!” The word left her in a cry, torn from her, vehement.
But what surprised her the most was that it was echoed by another voice, dark and deep and haunting in its velvety timbre.
His.
Her gaze flitted back to him, and the stark rage she read reflected in the depths of his brown eyes shook her. Beneath the surface, he was seething.
“I will not guard her under any circumstances, Leo. Find someone else,” he sneered. “Anyone else.”
And then he turned on his heel and stalked from her drawing room, slamming the door at his back.
Clay’s feet couldnot carry him far enough or fast enough away.Damn it all to hell.Damn Leo to hell. But most of all, damnher. Time and distance were not panaceas, but they had been his sole comfort, and now even that would be stolen from him if he allowed it.
He could not allow that. She had broken him once. Never again.
The urge to strike something or someone—to smite and thrash with a violent savagery borne of all the fury flashing inside him—had never been stronger. Eight years and she had not changed. If anything, she had grown more ethereal. She had always been lovely, with her pale skin and coppery curls, the blue-violet eyes framed by long, dark lashes that stared at a man as if they could see into the dark pit of his soul.
Ara, his Ara.
No. Not my Ara.
Not any longer.
Nothing had made that clearer than the day she had confessed to her father that the Duke of Carlisle’s bastard son had taken her innocence. He could feel the blade of the knife slashing his cheek as if it were yesterday. Could still smell the fetid breath of the man who had marked him for life. His scar ached and burned, a permanent, visceral reminder of why he could not even breathe the same air as the woman he had just turned his back upon.
“Clay.”
The commanding sound of his half brother’s voice halted him, but his cessation of movement was an act of duty and nothing less. If he had his way, he would be halfway across London by now, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the woman he had once loved.
Fists clenched, he spun around. As tall and dark as Clay though not as broad, Leo had nabbed the fortune of being born on the right side of the blanket, which upon their sire’s death several years prior had made him the rightful duke. Though he was three months Clay’s junior, he was also his superior in the clandestine ranks that had been created by the Home Office known simply as the Special League.
Those twin facts would always rankle.
He waited for Leo to approach him, trying to temper his rage.
“Where the hell do you think you are going?” Leo demanded without preamble, irritation twisting his countenance and rendering it even grimmer than it ordinarily was.
