Page 79 of The Haunted Duke

Helena’s hand found his, though he had not heard her move.

“The man responsible was called Augustus,” he continued. “He dealt in women, smuggling them out of England to be sold to men overseas with vile enough appetites to pay for them. I uncovered his operation several months earlier, destroyed two of his ships, and had several of his men arrested. I gave him an ultimatum: leave England for good, or I would expose him to the authorities and put him in irons. He agreed to leave. I believed that was the end of it.”

“It was not,” Helena whispered.

“It was not,” he agreed. “He waited, observing my habits and noting which nights I walked alone. The night I meant to come to you was the night he finally had his chance.” He shook his head slowly. “I tried to escape once. Got as far as the door of my cell before they dragged me back. That was when the ropes came out, and the fire…” He touched his own throat without seeming to realize he had done it. “They did not kill me. I believe now that was never truly Augustus’s aim. I think he wanted to torture me. But I would not scream for him. No matter what he did, I would not give him that.”

“How did you get free?” she asked softly.

“I killed men to do it,” he admitted, without flinching from the admission. “But eventually… My sister found me.”

Helena’s brows lifted in surprise. “Elara?”

“Yes. She and her husband got me off that ship alive when I should not have been.” He shook his head slowly, as if the memory still did not sit easily with him. “I owe her my life twice over. Once for finding me, and once for never giving up the search when everyone else had already begun to mourn me instead.”

He let out a dry, humorless laugh as Helena’s full lips began to drift open into a look of awe, her eyes shining with understanding.

“Now you know why I disappeared,” he said.

He reached for the box he had kept all those years and walked back to the bed.

“Enslavement was the only thing keeping me from you that day,” he said solemnly as he laid the box in her lap. “And for those years I was forced to endure such torture, it was those letters, the idea that perhaps one day we could be together, that kept my sanity from fleeing entirely.”

Helena’s wide eyes began to shimmer with tears; a choked sob left her throat as he opened the box and drew out the necklace he had had made for her all those years ago.

“Why did you not come to me after?”

“Because when I was finally freed…” he pressed on, haunted by a fear and sense of isolation that reverberated deep into his soul. “I was transformed. A beast with burn marks where a man had once been, and I convinced myself that no one as pure as you could love something so dark, deformed, and twisted as me. So, I stayed away. Even when I heard that you had not yet married, it was the memory of your eyes—so green and full of life, like springtime itself—that comforted me through my nightmares.”

“Evander…”

“I shattered a glass in my grip when Damien and Adrian arrived with the news that you were to marry Jeremy,” he continued. “Then, when they asked me to help him plan his wedding. To you. I thought for a moment that would be worse than anything I endured on that infernal ship.”

“That is why you did not speak to me,” she breathed as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Why you tried to stay away?”

Evander nodded as he leaned forward and gently clasped the necklace around her throat. Helena reached up with reverent fingers and delicately stroked them over the jewels and fine strands of silver.

Then, in a rush, she stood, throwing her arms around his neck. He met her impassioned kiss readily, love and relief making him tremble as he swept her into his arms and laid her down on the bed.

“I could not stay away,” he rasped between fervent kisses. “Not from you. Not anymore. And I will never apologize for such failings, for the happiness you bring me is better than anything heaven can offer.”

He pulled away, just enough to peer into her eyes with a pleading look.

“Can you forgive me for my secrets?” he breathed.

“I want to,” Helena whispered, framing Evander’s handsome face with her hands.

Worry glimmered in his eyes, creasing his brow.

“You… want to?” he choked out. “But you will not?”

Helena wrapped her legs around his waist and rolled, putting her giant of a man beneath her so she could sit up as she straddled his lap.

“I will,” she said with determination. “If you will stop hiding from me.”

The worry that had faded from Evander’s face when she said I will quickly returned as her hands moved up to his cravat.

“Helena, no,” he said, his voice raw with fear as he gripped her hands. “I cannot let… I cannot risk frightening you.”