Claiming his Cursed Duchess (Cursed Brides #2)

Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

“ A re you sure this is the right place?” Rosaline asked, as she and her driver stared at the building before them.

It was an isolated spot, the only building in any direction for miles. The facade of the inn was dark and imposing with very little light illuminating the exterior, and heavy curtains covered the windows of the rooms above.

It looked like a haunted house to Rosaline’s eyes.

She was of half a mind to ask the driver to continue onward and abandon her plans to remain there for the night, but she knew it would be unwise to risk another long journey through the darkness.

She alighted, looking at the mud beneath her feet and feeling a chill in the air as she headed for the front door, expecting the worst.

As she walked inside however, she was pleasantly surprised by a warm, cozy atmosphere. There were several travelers in the main room sitting around tables, but there was a bright fire and it was warm.

She looked to her left as a portly man with a magnificent beard came in from the other room, smiling broadly.

“Your Grace?” he asked, as she raised her eyebrows at him in surprise. He chuckled. “We had word of your arrival from the Duke of Ravenshire.”

God bless Wilhelm.

“I see. Yes, I am the Duchess of Oldstone, I would be grateful for a room for the night.”

“It is all ready for you, Your Grace, if you would like to follow me. I shall send some supper up for you as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, I am most grateful to you,” she said as he led her up a narrow flight of stairs to a long corridor lined with dark doorways all along the length of it.

The room he showed her was small but pleasant and well-proportioned. The fire had been burning for some time, and there was a warmth about the space. The bed looked very inviting after her long journey.

“I shall be back shortly with your supper, Your Grace. We shall see to your horses and your carriage, so as you are ready for the morning.”

She handed him a coin as he backed out of the room with a formal bow.

As the door snapped shut, she looked at the bed once more. Only one night with Adam’s arms around her and she struggled to sleep without them.

She dispensed with her cloak and sat down on the bed, gazing at the room around her.

I hope I am doing the right thing. What if, when I eventually return, I am too late and he believes we should live entirely separate lives from now on?

But Genevieve’s words flitted through her mind, just as they had the entire carriage ride.

I cannot run from him forever, even if learning what he truly wants risks losing everything I have.

A little time later there was a knock on the door, and Rosaline went to it, expecting it to be a maid with her supper.

But when she opened the door, it was her uncle.

Rosaline stood motionless for a second, staring at him, unable to understand how he could possibly be here.

He held up an expensive-looking bottle of brandy.

“I am sorry to surprise you like this, dear Rosaline. I know that you and I didn’t part on the best of terms, but…I regret what I said. I wanted to make amends.”

He brandished the bottle again, his eyebrows raising as he gave her a warm smile. Rosaline hesitated, glancing behind him to the hallway.

“Whatever happened to your face?”

Claridge laughed, rubbing a finger over the thick cut just above his left eye.

“You remember the new gelding I bought? The damned thing threw me. He has not been trained properly. Worst luck to be on hard ground instead of grass, but there we are. It will heal in time.”

He took a step forward just as Rosaline moved to come out of the room.

“Perhaps we should go downstairs,” she said, about to close the door.

Claridge lowered the bottle, sucking a breath through his teeth.

“If it’s all the same to you, I would prefer to speak in private. An inn like this is no place for a lady after dark.”

“How did you find me here?”

“I have been feeling guilty since our last interaction. It might sound a bit untoward of me, but I kept an eye on you after that.”

“You’ve had me followed?” Rosaline gasped.

“Now, you make it sound so horrid! I only did it out of concern for you, niece. I heard that you had left the duke, and I knew it must have been due to what I told you. I didn’t mean to pull the two of you apart. Let me make it up to you with a drink, at least.”

Rosaline examined his face carefully. She had known her uncle all her life, and the expression of regret he wore seemed more genuine than any other she had seen.

“All right,” she said warily. “I suppose one drink couldn’t hurt.”

“Adam?”

Adam stirred from a deep slumber, unsure where the voice was coming from.

“Adam!”

He opened his eyes blearily to find Henry standing over him. His brother was sporting his usual ramshackle appearance, but his gaze was filled with concern.

“Have you been here all night?” Henry asked.

Adam squinted at the clock on the mantelpiece and hauled himself up on the uncomfortable chair. After Phineas had left him, he must have dozed off and now he could see the streaks of dawn on the horizon.

“When did you get here?” he mumbled, looking over his brother suspiciously. “What mischief have you got yourself into this time?”

Henry stepped back and gave him a hard stare. Adam glanced up at him, surprised to see such a serious expression on his brother’s face.

“I have gotten into no mischief. You saved my hide when you found that letter, do you truly believe I would undo all that work overnight?”

“Absolutely,” Adam muttered, and Henry crossed his arms over his chest in indignation.

“How little faith you have in me.”

“How little faith you have earned, brother.”

“Yet you have gone out of your way to help me, as you always do.”

Adam looked up, startled to hear the intimacy and care in Henry’s tone.

“I know we do not speak of such things,” Henry continued, “but I always know you will look out for me, whatever scrapes I find myself in. It is just the same with Rosaline.”

“You leave her out of this.”

“Out of what? Your life? I think you have done a good enough job of that yourself. Harris told me she walked out two days ago, and that you have barely left your room since.”

Adam sat rigid in his chair.

How dare my little brother dictate to me how I should act.

“Well?”

Adam stood up, his leg spasming as he did so, the sudden movement pulling him off-balance.

Henry gripped his arm swiftly, steadying him. Adam threw him off, leaning heavily on the chair and heading to the whiskey decanter on his desk.

Henry beat him to it, slamming his hand over the stopper and squaring up to him angrily.

“You are a fool.”

“Leave me be, Henry! For God’s sake!”

“Is that what you plan to do? Drive everyone away?”

Adam straightened. “And what do you know of such things? You have no notion of what it is to be married.”

He thought the barb would find its mark, but Henry simply shrugged and fixed him with a look far beyond his years.

“I have seen the way you look at your wife, Adam.”

He was ready with a retort, a blistering response that would silence his brother forever. But the words did not come.

Is he not correct? I have barely been able to function since she left me here alone.

He took a small step back, wincing again as it jarred his leg. Henry’s hand came out for a second time, but this time to rest on his shoulder.

“You have cared for me all my life. You have done everything for me and this estate since our parents died. You have sacrificed so much for others and never taken a moment for yourself. For once, will you listen to your own heart and act as you must? If you lose her, you will not get her back. She has changed you, brother. Rosaline has changed you for the better.”

“I—”

“Stop punishing yourself, brother. You deserve happiness. David would have wanted you to be happy. You know that,” Henry cut him off, his voice becoming softer as he uttered their late brother’s name.

Henry released the decanter, giving him a wry smile.

“Or, drink yourself into oblivion and make the servants believe we are thrice cursed by becoming an animal. It is your choice.”

Henry straightened his coat and left the study as Adam stood against his desk, slumping down onto the surface in the gathering darkness.

Of all the times that my brother must give me advice, it is on my marriage of all things.

But as much as he tried to dismiss Henry’s words, they would not fade. He had lost Rosaline. He had cast her aside without a word, instead of falling to his knees and begging her to stay.

Why did I allow her to leave in such a way? What must she think of me?

For days, he had wallowed in self-pity wondering if she would simply walk back through the door.

Now, he recognized that it was not up to her. He had many things to explain, and even more to apologize for.

I just hope it is not too late.

Claridge was in a jovial mood. There was the sound of laughter from the floor below and the tramp of feet along the corridor every now and again.

Rosaline still didn’t understand what he was doing there, but he poured them both a brandy and raised his glass to her before taking a large swallow.

“Where are you headed? It is brave for a woman to travel alone like this, but you always had a fair amount of pluck.”

Rosaline eyed him carefully.

Was that a compliment?

“I am returning to Oldstone for a few days. I needed some time away.”

“Ah, the perils of marriage,” he said with a smirk, suddenly looking more like himself. “I trust the duke is well?”

His lip curled as he said the word ‘duke’ and Rosaline stiffened in her chair, eyeing the door, wishing he would leave.

“When I last saw him, yes.”

“This is the problem with titles, you see,” Claridge said, stretching out his feet toward the fire. “Succession is a game of luck if one inherits a dukedom.”

Rosaline’s hand tightened around her glass.

“Take your brother for example. Only twenty-one, God rest his soul, when he inherited the title of the Earl of Claridge. What boy would possibly know what to do with such responsibility? I, on the other hand, was well aware of my duties when it passed to me, and I excel at running the estate. If I should have been born to it, I would have mastered it very quickly.”

Rosaline shifted in her seat, placing her brandy on the table between them, no longer in any mood to spend time with the man.

“Thank you, uncle, for this visit, but I am growing tired.”

“Hah! You do not agree, I take it?”

“That a man who has treated me with contempt all his life has done a better job of running the earldom than my beloved brother would have? No, Uncle. I do not agree with you.”

She winced as his glass slammed down on the surface of the table. There was an ominous crack from the wood, as though he had splintered the thing.

Claridge stood, draining his glass and standing over her, his eyes bright with a fiery rage, the intensity of which was rare, even for him.

“No one wants anything to do with your family, least of all a wretched little creature like you! You, who ruined all of my plans, my hopes—my aspirations! You will never amount to anything, that much has been made clear by your ridiculous decision to run from the only man who gives you any power.”

“I am stronger than you think,” she spat, standing up holding her head high before him.

I am a duchess. He does not have the right to speak to me that way. He never did.

She let out a shriek of alarm as Claridge threw his glass violently into the fire, pieces shattering everywhere, shards of it glimmering and skipping across the floor to her feet.

In the next instant, he was upon her, his thick fingers gripping her arm to the point of pain, his face inches from her, brandy-soaked breath wafting across her mouth, making bile rise in her throat.

“You and your husband will pay for what you have done to me,” he snapped. “For making me crawl for the dregs of his favor—you, the upstart little shrew I have had to live with, who I clothed and fed. What thanks did I get? None!”

He threw her violently to the floor, taking her by surprise as her foot caught the train of her dress and pulled her down with a hard thud. She landed awkwardly, her elbow beneath her back.

Rosaline gasped as she looked up to find her uncle holding the bottle of brandy aloft, his face flickering in the firelight, shadows dancing across it.

She scrambled to her feet, pulling herself up and away from him, but he had the advantage.

As she tried to make it to the window, the bottle struck the side of her head, and the world tilted as she collapsed back to the floor.

When she came to there was the sound of splashing liquid from somewhere, and when she turned, her eyes widened in horror at the picture before her.

Her uncle was emptying the bottle of brandy across the whole room, a demonic expression on his face.

Finally, he threw it down as he stepped back to the doorway and raised aloft a lighted match.

Their eyes met in a horrible moment of stillness.

“Let us see if that curse of yours saves you now, niece,” he said triumphantly, and as Rosaline cried out in terror, he opened his fingers and dropped the match to the brandy-soaked floor.