Duke of Thunder (Regency Gods #1)

Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

X ander had never, not in all his days, felt the kind of rage that surged through him as he rode his horse at breakneck speed to Viscount Northton’s residence.

The streets were becoming more populated as the morning wore on, though it was mostly servants and shopkeepers out at this hour. Even so, a few elderly aristocrats, out for their morning constitutionals, openly gawked as the Duke of Godwin tore down the streets of London on horseback.

It was not the done thing to race down crowded streets so quickly, nor did men of his stature eschew carriages.

Xander didn’t care about that. He needed the fastest way to get to Northton’s house, and this was the fastest way.

He’d extracted the story from his siblings in a rush of explanation that had left him more and more furious with every word uttered.

“There was an announcement in the paper,” Catherine explained.

“Miss Fletcher’s banns to marry her cousin,” Jason added.

“Helen got very upset and rushed off,” Ariadne contributed, wringing her hands.

If not for the fact that Xander planned to pummel George Fletcher into a pulp using only his fists, he might have been inclined to hand it to the man. The way Helen adored her sister was unmistakable, and Helen was now a duchess. If Northton married Patricia, he would have the leverage to extort whatever he wished from Helen—and, by extension, Xander.

Too bad for him that he couldn’t extort anything once he was a dead man, though.

Xander was blazingly furious with Northton, but he still held plenty of self-directed rage, too. He’d seen the same emotion in Jason’s eyes.

“I told her to wait for you,” he said. “But she said she couldn’t.”

Xander had paused his preparations only long enough to clap a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he told him.

He’d meant it, too. Because it wasn’t Jason’s fault; it was Xander’s.

Because he hadn’t given Helen a reason to believe that waiting for him was the best choice. He’d thrown out her cousin, to be sure, but that was one instance compared to the countless times he’d told her—shown her—that he valued his reputation above all else.

He hadn’t given her a reason to trust him. He hadn’t given her a reason to think he would put her ahead of some words printed in cheap ink.

He would be amending that, just as soon as he got her back, locked her in her bedchamber, and forbid her from ever, ever putting herself in danger again.

He would face danger on her behalf from now on. And he had no doubt that George Fletcher was dangerous.

Desperate men usually were.

And Northton was likely desperate. He was a social climber, and he’d moved quickly; though there had been little time since the announcement of Helen and Xander’s betrothal, discreet inquiries had revealed that Northton had spent the time making promises that leveraged his newfound connection to the Lightholders. When Xander had thrown him unceremoniously out the day prior, Northton must have realized that his window to make good on these promises—some of which he’d given to the kind of men one did not wish to cross—was closing.

Xander knew this because he’d written to his man of business yesterday to seek answers. But Helen didn’t know. Because, instead of speaking to her candidly, he’d indulged his ill temper.

Christ, he was a bastard.

But he would fix it. He would fix it, because Helen would be fine. And then he’d have as long as he needed to apologize, to make things right.

He urged his horse faster, rounded one last corner?—

And then there was no space left in his mind for the future, for planning; there was only now because right this moment, George Fletcher had dared to put his hands on Xander’s wife .

“Let go of me!” Helen shrieked.

George had a grip on her upper arm and was trying to drag her toward his house. Patricia, standing nearby, reached out for Helen’s arm as if to physically tug her back in the other direction.

Helen was having none of it . She was refusing to go, was shouting her head off, was making an almighty scene.

And Xander could not be prouder. She’d refused to politely and demurely let herself be dragged into Northton’s control, into the house where he would be able to do whatever nefarious thing he pleased.

Even so—even though she was fighting and resisting with all her might, both sisters calling for their cousin to desist—Helen was no match for a full-grown man. Northton yanked her a little closer to the house, and Helen stumbled on the steps to the front stoop.

Xander was more than a match for Northton, though.

“Release my wife,” he roared. His horse galloped the last few paces, then skidded to a halt at Xander’s signal. He leaped off the beast’s back and covered the remaining space in long, sure strides.

Northton smirked at him—though he did release Helen’s arm, thank Christ.

“Is this really how you want to play this, Your Grace?” he asked, a sneer in his tone. This was, Xander knew, the true Northton, the one that his beautiful, marvelous wife had been forced to contend with on her own for far too long.

No longer.

“We do seem to have amassed quite an audience,” Northton went on. He thought he’d won. His smug self-satisfaction made that evident. “I do know how you Lightholders value your reputation. Wouldn’t want to grace the scandal sheets, now would we?”

In lieu of an answer, Xander punched Northton in the face.

It hurt like the blazes, but Xander ignored the ache in his right fist as he bent down to grab Northton from where the punch had knocked him soundly on his arse. Blood poured from the viscount’s nose as Xander hauled him to his feet and shoved the man against his own front door, his grasp an echo of the one he’d deployed against Northton the day prior.

This time, he clutched tighter, shoved harder. It was very possible that Northton couldn’t breathe properly, what with the clearly broken nose and the way Xander had him about the throat.

Xander found that he wasn’t much concerned about it.

“You have gone too far, Northton,” he said, barely able to keep his voice from trembling with rage. Hitting the man had felt so good. Xander wanted to do it again and again. But he needed to make sure that Northton wasn’t too addled to hear, truly hear, what Xander had to say.

“You laid hands on my wife. You dared to threaten her and her sisters— my sister,” he added with an emphatic shake that made Northton’s head smack unpleasantly against the door.

“She’s my betrothed,” Northton croaked.

Xander gripped the man’s collar a little tighter, pulling until Northton huffed out a pained little gasp. Good. The viscount didn’t need to talk.

“She is not,” Xander corrected. “Because, after today, you will never see her again. You will never see either of them again. And I would say that you will never see me again, either, but that isn’t your concern.”

He pulled Northton close to his face. The man had ceased fighting Xander’s grip, merely letting himself be pulled along like a fish on a line.

“What you should worry about,” Xander said lowly, letting all the malice he felt for the man come to the fore, “is me seeing you. Because if I ever see you again—if I ever hear that you have come within a mile of my wife, my family—I will end you. I will find everything you care for, and I will take it from you. I will beggar you. Your name will become a cautionary tale, whispered amongst the ton , about what happens to idiots who dare to cross the Duke and the Duchess of Godwin. Do you hear me?”

Northton looked away, so Xander shook him again.

“I said,” he repeated, “do you hear me?”

Northton hesitated, and Xander almost hoped that he would refuse to answer, would give him an excuse for another well-deserved punch. But after a few moments, Northton gave Xander a pained sneer.

“Fine,” he said sulkily. “I don’t want anything more to do with them, anyway.”

This was not precisely a satisfactory answer, given that, as far as Xander was concerned, everyone would want to be around Helen and should weep nightly over the fact that only he got her attention and company. He would have enjoyed lecturing Northton on the imbalance between their merits, given that Helen was nigh on perfect and Northton was scum.

But Xander had already given this weasel too much of his attention, and he’d not granted nearly enough to his wife, who could be hurt or distressed or both.

“Begone,” he said to the cowering man. He shoved him against the door one last time for good measure, then dropped him unceremoniously.

Northton scrabbled for the door handle behind him, then practically fell inside his house, the door slamming shut an instant later.

Xander took a steadying breath and then turned.

A considerable crowd had gathered. Most of them looked shocked—several ladies were clinging to their husbands’ arms, while a few looked liable to swoon at any moment. There were quite a number of urgent whispers being exchanged. A handful of the gentlemen, however, looked as though they wholeheartedly approved of Xander’s actions.

Xander ignored all this. He had eyes only for the two ladies closest to him.

Patricia, for her part, looked alarmed. She had a hand pressed over her mouth, her face white.

And Helen…

Helen was beaming at him.

“That,” she said, sounding delighted, “was magnificent. Is your hand all right?”

A thousand feelings assailed Xander—relief, exasperation, happiness, and…

And one last feeling that he was not quite ready to name.

“Jesus Christ, woman,” he said, and a few of the gathered ladies gasped. “Forget my hand. He grabbed you!”

He reached for her arm, careful to keep his touch gentle, and she looked down at the appendage as if shocked to see it there.

“Oh, yes, I suppose he did,” she said. “I’ll have a rather hideous bruise, I gather, but I was far more focused on not being dragged into the house.”

His heart rate slowed a bit. She was not hurt, then. Thank God.

“You did wonderfully,” he said, tracing his fingers lightly over reddened flesh. He had no doubts that any bruises that did surface would make him absolutely murderous with rage, but he could think of a good way to enact revenge on Northton later. Men like that always had debts. Xander would be delighted to purchase and subsequently recall them.

Helen gave her a sheepish look, her hand resting atop his, stilling the way he was tracing her injury.

“I made quite a scene,” she said quietly. “I am sorry, Xander?—”

He cut her off with a deep, probing kiss. The chorus of gasps was larger this time, but Xander ignored it. This was more important.

When he pulled back, Helen’s eyes were wide.

“Xander,” she said urgently. “We are in the public eye . There will be gossip?—”

“Damn the gossip,” he said cheerfully.

Her look grew more assessing. “Are you certain you’re feeling quite all right?” she fretted. “George didn’t hit you back, did he? I dind’t see anything, but you were somewhat blocking my view and?—”

“I’m fine,” he reassured her. “I’m marvelous.”

And he was.

Because his wife was here, in his arms, and she was safe. And she was asking about him, which meant she couldn’t hate him entirely, now could it?

And, for the first time in a very long time, he realized that this was what mattered. The people he cared for—they were what mattered. What mattered about his family was not their reputation but the people. He could have both parts of himself. He could .

The look Helen was giving him suggested that she was not at all convinced. It was enough to make him laugh, and then he kissed her once more, just because he could.

“Come along,” he said. “Your poor sister looks liable to faint, and I have no desire to be within a mile of your wretched cousin.”

He brushed a tendril of hair out of Helen’s face. Goodness, she was pretty.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

They had to hire a hack. Xander had, apparently, ridden pell-mell through Mayfair on horseback in his urgency, which had not left them with an ideal conveyance to return home.

Home .

Helen liked the idea of that.

One of the neighbors’ grooms had offered to return Xander’s horse to Oldhill House and had gaped when Xander had dug a handful of coins out of his pocket and slapped them into his hand.

“I can see you looking at me, Helen.”

Helen cut short her sidelong glance at her husband and returned to her ostensible occupation of fussing over her sister.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said airily.

“Of course you don’t.”

This came not from Xander but from Patricia. Helen’s husband heard, though, for all that Patricia’s comment had been low, and he chuckled.

Oh, good , thought Helen. Now, there’s two of them .

“Fine,” she admitted with a huff. “But can you blame me? You’re not precisely acting like yourself.”

Xander leaned back in his seat and smiled at her. He was beautiful when he smiled, even when he was being utterly strange about it.

“I know,” he said. “It’s grand, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to call for a physician when we get home,” she grumbled.

Home .

Even when she was complaining, she liked the sound of it.

She realized acutely now that it had been a long time since she’d truly felt at home in a place. There were all the obvious problems of living with George, of course, but even before that, Northton had been…a little emptier than she might have liked. She’d had Patricia, of course, but she’d always felt a little like she was responsible for her sister, more a mother than anything else.

She liked the idea of Oldhill House, with its teasing breakfast chatter and its panoply of Lightholders.

She liked the idea of this smiling, happy version of her husband.

There was more to be said, certainly. Nothing was perfect. But this moment was good, and she planned to enjoy it to its fullest.

Indeed, as soon as they pulled up to the front of Oldhill House, all the Lightholder siblings poured out—Jason with determined strides, Ariadne looking skittish and anxious, Catherine staid and regal, albeit with a concerned expression creasing her face.

When Xander handed Patricia and Helen down from the carriage, the three rushed forward. Ariadne threw her arms around Helen, which nearly made the older woman blush with happiness over this display of sisterly affection. Despite Patricia’s attitude in the carriage, she was still looking a little unsteady on her feet, and so, when Jason offered his arm, she accepted with a grateful look.

Catherine, naturally, took charge of things right away.

“Come in, come in,” she ushered. “I’ll call for tea and you can explain what on earth has happened today.”

And so they all piled into the parlor, sipped restorative tea (Helen saw that Jason splashed brandy into Patricia’s, which brought color to her sister’s wan cheeks) and explained.

“When I arrived at George’s house,” Helen began, causing Xander to let out an irritated little grunt at the sound of her cousin’s name, “Patricia was trying to leave to come see me, but he wouldn’t let her leave the house.”

“And then when Helen demanded that he let me go,” Patricia added, “he tried to drag her inside.”

Ariadne gasped, and Catherine’s eyes blazed. It was easy to see the Lightholder determination in the polished woman when she looked at Helen like that.

“He tried to drag you?” she asked with such deadly precision that, if George had heard it, he might have been grateful that he had faced Xander, not Catherine.

“Xander stopped him,” Helen reassured her. She glanced at her husband, who was looking at her with a great deal of hunger in his gaze.

“Did you break his bloo—” Jason cut himself off with a glance at Patricia. “I mean, did you break his neck?”

Xander cut his heated gaze away from Helen to address his brother. “Sadly, no.”

“He was very fierce, though,” Patricia reassured Jason quietly.

“And he almost certainly broke George’s nose,” Helen said with a great deal more bloodthirstiness.

There were several more minutes of questions, as well as several more gasps from Ariadne before Xander abruptly stood.

“Enough,” he said. “I am happy to answer more of your queries later, but for now, I need to have a conversation with my wife.”

And then, when they all failed to respond to this declaration quickly enough, he bent down and scooped Helen directly into his arms.

This time, both Ariadne and Patricia gasped. Catherine merely rolled her eyes, not that Helen had much opportunity to see or hear these reactions as Xander carried her swiftly out of the room.

“Alexander Lightholder,” she admonished, clinging to him as he strode up the stairs. “Put me down this instant.”

“No,” he said flatly. “And don’t call me ‘Alexander.’ Only my mother ever calls me Alexander, and only when she’s cross.”

“You cannot just carry me out of a room!” she protested as he demonstrated that, to the contrary, he could do precisely that.

“I think you will find that I can,” he said mildly.

“What will your siblings say?” she hissed. They were moving swiftly down the second-floor corridor now.

“I think—” His tone was so very dry. “—that they will say that I needed to have a conversation with my wife.”

She didn’t have a ready response to this, so she merely let out an irritated little growl, which cut off sharply when he tossed her lightly down on the bed.

His bed, she realized.

She hadn’t been in his bedchamber before, and she couldn’t help but look eagerly around. The chamber was the mirror image of hers—which made sense, as they were connected by a door she’d never dared think about opening. The rest of the room was very…Xander. It was the only way she could think of to describe it. The lines were solid, the colors serious but not somber. And the hints of blue were reminiscent of his eyes.

And then Xander himself loomed over her, leaning a knee on the bed near her hip so that he could lean down, his face close to hers.

The room very quickly lost her interest after that.

“I—” She gulped, struggled to remember what she’d been saying. “People will be talking after what happened this morning. Your family, yes, but the ton, too.”

“Good,” he said. That smile was back, the heartbreaking one. “Let them.”

“Xander,” she said. Her voice sounded breathier, less convincing. It should be illegal for a man to use his wiles like this. This was what came from marrying a handsome rake.

Even so, she found she could not wish herself wed to anyone else.

His appearance at George’s doorstep this morning, all thunder and fury, had broken something loose in her. The fury with which he had defended her had made her heart swell until it felt too big for her chest like she might explode from the strength of her feeling. She knew what it was, that feeling, even if she didn’t want to. It was too dangerous. It risked too much.

She’d never had someone to rely upon before. Patricia was a darling, but she’d always needed Helen. Their mother had died too young, and their father had been a ghost long before he’d actually died.

But Xander. Xander .

He’d come when she’d needed him. He’d come even without her asking.

And because of that—because of the way she loved him, drat it all; she could not resist naming the thing that thrummed inside her?—

Because of that, she could not let him throw away what he valued most.

“Xander,” she repeated, forcing her voice to remain steady. “You have a reputation to maintain. Your family has a reputation?—”

“Fuck my reputation,” he said, and she couldn’t have said what shocked her more, the swearing or the sentiment. “I will build a new reputation. This will be the first thing they speak of when they tell the story of the new Duke of Godwin.”

She blinked. “That he…punched a minor viscount?”

He smiled like the sun. Her heart grew and grew.

“That he loves his wife,” Xander said simply, his gaze never budging from hers. “That he would do anything for her.”

Helen’s inhalation was half-gasp, half-sob, but Xander devoured all of it with an intense kiss.

When he drew back—albeit only by a few inches—Helen searched his face.

“Do you… Do you really?” she asked.

He kissed her senseless once more, which was an answer of its own kind. And yet he gave her another.

“I do,” he said. “And—” He paused in a very un-Xander-like hesitation. “I am, I admit, not a man given to speaking at length about my feelings. I am not a man given to thinking at length about my feelings. I was raised to duty first, family second, and everything else…” He shook his head. “It did not even deserve a place on the list.”

“Xander,” she began, but he placed a light finger over her lips.

“No, please,” he said. “Let me.”

She nodded, and his finger traced over her cheek and down her jaw.

“I may not always remember to say it out loud, may not always tell you with words the things that live in my heart. But I swear that I feel them. And I swear, swear to you, that I will show you. I will protect you. Your wants are my wants, your needs, my needs. And if anyone— anyone —tries to tell me that is wrong, I will fight them to my last breath.”

It was only when his thumbs reached up to brush against her cheeks that she realized she was crying.

“No, no,” he said. “Don’t cry, darling, please. Don’t cry. You needn’t—I know I haven’t given you reason to trust in my vows, I know you might not believe me yet, but I’ll prove it, I’ll?—”

“Stop!” she hiccupped. If he kept saying such horribly beautiful nonsense, she was only going to cry harder. “Just—stop, please.”

He stopped, but he didn’t look happy about it, and that made Helen want to laugh because if she knew him—and she did, no matter how much he was surprising her right now—it wouldn’t last long.

“Xander, I—I love you, too.”

He looked like he didn’t dare trust the words. But he did not follow her model of expressing this doubt.

Instead, he made a demand.

“Say it again.”

She did laugh, then. Too bad if it made her seem like some sort of hysteric.

“You,” she accused, “are very much a duke.”

She watched the shift take place as his unbridled, joyous smile was replaced with that leonine predator’s grin. She had an instinctive reaction to that smile at this point, the heat uncurling in her belly and spreading out to touch all her body.

“I am very much a duke,” he confirmed. “And I issued my command, my lady. Tell me, again, how you love me.”

“You know,” she said, exaggeratedly thoughtful, “I am a duchess now. Perhaps I should try my hand at issuing commands.”

With slow purpose, he lowered more of his weight atop her, a thigh wedged between hers, hips pressing tight.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Helen,” he warned.

And she was, it was true. But there must have been some kind of devil in her because she wanted nothing more than to continue to play.

“I think I might be good at it,” she mused. “Perhaps I could order you to?—”

“To kiss you?” he interrupted, dropping his mouth to the side of her neck, moving sensuously up toward the underside of her jaw.

“I, ah, yes,” she said, her breath hitching a bit when his tongue darted out to kiss her where her pulse thrummed beneath her skin.

He hummed against her. “And where would you command me to kiss you, my lady?” he asked. “On your lips? On your breasts? Or perhaps you’d like me lower, somewhere a bit more sensitive?”

As he spoke, he ground his hips against her in slow, maddening circles. The feeling was exquisite, but Helen knew it paled in comparison to the pleasures he could offer her.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please.”

He hummed again, this time with a kind of mocking disapproval that—she hated to admit it—lit her up just as much as anything else he did. He was a horrible, terrible man, and she adored him with every bit of her being.

“Oh, Helen,” he chided. “That sounds a great deal like begging . I might contend that begging is the opposite of commanding, but I shouldn’t want to discourage you on your very first effort at giving orders.”

“Xander,” she whined.

“Helen,” he countered. He punctuated this with a nip on her collarbones that made her whimper. “I thought you had orders to give?”

“You’re distracting me!” she complained.

He tsk ed, his hands moving to the front lacings of her gown. She was suddenly extremely grateful that she’d dressed herself that morning. Back laces made for much more challenging access.

“A good commander,” he said, replete with dignity, “is always ready to issue his orders, no matter the circumstances. For example, my darling girl, you will notice that I am perfectly able to undress you, prepare to have my wicked way with you, and do this—” He thrust his hips forward, his hardness pressing against her core in a way that made her gasp despite the layers of fabric muffling the sensation. “—all at the same time. Such talents are required from a good leader. If you think yourself ready to take the reins, you shall have to practice working through distractions.”

Helen gave up trying to argue, giving herself over instead to the drugging caresses. He freed her breasts, kissed his way down them, then sucked a nipple sharply into his mouth. She let out a whimper.

“It would be, of course, my most ardent pleasure to train you in such methods,” he went on, sliding her gown down past her hips, lifting and turning her as he pleased to get the garment free. “I would be most delighted to distract you while you try to work on your commanding nature.”

She just hummed, an approving sort of sound. Being in charge was overrated; she had decided somewhere around the point where he’d put his mouth on her breasts and his hands on the softness of her belly. Why bother when she could just lie back and let him work his magic upon her?

“We shall begin now,” he declared, his hands running down the length of her thighs. His skin was rougher than hers, the slight calluses from riding and other gentlemanly pursuits catching pleasantly against her smooth softness. “Tell me what you desire.”

“I—what?” Her eyes fluttered open. She didn’t precisely recall closing them.

Doing so may have been a mistake, she decided, when she saw how mischievous his expression had grown while she wasn’t looking.

His grin was wicked. “You said you wished to command. Go ahead, my lady. Command me as you desire. But do be specific, won’t you? I wouldn’t want to follow the wrong orders, now would I?”

She gave him a halfhearted glare, unable to summon more ire when he was tracing idle patterns against the inside of her knee with the tip of his finger. Why, oh why, was that so captivating? It was the barest hint of a touch, and yet it drew Helen’s attention like a magnet drew iron filaments. Inexorable. Impossible to resist.

“I suppose,” she said, trying to summon as much dignity as she could manage—which was very little indeed, given the way her voice had gone raspy and wanting, “that you might resume command. For now.”

His light blue eyes gleamed with victory. “Might I?”

“You might,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound entirely like a sacrifice presenting herself willingly at the altar.

“Very well, my lady,” he said. He nodded his head, causing a few strands of hair to fall over his brow. It made him look even more appealingly rakish.

Alas. She was helpless before him. She did not object.

The fingers that had been playing at her knee trailed upward, past the sensitive skin of her thighs, toward her core?—

And then he stopped a hairsbreadth before he made contact with her most intimate place.

“Xander!” She gasped in protest.

“As your first order as lord and commander,” he said, not completely unruffled but far more composed than Helen could hope to be, “I order you to…”

He paused, then leaned his head close to her ear. Helen held her breath, preparing to hear something deliciously salacious.

“To tell me again that you love me,” he ordered.

Her eyes fluttered shut again, and she huffed out a ghost of a laugh. Of course. The thing he’d wanted from the very beginning.

He’d won a game she hadn’t even realized he was playing.

And so, there was nothing else to do but open her eyes and smile up at him, her husband, her duke, her love.

“I love you,” she told him. “I love you even though you are the most maddening man. I’m afraid that I might even love you because you are the most maddening man. I love you when you are wicked; I love you when you are kind. I love that you protected me when I needed it, even though I was too afraid to ask. I love that you take on the burdens of those you care for without asking for anything in return because that is how you show your love. I love that you urge me to eat breakfast. I love that you frown at nearly everyone, and I love that you smile at your siblings, even when they are being difficult. I love that you smile at me. I think…I think I may love every part of you.”

As she’d spoken, his gaze had lost some of its mischief and had grown increasingly tender.

“You are mine,” he said, voice hoarse. “Mine to love. I will keep you always.”

As far as declarations of the heart went, Helen had no objections to this one. She threw her arms around his neck and dragged him down until she could whisper in his ear.

She didn’t have his talent for murmuring delightful filth and seductive phrases. But there was one thing she could say to show him that her love burned bright with desire—that it encompassed more of her than just her heart and mind. That her body was his to possess.

“Then show me, my duke,” she said. “Get rid of those clothes and show me, once and for all, what a rake—what a husband— can do to please the wife he loves.”

This was, she soon found, a ducal duty that her husband took very seriously. Even if it took all morning. Even if it took all day.

Even if it took a lifetime.