Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
L ucien arrived at Red Acre Lodge. He pounded his fist on the front door, only to barge inside when the butler opened it, looking startled.
“Your Grace?”
Lady Isabel was already in the hallway, her brow furrowed in confusion. “What is going on?First Edwina bolts in here like there is a fire beneath her?—”
“Where is she?” Lucien growled.
“That is what I am telling you! She ran right back out that door as though hell hounds were snapping at herfeet! She went to the forest to look for Nicholas, but I tried to assure her that all was normal. He takes these walks as per his physician’s orders.”
“You let her go alone?” Lucien demanded angrily, turning on his heel.
He raced out of the house, towards the forest, his skin clammy with both the effects of too much brandy and panic.
Heavens, please let her be all right. Let them both be all right.
If she was hurt…
If it was because of his letting her walk away…
Lucien tore into the forest, shouting his wife’s name.
“Nicholas?” Edwina croaked as she sank to her knees, shaking.
She could not lose her brother. No. Not her big brother. She had come too close to losing him too many times before.
Her hand shook as she grabbed his shoulder, giving him a push to roll him over. His eyes were closed, his mouth slack. Her heart stopped in her chest at the sight of a deep gash cutting through his forehead to the side, right above his eye. Blood dripped into his hair, making him look ghastlier.
Her stomach lurched, but she shook him harder, relief flooding her when hiseyes fluttered. They barely opened, but it was enough for her.
He is alive.
She sobbed harder as she cupped water in her palm and let it trickle over his face, into his mouth, over his wound.
“Nicholas,” she said urgently, thinking of Lord Stockton’s threat. “Nick, you must get up.”
Her brother groaned, peeling his eyes open. His face was as white as bone, and heblinked at her, confused. “Winnie?”
“We must go, Nick,” she repeated, tugging on his hand, as if she was a little girl again, trying to persuade him to be mischievous with her. “Please.”
Confused, Nicholas let himself be pulled up, frowning as he squinted around.
The momenthe was on his feet, he staggered and leaned heavily on her. He groaned again, pressing a hand to his head. He winced when it came back red.
“Heavens, what has happened?” he muttered. “I… I was taking a walk and then… well, I recall falling, but that is all. I must have hurt my head. Oh, Winnie, everything is spinning.”
“You have cut yourself rather badly,” Edwina explained, trying to pull him along. “Come, wemust get you back to the house before?—”
“Oh, Lord Montgomery.” The voice that echoed through the trees was not one she recognized. “You should have stayed down.”
A twisted, snarling face emerged from the branches, hands wet as he aimed a pistol. Rage colored his cheeks and hardened his eyes, and Edwina gasped in fear.
“Lord Stockton sends his regards, My Lord.”
“And the Duke of Stormhold sends his,” Lucien’s voice came from behind the man.
Edwina’s eyes darted past the stranger, widening at the sight of her husband. Pain and relief flooded her chest, and she let out a sob. Nicholas was still leaning heavily on her, but she was too busy staring at Lucien, who was staring down the stranger.
“Perhaps I shall deliver mine in person, though,” Lucien purred, before he slammed hiselbow into the man’s temple, felling him immediately.
Lord Stockton’s man crumpled to the ground, the pistol knocked out of his hand. Lucien instantly dove for it, his eyes briefly meeting Edwina’s. Behind him, two footmen hurried forward and crouched down to pick up the fallen man.
“Hold him in the drawing room until the constables arrive,” Lucien ordered.
The command in his voice made Edwina remember their last moment together and shiver with the echoes of pleasure. Pain surged alongside her desire.
Lucien turned to her, his eyes darting between her and her brother. “I will help youtake him back to the house.”
It was not a request, but Edwina nodded regardless.
Silently, the two managed to get a staggering Nicholas back into the parlor and lowered him into a chair that Isabel had already pulled up.
“Oh, good Heavens!” she cried, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Oh, look at your face!”
“My face? Aunt Isabel, I have only cut my head.”
“Yes, but—Oh! There, there, the physician shall make it all better. Do you feel dizzy? How many of me can you see?”
“Well, with the speed of your questions, there may as well be two of you,” Nicholas grumbled.
Edwina was pleased, despite what they had gone through, to hear him joking with their aunt. When had she last heard him crack a joke?
She was so aware of Lucien hovering behind them that when the constables arrived to arrest Stockton’s man, she only knew by her husband’s absence. The physician was stitching Nicholas’s wound, and she forced herself to focus on that instead of Lucien. But then he was back at her side, his body close to hers.
“Come with me,” he said. His voice, quiet and insisting, had her shivering.
She hesitated for a moment before his hand grabbed her waist. Edwina kept her eyes on her aunt, who was fussing over Nicholas, and she stepped back into Lucien’s embrace, both despising herself for wanting it and knowing that she could not keep on denying herself.
“Do not make me beg,” Lucien murmured. “Simply come with me so we may speak privately.”
After another moment of not knowing whether she aimed to torture herself or him with the delay, Edwina followed him into one of the studies, away from the rest of the household. He closed the door with a resounding, firm click.
“Lucien—”
“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “Allow me to speak first. Heavens, I hate this distance between us.”
He gestured between them, but neither of them moved closer. Edwina used the opportunity to study him. His shirt was wrinkled and not fully buttoned. His hair was in disarray, and she could not work out how long it had been since he had shaved.
Disheveled and desperate as he was, Edwina found herself growing hot.
This is what our time apart has done to him.
“Edwina,” he began again. “I have been a fool, and I do not need Jasper to remind me once more. I know it, clear as day. I never should have pushed you away, nor goaded you with the possibility of you staying at the townhouse. This last week has been… torturous. I have never felt such despair before. I cannot lose you, Edwina, and I am sorry for all of it.”
“You cannot lose me,” she acknowledged. “But can you confide in me? Can you trust me?”
Lucien winced. “I am trying my best. Let me start with the biggest truth I have tried to protect you from. I am the way I am with my uncle and my cousins because of my aunt. I tried to downplay our relationship, but I absolutely abhorred her, and she hated me. When I was seventeen, I found out that Katherine had been slowly poisoning me, as she had my father, causing his death. It was not some romantic story of him following my mother, but the work of his calculating, jealous sister-in-law.
“And then she did the same to me, trying to clear the way for Allan to become the Duke of Stormhold, so her line would retain the power. I struggled with accepting my cousins and uncle because of their love for her and their desire to be close to me. I never saw how the two could co-exist, and I ran myself ragged trying to understand it. For years, I have used my trauma as an excuse to keep everybody away. You said I keep you at arm’s length, and it is true, but I refuse to use it as an excuse anymore. As soon as I realized you were in danger, I rode as fast as I could because—Edwina, I cannot lose you, I cannot.”
He grew agitated, the look on his face one of utter devastation and vulnerability she had rarely seen on him.
“Edwina, I love you. I realized it when I saw the Viscount Rothmond celebrate his daughter. I wished to do the same for my own daughter, one day. I realized it when I saw the Duke and Duchess of Silverton laughing together. I realized it when I was deep in my cups this last week, because no matter how many bottoms of bottles I saw, you were there throughout it all, a resounding melody draped in jasmine and rose-scented oil, driving me to insanity. So that is why I look like this—because I cannot go on without you. I do not wish for us to live separately, Edwina. I cannot even bear to sleep separately anymore.
“Come back to hate me, come back to argue with me or to call me a thousand terrible things, but just come back. Come back home with me, and I shall make it up to you ten times over. A hundred times, a thousand times…”
“Lucien.”
Edwina’s voice was hard, yet that one word wobbled on her tongue, desperation lacing it. She could not figure out her thoughts—nothing existed past that terrible longing that had seized her this past week. His story, what he had gone through, she knew it was only the surface, and he would slowly peel back all the layers. But for now, she could begin to understand.
It was all she had ever asked for.
Her silence stretched on, until Lucien nodded, swallowing.
“I understand,” he whispered. “I shall check on the constables.”
He made to leave, but Edwina flung herself at him, her arms wrapping around his waist. She clung tightly to him, breathing in the scent of brandy, the forest, and something so uniquely him that she moaned softly into his shirt. Beneath the thin layer, she felt every hard muscle.
She lifted her face to his. “Lucien, I think I realized a long time ago that I love you. However, I am not a woman who always knows when or how to lower her defenses. Yet, for you, I want to lower them. I want to meet you halfway if you shall indulge me. I love you, and it was all I could think about when that man aimed his pistol at us. All I could think about was you. All I ever think of is you.”
Lucien’s lips curled into a smile as he stroked his thumb over her cheek. She leaned into his palm, smiling right back.
He walked her backward, further and further into the room, until her back hit the wall, and she saw that usual smirk tug at his mouth.
“I have missed doing this,” he murmured.
“Doing what?” she whispered as his thumb pulled on her lower lip.
“This,” he told her, and then his mouth descended on hers, claiming her with a kiss that stole the breath from her lungs.
It was a kiss for every day they had spent apart, a kiss to smooth over the words they had exchanged and would exchange when they had both rested.
But for now, all Edwina wished for was to be close to her husband once again.
“Is that all you have missed?” she gasped, keeping her voice as quiet as she could as he cupped her face, angling her head so he could kiss down her neck.
“Heavens, no,” Lucien muttered, tugging down her bodice. “I have missed this.”
He went down on his knees and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her breasts, which he bared just enough to do that.
“And this.” He suckled on a nipple for a moment before he leaned back on his heels and stood up, pressing her against the wall. “And I have missed this.”
With a quirk of his eyebrow, he spun her around and ground his crotch against her backside.
“Well?” he murmured, his hands splaying over her backside, spreading her, lifting her skirts. “Have you missed such a thing?”
“Desperately,” Edwina whispered.
Lucien chuckled, pressing another kiss to one of her favorite spots—the nape of her neck. She leaned back into him, arching her back as he rolled his hips against hers and freed his length from the confines of his breeches. She gasped softly at the feel of him nudging her entrance.
And when he finally slid into her, she let him cover her mouth with his hand to muffle her sounds.
“You have always been a terribly noisy thing, have you not?” he purred in her ear as he began to thrust into her. He groaned, the sound reverberating through her as he kissed her shoulder. “I have missed this awfully.”
Edwina clawed at the wall, rocking back until she was the one quickening their pace. There would be more chances to make slow love, but for now, she craved his roughness.
Her walls rippled as she drew him back into her with every thrust. Lucien thrust his hips forward, and she pushed back, and they found a rhythm.
“Oh—please,” she gasped, her hips rocking back as Lucien kept her flush against him, his own hips jerking slightly.
His hand grabbed her breasts, pinching and kneading, and Edwina could barely hold back her cries.
Their pleasure built—an ache between Edwina’s legs, a pressure in her sternum—and Lucien’s muffled, low groans only spurred her on.
“Ah—ah, Edwina,” he moaned quietly. “Come with me. I must—I cannot—Heavens, I have missed you.”
She enjoyed hearing him say that over and over.
“Let us never part from one another again,” he grunted, slamming into her so hard that she feared they would be heard.
She linked her fingers with his, right over her breast. “Never,” she swore. “I am yours, Lucien.”
And it was that declaration that had him toppling over the edge, and she followed close behind at the feel of his seed spilling into her. She gasped, her moans broken and high, as she writhed on his length, her back arching.
She shuddered through the aftermath of climax, until Lucien pulled out of her and tucked himself back into his breeches.
“I do not have a towel to clean you with,” he muttered, frowning. But then he turned her around, his wicked gaze meeting hers. “I do believe I shall have to resort to another method to clean you thoroughly.”
“Oh?” Edwina giggled, pulling him down for another kiss.
His lips met hers, even as he was already sinking to his knees.
And when his tongue entered her, Edwina could barely clap a hand over her mouth fast enough.
Ten days later, Lucien stalked Lord Stockton to the nondescript house he had been staying in. He had gone into hiding after the failed attempt on Nicholas’s life, and despite him still being in London, he had evaded Lucien rather well.
Until now.
“Your Grace,” Lord Stockton said, stumbling back against his desk. His eyes were wide as Lucien merely rolled up his sleeves, smiling darkly. “Your Grace, I am certain we can discuss?—”
“Shut up, Stockton,” Lucien growled. “You threatened my wife, endangered her, and you attempted to kill my brother-in-law. I do believe I am right when I say my plan for you is barely half of what you truly deserve.”
He let his anger overtake him, thinking of the last ten sleepless nights he had either spent in Edwina’s embrace or scouring the streets for Stockton—only to now see the man be reduced to a simpering fool.
“Do be clever now,” he drawled as he grabbed the Earl by the collar. “Is that not what you told my wife? When I walk out of here, I expect you to heed your own advice.”
Before Lord Stockton could say anything, Lucien slammed his fist into the side of the man’s face, sending him reeling. The Earl would have crumpled had Lucien not gripped him with his other hand.
“You are a coward,” Lucien hissed, spitting on him right before he landed another blow.
He heard the clack of teeth, and Lord Stockton cried out in pain.
Lucien barely felt the throbbing in his fist. All he could see was Edwina’s bone-white, fearful face as she told him about Lord Stockton cornering her in the market.
“You will never, ever lay another finger on my wife.”
Lord Stockton whimpered, nodding.
“Say it,” Lucien snarled, wrapping his hand around the man’s throat. He slammed him back against the desk, looming over him. “ Say it. ”
“I-I shall never lay another finger on Her Grace!” Lord Stockton cried out.
Lucien smiled slowly, pleased. And then he let his fists rain down on the man who had tried to take everything from him. Punch after punch, he released the pent-up anger, the tension, the pitiful, drunken spiral. It all tumbled out until his knuckles were split and his heart hammered in his chest.
Until Lord Stockton was nothing but a heap on the floor, cowering as blood streamed down his bruised face.
Lucien stood back and landed a swift kick to the man’s ribs. Lord Stockton groaned, curling in on himself.
“You made a mistake by coming after my family, Stockton—one I know you will not repeat.” Lucien kicked him in the ribs again.
“P-Please, Your Grace, have mercy.”
“Oh, I have already. Mercy is me not killing you. Mercy is me telling you this—leave England forever. Do not attempt to contact, swindle, or infiltrate any of my ventures, family, or land, or I shall scatter all of your limbs across Mayfair in such tiny pieces that the constables will not be able to detect that it is you. Understood?”
“Understood, Your Grace.” Lord Stockton nodded frantically.
And by the time Lucien had walked out of the small, plain townhouse, he felt a great deal lighter.
Everything would be perfect, and he realized he could have that life he had not let himself dream of since he was a boy.
When he arrived home, Lucien pulled his wife in his arms and pressed kisses to the nape of her neck.
Edwina giggled as she spun around to face him. Her eyes flicked down to his bloody, split knuckles, and she winced, but she already knew what he had left the house to do. Soon enough, she would fuss over him, but he wished to distract her.
“I do believe we have an opera to attend soon,” he said thoughtfully. “May I take you, my Duchess? I do know how you wished to be courted.”
“I do not need to be courted, but I would never say no to attending the opera.”
“Tonight,” he murmured.
“Tomorrow,” she corrected. “For I am hosting Nicholas and Aunt Isabel tonight as an apology for…” She blushed. “Possibly overhearing some of what we did in that study.”
Lucien could only laugh. “Fine, then. But I cannot be blamed for any noises they might hear while they are staying here.”
“What are you promising?” she asked, her voice teasingly low.
Lucien kissed her lightly, pulling back to gaze down at her. “For you, Edwina, the entire world.”
“I shall settle for just my husband and a fine dinner tonight.” She kissed him again. “I love you, Lucien.”
“And I love you, Edwina.”