Chapter 19
M ost people feared large, sturdy, muscular brutes who bellowed and cursed.
In reality, there was nothing more terrifying or dangerous than an inscrutable man’s silence. When confronted with blustering and bellowing a lady knew precisely what she was up against. A deathly quiet was altogether different. It was ominous. Uncertain. Much like when a person came face to face with a lethal snake poised to strike and waited in stiff, dreaded anticipation for the inevitable venomous bite.
That’d been the only real valuable lesson Opal learned from the Duke of Devonshire.
The current silence still reigned in her sire’s opulent carriage, from the moment one of Locke’s kindly footmen closed the door behind Opal, Flint, and their father, till now.
Spoiling for a fight, she was waiting and ready for the duke’s assault when it did come.
“You look like a slut, Opal.”
She knew how she looked. Her father hadn’t even afforded her the opportunity to change into her traveling clothes. Instead, he’d marched her from the foyer, back outside into the icy cold, without even the benefit of a cloak, and into his obscenely sizeable carriage.
At her side, Flint, who stared out the window at the passing roadway, tensed.
Furtively, she touched the side of her brother’s rigid arm.
Queerly numb after Strathearn’s rejection, Opal discovered herself immune from the pain life might throw at her. It was hard to care about the insults the duke hurled Opal’s way or even what the future held, at this point. When one’s heart remained as spectacularly broken as hers, fear ceased to be.
“If you were so worried over my appearance, Your Grace,” Opal spoke with a calm Devonshire would detest, “perhaps you should have allowed me to change into proper attire for the carriage ride.”
As anticipated, a vein bulged and pulsed across the duke’s forehead. “And give you the chance to meet your lover for another tupping?” The duke snorted. “I think not.”
Her lover.
Locke.
That’s all he’ll ever be. Her former lover, at that.
Crippling pain threatened to drag her to the carriage floor, sobbing. She’d been wrong; she was and would always be filled with the crushing weight of sorrow at losing Locke.
You can’t really lose what you never really had…
The Duke of Devonshire ground the bottom of his diamond-studded cane upon the floor in a grating beat, commanding Opal’s attention.
“It behooves me to point out, dearest daughter, it’s not your whorish hair, but rather your sinful and swollen lips.”
Unbidden, her fingers flew to the place where Locke worshipped that same flesh her father now shamed her for. Opal shrunk into the corner of the carriage to make herself as small as possible—feeling as small as a woman possibly could.
A master marksman when it came to inflicting maximum pain, the duke wasn’t even close to finished. “Take greater care with your next lover,” he sneered. “You have your current one’s marks on your neck, too.”
A sharp snap quieted the last of His Grace’s derisive jibe. There came a flutter as Flint settled his cloak about Opal’s shoulders.
Stricken, Opal looked at Flint to silently thank him. Before she could, the duke’s short, scornful laugh filtered around them.
“ Touching ,” His Grace mocked. “But I’d say you’re a tad late when it comes to the role of protective brother.”
Flint’s face was pained as she’d never before witnessed.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Flint,” she said passionately. Unlike before, Opal’s willful display had nothing to do with annoying the duke, and everything to do with bolstering her brother.
“No, he hasn’t,” their blackhearted sire shockingly concurred. “Either way it doesn’t matter if you’re bearing some man’s bastard. The Duke of Ravenscourt won’t be deterred. He has legitimate issue, enough bastards of his own, and a taste for debauchery. In fact, he’ll most likely be pleased that another man’s broken you in for your wedding n—”
Flint let out a guttural roar. Surging across the carriage, he grabbed their father by his throat, and drove the back of his head into the wall.
Opal cried out.
“You bloody, frigging, shit-fire,” Flint hissed. “I have allowed you to insult and hurt my sisters too many times. It is done, old man.” He gave their father a shake. “ Done !” he thundered.
The duke wheezed and scrabbled with his son’s fingers, but Flint exercised a superhuman strength.
Oh, God.
A mad glint lit her brother’s eyes unnaturally dark.
He’ll kill him .
“You have to stop this, Flint,” Opal entreated. “Please, let him go. It is not worth it.”
“It is to me.” Flint had the crazed look and voice of a man possessed. “You will not speak to her that way ever again. Do you understand me?”
Their father’s death-like gurgling filled the confined space.
Flint handled the older man with the same ease he would a just-caught chicken. “ Do you understand ?” he raged.
Opal shook. She’d been wrong. There was something terrifying in seeing her quiet, kind, smiling brother fly into a homicidal fury.
“Flint, he can’t speak. Release him,” Opal said quietly, with false calm.
His cheeks mottled; the Duke of Devonshire’s bulging eyes moved wildly between Opal and Flint.
“Flint,” she said with a greater sense of urgency. “you’ll kill him.”
Her brother slackened his hold, but remained pinning Devonshire the way an entomologist might spear an insect. “He deserves to die.”
She agreed, but to concur would see their father dead.
“I need you!” she repeated a third plea with a greater urgency. “And if you do this, then I will have no one. Please, do not do this.” Her voice finally broke. “P-Please.”
Flint loosened his grip even more, but still did not release him.
A blast filled the air. The carriage lurched and then stopped with such ferocity Opal had to dig her feet into the floor to keep in place.
The duke slumped.
Then, there was only quiet; quiet and the shallow rasps of her and Flint’s breathing, and choking and gasping from their father.
For a horrifying moment, Opal scoured the duke’s person for the fatal gunshot wound.
“Stand down!”
Stand down.
Relief brought her eyes sliding shut. That shot had come from outside. On the heel of that was the realization—they’d been stopped by a highwayman.
A half-mad giggle escaped her.
Funny that, a highwayman had spared her brother from an eventual noose.
For his part, Flint remained the model of composure. He peeled back the gold curtain and viewed the display outside like he might a production at Covent Garden Theatre.
His brows lifted slightly.
Inversely, the duke struggled still to bring his breathing under control.
“I say, you cannot do this, sir,” His Grace’s driver, Thomas, called out indignantly. “This is the Duke of Devonshire’s carriage.”
“Well, the Duke of Strathearn has business with the occupants in His Grace’s carriage.”
Opal went stock still.
“Locke,” she whispered. Her heart clamored.
As if he’d heard her whisper, the door suddenly opened, and Locke was there.
His features haggard, Locke took her in from head to heel.
“Opal,” he greeted, his voice thick and hoarse.
“Wh-What is the m-meaning of this, Strathearn?” her father barked, puffing and blowing.
Opal, too, struggled to breathe.
Flint jerked their sire back on the bench. “Shut up, Devonshire.”
In a deliberate slap in the face to the other duke, Strathearn addressed the younger man. “Lord Linley, I’ve come to speak with your sister, Lady Opal. May I—?”
Opal’s father sputtered. “You m-may certainly n-not !”
Once when she was in Paris, she’d attended a tennis match. Much as she’d done at that thrilling match, Opal whipped her head back in forth in this most horrific of games that threatened to see Flint earn the duke’s wrath.
“You may, Strathearn,” Flint said, clearly relishing the power over the old duke. He cleared his throat. “That is if Opal wishes to speak with you.”
The trio of gentlemen finally fell quiet; they looked at Opal.
Her heart thundering, she managed to nod.
Locke looped his hands at her waist, and gently lifting her from the conveyance, he set her on her feet; never once did he take his eyes from Opal.
Her father scrambled out with the ease of a man thirty years his junior. Flint was immediately on him. He caught the duke and shoved him against the carriage. “I said they can speak, Devonshire,” he gritted out.
The Duke of Devonshire thrashed against his son’s stronger hold. “My God, Linley, you are my heir, but you won’t see a goddamned pence until you’re twenty-one. Nay, longer!”
Flint smirked.
Devonshire frothed at the mouth like a rabid dog. “I’ll cut when you can access your portion of the estates. You’re done at Oxford. You’ll be the only duke no one wants an alliance—”
“You can do all those things, Devonshire,” Locke said calmly. “But I promise you won’t make your son a beggar until he reaches his majority.” He addressed Flint next. “Lord Linley, be it funding your education or any other form of assistance, financial or otherwise, you have my full and unflagging support.”
Opal felt her pulse in her throat. This is who Locke was. Composed amidst chaos. Fearless when faced with the Devil. Savior to the Carmichael siblings. He’d go head to toe with a ruthless lord, and promise to financially care for and support that ruthless lord’s son.
Silently, Locke extended an elbow to Opal. She rested trembling fingers upon his sleeve and allowed him to escort her away. While they made the walk, emotion threatened to overcome her. He truly doubted she could possibly love him? My God, Locke made it impossible to not fall in love with him each and every time they were together.
When several paces were between them and their small audience, Locke stopped.
They spoke at the same time.
“Opal,”
“Thank you, Your Grace, for—”
Locke brushed off her apology. “Please, don’t,” he said gruffly. “You never have to thank me, Opal and you never, ever have to ‘Your Grace’ me. In fact, I’d prefer if you did not.”
“Regardless, you have my eternal gratitude.” And he always would. “I…what are you d-doing here?” she finally asked the question that needed to be asked.
His expression grew strained. “You didn’t tell me about Ravenscourt.”
Oh .
Opal scrunched her toes up inside her slippers. “That is why you’re h-here?” Her voice faltered.
Had he come to save her or scold her?
Locke opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.
“I didn’t lie, Locke!”
His shoulders slumped. “Is that why you believe I followed you?” he whispered. “To call you out as a liar?” The column of his throat moved.
“I…” Opal turned her palms up. “I don’t know why you’re here.”
“God, I am an utter blackguard.” He swiped a hand over his face.
“You are not, Your Grace. You are—”
Another spasm rippled along Locke’s jawline. “ Please , don’t call me Your Grace,” he begged again, his voice ragged. “I want to be ‘Locke’ to you. Why didn’t you tell me about Ravenscourt?”
“Well…” Opal clasped her hands and stared at them. “It did not seem to matter.”
Ah, he’d come as her savior. Because Locke without fail always came to the rescue of the Carmichael siblings.
“Not matter?” he whispered. “ Not matter ? Opal, I returned to the household to find you, because I had a confession to make, but you were gone.” Emotion blazed in his eyes. “In the stables, I lied to you . And mine was far more egregious than any transgression I’ve committed in my life. It’s one I’ll spend the rest of forever atoning for. That is, if you’ll allow me?”
Her brow dipped. “I don’t…” She shook her head.
“There is a woman,” he explained on a rush. “Not long ago, she professed her love for me.”
Opal gripped a fistful of her borrowed cloak.
This is why he’d rebuffed her.
“And Opal?” Locke continued through her dawning horror. “I understand precisely what you were saying to me in the stables, because I am even more madly in love with her than she could ever be with me.”
Over his broad shoulder, she sent Flint a desperate look. He’d become her protector this day. Now she silently implored him to rescue her a second time. She needed him more than ever.
Where before he’d extricated Opal from further hurt at their father’s hands, now Flint stood inscrutable. He remained holding the duke in place, and leaving Opal alone to wade through her misery.
Their father, however, like the sadist he was, gleefully took in Opal’s abject misery.
Locke gently cupped her shoulders. “Opal, you said…”
“You don’t have to do th-this.” She was torturously aware of what she’d told him back at his estate. “I understand.” Her voice trembled and she prayed he attributed it to the cold. “ Please, don’t say a word more .” She meant to assure him, instead, she begged.
A glimmer sparkled in his eyes. “You do?”
She nodded miserably.
Alas, Locke would put her through this living hell.
“I love her with all I am and all I’ll ever be. Opal, I will do absolutely anything for her. I exist solely to be her protector, defender, her best friend, her partner, her lover. Her husband,” he said hoarsely.
Opal shredded the skin of her inside cheek between her teeth and welcomed the pain. He’s punishing me for having deceived him.
Through her borrowed cloak, Locke rubbed the pads of his thumbs in quixotic circles “Her happiness, Opal, matters more to me than the air I breathe,” he spoke with a gentleness that nearly sent her plummeting to her knees. “I’ll find a way to climb to the heavens and return with stars just to see her smile.”
And she knew Locke, the Duke of Strathearn, could and would do so because that was the power he held and the strength with which she knew he’d loved. A light and joy the likes of which she’d never before seen in him, even in the throes of his merriest days, transformed the contours of his face.
Oh, God. What to say to this? What to respond or answer when, if she did, she’d crumple before him and wail like a banshee at the moon above.
Her cheeks burned from the night’s icy hold. Then, she realized— I am crying. She had no pride left, nor did she want it. She wanted nothing; only him, this man whom she’d never have.
Opal looked to her brother once more for salvation. As if beyond frustrated, Flint rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Opal,” Locke murmured. “I—”
She couldn’t take any more. “Th-that makes sense. Th-thank you for coming this way to tell me, L-Locke. I-I would have u- understood.” But it would have and it was killing her slowly and violently like an insidious poison.
Locke dropped his hands from her. “I haven’t finished.”
Odd, she’d die if he touched her while continuing to talk about his true love, and also wanted to die from the loss of that same tou—.
Locke fell to his knees upon the cold, hard ground.
Struck dumb, Opal stared at the top of his head. What was he…?
Then, stretching his arms out upon the old Roman road, Locke bowed his head as if in prayer. He lay before her in reverent supplication. “Opal, my love, my heart, I cannot bear the thought of you with another…”
A sob burst from her lips; she buried her fist against her mouth.
“I lay before you, Opal,” he murmured. “Begging you, pleading with you, beseeching you to have me as your husband.”
Opal’s shoulders shook from boundless joy. “ Me ? I’m the w-woman?”
In the background, her brother let out a sound of exasperation. “Oh, for God’s sake, Opal. Who else would it be?”
At last, Locke lifted his head. “Yes, Ma raison de vivre .” My reason for being . “Who else would it be?” His eyes danced with a tender, gentle mirth, and so much love it stole her breath away. “If that wasn’t clear, my heart, then I’ve made a muck of my prop—”
“I love you!” Laughing and crying, Opal launched herself full force into Locke’s arms. He easily caught her to him and held her close.
“God, Opal,” he buried a kiss against her temple, “I love you so bloody much. It’s you. It’s always been you. It will only ever be you.”
She lifted tear-filled eyes to his and found his shimmered.
Opal captured his face gently between her hands. “Only us .”
Locke bobbed his head shakily. “O-Only us,” he promised, his voice rich with emotion.
As one, they found one another’s lips, in a kiss to seal their vow.
The End