Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Victoria was deeply relieved when they were finally separated from Penwike by a few feet.
Her chest heaved with quiet exhalations she did not bother to restrain.
She prided herself on being fearless, but there was something inherently malignant about that man.
It was not an exaggeration. The marquess exuded a cruel delight in the misfortune of others.
Richard’s misfortune, in particular. The very air around him seemed to hum with malice.
Victoria could still feel the chill from his gaze lingering on her skin, and the thought made her shiver anew.
“Let’s go home, Richard,” she urged, her voice unexpectedly small, and she hated that it sounded so. She had never admitted fear aloud before, and the recognition of it made her chest tighten. “I want to see Melody.”
She hoped, almost desperately, that the baby had not become a crutch for her emotions. She wanted to be strong for the child, to ensure that Melody’s world was secure and nurturing, not merely a mirror for her own anxieties.
“Me too,” he admitted, voice low but carrying a rumble of something feral beneath the restraint. “Let us go.”
Victoria could feel the simmering anger radiating from him.
She had always thought herself adept at understanding danger, at anticipating threats, but Penwike had shown her another level entirely: the danger of human malice, deliberate and intimate.
She now understood what it must feel like to be hunted not only by circumstance but by a consciously calculating enemy.
The carriage ride back to Hawksford House was quiet, and yet the silence carried a different weight than before. It was not just the absence of Penwike; it was the intimacy of confinement, the closeness of Richard’s presence, and the heat that radiated from him like a living thing.
Richard stared out the window, jaw tight, hands clenched into fists resting on his knees.
Victoria felt the heat of the carriage swell around her.
She was acutely aware of every line of his broad shoulders, every subtle shift in posture.
The anger he felt toward Penwike was tangible, a current running through the space between them, and it was almost intoxicating.
“You managed the dowagers and gossips admirably,” he said suddenly, turning toward her.
His voice, rough and edged with lingering fury, carried a note of admiration that made Victoria’s chest tighten.
“And they are right. You look wonderful in your dress. It suits you perfectly … just as everything seems to suit you.”
Victoria blinked, startled by the unexpected praise. She had expected him to comment on her composure, perhaps on how well she had handled the scrutiny, but to hear him focus on her in this way—personal, intimate—made her cheeks warm.
“Richard,” she began, a playful note creeping into her voice despite the tension, “do you always compliment others as if you’re in a schoolroom, or as if admiring freshly painted walls?”
He bristled at her teasing, the color rushing to his cheeks. “Ah. Since when are you the expert on the delivery of thanks and polite addresses, Victoria? Have we appointed experts on compliments now?”
“Of course, I am no expert,” she replied, tilting her chin with a mock arrogance. Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “But I am certainly not a novice like you.”
“Oh, really?” he countered, a half-smile tugging at his lips. “I am a novice merely because I speak honestly? Because I say what I mean?”
Victoria leaned slightly toward him, her tone teasing, voice soft but carrying a sharp edge. “Yes, but you must say it in a way that makes others believe you mean it.”
He leaned closer, his gaze darkening. “Do you think I do not?” His voice had dropped to a hoarse murmur, low enough for only her to hear.
“Perhaps you do not yet realize what I am capable of saying, or doing, to convey meaning. I am certainly adept at other methods of communication; I can make you blush with words.”
Victoria’s stomach fluttered violently, though she tried to dismiss it as nerves. She denied the rising warmth in her chest.
“I am not blushing,” she said firmly, though the lie was obvious even to herself.
The heat creeping up her neck and the rapid pulse at her temples betrayed her words.
Richard smirked, catching the subtle admission. “There you go, duchess,” he said, voice rough and commanding.
His proximity was oppressive and thrilling at once, and Victoria found herself trembling.
A charged silence hung heavy and suffocating. Victoria realized, with a mix of awe and fear, that she had never wanted more than what she felt now, more than mere freedom or security, more than domestic normalcy.
She wanted Richard, in ways she had yet to admit to herself, in ways that terrified her with their intensity.
Her lips parted slightly, and she allowed a faint sigh to escape, quickly swallowing it down, her stubbornness warring with the pull of desire.
“You can’t keep playing this game, Richard,” she whispered, voice low and insistent. “I am not someone you can simply discard, not after what … after that kiss.”
Her fingers itched to reach for him, to bridge the distance, but she restrained herself, unsure if she even had the right.
Richard’s face had shifted, the hardness of the duke—the man who could command rooms and subdue the ton—now present, serious and unyielding. His jaw clenched, his back ramrod straight, yet his eyes never left hers.
“Why, Richard?” she asked, the question raw, trembling with the weight of unspoken fears. “Why marry me if you always intended to leave me for a year? Why kiss me with such passion, only to vanish afterward?”
He remained silent as he tugged his gaze away from hers, staring ahead, jaw tight, his hands clasped in his lap as if restraining something far stronger than temper. The silence stretched, almost unbearable, and Victoria’s heart pounded with a mixture of dread and anticipation.
“You have always known about the feud, Victoria,” he finally said, voice low, almost hoarse. “I was honest about what could be expected. What you did not know … you may have gleaned from whispers. The feud is endless, stubborn. Unrelenting.”
Victoria’s breath caught. “I know only the surface of it, Richard. Generations of conflict … still alive. I do not understand why it would make you leave.”
“I am the last in the Hawksford line,” he admitted quietly, almost painfully. “My brothers are dead because of this feud. The Penwikes have no intention of dropping it. It is survival. Murderous survival. I could not risk you … or Melody … in the line of fire.”
A shiver ran through her. She had understood only superficially before, imagining danger in abstract terms. Now she felt the harsh reality of it, and it terrified her. His absence had been a measure of protection, a barrier between her and the threat she had barely perceived until tonight.
“I have taken precautions,” he continued, voice quieter now, tired but resolute. “Men are watching. The house. The estate. The grounds. I will not let Penwike, or anyone else, hurt you.”
“You should have told me,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “That is not a matter for secrecy. It means something serious … something I deserve to know.”
He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it in frustration, and for a moment, Victoria wanted nothing more than to reach out, to touch the strands and feel the warmth of him.
“It is not easy to discuss an ages-old feud, Victoria. At the time, I did not know you. Not fully. All I knew was the marriage, not the heart. I thought distance would keep you safe. That was the best favor I could give.”
She arched an eyebrow, challenging yet tender. “Is that so? And now? Why do you still avoid me?”
His eyes, dark and piercing, fixed on hers.
In them, she saw the storm of his emotions: melancholy, hunger, desperation, and a longing he could not fully voice.
She felt her own heartbeat echo in tandem, realizing how much power he held over her, not through force, but through his presence, his truth, his undeniable intensity.
For a long moment, they sat in the quiet intimacy of the carriage, each wrapped in thoughts and feelings that had no space for polite conversation, no room for social masks.
The tension was thick, palpable, and dangerous, yet Victoria found herself leaning into it, needing it, craving it, afraid of it, and drawn to it all at once.
She did not speak immediately, letting the silence hold them.
Now, there was only Richard, the man who had kissed her, who had protected her, who had revealed a world of vulnerability she had not dared to imagine …
And who now, simply by being near, made her feel fiercely, terrifyingly alive.
Victoria felt her pulse hammering in her chest as Richard leaned closer, the space in the carriage suddenly impossibly small.
Every inch of him pressed toward her, heat radiating in a way that made her skin ache.
She tried to steady her breathing, tried to reason that this was just the intensity of the evening.
But she knew it was more. So much more.
His gaze caught hers, dark, smoldering, and utterly unrelenting. For a moment, she forgot the dangers outside the carriage, the shadow of Penwike, the careful facade of propriety.
There was only him. Only the way his presence consumed her, the way his nearness made her pulse quicken, and her thoughts scatter.
“Victoria …” His voice was low, raw, every word climbing through her body like fire.
“Time … distance … it was supposed to matter. That absence was meant to give me reason. To keep me … unattached. To show the Penwike that you’re not a target he could harm to punish me. And yet … you have undone me.”
Her breath caught. She couldn’t look away, and she didn’t want to. There was something in his eyes, a storm, a hunger, a vulnerability that made her pulse spike.
“I did not leave because I did not care,” he continued, each word deliberate, heavy. “You were always beautiful. But I could not … claim you then. Not really. You were … someone to be kept at arm’s length. Something proper.”
He reached for her face, both hands lifting her jaw, and Victoria gasped softly at the warmth of his touch. His thumbs traced along her skin, firm, grounding, and yet somehow light, teasing. She could feel his intensity in every line of him, every muscle coiled just beneath the surface.
“You must understand … from the very moment I met you, I desired you,” he admitted, his voice dropping to a husky whisper that seemed meant only for her.
“I restrained myself because I … because I wanted to honor the line between us. But now … I cannot. You are in my house, in my study, in my thoughts, in my dreams. I wake thinking of you. I sleep thinking of you. You … distract me in ways I cannot stop. Ways I do not want to.”
Victoria’s chest tightened. Every word he spoke set her skin ablaze. She could feel it in her fingertips, in her pulse, in the low hum between them.
Her lips parted slightly. “I … I—” she began, only to falter beneath the weight of his gaze.
“You are everywhere I want to be,” he whispered, leaning closer still, his voice vibrating through her. “I want you against me, Victoria. I want you beneath my hands, beneath my lips. I cannot pretend I do not … cannot stop myself from wanting you.”
Her knees went weak. Every thought, every shred of caution melted into heat and need. She wanted to deny it, to hold herself apart, but the raw intensity in his eyes, the low growl in his voice, made it impossible.
“It’s too dangerous,” he admitted, a shiver in his own words. “But I have no choice … not when you are here. You make it impossible to maintain … control.”
The world had narrowed to him, to the heat of his hands on her face, to the relentless pull between them.
She wanted to warn herself, to remind herself of the feud, of Penwike, of everything else, but she couldn’t.
She wanted him.
She wanted him, and that craving was as overwhelming as the fear.
And then, without another word, he closed the distance completely. His lips pressed to hers, firm, claiming, searing, and Victoria gasped into the kiss.
And in that instant, everything she thought she knew about herself, about propriety, about control … ceased to exist.