Chapter 25
“Prepare my horse.”
Harris, who had only just drawn back the curtains to let the first bruised light of dawn into the room, went still for the briefest fraction before turning fully toward him. “At once, Your Grace.”
Alexander stood at the edge of the bedchamber, one hand braced against the carved bedpost. He needed the solid oak to anchor himself to the present and not the nightmare that still clung to him.
He could still feel the violent rush of blood behind his eyes, still feel the ghost of alley damp against his face, still hear that slurred, venomous voice.
You don’t deserve her.
There had been a time when a voice like that would have been answered without hesitation, without restraint. The instinct rose in him even now, sudden and brutal. It was a cold, efficient urge to find the man and silence him permanently.
The thought settled too easily for his liking, for the man he had become. It came with a certainty that did not feel like his own, as though the man he had been before still lingered somewhere beneath the surface, urging him toward a conclusion he had not yet chosen.
Alexander pushed it back at once, his hand tightening against the bedpost. That was not reason or justice, but something older. Something he did not yet fully understand, but which felt too familiar.
Harris crossed the room briskly, his calm efficiency doing nothing to soothe the brutal restlessness pacing through Alexander’s blood. “Will you be riding out immediately, Your Grace?”
“Yes.”
Harris hesitated. “Very good, Your Grace.”
Alexander turned away from him and strode to the washstand, splashing cold water over his face with a force that bordered on punishment. It did nothing. The water ran down over his jaw and throat, shocking but insufficient.
The memory remained. A man in a dark alley. The smell of rot and drink. That ugly, breathless little triumph in the man’s voice before the blow came.
You should never have married her.
The memory sharpened, and Alexander’s hand flattened against the porcelain basin until his knuckles whitened.
Of course, it was about her. Even now, with his head still pulsing from the force of remembered pain and his body primed for action, that thought cut cleanest. The man had done it for Diana. If only he could remember who that man had been.
Behind him, Harris moved swiftly through the room, laying out dark riding clothes.
Alexander stripped and dressed quickly. Every tug of linen over skin, every button fastened, every practiced adjustment of coat and boots felt like an irritation standing between him and the only useful thing left to do.
Harris glanced at him once as he handed over his gloves. “Shall I wake the household, Your Grace?”
“No.”
“The Duchess—”
The word hit him with vicious accuracy. He had not seen her in more than a week.
He had avoided her because he had been a coward. Because once he had remembered, once the old self and the new one had collided inside him, he had not known how to stand before her.
He had delayed telling her because the remembered man in him wanted distance, but the man he had become in her presence wanted one more hour of her warmth, one more night of her softness.
He had chosen the basest possible way of handling it instead. And she had every right to hate him. But now, another emotion tore through that already unbearable knot with savage force.
I need to protect her.
His jaw hardened. “Do not wake her.”
Harris’s expression remained properly blank, but his eyes sharpened faintly. “As you wish, Your Grace.”
Alexander jammed his hands into his gloves. “Have the horse ready in the front court.”
“It shall be done.”
Harris moved toward the door, but Alexander’s voice stopped him once more. “Harris.”
The valet turned.
“If anyone asks after me,” Alexander said, the words clipped, decisive, “I have gone to Cartwright’s on urgent business.”
A beat passed.
Then Harris inclined his head. “I understand.”
When the door shut behind him, Alexander stood alone for half a breath and hated it. Hated the room, hated the bed, hated the memory of waking in darkness with Diana nowhere near him.
He seized his riding crop from the chair and strode out.
By the time he descended the front steps into the cold gray of the waking day, the groom had already brought his horse round, the animal stamping and snorting pale clouds into the sharp air.
Alexander took the reins and swung into the saddle in one fluid movement. “If the Duchess asks after me,” he said to no one in particular and everyone within hearing, “she is to be told I shall return as soon as I am able.”
Then he dug in his heels and rode.
Alexander rode hard, cutting through the chilly morning streets, unable to bear a single wasted minute between knowledge and action. Yet even as he urged the horse onward, another thought kept pace with him, darker and less manageable than fury.
Alexander rode hard, cutting through the chilly morning streets, unable to bear a single wasted minute between knowledge and action. Yet even as he urged the horse onward, another thought kept pace with him—darker, colder, and disturbingly clear.
He wanted to take matters into his own hands. To put distance between them. To remove her from the danger by removing himself from her.
His jaw tightened.
That logic was clean, efficient, and cruel in its simplicity. And he knew, with equal certainty, what it had done to her.
The memory of her composure, of the quiet loneliness she wore like silk, struck harder than the blow to the head he could not fully recall. She would not see it as protection. To her, that was abandonment.
Alexander leaned forward in the saddle, his grip tightening on the reins.
He could not make her feel that again.
Cartwright’s house stood just beyond the edge of the square where several of Alexander’s most trusted retainers lived. It was a respectable residence, tidy and elegant. Alexander reined in so sharply before the front steps that the horse tossed its head in protest.
A servant opened the door almost before he struck the knocker.
“His Grace,” the man said, startled. “Mr. Cartwright is at breakfast, but—”
“Interrupt him.”
The servant stepped aside at once.
Cartwright appeared in the morning room a moment later, napkin still in hand, his lined face sharpening with immediate concern as he took in Alexander’s expression.
“Your Grace,” he said. “What has happened?”
Alexander entered without preamble. “My memory is returning.”
Cartwright stilled. “Which memory?”
“The night I was struck.” Alexander yanked off his gloves and tossed them onto the sideboard with violence that made the silver rattle. “I almost remember who did it.”
Cartwright set the napkin down slowly. “Sit.”
“I have no intention of sitting.”
“That was not a suggestion made for your comfort.”
Alexander met the older man’s gaze and, for one sharp second, nearly snapped at him for the presumption.
Then he recognized the wisdom beneath it.
His body was all restless force at present.
If he remained standing, he would pace. If he paced, he would think too quickly and perhaps not clearly enough.
He sat.
Cartwright lowered himself into the chair opposite and leaned forward slightly, elbows to knees, the picture of grave attention. “Tell me.”
Alexander exhaled once through his nose, forcing the images into order. “I was in a dark alley. Then I heard a man’s voice behind me.” He paused, the memory dragging over his nerves like broken glass. “He had been drinking. I could hear it in him.”
Cartwright’s face did not change, but his hands tightened once against his cane.
“He said something about my Duchess,” Alexander continued, the words lower now. “That I should have stayed away from her. That I had no right. Then he struck me.”
Cartwright’s eyes narrowed. “Did you see him?”
“I can’t recall.” Alexander leaned forward. “It sounds familiar, and yet, I’m not entirely sure.”
Silence settled heavily between them.
Cartwright absorbed the information with the terrible seriousness it deserved. “You think you could recognize the man’s voice?”
Alexander’s mouth hardened. “Yes.”
Cartwright sat back slightly, studying him now. “You are in a hurry this morning.”
“I should think that obvious.”
“It is.” The older man’s voice stayed level. “More obvious still is that you are not hurrying on your own account.”
Alexander went still.
Because Cartwright was right. He had not rushed there for himself at all. He had done it for Diana. Through the nightmare, the ride, and all the fury driving him forward, she had been the true source of his urgency.
“Diana? Good God, what has happened?”
Martin’s voice reached her before the butler had even finished announcing him, warm with alarm.
She turned too quickly from the window. The movement made the room tilt for half a heartbeat and left her with no time to compose her face into anything more convincing than the frayed, weary thing it had become.
Martin stood just inside the drawing room, tall and well-made in dark clothes that fit him with easy elegance, his auburn hair brushed neatly back.
His expression was stripped of all its usual lightness now that he had caught sight of her properly.
There was genuine concern in his face, and after the past miserable days, the sight of it pierced her far more deeply than she had expected.
“I might ask the same of you,” Diana said, but the effort at dryness came out weaker than she intended, her voice lacking its usual polish. “You arrive at Rosewood House unannounced and look as though the entire city has gone to ruin.”
Martin closed the distance between them by a few steps.