Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
“ Y our Grace--are you alright?” The butler stared at Dorian with alarm the moment he crossed the threshold of his London townhouse. “You look as if you were in a fight!”
“I wasn’t in a fight,” Dorian slurred, swaying back and forth on the spot. “I was just--” hiccup “--drinking at the club! And then I attempted to walk home, because I could not find my--” hiccup “--driver! The carriage is lost, I tell you!”
The butler frowned at Dorian, then glanced over his shoulder into the dark night. “I am sure the driver is looking for you, Your Grace,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to arrive home at any moment worried out of his mind.”
“There’s nothing to w-worry about,” Dorian hiccuped again. “I’m fine!”
“My lord… you are clearly not fine.”
The butler didn’t usually take such liberties, but as he helped Dorian out of his jacket, it was clear that things had gotten bad enough that he was finally taking charge. “You have been coming home drunk every night for the past few days. Not only is it not suitable to your rank , but it is downright worrisome! The staff and I are deeply concerned for your wellbeing, especially now that Her Grace is gone, and we think--”
“Do not mention Her Grace to me again,” Dorian snarled, suddenly and irrationally angry. His butler took a step back, his eyes widening. “I am going to my study.”
Turning abruptly, Dorian marched away from his butler, leaving him looking confused and guilty. Dorian knew he would feel bad for his behavior in the morning, once he sobered up. But for now, he could not bear to hear the man talk about his wife. It was too painful.
When he reached his study, Dorian immediately poured himself another drink. He threw back the brown liquor, then set his hands on the sideboard and tried to catch his breath.
You’re drunk, a voice said behind him, making Dorian nearly jump out of his skin. Whirling around, he saw no one. The study was dark--he hadn’t lit any candles--but he could still tell, even in the gloom, that no one was there.
The only person he could see was the painted portrait of his father, above the desk.
“Ahh, so you’ve finally decided to start speaking to me,” Dorian said, a cold smile licking along his mouth. “I really must be drunk then. That, or I’m finally losing my mind.”
I wouldn’t be surprised, the portrait said, without moving its lips. It runs in the family.
“Liliana didn’t lose her mind!” Dorian shouted. “She wasn’t depressed or hysterical or mad! She was just miserable married to a man who abused her. She showed me the bruises ! You would have killed yourself, too, if you had no escape from someone who treated you thus.”
The portrait just seemed to sneer down at him. Many women have married men they didn’t like. Not all of them were so weak as to destroy themselves. Not all of them were so disobedient.
“If anyone in our family was out of his mind, it was you,” Dorian snapped. “You were the one who was cruel to us for no reason, who treated mother as if she were lower than a dog. You are the one who should have been locked up in Bedlam.”
His father’s portrait laughed. It wasn’t your sister I was referring to, you know.
Dorian glared up into his father’s cold, loveless eyes. “Of course it was. You made a speech about it at her funeral! About how she had always been weak in the head, how you had suspected there was something wrong with her, even when she was a child. It was all hogwash, of course! She was perfectly sane and normal before you married her off against her will. But you slandered her in public, in order to preserve your own reputation.”
Dorian would never forget that speech. It was the moment when he had known that he would never have children; that he would do everything in his power to stymie his father’s dreams.
Yes, I gave that speech, the late Duke of Nottington growled. But you are weaker than she was.
“I am nothing of the sort. ” Dorian laughed convulsively. “I have defeated you. ”
You have ensured my victory. Because you let her go. You lost the love of your life. And why? Over me? Because I couldn’t love you? Who cares that I couldn’t love you! I was an evil man who didn’t love anyone. But there have been many who have loved you over the years: your mother, your sister, your friends . Why should you give up the best thing that has ever happened to you just because of one man?
Dorian narrowed his eyes. This didn’t sound like his father. His father would never have called himself evil.
He’s trying to trick me, he thought wildly.
“Stop speaking to me,” he spat, and suddenly, without warning, he leaped up onto his desk and seized the edges of the portrait of his father. “Stop speaking to me!” He shouted. “I don’t want you saying another word to me!”
Because you know it’s true, his father guffawed. Because you know you lost her and that you will regret it for the rest of your life.
“Silence!” Dorian roared, and then he drove his fist through the portrait, right through his father’s face. “Silence!” He shouted again. He punched the portrait, and then hit it again. Jagged rips tore through his father’s body. Nothing had ever felt so satisfying in his entire life. He had never struck his father before, even after his sister’s funeral, when he had been sorely tempted, and now he hit the portrait again and again, loving the way the canvas sounded as it split in two, as the last picture of his father was destroyed, erasing his image from the world forever.
And as he punched, Dorian began to speak, without even considering the words he was saying.
“Don’t ever speak to me about Leah, you miserable bastard! You’re wrong about her. I haven’t lost her. I am going to get her back, I am going to do everything I can to prove to her exactly what kind of man I am. And she is going to forgive me, because she loves me, and because I love her, more than I could ever imagine loving a person in my entire life. And--”
Dorian froze, his fist raised. He was panting, and sweat was pouring down his neck and back. His heart was hammering in his chest, and his breath was coming in short gasps.
What was he saying? The words had come from him automatically, instinctually. They had seemed to move through him from somewhere deep and hidden, a place that was all animal reflexes.
He stared down at the portrait, or what was left of it. The canvas was in tatters. It was unrecognizable now. Even if someone had tried to piece it back together, Dorian wasn’t sure that they could have. It was no longer the late Duke of Nottington. It was nothing. Just some paint on some canvas, surrounded by a frame.
His father’s ghost was finally gone.
Dorian dropped the painting. It clattered to the floor, the wooden frame breaking. Very slowly, he stepped down from the desk and then sank down to the floor, until he was sitting cross-legged on the ground. After a long moment, he put his head in his hands and began to weep.
It had been a long time since he had cried like this; racking sobs, that made his entire body shake. But it felt good. Almost as cathartic as punching the portrait into a pulp. It felt like a release of all the feelings, all the regret, all the pain, and all the fear that had been building inside of him for a very, very long time.
At last, the tears subsided. He held himself for a long moment, then stood up. Everything felt suddenly clear. It was as if the tears were like a rainstorm that had swept through a cloudy day, pushing all the clouds away and leaving only clear skies behind.
He loved Leah. She loved him--for now. And he had to get her back. No matter what it took. He had to prove to her that he had been wrong, that he was ready to be the man she needed him to be.
Power surged through him. He had never felt so sure of anything, so ready to take on whatever task flung himself in his way to keep him from her. Of course, the most Herculean of tasks would be getting her to forgive him. But as the feeling of love began to soar through him, lighting up his insides, he felt certain that he could do it.
At that moment, there was an urgent knock on the door.
“Come in,” Dorian said, and to his surprise, his voice sounded happy. He touched his face and was shocked to find that he was smiling.
When the butler entered, he also looked surprised. His gaze swept from the grin on Dorian’s face to the ruined portrait on the floor, to the empty space behind the desk where it had once hung. His eyes went wide again.
“Your Grace, there is someone here to see you.”
“Is it the duchess?” Dorian asked at once.
“No,” the butler said, flinching slightly, probably remembering Dorian’s instructions from mere minutes ago not to speak of her again. “It is your solicitor. He says that it is urgent.”
“Send him in,” Dorian said. He felt practically ebullient as he seated himself behind his desk and waited. Moments later, the solicitor entered, a worried frown creasing his face.
“Ahh, Gibson, how are you?” Dorian said, standing.
“Your Grace--I received an alarming document today. Usually I would not have thought twice to file something with your signature and seal on it, but this truly shocked me, considering that you were only married a few weeks ago.”
“What are you talking about?” Dorian asked, his smile vanishing at once. The worry on Gibson’s face, along with the mention of his marriage, put him on high alert.
“It is this…” Gibson reached into his briefcase and pulled out several pieces of paper, which he passed to Dorian. It only took Dorian a few seconds of perusal to realize what they were.
He stared at them, his hands beginning to shake, as fear gripped every inch of him.
“These are articles of annulment,” he whispered, his gaze flickering back up to his solicitor.
“Indeed,” Gibson said. “And they have your signature on them. Do you really mean to annul your marriage so soon after it took place? I couldn’t quite believe it when I saw it. My colleagues told me not to come ask, that I shouldn’t question a duke, but I know you, Your Grace, and you never do anything so rash, so--”
“You were right to come to me,” Dorian interrupted. His insides had gone completely cold, as if they had been frozen over. “This is not my signature. This document was forg ed.” Dorian’s hand closed over the papers, curling them up in his fist. He glared with fury down at them. “This is the work of Lord Dubois.”
And they meant that he needed to leave at once. They meant that his wife was in danger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“You’re making a huge mistake,” Leah said, with forced calm, as the barrel of the gun pressed into her head.
“I’m not making a mistake,” the ragged voice of Lord Dubois said from behind her. “I am making the only choice left to me after the duplicitousness with which your family has treated me. Now get walking.”
“To where?” she asked, her heart beating so loudly and so quickly in her chest that she was surprised she could even hear Dubois.
“To the other side of the lake,” he said. “And go slowly. No tricks .”
“So that’s your carriage down there,” she said.
“You noticed it, did you?”
“Of course I did,” she scoffed, her mind moving quickly. “One of my servants saw it earlier and sent me down to investigate. If I don’t return to the house soon, they will--”
“Don’t lie to me, Lady Leah,” Dubois said contemptuously. “There have been no servants down here. They have all been busy at the house helping with the departure of your sisters and friend. Do you think I did not plan this with all that in mind? I have been keeping tabs on you, and I knew exactly when I would make my move.”
Leah swallowed. “A servant did see it,” she said, raising her voice to an imperious tone. “He saw it from the top of the hill. Just because you didn’t see him doesn’t mean he wasn’t here. And you will refer to me as Your Grace. I am a duchess.”
“Your lies are futile,” Dubois scoffed. “You are just trying to convince me that someone knows where you are. But it won’t work. I know you are practically alone here, and I know that no one will come looking for you. Especially not your husband, now that you have left him.”
“I haven’t left him,” she snarled, even as she continued to walk forward, the gun pressing sharply into her head.
“Then explain to me why you are here when he is not,” Dubois said with a cold laugh. “And explain to me why he is drinking himself to death in London every single night.”
Leah’s heart clenched. He is drinking himself to death? Does that mean he regrets pushing me away? Does that mean he really might–
But now was not the time to think about that. She had to think of another plan. If Dubois couldn’t be scared into making a mistake, then she had to think of something else.
Perhaps she could leave a clue… some way of showing someone who came looking for her that she had been here. Something that would be ominous for them to see and perhaps alert them that something bad had happened. It was a long-shot, but she had to try.
As they approached the edge of the lake, Leah stopped.
“Keep walking!” Dubois commanded, but Leah didn’t. Instead, she turned around to face him.
It was one thing to feel the barrel of a gun in the back of her head. Seeing it was something else entirely. As she stared down at the gun that was now hovering between her eyes, Leah felt a wave of nausea come over her. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
Then her eyes snapped to Dubois’s. They were cold and filled with spite.
“Keep walking,” he snarled through gritted teeth.
“Or what? You’re going to kill me?” she said contemptuously. “I doubt it. You need me alive so that you can marry me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said, his lip curling. “I’d rather see you dead than be cheated of my rightful bride.”
She made up her mind in an instant. As fast as she could, she dodged to the right, then began to run. As she did, she grabbed at the glove of her right hand, pulling it off of her.
“Stop!” Dubois shouted behind her. “Stop right now!”
But she didn’t stop. She kept running, trying to find a place where she could drop her glove that someone might find it.
Then a shot rang out. It was so loud she felt it reverberate through her body. At the same time, mud sprayed her. She stopped running at once, almost falling forward. The bullet must have hit the ground near her, spraying her with mud. She didn’t dare move, in case Dubois was going to fire again.
“I said stop !” He roared, and moments later he had come up behind her. He pushed the gun back into her head, and she fell forward, dropping down onto her knees. “Don’t do that again,” he said, and Leah nodded.
“I w-won’t,” she stammered. At the same time, she dropped her glove onto the ground, pushing it into the mud so that its whiteness wouldn’t be obvious against the ground.
“Get up,” he spat, and she forced her to stand and stagger forward, back toward the direction of the carriage. As she walked, she pulled the other glove from her hand and balled it up into her fist, so that he wouldn’t notice her wearing only one.
“Just keep walking,” he snapped. “And no more funny business.”
They reached the carriage, where she saw a driver sitting in the front, a bored expression on his face.
“Help me!” She cried at once, staring at him, willing him to look at her. But the man didn’t so much as blink or turn in her direction.
“Don’t bother,” Dubois said. “He is a trusted servant, and I pay him well to keep his eyes and mouth shut. Your pleas will not move him.”
Leah was disgusted. None of her own servants would ever have let her, or Lucien, or anyone treat someone else like this, no matter how much they were paid.
“Get in,” Dubois said, gesturing at the carriage, and she had no choice but to open the door and climb up into it. Inside was a long, coiled length of rope. She froze when she saw it, but Dubois pushed the gun deeper into her neck.
“Sit down on the bench,” he commanded. She did as she was told, and then he followed her into the carriage. At last, he lowered the gun, snatching the rope with his free hand. With the gun still trained on her, he began to coil the rope one-handed around her arms.
Leah began to panic as the rope tightened. The prickly coils against her skin sent her into a frenzy of fear. All she could think of, as the scratchy hemp cut into her arms, was escape.
“Let me go!” She screamed, beginning to struggle against the rope. “Let me go at once!”
“The more you struggle the worse it will get for you!” Dubois snarled back, as he tied the cord tighter around her arms. Leah barely even felt the pain. It was the idea of being restrained that terrified her.
He moved the rope down to her wrists, and she tried to wrench her hands free of his grasp.
“Stop that at once!” he shouted. “You stupid bitch, you are going to ruin everything!”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” She cried. “I am a lady , and you ought to show me respect!”
“You are my bride, and therefore my property,” Dubois scoffed. “Which means I can treat you however I see fit!”
“I am not your bride!” Leah shouted, and she tried to kick him with her free leg. Her foot connected with his shin, and he let out a howl of pain.
“Don’t do that!” he shouted, and to her shock, he slapped her across the face. It stung--and worse than that, it made tears spring to her eyes. No, she thought furious, I will not cry in front of this man. I will not give him that satisfaction.
“Hopefully that will teach you to keep your mouth shut and your kicks to yourself,” he said, a little smugly, which only made her all the more angry.
“I will not keep my mouth shut,” she said. “And I cannot be your bride! I am already married! To the Duke of Nottington! There is no vicar in all of England that will marry me to you--not when I am already married to another.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Dubois muttered, and this, rather than all his other words, had the desired effect: Leah stopped struggling. Instead, she turned her head and stared up at him, horror etched across her face.
“What are you talking about?” she whispered.
“You are right,” he said, and a small smile had begun to crease his lips. “There is no vicar in England that will marry you to me, but we are not going to England, my dear. We are going to Scotland. By then, your annulment will have gone through, and then you will be free to marry me. Well, not free to; obliged to, by the contract that your father signed.”
Leah couldn’t believe the words she was hearing. They were worse than the slap across the face. An annulment?! It wasn’t possible. Dorian would never, ever annul their marriage. He had only done married her in order to keep her safe, there would be no point in annulling it and letting her be free if it put her in danger.
Then again, she couldn’t be sure. After their last argument, there was a chance that he had decided she was better off without him. She had said as much, hadn’t she?
Perhaps he had been trying to listen to her, to do as she wished, to honor her, by annulling their marriage. And yet, Dorian had paved the way for her to be kidnapped by Lord Dubois.
“There you are,” Dubois said, making the final knot in the rope and then sitting back to admire his work. “That wasn’t so hard to sit still now, was it?”
These words brought Leah back to reality. Immediately, she began to struggle against the ropes. But the more she moved, the tighter they seemed to get. Panic began to build inside of her. She was trapped.
“You won’t be getting out of these anytime soon,” Dubois said with satisfaction. “So sit quietly and do as you are told. Do you understand?”
“I am not going to sit quietly,” she snarled. “I am going to scream from here all the way to Scotland until someone on the road hears me and discovers us.”
“That would be very unwise,” Dubois said, frowning at her. “I would have to gag you if you did that, and believe me, you will not like that.”
Dubois sat down on the bench opposite her and then thumped his hand against the roof of the carriage. “Drive on!” He shouted, and the carriage began to rumble forward. Leah stared in sick dread out the window of the carriage. The estate zipped by, faster than she would have believed, and soon, they were on the road, going north, toward Scotland.
Leah turned to her kidnapper, eyes narrowed as she appraised him. He was not looking at her, but staring out the window himself, a deep frown on his lips. He looked nervous, she thought. What was it that was making him anxious? Was there a chance that someone was going to find out what he’d done? Was there a chance that she could still be rescued?
“How do you know that my husband plans to annul our marriage?” she asked after what felt like an hour of them bumping their way along the dirt roads.
Dubois glared at her. “Don’t ask questions.”
“I will ask questions if I want to,” she snapped. “How did you know about the annulment?”
“Everyone knows,” he said with a shrug. “He got drunk at White’s and was telling everyone about it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That doesn’t sound like him.”
“How would you know? You were married for what, a few weeks? You don’t know the man. He is nothing but a lout, a rake! All those women he has used over the years… You think I will make for a bad husband, but you have no idea! He is far, far worse.”
Leah scoffed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Dorian isn’t a rake. He told me. ”
“And you believed that?” Dubois raised an eyebrow. “Women are so gullible.”
“I’m not gullible!” she shouted. “And I’m not going to believe your lies about my husband! There is no way he would tell everyone he is annulling our marriage. That’s the last thing he’d do. He wouldn’t want you to find out about it, because then you might… then you might do exactly what it is you are doing.”
Realization was dawning on her. Leah couldn’t believe she hadn’t guessed it right away. She stared at Dubois, her rage and her shock unparalleled.
“It was you,” she murmured. “You forged the annulment documents. Just like you forged the contract with my father for my hand in marriage! You are a forger!”
It all made sense now: the reason why the lawyers weren’t able to prove the marriage contract wasn’t legitimate; the reason why he knew about the annulment now. He had become an expert in faking the documents and signatures of the lords of the ton.
“Who else have you cheated?” she snarled, sitting up and glaring at him. “How many in the ton despise you because of how you have manipulated them through your forgeries? Do you really think that won’t come back to bite you, that you won’t have to pay for your crimes?”
For a moment, Lord Dubois didn’t answer. Then his face split into a wide smile.
“Maybe someday they will figure it out,” he said, laughing quietly. “But by then, I will be long dead. I am very good at what I do, My Lady, and it will not be easy for others to figure it out. But I am an old man, and it will take years to prove in court that my documents are forged. By then, you will have given me several heirs, and then I can die peacefully, knowing that my estate, and my legacy, will live on.”
“I will never give you heirs,” Leah spat. “And even if I did, I would teach them what a terrible man you are. From the moment they were born, I would whisper in their ear everything that you did, so that they grew up to despise you, to hate, to spit upon the name of their father.”
Dubois’s face twisted into the ugliest scowl she had ever seen in her life. “You wouldn’t dare!” He shouted. “Not when I am your lord and master!”
“I have but one lord and master,” Leah said, “and his name is Dorian Attor, Duke of Nottington! He is my husband, my only husband, and he will remain my husband until the day I die!”
She leaned forward, so that her face was close to Dubois’s, so that he could see the look of deadly seriousness in her eyes.
“And Dorian is far, far more clever than you give him credit for. I see the fear in your eyes, My Lord, and I know what it means: you fear that Dorian will figure out what you have done. You fear he will get wind that letters of annulment were filed on his behalf, that he will suspect everything, and that he will come after us, chase you down, and save me. You fear it because you know if any man is capable of it, it is him.”
She could see the fear now, a tiny ember of a flame inside of Lord Dubois’s eyes. He really did fear that Dorian would come after them, and for the first time, Leah felt more than a flicker of hope that her husband really was coming for her.
“But why?” she murmured, as if to herself. “Why do you fear he will figure out you are behind the forgery and that it means you have kidnapped me?” And then it hit her. It was so obvious. “You admitted it to him that night he cornered you in the pub, didn’t you?”
There was a flash of recognition in Dubois’s eyes, and Leah smiled with satisfaction.
“You did admit it!” She cried, and immediately, she felt a rush of relief. He did forge the documents! My father didn’t sell me to this man! It was a small consolation, considering her circumstances, but she would take it.
“Well then,” she said, when Dubois still didn’t answer, “you really are in trouble now.”
“Say another word and I will gag you,” Dubois said, but it was worth it to hear the note of terror in his voice, to see the way his hands had begun to shake.
Still, she didn’t want to be gagged, so she sat back against the bench and looked away out the window, not sparing another glance for Dubois . Yes, she was sure now that Dorian was coming to rescue her. Which was why, as soon as Dubois had dozed off, about an hour into their journey, Leah scooted over to the edge of the bench and, after some manoeuvring, managed to get her hands out the window. She released her fist, dropping her second glove onto the road.
If Dorian was following them, he would find it.
But just in case he wasn’t, she needed to come up with a strategy to rescue herself.