Chapter 26
DuMond and Kilburn were right.
As much as it pained Argyll to admit it. He’d give the chaps their due.
They’d insisted protecting one’s wife mattered above everything.
His wife was a fortress, but that didn’t matter. He’d sent her alone to negotiate with Craven’s sister-in-law. His jaw flexed. Going forward, he would never be so rash with her life.
Argyll would not separate himself from her side.
It was a vow he’d make: to her. Himself. His partners.
As they arrived in Lord Abington’s foyer, a pair of footmen came forward with their cloaks.
All the while a servant helped Daria into hers, Argyll could not take his eyes from her. Why after his immoral life should he have been entrusted her? He didn’t deserve her. He never would.
He wanted her all the same.
He would keep her all the same.
As if she felt his stare, Daria glanced over. She smiled.
Argyll’s breath held fast in his chest. He wanted her to wear that smile their whole lives. He wanted never to be without her or the happiness they knew in this very minute.
“Are we ready, husband?” Daria murmured, stretching her fingers toward.
Swallowing around a swell of emotion, his hand caught hers, and held.
Smiling, they made their way outside. They reached the drive, as another carriage rolled up and served a cold reminder that Argyll’s past would always dodge their future.
Bloody hell.
Impatient with his driver’s lack of urgency, Argyll reached out fast.
“Never say it is my dear son and his happy bride rushing off so quick, before I have a chance to greet my darling daughter-in-law.”
A fit of curses flew through his head. “My darling stepson told me he would be settling upon a duchess.” The look and emphasis she placed made her meaning clear.
At his side, he felt Daria’s body draw tight. Reflexively, he took her gloved fingers in his own. He gave them a light squeeze.
She didn’t have a place in this darkness. But darkness surrounds every part of you and your life. It would always touch her.
The dowager duchess passed a look over their joined fingers. Her countenance grew pinched, highlighting early wrinkles along the sides of the not old woman’s mouth, bespeaking the misery and ugliness of her existence.
“We are done here,” he said, flatly. He wouldn’t play the game she’d come here to play.
What if you hadn’t been here? What if Daria had been all alone, and it hadn’t been Rothesby she’d been with, but rather this viper?
“The little girl needs protection. What an unlikely role for you, Argyll.”
She knew she had gotten a rise. Knowing there was but one way to burst her, he flashed a cool, hard smile.
“Indeed. Alas, my wife has reformed me.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw the steady way Daria took in his entire exchange with the dowager duchess. Her head moved slightly but distinctly.
“You? Reformed?” The duchess released one of her signature, practiced sultry laughs. “Not reformed enough to perform proper introductions.”
Seeing her window, his ruthless stepmother, a match for him, but in no way worthy of breathing the same air as Daria, swept over, with a hand outstretched. “My dear girl. I am—”
“The dowager duchess,” Daria murmured. “Yes. I’ve gathered.”
Both women curtsied.
Argyll made to end this show.
He kept a hand at his wife’s waist.
“You are not my dear Argyll’s type, my dear.” For her pleasant tones, the jaded, older duchess may as well have tendered a compliment.
His nerve endings popped.
“Nor do I take yours as a love match, given just before your rushed wedding ceremony, he had me in his office pleasuring myself for his pleasure.” His gut roiled. “That day, my dear boy mentioned his plans to find a wife, he said nothing about having found one.”
“That is enough, madam,” he seethed, trying to edge himself back between them so he had full and complete access to his wife.
The dowager duchess smirked. “We always have had a very special relationship, haven’t we, Argyll?”
She directed that hideous question at Daria? Rage tore through him. What had compelled him to carry on with her as he had?
“Relax, Argyll.” She lightly patted the lapel of his cloak. “I will leave you, the happily married couple, to yourselves now.” Her hand lingered there, and she glided her fingers suggestively.
He shoved them away.
The widow’s lips formed a pout. “Now do stop, Argyll. We are still family. And families do as families do with one another.” She paused.
“They bring one another great pleasure.” She paused and looked meaningfully at Daria.
“Especially when one is trapped in an unhappy marriage.” She locked a telling gaze on Daria’s swollen eyes. “As I was in mine.”
“By God, woman shut your mouth!” he assailed.
Through it all, Daria remained remarkable in her poise, the queen she was.
The dowager duchess slid sultry eyes over Argyll. “My dear stepson was always so good as to look after me, and it seemed only right. I should return the favor as he did for stepmother.”
His stomach roiled.
My God, he was not a man given to violence against a woman, but if he were…
Daria’s voice cut softly through. “Are you saying you were once my husband’s lover?”
A knife-like sensation ripped through his chest. There was no one else more direct and less inclined for word games than his wife.
“He does favor the forbidden.” The dowager smiled quietly. The lust in her eyes, that came from hurting the young woman before them, blazed bright.
“Daria,” he said, his voice coming thick.
Ignoring him, she tipped her head and continued conversing with the worst woman in the world.
And Argyll was the worst man.
He was ashamed.
“You must have been very young when you married the duke,” Daria said softly, catching the other woman off guard.
Catching Argyll off-guard.
The dowager duchess’s lips moved like a fish sucking in air.
She found her voice. “I was eighteen. No different than any of us,” she said huffily, shooting another pointed look at Daria.
“You are likely near an age to His Grace, no? I suspect you are maybe two or three years younger than my husband.”
High heat flooded his stepmother’s plump cheeks. “I am two years older,” she said, her admission stiffly reluctant and likely only given because she knew Argyll would’ve been all too happy to set the matter straight.
“And so, when you married my husband’s father and struck up a relationship with him, he mustn’t have been but fifteen or sixteen.
And you were a grown woman, married and pursuing your stepson.
” Daria declined her head. “That does not strike me in good form, or moral, Your Grace. Now if you’ll step out of my way, I find I really don’t like you. ”
Cheeks afire, the dowager sputtered. “How dare you insult me?”
“Forgive me.” Argyll’s tone was level, almost bored. “I favor the truth—and I forgot you are a woman of low moral character.”
With a thin, animal shriek, she lunged.
She stumbled—but not before Argyll stepped between his father’s late wife and the woman who was now his own. Braver. Bolder. His.
Daria moved, retreating as he caught the dowager duchess, her strength feral, surprising. He restrained her, muscle locked, breath measured.
And yet—
His attention fixed on Daria.
Their gazes met.
Her eyes held his. Dark. Too intent. Haunted.
She mouthed something.
His grip tightened as he strained to read her lips. What was she saying?
His heart lurched violently. Pain tore through his chest as the world narrowed to her alone.
The prophecy.
Time fractured—one endless, merciless moment in which he knew only this: he was too far.
“I love you,” she mouthed.
The words struck him harder than any blow.
He glanced down—
And saw the dowager duchess’s pale visage. “Argyll!”
He followed her stare. Several paces behind Daria’s left shoulder, a figure emerged from the shadows.
Argyll froze.
A flash of silver cut through the dark.
“Daria!” he thundered, shoving the dowager at his servant.
Daria turned—searching.
The wrong direction.
His chest screamed as he launched forward, legs burning, the distance unbearable.
Too far.
Too slow.
“Daria!”
The word tore from him.
I am too late.
Her lips parted in a small, startled O.
NoNoNoNoNo
He collided with her, driving her to the ground.
Relief struck him first—violent and staggering. Shoving himself onto his hands, Argyll framed Daria’s body with his. He went to reach for her. To search her for wounds.
“I’m all right,” she assured. “I am safe.” She brushed trembling fingers over his cheeks.
His eyes heavy with relief fell shut. She was alive, in his arms. Unhurt.
His body sagged.
It was knowledge landed too late.
Pain followed, sharp and insistent, blooming through his side as his strength deserted him. His legs faltered, the ground tilting strangely, as though the earth had lost its hold.
“Christ,” he hissed. Argyll drew a breath and failed to finish it.
Under him, Daria tensed. “Gregory?” she said, a panicky thread wound through her voice. “Gregory?” She pressed her hands over him. Her doleful wail shattered the night sky.
His vision began to recede.
He faintly registered his wife turning him over. A cool rush of air and he was surrounded in the warmth of her cloak. Roses.
“Sing to me that so—” he exhaled, his breathing slowing.
“No! Not that one.”
Blackness crept in. His eyes rolled back.
“You must live, Gregory,” she wept, applying pressure to his wound. “You are not dying. I forbid it.”
He wanted to smile. He tried to. He wanted to say if anyone could fight Satan for his soul, and win, it was her.
My incomparable, breathtaking wife.
Grief poured through the pain. I want more time…
There was so much he wanted to do with her. To show her. “Daria,” he said her name, his voice weak, his body fading.
“Stay,” she begged.
I…can’t….
And then—
Nothing.