Chapter 18
“Iwill have what’s mine!” Jasper shouted.
“You will release her,” Richard growled, stepping forward. “Now.”
Jasper’s laughter cracked again, almost hysterical. “And if I don’t? Will you strike me here, before your bride and your God? Go on then, cousin! Show them how the Devil handles betrayal!”
Caroline struggled in his grasp, her voice sharp with pain. “Let me go!”
Her cry cut through the chaos. Edmund moved faster than thought, closing the distance in three strides, but Richard was swifter.
He caught Jasper’s wrist, his grip so strong that Jasper’s hand spasmed open. Caroline wrenched herself free and stumbled back into Edmund’s waiting arm.
Richard shoved Jasper away, his voice low, controlled, and deadly. “You will never touch her again.”
The force of the push sent Jasper sprawling against the base of the nearest pew. For a heartbeat he simply sat there, stunned, chest heaving, staring up at the man he had betrayed.
“Get out,” Richard said.
Jasper’s face twisted, torn between fury and despair. “You ruin everything you touch,” he hissed. “Everything!”
Then, in one desperate burst of madness, he lunged again—not for Richard this time, but toward Caroline, as though determined to destroy the one thing his cousin cherished.
Caroline froze, the scream catching in her throat.
Nicholas surged forward from the front pew, shouting her name.
John was faster—he vaulted over the rail, seizing Jasper’s arm, but the man was wild with rage, striking out blindly.
Evan followed, grappling with him from behind, their boots skidding across the polished marble.
Richard moved in a flash. His boots struck the marble, echoing like thunder in the vaulted space. His hand shot out, gripping Jasper by the throat with a force born not of rage alone but of betrayal so deep it felt carved into his bones.
A gasp rippled through the pews. Lady Ophelia rose to her feet, one hand pressed to her mouth. Sophia cried out Richard’s name, while Edmund pushed through the stunned crowd toward the altar.
Jasper’s eyes went wide; his hands flew to Richard’s wrists, fingers clawing in panic. But the Duke’s grip did not falter.
Richard slammed Jasper backward into the altar. The candlesticks toppled, wax spilling like tears across the white cloth. Somewhere, someone screamed—the high, strangled note of a lady’s voice quickly muffled by her fan.
“Richard!” Caroline’s voice broke through the chaos, trembling yet fierce. “Stop this madness! You’ll kill him!”
He didn’t hear her. Or rather, he heard nothing but the roar of blood in his ears, the pulse beneath his palms. His muscles trembled with the effort to contain the feral instinct that demanded satisfaction.
For an instant—a terrible, breathless instant—the duke looked like a creature unchained.
Jasper’s feet kicked weakly against the polished floor. His lips moved soundlessly. The guests stared at the magnetic horror of the spectacle before them.
Lady Ophelia rose, pale as parchment, clutching the edge of her pew for balance. “Richard, for the love of God!” she cried, voice breaking. “Release him!”
Her plea cut through the haze—but it was Caroline’s next cry that struck home.
“Richard! Look at me!”
He did.
Her eyes—bright, terrified, pleading—pierced the red mist clouding his mind. He blinked once, twice, his vision clearing enough to see what his hands were doing. Jasper’s face had turned an awful shade of purple; his cousin’s struggles were weakening.
Richard’s grip faltered. The sound of his own ragged breathing filled his ears.
Then, with a shudder, he released him.
Jasper collapsed to the ground in a heap, wheezing, clutching his throat as though to reassure himself that air still existed.
Silence rippled outward through the pews, heavy and stunned. Even the candles seemed to hold their flame in uneasy stillness.
Richard stood over him, chest heaving, fists still trembling at his sides. The fury had not vanished—it merely burned lower now, darker, controlled only by sheer will.
Jasper lay sprawled at Richard’s feet, gasping for air like a man newly dragged from drowning.
His chest heaved, his fine waistcoat torn at the collar where Richard’s hand had gripped him.
The once-slick confidence that had always defined him was gone; what remained was pitiful—a cousin stripped bare before the ton, trembling with the shock of near-death.
He coughed once, twice, and his voice emerged as a rasp. “Richard—please… cousin—I never meant–”
“Never meant?” Richard’s tone sliced through the chapel, deep and raw, carrying both disbelief and disgust. “You never meant to see me dead? To steal my life and bury my name with the tide?”
Jasper flinched. The guests leaned forward. The duke’s voice, that low growl of controlled rage, filled the space where music and vows were meant to be spoken.
“I could forgive that,” Richard continued, his breathing slowing but his eyes still dark with fury. “I could forgive your envy. I could even forgive the years I spent rotting in filth while you drank fine wine and whispered about my ghost.”
He stepped forward once, boots thudding softly against marble, until his shadow fell over Jasper’s crumpled form. His next words came quieter, colder.
“But you laid hands on her.”
The silence deepened. The onlookers could scarcely breathe.
Richard’s gaze flickered toward Caroline—a fleeting glance that softened nothing but made his next words strike all the harder.
“You dared touch my bride. That, Jasper… I will never forgive.”
Jasper’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, his throat still raw from Richard’s grip. He tried to kneel, tried to plead, but his knees buckled, and he only managed a pitiful half bow. “Please, Richard... I lost my head—I was mad with jealousy–”
“Madness does not absolve evil,” Richard said flatly. “It only reveals it.”
A murmur ran through the crowd.
Caroline took an unsteady step forward, the hem of her gown whispering against the stone. “Richard,” she said softly, “it’s done. He is no threat now.”
Her voice, though trembling, held command—the kind of gentle authority that could soothe a storm. She laid her hand on Richard’s arm, tentative but brave. “Let him go.”
Richard’s muscles twitched beneath her touch. The tension coiled within him refused to fade completely, but at her voice—that steady, defiant voice—he exhaled, long and slow, releasing a measure of the fury that had consumed him.
Without looking at Jasper again, he turned away.
The guests parted before him like waves before a prow, fearful of brushing against the man whose temper had proven every rumor true. The title Devil of the Ton would be whispered anew tonight—and not as metaphor.
He walked toward Caroline instead. She had expected him to stride past, to bury himself in isolation, but instead he stopped before her, every inch of him carved in rigid control.
For a moment, he only looked at her. Her hands were clasped tightly before her, knuckles white against her gloves. Yet she met his gaze with courage that belied the trembling of her frame.
“Caroline,” he murmured, his voice rough, almost unrecognizable.
She swallowed. “You frightened me.”
He nodded once, grimly. “I frightened myself.”
The admission startled her more than the fury had. She could see it now—beneath the duke’s stony facade, beneath the scar and the anger—the weight of years dragged like an anchor. The man before her was not merely dangerous; he was wounded.
Then, before she could react, Richard reached for her.
His hands, still trembling faintly, settled on her shoulders—not roughly this time, but with a strange, desperate gentleness. She gasped as he drew her against him. The embrace was fierce, protective, almost possessive, but not cruel. He bowed his head to her hair, his breath ragged.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly. “You should never have seen that.”
The ton’s collective murmur rose once more—the rustle of silk and curiosity, the sound of fans snapping shut as eager eyes feasted upon the scandal. To them, this moment was theater—the wild duke embracing his bride before the altar, the beast tamed by beauty.
But Caroline felt the truth. His arms were not the arms of triumph; they were those of a man seeking absolution in silence.
Her own hands, which had been pressed stiffly against his chest, softened. She rested one palm against his heart, feeling the violent beat beneath her fingertips. “You stopped,” she whispered. “That is what matters.”
He drew back slightly, enough to meet her gaze. “Only because you called my name.”
Caroline tried to smile, but it trembled. “Then I shall make a habit of it.”
The faintest curve touched his lips—not quite a smile, more the ghost of one. His hand rose, brushing a stray curl from her temple. The gesture was intimate in a way that made the ton’s whispers swell anew. But neither of them heard the gossip anymore.
For that single fragile instant, there was only the sound of their breathing, the pounding of two hearts too wild to be still.
Then Caroline realized her own pulse was racing not from fear of Jasper, but from the man who held her. The Devil’s darkness still lingered in his eyes—not violence now, but something she could not name. Something that both frightened and fascinated her.
Richard turned at last toward the onlookers, his expression composed once more. “This ceremony is over,” he said, voice carrying effortlessly through the stunned silence. “My cousin will depart Ashwood by morning. Anyone who wishes to discuss what happened here may do so—elsewhere.”
He offered his arm to Caroline. “Come.”
For a moment she hesitated, staring at him as though she might still see traces of the man who had nearly committed murder. Then, slowly, she placed her gloved hand in his. The warmth of his touch burned even through the silk.
Together they walked down the aisle, the crowd parting before them in hushed awe. The whispers followed, but Caroline held her head high, every step measured, defiant.
The great doors swung open ahead, spilling sunlight into the dim chapel, illuminating motes of dust and petals scattered across the floor. As they crossed the threshold, Caroline glanced once more at the altar—at the toppled candles and the stain of wax where Jasper had fallen.
The echoes of the Devil’s fury would not fade soon.
And yet, even as she trembled, she could not deny the truth blooming uneasily in her chest.
Her fear was no longer of the Devil she’d been warned about.
It was of the man she might already be falling for.