The Devil’s Own Duke (The Dukes of Darkness #4)
Prologue
Early January, 1814
Cuillin Castle, Near Weymouth
C hase Maddox, Duke of Greysmere, pounded his fist against the roof of the carriage he had rented at the local posting inn to take him to Portsmouth. Had to rent one. After all, he didn’t want his own coachman to be able to tell anyone where he was going, in case anyone foolishly decided to follow him. By the time his in-laws realized he had left his estate, he would be halfway to Spain, and then no one would be able to find him.
But he had one last act to take before leaving and shouted up at the driver, “Stop here!”
The team halted, and Chase opened the door himself to jump down. He hadn’t bothered hiring a tiger. God knew taking a driver into the hell engulfing him was devilish enough. Bringing two innocent men with him would have completely damned his soul. And wasn’t that already black enough?
“Wait here,” he called out as he walked up the slope toward the cliff top overlooking the icy surf below.
It wasn’t the sea he was interested in, with its sheen of foam and gray-green coldness, nor was it the sun which sank quickly toward the horizon in a blaze of reds, purples, and oranges. Instead, his gaze fell onto the castle stretching across the top of the horseshoe-shaped bend on the other side of the cove. He had known that the road to Portsmouth would bring him this way, that from this vantage point, he’d be able to take one last look at the place he was leaving.
“Home hellish home,” he muttered beneath his breath, the words lost against the wind that whipped in from across the water and the pounding crash of the high surf.
Even now, Cuillin Castle gleamed like brimstone from the fiery hues of the winter sunset washing over its honeycomb-colored stone, its unlit windows staring blackly across the sea. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Lucifer himself emerged for a ramble across its ramparts, to survey his domain. After all, hadn’t his dark presence always been as palpable here as the unforgiving storms that routinely lashed the cliffs?
Despite its grandeur, though, the building was as cold and damp as the rain and surf that beat against it, as if capable of falling into the sea at any moment.
Disappointment pierced him that it hadn’t done just that already.
But he didn’t give a damn about seeing the castle. No, the punishing place in his soul forced him to roam his gaze over the snow-covered gardens and then across the woods beyond, following the twisting drive that snaked its way toward the village.
His eyes stopped on the old stone church with its Norman tower rising above the barren trees. A beacon of godliness that had done nothing to fend off the darkness that seemed perpetually poised over the estate.
He couldn’t see the churchyard beside it, but he knew it was there. Just as he knew there would never be markers in it for his wife and two-year-old son, whose remains hadn’t been recovered from the Channel after the shipwreck that took their lives less than a month ago. Their souls were officially being given over to God right then, in fact. Eleanor’s family would all be gathered in the church at that moment for the memorial service—her parents John and Mary, her cousins Tessa and Winifred—along with friends, estate tenants, and villagers. All of them would be waiting for Chase to join them, the grieving husband…
But it wasn’t grief that was driving him away, today of all days. It was the overwhelming need for self-preservation.
If he stayed, he wouldn’t let himself live to see the dawn.
He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat and withdrew the toy soldier he’d taken from the nursery. The tin figure had been hand-painted to resemble a Prussian army officer. He’d bought the set two years ago when Thomas was born, wanting to play soldiers with him when he was old enough, to teach him strategy, and tell him the role Chase had played in saving Europe from Napoleon. Now the set lay it in its wooden box, never to be played with.
He shoved the tin soldier back into his pocket.
His eyes stung as he stared out across the water. Their deaths were his fault. Because he’d failed to protect them. Because he’d never learned to be the kind of father Thomas deserved. Because he couldn’t be the attentive husband Eleanor needed…and because he had never loved her the way she had loved him. Theirs had been a marriage of amiable acquaintances who had shared common interests. Nothing more. Yet he had thought that would be enough to make them both happy. After all, most society marriages were based on less.
He’d been so very wrong.
Guilt over their deaths consumed him. He couldn’t sleep or eat, every breath sheer torture. Even now, he couldn’t escape the desolation his life had become because the roaring surf and howling wind couldn’t prevent the sound of the church bell from reaching him. One… two… three… Each slow, deep reverberation of the death knell echoed into his bones.
Knowing he couldn’t remain at Cuillin or attend the memorial service, he had mounted his horse instead and ridden to the posting inn, hired a coach, and told the driver to head toward Portsmouth, with orders not to stop until the team was too exhausted to go another mile. Once he reached the port, Chase would buy passage on the first ship heading east. This was the only way he would be able to survive, by returning to the same place that had nearly killed him years before—Spain.
The church bell fell silent. Chase flipped up the collar of his coat and turned on his heel to stalk back toward the carriage.
“Let’s go,” he ordered the driver as he swung up into the compartment and closed the door against the winter, whose bitter cold he no longer felt. God help him, he felt nothing anymore except the guilt that gnawed at his bones, devouring him from the inside out.
The driver cracked the whip, and the team moved toward the dying sun.
As the bleak countryside rolled away beneath him, Chase leaned his head back against the squabs, screwed shut his eyes, and willed himself not to die.