Chapter 58
Chapter Fifty-Eight
On a weighty sigh, she spoke, “Logan?”
“Hmmmm?” he responded while drawing lazy circles around Haven’s belly button. It tickled…wickedly.
He looked contemplative, as though he had a heavy load wrapped in a question, and was daring his mouth to ask it.
He met her gaze, and her heart stopped.
He drew in a long, deep sigh, and cleared his throat.
“Haven, you can’t go home. Stay with me. I know I cannot offer you all you are used to having, but I can make you happy. I can give you houses, dresses, the foods your twenty-first century palate craves, and I would be a good, generous lover.”
She sat up, heat flooding her belly, her arms and legs turning to jelly. “You want me to stay?”
He sat up, too, bringing his eyes and lips on level with hers. “More than anything.” His deep voice held a note of uncertainty, as though he were a nervous little boy awaiting permission to play with a new toy.
He wants me to stay? But, could I live here in 1817? I’d have a house. I’d have all I would need, he’d buy them for me, and he’d treat me like a queen...or a mistress.
Her heart dropped.
Logan hadn’t spoken of love, or marriage, or making a life together. He’s spoken of pretty purses, and jewels, and sex. He made no promises of adoration or faithfulness. He didn’t want her to stay and build a future with him; he wanted her to stay and be the other woman.
Furious and utterly vanquished, she kicked to the edge of the bed, flung back the covers, and rose quickly. Grabbing at her discarded clothes, she rushed to cover her nakedness, desperate to put a barrier between her trembling body, and his loathsome words.
He flinched when the bedclothes smacked him in the chest, lifted an eyebrow, his lips thinning beneath his flared nostrils.
“What’s wrong? Did I say something to upset you?” She didn’t turn. “Haven, what do you want from me? What more can I offer you?”
She turned then, her whole body shaking, her vision blurring with unshed tears. She leveled him with her gaze.
“A house? Dresses? Great sex? Why would I want any of those from you when I could get the very same things in 2025 without all the strings attached?” She didn’t want any of those things. She wanted him—she wanted his love. “You can keep it all.”
Even your heart.
A black look settled over his face. He tensed as he rose, unabashedly naked, from the bed.
“I knew it was a foolish idea the moment the words left my mouth. How could I have ever thought you, a low-class, vulgar, American whore, could be my duchess?”
She gasped as pain, sharp and heavy, plunged into her chest. He’d been asking her to be his wife, not his mistress?
Oh no, what had she done? She had to make things right, she had to—wait, had he called her a low-class, vulgar, American whore?
Anger boiled, searing the words of apology right from the tip of her tongue, replacing them with words born of scorn and bitterness.
“You son of a bitch. Who in the hell do you think you are?”
“A duke,” he thundered.
Not a vulnerable, courageous, gentle, loving man. The man she loved with all her heart and soul. He was a duke.
Divinia’s words echoed through her mind, “You aren’t right for him, not worthy of him….”
The dagger in her chest sank deeper.
“I don’t give a damn if you’re a duke. You called me a whore, but I’ve never acted like one.
I never once asked you for anything. I would have been happy to live in the woods in a cave with only grass to eat if it meant I wouldn’t owe you anything.
” Despair flooded her, dousing the fire of indignation that gave her such bravado before.
Now, she was empty. Broken. Her heart sputtered, her breaths shook, and she slumped her shoulders in defeat.
“I just wanted to be with you. I just wanted you to want to be with me.” Gathering the last of her strength, she looked him in the eye. “I wanted you to love me,” she sobbed.
With her words still hanging in the air like a sword above his heart, Logan watched dumbstruck as Haven fled from the room.
The clock on the mantel chimed half past three in the morning as Haven wiped the tears from her face for the hundredth time.
“Ugh!” Frustrated, she stomped her foot and cursed Perez for taking her from her home, plopping her in Logan’s pasture, and making her fall in love with a man so obsessed with the events of his past he couldn’t see a future with her.
Squelching the sob threatening to erupt, she pulled open the second drawer in her bureau and riffled through it for undergarments to pack.
She couldn’t keep rewashing the panties she’d brought with her; they’d fall to pieces, so she’d have to make do with the cotton torture devices Millie had ordered for her.
Hurriedly packing whatever she could fit inside her gym bag, she just barely held back a sob.
She had to leave.
When the evening began, she’d prepared her heart to walk away and leave the pain of rejection behind her.
She wanted to find some place low-key but safe where she could interrogate Perez and figure out how to get home.
She was prepared to pack it in and hand the win off to Logan.
But when he arrived in the room, he’d seen her, and his whole being responded to her.
The glimmer of hope she’d been strangling in her soul wiggled free.
Maybe she’d finally found the man who could love her, and it only took time-traveling back two hundred and eight years to find him.
She was ready to bow before Perez and thank him and his goddesses for bringing her and Logan together.
But now she wanted to throw the watch into the nearest volcano, and sneer as it sank beneath the molten waves. But she couldn’t do it. Despite how much she despised Perez and the Tres Deae, she needed them to get home.
She hated it.
She wanted to despise Logan. He was another man who’d taken something precious, used it, and threw it aside as if it meant nothing. As if she was nothing.
Her curse echoed in the empty room, and she continued filling her gym bag with anything she could use. She’d thrown plain dresses, boots, hair pins and combs, and her own twenty-first-century clothes and toiletries haphazardly into the bag.
Reaching for the next drawer, she steeled her mind to complete the task she’d been putting off for the last hour—touching the watch.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the drawer, prepared for the argument Perez would instigate, but when she pulled the cloth back from where she’d hidden it, it was gone.
Stunned, she stared at the empty space. Her pulse pounded as black spots danced before her eyes.
“No, no, no, no—it can’t be.” Refusing to believe it was missing, she ripped the drawer from the bureau and upended it onto the floor. Dropping to her knees, she threw everything aside, uncaring of where it landed, desperate to find the watch.
Nothing. It wasn’t there. She wanted to scream and tear her hair from her head.
“No!” Frantic and unable to comprehend it was really gone, she snatched and clawed at the fabrics. Her nails dug into the rug beneath, cracking and splitting under her assault.
It wasn’t there. She ran her fingers through her hair, only weakly reacting when a ragged nail scraped against her scalp.
The truth of her loss finally sank in, and she did the only thing she could think of.
“Perez” she called out. “Perez, please, you have to be here. You can’t be gone.
” As a cry of despair wrenched from her throat, she tried again.
“Perez, please! I know I wasn’t nice to you the last time we talked, but I’m ready to listen now.
I’m ready to do whatever needs to be done to get me home.
” She heard the desperation in her voice and fell on her face.
Fear and hopelessness settled over her. “Perez,” she whimpered.
“Where did you go? Please, tell me something, anything.”
She cried into the yawning silence. Her chest and back ached from the racking sobs.
Suddenly, a familiar sensation passed over her, a chilling presence that should have warmed her.
“Perez?” she asked warily.
She wiped at her eyes, and rubbed her forehead, begging for clarity and calm.
She strained to hear even a wisp of a voice and heaved a heavy sigh of relief when a single word flitted across her ear. “Stolen....”
The meaning of his words pushed past the fog in her mind, and she blurted, “Someone stole you? Like, came into my room and took you?” Anger and disquiet wove together in her heart. Heat rose over her face, and the hairs on her neck stood on end.
More whispered words. “Danger....”
Another chill slammed into her, nearly knocking her back.
Haven rose to her feet, pushing up from the side of the bed where she’d been slumped.
Vulnerable.
Most of the room was visible from where she stood, but shadows and flickering candlelight played havoc with her vision. She let out a pained huff and swallowed into her parched throat. Sliding trembling hands through her hair, she dared to exhale her next words.
“Danger? How am I in danger?”
She hadn’t finished her sentence before a blast of dark, heavy intent collided within her chest. Sagging against the edge of the bed, she gasped in shock and rising terror. Immobilized by fear, she was paralyzed, quivering, and breathless when a figure emerged from an insidious shadow.
Stepping out from the darkness, Angelous Kroger smiled brightly, his blue eyes glinting in the candlelight.
Letting out a gasp of surprise, she quaked as he crossed the floor toward her, a wicked looking knife held firm in his hand.
The blood drained from her face and into her feet. Why couldn’t she move?
She couldn’t fathom why Mr. Kroger was in her room holding a knife. Why he was moving toward her with such malevolent purpose.
Struggling to gain control of her body, she managed to ask, “Mr. Kroger, wha-what are you doing in my room? How long have you been standing there?”
How long had he been spying on her as she cried over Logan?
Logan. She only had to make it to the door, then she could scream, and Logan would hear. He would come to rescue her. Wouldn’t he?
Yes, he would.
She shifted from one foot to the other, her hands flexing in the folds of her dress. If she screamed, he would come. But she had to get to the door first.
With a scrap of promise grasped tightly to her chest, she bolstered her courage, took a deep breath, and pushed away from the bed. She made it two feet before he stood before her, his knife slicing into the fabric of her bodice. She couldn’t breathe. The knife pressed too close to her chest.
“Tsk, tsk, Miss Edwards, no need to leave the party early. I’ve enjoyed your tears and pain.
It’s so delicious, you see.” His smile deepened.
“Who’re the tears for, I wonder. They couldn’t be for that obnoxious, soulless Duke of Caspire could they?
” At her startled look, he laughed. “Yes, that is a lost cause, my dear. Better you feel the pain of heartache, than the pain of imperfect love, no?”
She shook harder. The floor moved beneath her, and she wanted to lie down and curl into a ball. Nausea pushed into her stomach, and the sour sick rose in her throat.
Tapping the tip of the knife against his chin, he looked about the room. “Who’ve you been chatting with? You’re obviously alone. Do you hear voices, Miss Edwards?” His lip curled, his expression incredulous.
Finally able to breathe without the risk of his knife piercing her lung, she shook her head, unable to push the words passed her trembling lips.
“No matter. You can hear whatever voices you wish, my lovely, as long as the last voice you hear is mine.”
Her mouth dropped open as warmth fled her.
“It’s time to go,” he said as he looked over her shoulder to the room behind her. His voice dripped with eerie calm.
A shadow appeared beside her, and her breath caught. Heavy, sharp pain exploded at the back of her head, sending her forward onto her knees. She couldn’t gather the strength to rise, and her arms were dead branches at her side. Wet, sticky warmth slid down the back of her neck.
Blood.
She collapsed onto the rug. Stars swept over her blurring vision, and the glinting of Angelous’ knife disappeared behind a cloak of gaping blackness.