Chapter 26
“You will tell me where the Baron of Hawthorne is, or I will ensure the local magistrate hears about the types of business conducted on your premises.”
Juliana’s voice was soft, but it was never meant to be loud. She was rehearsing the words she would say when she encountered one of Kit’s… acquaintances. Still, her voice already sounded desperate, with nothing left to lose.
“No, maybe I should say, take me to Lord Hawthorne immediately, or you will be sorry!”
I am not sure this will work.
The Duchess stood in the damp, crusty hallway of a tavern. She shuddered at the thought of all the other places her brother had been. He had sent her to many narrow and dark alleys, where she could have been mugged or arrested.
Even the air seemed capable of attacking her. It was thick and pungent, clearly from the splashed cheap gin and rotting wood. She wanted to gag at the sudden change in the lavender scent in Stonevale. Even her Hawthorne home smelled several times better.
How could Kit wander in such dilapidated, dangerous places?
Her heart pounded as she realized the full extent of the peril she had put herself in.
When she left Stonevale, she was distraught.
She had lost Cassian. She had not even known she had him until he walked away without looking back.
Learning that Kit had disappeared not long after threw her into a spiral she did not think she could unravel. She felt lost and desperate.
“Where are you, Kit?” she whispered to herself.
She walked toward the back of the building, slowly and stealthily. The floorboards groaned beneath her. Holding her breath did nothing to ease the tension of the moment or the risk of getting caught.
As she walked down the hall, she heard murmurs. She followed the sound to a heavy oak door. She peered through the crack, where a sliver of light managed to escape. She did not know if it was the right thing to do, because the sight beyond the door made her world turn upside down.
Kit was inside.
That was what she wanted. She wanted to find her brother and save him from himself once again.
At the moment, though, she wondered whether it was wise to do so.
Her older brother was slumped in the middle of the dreary room.
There were no windows to let in light, and the smell of damp was stronger there.
Kit was tied to a chair, his head drooping so she could not see his whole face. It was evident, though, that there were bruises on his cheeks. Even in the dim light, Juliana could see blood. Her hand went to her mouth as she tried to stifle her gasp.
Worse, he was not alone. A large, hulking man with a scar above his eyebrow stood before him. The man held a knife, its blade pointed at Kit.
“We are tired of waiting for all your promises, Hawthorne,” the man growled.
“Pay us what you owe us or die. The Duke should have the gold. Isn’t that what you keep telling us?
Better yet, we should not waste any more rope on you.
We cannot have your blood spilling here, either.
Perhaps we will tie you up by the marsh for high tide. ”
Juliana swallowed a gasp. She knew her brother was in trouble. Cassian tried to convey the extent of the danger by emphasizing Kit’s involvement in criminal activity, but she would not believe it.
Now, Kit was facing death, and she had to do something about it. She had taken a pistol from Cassian’s collection, knowing she might have to fight someone. Anyone. Her fingers closed around the cold metal in the pocket of her skirt.
Her palms were sweaty. She trembled. Even though her mind told her she had to do something now, she could not.
She remembered Cassian teaching her how to fire one, but she was not sure she could actually shoot a man.
Whimpering, she pulled it from her pocket and pushed the door farther open. To her horror, it creaked.
“Who’s there?” the scarred man demanded, spinning around to face the door.
Two more men stepped from the shadows, making Juliana step back. Before she could retreat in haste, however, the scarred man kicked the door wide open, its edge almost striking her. He lunged into the hallway, his eyes as wide as hers as soon as he saw her.
“Well, well, well. Who is this, Hawthorne? Someone cares enough to come play the hero for you!” the man mocked. “How pathetic!”
He grabbed her by the arm, pulling her toward him. He smelled of sweat, gin, and dust. Then he twisted her wrist, letting the pistol clatter to the floor. Finally, he dragged her into the room and pushed her in front of her bound brother.
“Look, boys! We may get our money yet. It seems nobody likes Hawthorne, but what about this lovely chit?”
The other two men laughed heartily, their eyes scanning Juliana from head to toe. She tried her best not to show her fear. They should not see her limbs trembling at the thought of torture or worse.
Before she could even imagine the horrific possibilities, someone bellowed from the hall.
“Get your filthy hands off my wife!”
The door had already been abused by the leader of the thugs. This time, it splintered into pieces when Cassian stomped on it with his good leg. The Duke burst into the room, no limp in sight. He did not look like a crippled man at all, but more like a god of vengeance, there to collect.
For one suspended moment, across the wreckage of the door and the frozen faces of the thugs, they simply looked at one another.
Then the scarred man moved, but Cassian moved faster.
Using the element of surprise and his momentum, he swung his cane with brute force, striking one of the men who had scrambled to attack him. The man flew against the wall. He never had the chance.
“Cassian!” Juliana cried, feeling a mix of relief and fear.
Why is he here?
“Untie the Baron!” Cassian commanded, not looking at her.
Even as he gave the order, one thug swung at him. He ducked it. No, there was no way the men would release Kit. So Juliana ran to her brother’s side and fumbled with the thick ropes. She wished she had brought a knife, but she had not expected him to be a prisoner, a hostage.
“Wake up, Kit!”
In the corner of her eye, she saw Cassian deliver a sharp blow to one attacker’s ribs. The fight was not over, though. It looked like the first thug was also stirring.
“Kit! Wake up!” she urged, slapping her brother’s face while she loosened his ropes further. “We have to go!”
“Jules?” he groaned, his eyes finally fluttering open. At first, they were unfocused. Then they sharpened, much to Juliana’s relief. “What are you doing here?”
“Grandmama told me you had been missing for days, and I came here to find you. Cassian is…”
As soon as she released him, Kit gave Juliana a brief hug, then threw himself at one of the thugs who was about to hit Cassian in the back. He was roaring with pent-up rage, his voice almost animal.
What happened next was something Juliana knew she would turn over in her mind for a long time afterward.
The thug who had peeled himself off the wall was moving toward Cassian’s blind side, his fist already raised, and Cassian had not seen him.
Kit had. And Kit, who was barely upright, whose wrists were swollen, and whose face was a map of what the last several days had cost him, launched himself off the table with everything he had left and hit the man squarely in the shoulder, sending them both crashing into the wall.
He did not do it gracefully. She heard him grunt in pain as they connected and saw him struggle to keep the man pinned.
But he did it, and kept doing it, and for a moment Juliana saw not the man who had sold her, abandoned Marta, or gambled away everything their family had ever built, but the brother she had grown up with.
The one who had once, a very long time ago, been worth defending.
Chaos descended on the room as the three men began a scuffle. Nobody was paying attention to Juliana. She seized the opportunity to pick up the pistol from the floor. This time, her grip was deliberate. She had fired it before. She could do it again.
“Leave them alone!” she screamed, aiming the weapon at the two men who were still standing and fighting with Kit and Cassian.
All the men stopped, their eyes darting toward her. The leader, the scarred man, looked bloody, and his nose might even be broken. Yet he still managed a mocking laugh at the sight of the Duchess with the gun.
“Oh, look at this. She has a pistol. Tell me, little bird, do they teach you to hold it like that at finishing school? Because from where I am standing, you are more likely to shoot the ceiling than anything that might actually trouble me.” He took a slow step toward her, his smile widening.
“Put it down before you hurt yourself. “Go home to your pretty house and your pretty dresses and leave the men to finish their business.”
The other thug chuckled. Seeing her hands tremble around the pistol, he felt emboldened and approached her some more. This time, Juliana acted on instinct. She squeezed the trigger hard, and the recoil pushed her back a little as the pistol fired.
For a moment, she did not even know if she had succeeded.
Then the man yelled, clutching his thigh.
Spurts of blood bloomed red through his trousers.
In pain, he collapsed to the ground, still screaming.
The scarred man and the one who had managed to peel himself off the wall froze.
Their smirks were wiped from their faces as they watched the smoking barrel in the Duchess’s hand.
Juliana hardened. She knew what they were seeing.
A woman had just fired a gun and was possibly still about to, her hand shaking and perhaps out of control.
Someone uncertain was even more dangerous with a weapon.
It was enough to send the smugglers scrambling through the back door.
It was so quick. So sudden. They were gone.
Silence fell. Each one tried to catch their breath.
Juliana realized what had happened, and it made her chest heavy with sobs she could not let out.
She stood there, with her mouth open, staring at nothing in the middle of the room.
When she caught Cassian’s gaze, he limped toward her, finally feeling the pain in his leg.
His coat was torn, but that was nothing compared to what could have happened.
When he reached her, he pulled her into a tight embrace.
She felt as if he could crush her, but she would not mind if it happened. She finally released her sobs.
“You are the most reckless woman I have ever met,” he whispered raggedly into her hair. His voice shook, and she knew he felt the same relief and dark realization. “You are so infuriating, but God, I love you, Juliana.”
Juliana was not surprised by the confession, but she was surprised that he could put it into words.
She herself still could not move her lips to say the same thing.
All she knew was that her world would have ended if something had happened to Cassian.
She was scared for Kit, but she felt utter horror watching her husband fight the thugs with an aching leg.
He had risked his life for Kit. She had risked her own life, and his, too.
The words that came out, though, seemed different, focused on what Cassian might think was her priority.
“I had to find Kit, Cassian. I could not let him die. He is a fool, but he did not deserve to be murdered here,” she said, resting her cheek against his solid chest.
Cassian was her support. Her strength. Her anchor. She would have fallen apart without him. As if sensing that, he held her even closer.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice low and entirely serious.
“You have been carrying all of this alone for so long that you do not even notice you are doing it anymore. Your brother’s debts.
Your family’s ruin. The deliveries in dark alleys at hours no woman should be out alone.
All of it, on your shoulders, for years, because there was nobody else and you were too stubborn and too brave to put it down.
” His hand curved around her face. “That is finished now. Do you understand me? You are not alone in this anymore. You do not have to go running into danger by yourself, because I am here, and I intend to remain here, and there is nothing you are carrying that I am not willing to carry with you.” His thumb brushed her cheek.
“You should have come to me, Juliana. You should always come to me.”
She looked at him, at the exhaustion, the relief, and the love he was no longer bothering to conceal, and felt something shift in her chest that she had not known was still locked.
“I did not know if you would come,” she admitted.
“I will always come,” he said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “That is not something you should ever have to question again.”
She pressed her face back into his chest and said nothing, because there was nothing adequate, and because she was finally, for the first time in as long as she could remember, willing to let someone else carry the weight for a while.
He held her closer, and then slowly and reluctantly let go.
Only then did he give himself a chance to look at Kit, who was leaning weakly against the table.
His face was covered in bruises, and his wrists were red and swollen.
He was wiping blood from a split lip. The Duke’s eyes narrowed on his brother-in-law, and Juliana went rigid as she anticipated another fight.
The last time they were in the same room, they had been rolling on the floor. Would they finish everything here?
“And you, Kit,” Cassian roared, half-limping, half-lunging toward Kit. He gripped his cane tightly, as if he would swing it at any moment, but he did not. He was in severe pain. “Give me a good reason I should not kill you. Just one. This is not the first time you have placed Juliana in danger.”
Kit met Cassian’s gaze head-on. This time, he looked serious, not sarcastic. He looked tired. Juliana could even see a hint of shame. Was it finally time for him to make himself accountable for all he had done?
“In any other circumstances, I would have gladly welcomed death at this point. I have not been living, not really, not for years. But now that I know Marta is alive…” her brother whispered, his voice cracking. “Please give me a chance to explain everything.”