Chapter 18
T o avoid thinking about what he was going to have to say to Portia when he returned to the house, Rufus had kept himself in meetings all day at the House of Lords. But now the dark night sky was slipping down over the city of London, and he needed to return to his house that had never been a home.
Not like Heron House.
The pain that laced through him was significant. He was hurting his wife. Something he’d never wanted. All because he had lied to himself. Lied about being able to have her—a glorious, eccentric woman—as his wife and expect her to live with his ghosts.
What would he say? How would he explain? Or did he just pretend the conversation had never happened and hope she’d adapt to him and his ways?
Granted, the house was so large that he could go back to his place of dwelling and not see her at all if he wished. But was that what he wished for them, for their marriage, so soon?
His parents had had a marriage like that, only worse.
His mother and father had not spoken to each other, not out of friendship, not out of pleasure. His mother had cowered before his father, and his father had only spoken to criticize her.
Estella’s ominous warning slipped through his mind.
She had warned him about how fathers, despite being dead, sometimes came back to claim their sons. He wouldn’t be claimed. He couldn’t.
He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was simply asking her to follow his rules, to follow his dictates. There was nothing wrong with that. And he was being perfectly polite. He was nothing like his father.
Except he was sliding away from her. Not because he wanted to, but because something was taking hold of him. Something he didn’t feel like he could control, and he hated it. It was as if him daring to want a taste of something more was simply not allowed.
His father’s hand was snaking up from the grave, controlling him even now.
He started towards his coach, but it was not where it usually was. There was another coach waiting, and as he approached it, he scowled.
The door suddenly burst open, and he spotted Huxton and Lord Calchas.
“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” Rufus demanded. He was in no mood for chatter.
“Saving you,” Huxton announced.
The twins seized him. Rufus was so startled that he could not think of anything to say or do whilst they thrust him into the coach.
He was not accustomed to being abducted by mad twin noblemen.
They slammed the door shut behind them, sat him down, and took the opposite bench. But that was when he realized he was not alone on his side of the coach. No. He was surrounded by another set of Briarwood twins—Maximus and Octavian.
“We don’t all fit in here,” he growled, his shoulders all but going up to his ears as he was squashed in.
The lot of them were quite pinched like sardines in a barrel. Five big men in a luxurious coach was not comfortable, no matter how rich the coach was.
The cousins just smiled at him. Slightly alarming smiles, but smiles, nonetheless.
“Let me out,” Rufus ordered in his most imperious tone.
“No,” Huxton replied, cocking his head to the side.
“Look here, you cheeky puppy,” Rufus rasped, “you are not a duke yet. You cannot—”
“Cannot?” Huxton replied.
“He just did,” said Lord Calchas, his gaze dancing.
“Exactly,” said Octavian.
“We got a message from our cousin,” put in Maximus.
“Oh, did you?” Rufus asked, wincing. “Did she write to tell you how poorly I was treating her?”
“No, you dolt,” Octavian ground out.
“Are you treating her poorly?” Huxton demanded.
“I…” Rufus paused. “What did she say?”
Lord Calchas leaned forward, his golden epaulettes gleaming in the lamplight. “That you were in trouble and that you needed sorting out.”
“I don’t need sorting out,” he returned, gaping.
Octavian and Maximus, sitting on either side of him, eyed him up and down.
“Oh, you do,” observed Maximus, his crimson uniform a dark, almost blood-like color in the dimming light.
“You definitely do,” added Octavian, shifting sidewise for more room, causing the gold buttons on his coat to wink.
“You look as if you’ve become a boring nodcock again,” Huxton said.
“Yes. What’s happened?” prodded Lord Calchas. “When you met our cousin, all that seemed to vanish.”
“Now it seems to have returned in full force and worse,” put in Huxton, waggling his brows.
Rufus wanted to protest. He wanted to argue, but it was the truth. “Look,” he said, “I am a duke. I am simply fulfilling my role.”
“Balderdash,” said Octavian.
“Absolute swill,” added Maximus.
“Nonsense,” said Lord Calchas.
“We won’t hear another minute of your excuses,” Huxton replied.
“Excuses?” he echoed before he narrowed his eyes and defended, “I don’t make excuses. I—”
“That is exactly what you are doing,” Octavian drawled as the coach rolled through the London streets.
“Where are we going?” Rufus tried to demand, but it came out more like a bleat.
“To where you need to go,” said Maximus.
He folded his arms over his chest. “This is not…”
“What?” Octavian said.
“Something you’re accustomed to?” demanded Maximus.
“Exactly,” affirmed Rufus.
“You mean you’re not used to people caring about you?” put in Lord Calchas.
“No one has ever cared about me,” he said. “Not really. Except my sister.”
“Well, it’s too late then. We all care about you,” said Huxton.
He winced inwardly. Did they? Did they actually care about him? Or were they just here for Portia, which was understandable?
“That makes no sense,” he rumbled. “You’ve all known me so little and—”
“You’re family,” put in Octavian.
“I’m married to Portia,” Rufus retorted.
“Well done. You’ve stated the obvious,” said Maximus. “You are family now. And we don’t let family wiggle off and do ridiculous things to themselves.”
“Or to Portia,” put in Octavian.
Rufus scowled, stunned that he had been put in this absurd situation. “I’m not doing anything ridiculous. I’m—”
“If you are not careful, you are going to throw your whole marriage away. A girl like that?” Octavian put in, his voice a low hum. “She’ll run off to New York or worse. She’s not going to just trot off and wither away.”
“I don’t want her to wither away,” Rufus protested.
Octavian arched a brow. “Don’t you?”
“No!” he exclaimed.
“Well, then stop it,” Huxton said with surprising intensity, his humor dimming.
“Stop what?” Rufus lamented, wishing he could understand what he needed to do.
“Stop asking her to be what you wanted in the past . We’re not in the past,” Octavian said. “We’re headed towards the future.”
“How profound,” Rufus drawled, finding the entire affair unhelpful.
“But it’s the truth,” said Lord Calchas softly. “You’re stuck in the past. For a moment there, it looked like you were freeing yourself of it, but then you marched backwards. How ridiculous is that? Do you know what that’s called?” Maximus demanded.
He arched a brow. “Edify me.”
“A retreat,” said Octavian, his gaze dark. “And you are not going to retreat. You are going to go forward and meet this battle.”
The coach suddenly rolled to a stop. The door opened, and Rufus realized that they were in a rather rough part of town.
“Where the bloody hell are we?” he asked, gazing out and spotting scum-covered puddles on a road with broken cobbles.
Nestor winked at him. “We’re here to meet someone who will sort you out.”
He let out a low breath. “I thought you were dragging me before Westleigh.”
“Oh we are,” Huxton said, “but that’s not the only person waiting for you.”
Rufus stepped down into the dark, avoiding a puddle, surrounded by the cousins.
It was an old warehouse. And then he heard it.
“Right, Your Grace, you ready to sort out your ghosts?”
He winced.
It was the voice of Hartigan Mulvaney.
The Irishman leaned against a coal-dark doorjamb. “I told you I saw inside you. I saw there is a war there. Now, it’s time to kill your enemy.”
“And how do I do that?” Rufus ground out. “Are you going to beat me into submission?”
Mulvaney merely smiled a slightly frightening smile, turned, and strode into the warehouse.
With no other choice, since the Briarwoods were at his back, Rufus followed, his stomach tight.
Were all of them going to pummel him into the ground until he’d admitted submission? Maybe it’s what he needed. Certainly, that’s what his father had always thought he needed as a child.
As they led him farther into the dank warehouse with just a lantern gleaming, he spotted the Duke of Westleigh leaning against a cracked table, his ankles crossed and his hands folded over his coat. The rich emerald fabric gleamed in the low, flickering golden light.
Westleigh’s head was tilted to the side and there was something almost mad about him. “Welcome,” the duke said.
“This doesn’t feel welcome,” Rufus replied.
“That’s only because it’s not familiar,” Westleigh replied.
Rufus tensed, looking at all of them—all handsome, all extremely similar in their appearance—as they circled round him.
“What do you all want?” Rufus gritted.
“For you to be happy,” Westleigh said as he pushed away from the table.
Rufus rolled his eyes.
“No, it is true,” Westleigh added as he tugged at the lapels of his coat. “We wish you to know happiness.”
Mulvaney nodded. “I’ve walked many a man through hell, Your Grace. I’ve been through many a battle on the field. And many here at home where the demons are far more artful. You’ve given in to something, something old, something painful, and now we’re going to help you through it.”
Rufus swung his gaze around, accepting his fate. “How do you want to do this?” he asked. “Who’s going to punch me in the face, and who will hold me down?”
Westleigh cocked his head to the side. He looked to Mulvaney. “He thinks that we’ve brought him here to beat sense into him.”
Mulvaney shook his head, then said the most chilling and accurate words. “It’s the only thing he knows. So, of course, that’s what he thinks.”
“Then why am I here?” Rufus demanded, panic rising in him, despite his power, his strength, and his abilities.
Mulvaney looked at him. “Real strength isn’t beating another up. I think your father did that to you, didn’t he? Mine did too. But these lads here, they’ve never done that to each other. They never will.”
And then Westleigh slowly began to cross towards Rufus. “I’m not your father,” he said, “but I think it’s time someone took that man’s place. And I’m going to show you exactly what should be done when a man acts the way you have.”
Rufus swallowed, a storm of feeling colliding inside him. Half fear, half defiance. But whatever the duke doled out, he could take it. He was strong, and he knew how to endure pain.
And then His Grace strode to him, placed his hands on Rufus’s arms, and stared deep into his eyes. Westleigh began, “You don’t need to do this anymore. You’re not alone, Rufus. And you’ll never be alone again because you have family now, and we love you.”
And with that, the duke pulled him into his arms, holding him tight.
Then, one after another, from Hartigan Mulvaney to Huxton, to Octavian, to Maximus and Lord Calchas, they strode forward and surrounded him.
It was the most overwhelming thing he’d ever experienced. Not because of a brutal beating and not because of force, but because they all stood there with him. Offering him their strength, their support.
“Let your father truly die,” Westleigh whispered in his ear. “You don’t have to do anything he said. He can’t hurt you now. And you’re free. Free to be with your wife. Free to be with us and free, at last, to be yourself.”