Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ROWEN
And in the shadows on these haunted shores,
These hounds of hell wade through their gore.
Sullied and scarred,
Wretched, raving,
They rage wide and far.
Though there is no moon,
They howl and bay,
For they hunger to be heard.
And he who has risen from his deep twilight
Is now untethered
And leads these wraiths with his unholy might.
Fangs long stained with blood,
His roar is silent
yet foul and raw
in the darkness of the night.
Rowen closed his eyes, his hand crumpling Stephan’s coded message.
He had read it at least ten times now, taking in the words, especially this last section of verses.
The symbols, the meanings of certain words he and Stephan had devised together years ago.
The arranged pattern between particular words, which revealed places, names.
On a snarl, he threw the worn paper into the fire.
The flames quickly devoured the poem. Rowen’s jagged breaths filled his study, and he flattened his palms on the leather surface of his desk.
Yet he was not steady. It was as if the very earth swayed underneath him as it had done once in Sicily.
He pulled up from his desk and crossed to the window, threw open the sash, and took in a deep breath of fresh air.
Indeed, the very earth had shifted underneath them all.
He had hoped for the impossible. Now the impossible was true.
But the knowledge was not liberating, nor was being correct satisfying. It was heavy and deep and churned inside him like a burning volcanic mass.
His hands gripped the sill. And there was Zandra in the middle of it all. Thank fuck she had followed Stephan’s demand and had wasted no time in quitting the island. She’d understood the severity.
She always understood.
“Rowen.”
His head swung toward his wife’s voice. Zandra stood in the doorway of his study, dressed, poised, beautiful as ever…and sombre. They took one another in silently. She joined him at the window.
He straightened and kept his gaze trained on the prospect of the verdant lawn visible out the window. “Frederica did not die peacefully, did she?”
“It was debilitating, painful. And my fault.”
He turned to her.
“I was sent a gift. French perfume. Frederica was visiting when it arrived. I did not like the scent, but she adored it, and I gave it to her as a gift. She’d been thrilled with the luxury of it.
Soon after, she was in a fever. She was already in a fragile state after having had the child.
” Zandra let out a heavy breath. “I went to see her. She was weak, shuddering, and there were red marks on her skin—her wrists, her chest.”
“Where she had dabbed the scent.”
“Yes. She was so very frightened. Within days, she was gone.”
“And who sent you such a gift?” He barely recognised his own voice.
“My uncle.”
His blood heated, his eyes narrowing at her as he tried to make sense of her reply.
“My Uncle Alastair is in Jersey posing as a French émigré by the name of Comte de Lévignac. Lord Enggers introduced us at the party I’d told you about. My uncle recognised his niece, but I did not recognise my uncle. He is much changed. He was quiet, his demeanour tense, strange.”
“They are friends?”
“Old friends, from what Enggers remarked. The next day, the Comte sent me the perfume along with a lovely letter offering the gift in honour of his acquaintance with my husband and his father, whom, he said, he had once met in Porto. After Frederica took so violently ill so quickly, Nancy realised she’d recognised my uncle’s handwriting.
“If news of my being taken ill did not spread through the town, I would be in grave danger. And once news of Frederica’s death was made known, I would be in even greater danger. I could not stay for her funeral.” She swallowed hard. “My gift orphaned her child.”
Rowen took her hand in his and held it firmly as they both stood side by side at the window.
Her fingers tightened in his grip; a tightness he felt around his heart.
He brought their hands to his mouth and brushed her warm, silky skin with his lips.
A soft cry unfurled in her throat, and she pressed her body against his. His pulse quickened.
She was with him, next to him. They had survived this flood of danger from all corners, and together they would face more. He crushed her to his chest. She was his anchor. She was his gravity to this bloody earth.
“Rowen…” Her voice was a flame that scorched his skin as her hands pressed up his back.
Her eyes shone brightly, and emotion churned in his chest. Zandra drove her fingers into his hair and pulled him down to her and took his mouth.
Suddenly, she released him as if his taste had stunned her, overwhelmed her.
Gripping her jaw, he pulled her back to him and claimed her mouth in a searing kiss, drawing her back into their wild current. That tight coil of emotion inside him spun loose.
She’d been far away from him for far too long. He’d almost lost her.
Never again.
Never again.
His hands roved over her body as she pressed against him. He knew every inch of her. Every curve and dip. Where to stroke, where to grip, where to suck, where to soothe, where to bite.
Their movements became frenzied. His tongue demanded, and her fingernails dug into his back as their kisses grew more insistent. Heat against heat. Need surging with need. The need to possess and be possessed.
She brought him to the settee by the window and pushed him on it. Standing between his legs, she undid his trousers as he untied his neckcloth and opened his shirt. Freeing herself of her undergarment, she gathered her dress and mounted him. All purpose, all resolution.
Zandra took his hard shaft in hand. The firm contact of her warm grip sent a roar through his veins. Quickly, she brought his hard cock to her wet slit. Holding his gaze, she planted herself on him fully. He groaned at the intense sensation of her tight heat surrounding him. Binding him.
“Woman…” his voice growled.
Clutching his shoulders, she rode him, and he gripped the plush curve of her buttock, holding her steady as her pace became brisker.
With his free hand, he tore at the sheer fabric at her décolletage, and she cried out at the sharp tug and rip, at the lash of his tongue on her exposed breasts, at the nip of his teeth.
Zandra pulled his hair free from its tie. “My hawk…” She licked at his taut lips, her bare breasts brushing his chest, the friction driving him deeper insider her. “My lord…”
His one hand gripped her waist, the other cuffed her neck as he thrust his cock inside her wet heat, their hips slamming together. Her face tensed anew as she took his assault and gave back in the same fierce rhythm.
The frenzied clamour of their hungry bodies, the scent of their sex, all drove his ancient fury for her. “My Duchess…” he gritted out. Her breath caught at his rough voice, and her neck arched back as her body quaked with the pleasure washing through her.
Sliding his fingers between them, he grazed her stiff nub, stroking steadily, pinching and tugging as he took in the glorious sight of their union.
Crying out sharply, she struggled to move her head, but his tight grip on her neck forbade it.
He licked at her throat, bit her lip as pleasure overtook her once more.
In all the death that hounded them from the very beginning, they’d always had this, this unbridled urgency between them. Raw and uncomplicated. But now there was something fraught and desperate about their coupling. Something other than hunger.
A resolve against the world. A dare to the come what may.
Her cunny tightened around him, sending waves of merciless pleasure shuddering through him. Trembling, she cried out. Pinning her to him, their flesh sleek with perspiration, he unleashed himself inside his wife. Their foreheads slid together, their swollen lips a breath apart.
But as their euphoria quieted, what surged through him were the words of Stephan’s poem, filling him with their dark and silent roar.