CHAPTER TWO
“The blue room, Mrs. Thorne. Not the duchess’s chambers.”
The housekeeper paused in the doorway, her gray eyebrows lifting a fraction of an inch, the only sign of surprise she would permit herself after twenty years of service at Stormhaven Hall. “The blue room, Your Grace? But surely the duchess’s chambers would be more appropriate for…”
“The blue room.” Caspian did not raise his voice. He never raised his voice. He had learned long ago that volume was unnecessary when one’s tone could slice through steel. “It is recently aired, adequately furnished, and situated in the east wing. She will be comfortable there.”
And far from me, he did not add. Far enough that I will not hear her footsteps in the night, or catch her scent in the corridors, or be reminded with every waking moment that I have done something monumentally foolish.
Mrs. Thorne’s lips pressed together in that particular way that meant she had opinions she was too well-trained to voice. After a moment, she inclined her head. “As you wish, Your Grace. And the household arrangements? Shall I inform the staff that the new duchess will be taking her meals?”
“Separately. In her rooms, if she prefers. I will not force my company upon her.”
Another pause. Another infinitesimal lift of those gray brows. “Very well, Your Grace. Will there be anything else?”
“That will be all.”
She withdrew, closing the study door behind her with a soft click that somehow managed to convey profound disapproval. Caspian waited until her footsteps had faded down the corridor before he allowed himself to exhale, the breath leaving his lungs in a long, controlled stream.
What have you done?
The question had been circling his mind for three days now, ever since his solicitor had returned from the Drayton estate with news that Miss Lysandra Drayton had accepted his proposal.
Accepted. As though she’d had any real choice in the matter, as though a woman drowning in her father’s debts could refuse a duke’s offer of salvation without condemning her entire family to ruin.
He pushed back from his desk and rose, crossing to the window that overlooked the moors.
October had stripped the landscape of its last pretenses of warmth; the heath stretched before him in shades of gray and brown and dying green, wind-scoured and desolate beneath a sky the color of old pewter.
Stormhaven Hall sat at the heart of it like a gray stone sentinel, watching over miles of nothing, keeper of a kingdom no one wanted.
Home, he thought, though the word had long since lost whatever meaning it might once have possessed. This was not a home. It was a fortress. A prison he had built for himself, stone by stone, over five long years of exile.
And now he was bringing a woman into it.
His hands flexed at his sides, the old tell, the one he had never been able to master, and he forced them still through sheer will. Control. Control was everything. Control was the only thing that separated him from the beast the ton believed him to be.
The Beast of Stormhaven.
He had heard the whispers, of course. One could not slaughter a viscount’s son in a duel and expect the gossips to remain silent, no matter how justified the killing had been.
They had called him dangerous and unhinged.
A man who killed in cold blood and felt nothing, no remorse, no guilt, no human emotion whatsoever.
The rumors had grown more elaborate with each passing year: that he kept his dead opponent’s sword mounted above his fireplace, that he drank alone in the dark and laughed at the memory of the killing, that any woman foolish enough to cross his threshold would never be seen again.
The truth was both simpler and more damning.
He had killed Andrew Sefton. He had driven three feet of steel through the man’s chest and watched the light fade from his eyes, and he had felt nothing. No horror. No regret. Only a cold, crystalline satisfaction that the world was better for Sefton’s absence from it.
That was the truth that haunted him. Not the killing itself, but his own reaction to it.
A good man would have felt something. A good man would have wept, or been physically sickened by the horror, or spent the remainder of his days tortured by phantoms of the mind.
Caspian had slept soundly that night for the first time in weeks, and when he’d woken, his only thought had been: It’s done.
Margaret is safe. He will never touch another woman again.
What kind of man felt relief after taking a life?
The kind of man who belonged alone on a moor, apparently. The kind of man who had no business taking a wife.
And yet here he was, preparing chambers for a bride he had never met, a woman whose only crime was being born to a weak father and catching the attention of a predator.
Wolford.
The name alone was enough to make his jaw tighten, his fingers curling toward his palms before he caught himself and forced them flat.
Lord Desmond Wolford, Viscount Wolford, charming and golden and rotten to the core.
The ton adored him, with his winning smile, his generous donations to charitable causes, and his solicitous attention to young ladies and their mamas.
They beheld a person of the most exemplary character.
Caspian saw the truth: a hunter who circled his prey with infinite patience, tightening the noose so gradually that his victims didn’t realize they were trapped until it was far too late.
He had witnessed the very same ploy five years prior, employed by a different villain, but executing the self-same designs.
Andrew Sefton had been Wolford’s friend.
The connection had surfaced six months ago, brought to Caspian’s attention by a solicitor who knew better than to ask why his employer suddenly wanted information about a minor viscount’s financial dealings.
The investigation had been thorough, and the results had made Caspian’s blood run cold: Wolford had been quietly purchasing the Drayton family’s debts for three years, consolidating his hold on them like a spider spinning a web, positioning himself as their only salvation.
And at the center of that web, trapped and unknowing, was Sir Harold Drayton’s eldest daughter.
Caspian had made inquiries. Discreet ones, conducted through intermediaries who could not be traced back to him.
He learned that Miss Lysandra Drayton was a young unwedded woman at the age of two and twenty, and had been running her father’s household since she was fourteen.
He learned that she had refused Wolford’s initial proposal, despite the catastrophic state of her family’s finances, despite having no other prospects, despite the near-certainty of ruin if she did not accept.
That refusal had told him everything he needed to know.
Women did not refuse Desmond Wolford without reason.
Wolford was handsome, wealthy, titled, and universally admired.
A woman in Miss Drayton’s position should have fallen weeping with gratitude at his feet.
The fact that she had not, the fact that something in her had recognized the predator beneath the polish, suggested she was either remarkably perceptive or possessed of instincts sharp enough to sense danger even when it wore a charming smile.
Either way, she did not deserve what Wolford had planned for her.
So Caspian had intervened and had paid off the primary debts. He had instructed his solicitor to make an offer of matrimony with generous terms, immediate settlement of remaining debts, and complete financial security for the Drayton family in exchange for one thing only.
The girl.
Not for yourself, he had told himself at the time. Not because you want her. Because Wolford wants her, and men like Wolford should not be allowed to have what they want.
It was justice. Nothing more. The same justice he had delivered to Sefton five years ago, only this time without the blood.
Or so he had believed, until the day his solicitor returned with her letter of acceptance and Caspian had found himself reading her words over and over, something unfamiliar stirring in his chest.
I should tell you that I am neither particularly biddable nor particularly accomplished.
I have opinions, and I voice them.
I do not break.
He had expected gratitude. He had expected a meek, frightened girl who would sign whatever papers were put before her and spend the rest of her life avoiding his gaze.
He had not expected defiance. He had not expected a woman who warned him, in her very first communication, that she would not be easily managed.
What manner of creature have I agreed to enter into matrimony with?
The question should have troubled him. Instead, he had found himself almost, not smiling precisely, a shadow of amusement appeared to play across his features. It felt like an awakening of regard, one altogether too perilous to be encouraged.
Which was the very reason why she had to be immediately established in the blue room, at the far end of the east wing, as far from his chambers as the architecture of Stormhaven Hall would allow.
He turned from the window and caught his reflection in the darkened glass, a tall figure in black, broad-shouldered and lean, with a face that looked as though it had been carved from the same gray stone as the house.
His hair was too long; he had not bothered with a barber in months, and the black waves fell across his forehead in a way that his mother would have called disreputable.
His eyes were worse: dark gray, almost black in this light, cold and flat as a winter sea.
And then there was the scar.
His fingers rose to touch it without conscious thought, a thin white line along his jaw, a memento of the moment Sefton’s blade had caught him before his own found its mark.
It was barely visible in good lighting, easily concealed by the angle of his head or the shadow of his collar.
But he knew it was there. He felt it every time he shaved, whenever he caught his reflection unexpectedly, each and every time he remembered the hot slide of blood down his neck and the absolute certainty in that moment that he was going to kill the man who had hurt his sister.
What woman could want this? He thought, studying the harsh planes of his face, the cruel line of his mouth, the complete absence of anything soft or welcoming in his expression. What woman could look at this and feel anything but fear?
But it was best that she feared him and maintained a distance. She should treat him as a feared beast, such as the world had labelled him. Fear was safe. Fear was predictable and fear would definitely keep her on her side of the house and him on his, two strangers sharing a roof and nothing more.
An heir, something whispered in the back of his mind. You need an heir. That was part of the arrangement.
His jaw tightened. Yes. An heir. He had not forgotten, could not forget, that particular clause in the matrimonial contract.
The Stormhaven dukedom required continuation.
His solicitor had been very clear about the necessity, the expectations, and the duty Caspian owed to his title in order for his line to continue.
The very thought of touching her, of touching anyone, made something twist in his chest. It was not revulsion, exactly but something worse. Something that felt like hunger, long suppressed and was now stirring to unwelcome life.
He had not been celibate these past five years.
There had been women, discreet encounters in London, carefully arranged, always controlled, always ending before dawn.
He had taken what he needed and given nothing of himself in return, and the women had seemed satisfied enough with the arrangement.
They had not asked questions. They had not looked at him with curiosity or concern. They had certainly not challenged him.
But this woman, his wife, as of tomorrow, would live in his house.
Sleep under his roof. Sit across from him at meals, assuming he could not convince her to dine alone.
She would be present, in a way no one had been present in five years, and the thought of it made him feel exposed in ways he could not name.
Let her fear you, he told himself again. Let her think you are a beast. It is easier that way, and safer for both of you.
A sound from outside caught his attention, the distant crunch of wheels on gravel, the jingle of harness, and the snort of horses that had traveled far and were eager for rest. He moved to the window without thinking, pressing one hand against the cold glass as he watched a carriage emerge from the long drive and roll to a stop before the great front doors of Stormhaven Hall.
His bride had arrived.
For a long moment, nothing happened. The carriage simply sat there, dark and anonymous, its occupant invisible behind the rain-spattered windows.
Caspian found himself holding his breath, waiting, his heart beating in a rhythm he did not recognize, not quite fear, not quite anticipation, something in between that he had no name for.
Then the carriage door opened, and a woman stepped out.
She was too far away for him to see her clearly, but he could make out the general impression: a slender figure in a dark traveling dress, one gloved hand accepting the coachman’s assistance, the other holding her bonnet against the ever-present Yorkshire wind.
She stood for a moment at the base of the steps, her face tilted upward, and he knew she was looking at the house, taking in its gray stone walls and narrow windows, its towers and turrets and general air of Gothic menace.
Most women would have quailed. Most women would have hesitated, or wept, or shown some sign of the terror that a place like Stormhaven was designed to inspire.
She lifted her chin and began to climb the steps.
Something clenched in Caspian’s chest, that unfamiliar sensation again, that dangerous stirring he could not afford to examine. He stepped back from the window, away from the light, letting the shadows of his study swallow him.
Let her be afraid, he told himself one final time.
But some treacherous part of him, some part he had thought long departed, was already whispering a different prayer entirely.
Please. Do not let her be afraid of me.