Page 91 of From Duke Till Dawn
It would have been satisfying to drag him before the swindlers of London and have them wreak their vengeance on him. But she was done with violence and done with revenge.
“If I ever hear of you back in England,” Alex added darkly, “I’ll be sure to have you thrown onto a prison hulk with no chance of release.”
Martin swallowed audibly. He held his hands out once more. “Forgive me, Cassie.”
Her heart ached, but she straightened her shoulders. “I can’t.” She gazed at him pitilessly. “You’ll have to live with that.”
“But...” His eyes brimmed. “I love you.”
His words were a thin blade slipping between her ribs. She fought from wincing.
She’d never once heard those words spoken to her before. But they meant nothing now. Not from him. And she couldn’t let him see how much he wounded her.
“Love means giving,” she said, gazing at Alex, “not taking.”
Chapter 20
The yard at the coaching inn bustled with movement: vehicles coming in and out, passengers embarking and disembarking, luggage everywhere, dogs barking, the din of countless voices, horses being changed, tired travelers hurrying to take a fast meal in the taproom, and a hundred small exchanges that turned the yard into a swirl of muddy chaos.
But Alex cared only about the fate of one passenger on one vehicle. He and Cassandra waited, both of them crossing their arms over their chests, with their gazes fixed on the Dover-bound coach. Martin sat at the window of the vehicle, sending them baleful glances. Alex studiously ignored those looks. He didn’t give a damn about Hughes or anything he might be feeling. He wanted him gone from England, never to set one traitorous foot on its soil again.
“I can still have him arrested,” Alex said to Cassandra.
Her expression was deliberately blank, as it had been ever since Hughes, the bastard, had claimed to love her. Alex imagined she didn’t hear those words very often, and having them come from one who had deliberately hurt her must have wounded her deeply.
“For all that he’s a son of a bitch,” she said flatly, “having him rot in prison would only gnaw at me. This solution is cleaner for my conscience.”
Whatever gave her the most ease was the solution he favored. He didn’t want her troubled in any way by Hughes’s fate.
“If ever you change your mind...” Alex said.
“You’ll be the first to know,” she answered. “I don’t want to know where he is, what he’s doing. If everything lines up properly, I never will.”
Alex hoped Hughes would meet with a sad and bleak end. The swindler had nearly gotten Cassandra killed, and no fate was grim enough. If only they’d been alive fifty years ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated to exercise his prerogative to shed blood in the name of the woman he loved.
A shock ran through him like a sizzle of lightning.
He loved Cassandra.
His anger had turned, first into tentative caring and then to a consuming passion. And love was there now, as steady and sure as an oak with its roots thickly woven around his heart. He’d altered completely from the man he’d been a few weeks ago—because of her. Sensations of freedom and benevolence coursed through him.
Even here, in this mud-spattered and anarchic coaching yard, he looked at the world with fresh eyes and saw beauty in the mundane. The dog touching noses with one of the horses. A mother straightening her child’s cap. The man giving a farewell kiss to his daughter as she climbed aboard a coach. He wouldn’t have seen these moments before, but now, now he was someone else entirely. Someone better. Who lived more fully, who did more than move through the world like the prow of a ship carving through waves. He felt, he saw. He wasn’t duty personified, but a thinking, feeling man.
She had done that. With her intelligence and bravery and sly humor and boundless passions. She had unlocked him, freed him. And he felt both huge and humble, ennobled and deferential. More than the Duke of Greyland, he washimself.
He couldn’t speak of any of this. At least, not here, amidst the din and commotion. And he didn’t know what would come of this new discovery of love. After all, they were fated to be apart. There was no surmounting that obstacle.
“The driver is calling for the final passengers to board,” Cassandra noted.
A few more people squeezed into the Dover-bound coach. Some even sat on the roof, clinging tightly to keep from being thrown off. The driver slammed the door shut, then climbed up to his seat and snapped the reins. With a lurch, the coach rolled into motion. Hughes, seemingly resigned to his fortune, turned away from the window with a disconsolate expression.
Alex and Cassandra waited until the coach was no longer visible before turning toward his own waiting carriage.
As they walked to the gleaming vehicle, Alex said, “It’s done.” He scanned Cassandra’s face for signs of sorrow, but found only exhausted resignation.
“He’ll find a way to land on his feet,” she said wearily. “He always does. All I have is hope that he doesn’t trick some poor fool into caring about him.” She exhaled. “That wound lingers longest.”
Alex took hold of her hand and stroked his thumb over her wrist, where her pulse beat steadily. “He won’t always have a hold on you.”
