Page 95 of The Duke
Hope.
If she believed in anything, it was that everyone deserved a second chance.
And she’d hoped for one with Cole… but it was not to be. They’d both become too vastly different. He’d let the injustice he’d suffered turn him into someone hard and angry. She’d been shown benevolent mercy, and had let it take root within her. She’d protected her newfound life with secrets.
And, in doing so, destroyed any chance she had with the man she’d wanted.
It seemed fate would have her choose between her two passions.
She’d made the choice, because in the end she wanted a man who would let her have both. His love, and his support of her chosen path.
Devastation threatened to buckle her knees from beneath her, but she managed to stagger through the open door of her bedroom and leaned heavily upon it after closing it behind her.
Gulping a few desperate breaths of air, she let her nightgown slip to the ground, and padded, naked, to the basin, where she poured water from the pitcher. Numbly, she wet a cloth, found the soap, and washed. First her tear-streaked face, then cooling the skin of her neck and chest heated by mortification. Then she tended to herself intimately, contemplating the possible consequences of what she washed from her thighs. Of what he’d left inside her.
She hadn’t the energy to worry about that now, though longing soothed the stab of anxiety clenched in her belly. Discarding the cloth, she turned to face her empty bed, still in disarray from her restless sleep. Her room was so cozy, especially in moonlight and shadow. A delightful shade of pale green, always strewn with fresh flowers in exotic vases perched on delicate white furniture. She’d never dreamed she’d have a place half so lovely or grand. And now…
The sobs escaped her then. Burst from her in great, panting gasps.
Now she might sleep here alone forever. All because she fell for a stubborn, haughty, unyielding, irresistible, principled, damaged man.
Bugger it all.
Crying and cursing her own stubbornness, along with men in general, she stomped to her wardrobe and wrenched it open, fishing inside for a new nightgown. Finding one, she closed the doors and began to wrestle with the tiny buttons, the darkness and her tears impeding her progress. Finally, she lifted it over her head.
“Don’t.” The voice didn’t belong to Cole. Nor to one of the two men she’d just left downstairs.
The command was gentle, though the intruder smothered her sound of surprise with a strong palm, crushing the fabric to her lips and nose. “I much prefer you naked.”
Imogen’s fear turned her mouth to ash as she struggled and felt herself being smothered, recognizing the pungent, etherlike odor against her nose and mouth as chloroform. A powerful anesthesia.
She stilled and held her breath, her head already swimming, unconsciousness both threatening her and beckoning to her.
That voice. It was heartbreakingly familiar. One she’d thought was a friend. One who’d vowed never to do harm.
“Dry your tears, my love,” he whispered as he dragged her back against his front, much as Cole had mere minutes before. “I’m here. And you’re finally mine.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
Cole broke things, destroyed them, hoping to release the pressure caused by the presence of both extremes. Fire and ice. His skin burned, so much so he wanted to peel it from his body. Fury creating an inferno that threatened to incinerate him.
But for the ice. A bleak and terrifying chill frosted his insides like the panes of a window in January. His chest felt at once brittle and numb, as though one tap could shatter him into sharp and gossamer shards.
He left a path of devastation in his wake as he stormed and thundered through Trenwyth Hall. The corpses of his mother’s priceless vases. A splintered antique table Robert had acquired in Sumatra. An upended glass-cased shadow box of rare coins it took his father a lifetime to collect.
Rubbish. All of it. Everything. The trinkets of people who’d left them behind. Who’d left him behind. Who could take nothing with them to the hereafter. The legacy of an empty family built on little else but tradition and held together by insubstantial things. Money. Expectation. A title.
A name.
What’s in a name?a star-crossed lover had once inquired. What, indeed?
He reached his study and locked the door, aware that a few of the staff tiptoed up from below stairs to investigate the commotion.
Would a rose by any other name be as sweet?Would a woman by another name remain the same woman?
Apparently not.
American natives had taught him that a name held much power, a belief held by many, including the Catholic Church. If one could exorcise a demon, one must first learn its name.
