“Why are you here?” He waved a hand wearily. “Braving the proverbial den of iniquity?”
“My last hope for your soul is to see you well and settled. I cannot embrace the comforts of Heaven until you do. If you marry a proper God-fearing woman you have a chance to not turn out like your father—”
“You mean that’s the only thing keeping you alive? To get rid of you I merely need become
‘well and settled’?” He asked the question with deceptive lightness even as anger churned inside him, a violent burn through his blood. He crossed his arms behind his head, one finger tracing the mutilated skin of his palm. “Marriage, hmm. Now that is something to consider.”
The worn lines of his grandfather’s face drooped, making him look like a sad-faced hound.
Amazing that his mother, beautiful as everyone claimed—beautiful enough at the ripe age of seventeen to have snared a duke—sprang from this man’s loins.
“Indeed. I have created a list of prospective candidates.” He patted his jacket where, presumably, the list hid. “All goodly women. Will you consider it?” His grandfather settled both hands on the brass-headed cane before him, waiting, it seemed, for Dominic’s answer.
Sitting up, he punched his pillow several times. “Not bloody likely. You scarcely look hale and hearty. I’m wagering that you’re not going to last the winter, old man.” He smiled cruelly, dark anger swirling through him, potent and heady as a fine claret.
“So you’ll continue as you are?” His grandfather raked him with pitiless eyes—familiar in their coldness. His gnarled hands flexed over the top of his cane. “Oh, I’ve heard all about you. Tales of your exploits abroad have carried here. You’ve become as wicked as your father.”
Dominic smiled, inordinately pleased at the condemnation in his grandfather’s eyes. As a boy he had tried, again and again, to earn this man’s approval. Never succeeding. After a time, he decided it was easier to live up or, rather, down to the old man’s expectations. “Disappointing you is one of my life’s greatest ambitions.”
“Do you not care for an heir?”
Bitterness flooded him. “To carry on the grand tradition of this family?” Turning his neck, he forced the tension to ebb from his shoulders. “No thank you.”
No doubt he would have turned out differently if his grandfather had been a different sort.
Dominic wouldn’t lose himself every chance he got in sin and vice, searching for an escape from the numbness. He wouldn’t be all that was wicked…all that sent a woman like Fallon O’Rourke fleeing for cover. _A good woman. Proper. _ Likely the sort his grandfather would approve of—
even if she was of common stock, which he presumed she was. Rupert Collins cared more for one’s moral standing than societal.
And Dominic approved of her, too. Approved? Hell. That seemed a poor description, but how else could he explain the constant thoughts of her that besieged him? Unfortunate that he would never see her again.
His grandfather’s voice dragged his thoughts from Fallon O’Rourke. “I raised you to be God-fearing.”
_Fear. _ Yes, the man before him had taught him a great deal about fear. In ways he could never forget. He recalled the heavy tread of Mrs. Pearce’s approaching steps in the nursery. The stinging fall of a cane on his back. The burn of a white-hot poker against the palm of his hand.
Cold, endless nights spent on his knees on the hard chapel floor, stomach cramping from days of fasting. Mrs. Pearce had been larger than life itself. Dominic’s world. The world his grandfather had seen fit to assign him.
And his world had been misery.
His heart was a cold stone in his chest as he stared at the only family left to him, the man that had given that woman power over him. “I would rather serve the devil than serve _your _ God.”
“Blasphemy!”
Dominic smiled harshly, perversely pleased to provoke him. “I suppose Mrs. Pearce didn’t beat and starve the devil out of me as a lad.”
His grandfather raked him with a withering stare where he reclined on the bed. His hands flexed on the brass head of the cane.
A long moment passed before the old man turned and walked from the room, the thump of his cane gradually fading.
Falling back on the bed, Dominic felt like a pugilist having won a scrap. Why, then, did he not feel more triumphant?
Chapter 9
Fallon paused amid lighting the hall sconces, watching as the valet stomped down the corridor, muttering indecipherably. As he neared, she saw that his face burned an unattractive shade of red.
She didn’t need to hear him to guess at his words—more recriminations against his employer.
Every time he entered the kitchens, it was to express his outrage over the duke behaving in an incorrigible fashion. She recalled Mr. Adams’s insistence that serving the duke was a privilege.
Apparently Diddlesworth did not ascribe to the notion.
It had not taken her long to learn the older gentleman who called earlier was Rupert Collins, a former vicar and the duke’s grandfather. Unbelievable as it seemed, the demon duke descended from an esteemed member of the church. Nor had it taken long to learn of the duke’s descent into a bottle of Madeira immediately following the visit.
Later, the duke had stepped out, only to return hours later, bleeding and bruised from a brawl he had started at one of his clubs. At least that was the rumor circulating the household. Recalling the wicked behavior she had observed thus far, she suspected it was to be believed.
Diddlesworth’s eyes alighted on her. His scowl deepened. “What are you looking at?”
Fallon turned her attention to the next sconce. Diddlesworth stopped at her side. “Here, lad.
Make yourself useful.” He thrust a tray at Fallon, which she fumbled to grasp. “Take this downstairs and return with some brandy.”
“Brandy,” she echoed, quite sure she had just heard, among his mutterings, him calling the duke a bloody sot.
“Yes, brandy.” He rolled his eyes. “His Grace wants to drink himself into a stupor, so snap to it, boy.”
Fallon turned, stopping when the door to the master bedchamber swung open. Frozen, she and Diddlesworth both gawked as the duke emerged, dressed in black evening attire. He held himself erect, his carriage proud. Absurd considering his swollen eye and bloodied lip. He gave no indication that he was even aware of his injury. Nor that he had spent the day overimbibing.
Diddlesworth rushed forward, grasping the duke’s elbow. “Your Grace, let me assist you back to your room.”
The duke shook off the other man’s hand, replying in such a level voice that Fallon wondered if the prissy valet had not perhaps exaggerated his inebriated condition. “If you want to do something for me, Diddledeedee, I recommend you have a carriage brought around.”
As he neared, Fallon noted a brightness to his eyes and a flush riding the swarthy planes of his cheeks.
“You intend to go out again, my lord?” Diddleworth’s throat worked as his gaze darted wildly over the duke’s less than tidy appearance. “In your condition?”
“Indeed, I do, Diddly. The night is still young.”
Diddlesworth’s face burned deep red.
A small sound escaped from the back of her throat—half chuckle, half snort.
Both men turned their attention on her. Precisely what she did not want. She might have passed the duke’s scrutiny before—but she did not want him to study her further. Even with his judgment impaired by alcohol.
She swallowed, donning a bland, impersonal expression.
He took an uneven step her way, focusing those bright gray eyes on her. Or rather one good eye.
The other peered out from red, swollen flesh. “Frank.” He snapped his fingers and nodded as though satisfied. “I remember.”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“How old are you?” He staggered a step closer. She resisted the urge to retreat back and endured his nearness, the overwhelming masculinity that surrounded him like mist. A dark intoxicating mist that threatened to suck her under. She inhaled deeply through her nose.
“Twenty, Your Grace,” she replied.
He shook his head. “Babe in the woods.” His head dipped and he studied her closely. She struggled not to fidget beneath his assessment. “So untried. Innocent.” His lips tightened and he leaned sideways, his shoulder hitting the wall with a bouncing thud. “Cling to that.”
She blinked, amazed at the glimpse of vulnerability she saw in his bloodshot eyes. His lips loosened then, relaxing into a smile that did strange things to her insides. “I don’t remember a time in my life where I was like that.”
“Ever?” she murmured even as she was certain she should stop this conversation, no matter how intriguing. Diddlesworth seemed to concur, if his high-arching brows signified anything. She shouldn’t care. Shouldn’t want to know about him.
“You must have been a child once.” She heard herself volunteer, trying to offer forth a smile.
Diddlesworth shifted where he stood, sending her an impatient look.
The duke angled his head, musing. “No. Can’t recall a time when my soul wasn’t black.” He laughed then—a terrible, ruthless sound—and shoved off the wall. “My own grandfather would vouch for that. According to him, I am the devil himself.”
Without further comment, he strode away.
She stared after him…feeling dumbstruck, and filled with absolute certainty that more existed in him than she first assumed. He no longer fit quite so neatly in the box where she lumped all gentlemen of rank.
My own grandfather would vouch for that. According to him,I am the devil himself.
“Ahem.”
Her gaze flew back to Diddlesworth. His nostrils quivered. “No one likes ingratiating little toadies. You’d do well to remember that. Back to your duties.” Lifting his nose high, he hurried after the duke.
Shaking her head, she turned and headed to the kitchens with the tray, wondering if, perhaps, a heart beat within the duke’s chest after all.
“Take these to the duke’s study. Lord Hunt is in there with him, so of course they’ll want…” The rest of Adams’s word faded to an insignificant buzz at the mention of Lord Hunt. Her stomach pitched.
Could it be him? After all these years?
The skin of her face grew cold and clammy. Sucking in a deep breath, she fought a rising tide of nausea and prayed she would not be sick. Pressing a hand to her stomach, she shook her head in fierce denial.
“What’s wrong with you, lad? Are you ill?”
Fallon continued to shake her head, stopping only when she felt the curious stares of other servants on her. Moistening her lips, she accepted the lacquered cigar box with trembling hands.
“No.”
Duty first. No matter how she trembled at the mention of the duke’s guest, her eyes burning as they had not done in years. Not since she departed Viscount Hunt’s estate and began her life at Penwich.
She would perform her duty. She would venture forth. She must. And, most importantly, she would know if the past had truly collided with her—here, of all places.
Her legs moved up the steps of the servants’ stairs numbly, her soft tread matching the heavy beat of her heart as she advanced toward the study. Once again, thrusting herself beneath the duke’s nose. The very place she had vowed to avoid, yet where she continued to find herself. But for once, she didn’t care. She had to go. Had to know.
The duke bade enter at her single swift rap.
“Ah, here we are. I’d begun to fear they forgot us.”
Fallon’s heart stilled upon hearing the voice of the duke’s guest. Years had passed since the afternoon she had been called before his desk. But his voice had not changed so much. Not enough for her to forget. Always full of relentless demands. Demands Da had been unable to refuse…even if it meant leaving her alone in the world. Indeed, she remembered the voice.