Page 25 of Between a Duke and a Hard Place (The Honeywells #1)
Chapter Twenty-Four
V iolet strolled through the flourishing gardens of Alstead Manor, her spirits lifted by the serene surroundings and the joyful company of her new dog—the scrappy, mixed-breed mongrel named Hampton. The sun was bright but the afternoon air was crisp, filled with the scent of blooming roses. The scene could only be described as bucolic, she thought.
And perhaps it was. It was certainly a far more peaceful life with Max than she had ever imagined possible. Obviously, they’d gotten off to a bit of a rocky start, she thought with a grin, but the tides had turned. Thinking of the night and the carnal endeavors they had shared that morning, they had turned quite dramatically.
Hampton, ever playful, darted among the flowerbeds, his tail wagging furiously as he chased after the sticks Violet playfully threw. As she laughed at Hampton's antics, a shadow fell across the lawn, chilling the warmth of the sun. Violet turned, her green eyes narrowing as she spotted Lord Eddington on horseback at the edge of the garden. His sudden appearance was like a dark cloud over her sunny day.
“Your grace," Eddington purred, his voice smooth yet carrying an undeniable threat.
Violet stiffened, clutching the stick tighter in her hand. It was hardly her weapon of choice but it was the best she could muster at present. "Lord Eddington, to what do I owe this unexpected... displeasure?"
"A lovely morning for solitude, though one might find it... a bit naive to be out here all alone. There are all manner of dangerous men about with their nefarious plots and schemes.” Eddington smiled, but there was no warmth in it.
“You would certainly be terribly familiar with plots, schemes, and all things nefarious. They are your stock in trade, are they not?” She replied coolly. “Why are you here, sir? I would have your reasons and then I would have your absence.”
"Merely concerned for your well-being, my dear. It would be a tragedy for anything untoward to happen to you, especially now that you’ve found such... prominent standing."
As he spoke, Hampton growled low in his throat, sensing the danger his mistress faced. The dog's fur bristled as he positioned himself between Violet and the looming figure on horseback.
"Careful, Miss Honeywell—forgive me, your grace,” Eddington warned with a sneer. Even with the sneer, there was a bit of fear in him as his eyes were darting down to Hampton who had become shockingly ferocious in his desire to protect her. "Animals too can provoke fates worse than their masters can imagine."
In a swift motion born of cruelty, Eddington spurred his horse forward, aiming to scare—or harm—the defiant mongrel. Violet's heart leapt into her throat. "No!" she cried out, rushing forward to shield Hampton. But she stumbled, her skirts tangling around her feet. She pitched forward as the horse reared, and in the chaos, a heavy hoof came crashing down.
Pain exploded through Violet’s head, bright lights bursting across her vision before darkness claimed her. Unconscious, she crumpled to the ground, her body limp and vulnerable.
Eddington, his face a mask of shock and quick calculation, dismounted with surprising agility. He glanced around the deserted garden. But there were no armed guards, no footmen to spring into action. No witnesses to his heinous act.
Dismounting, he moved toward her fallen form. The dog, Hampton she’d called him, was barking furiously and snapping at Eddington’s booted feet. It was a wretched nuisance. With a vicious kick, he sent the mutt hurtling toward one of the many statues that graced the Duke’s elegant gardens. The dog landed there with a yelp and then went still. Eddington smiled, satisfied with that small violence.
As he stood over her, noting the unnatural pallor of her skin, the blood trickling down the side of her face, he wondered if perhaps she had shuffled off the mortal coil a bit prematurely. Head wounds were notoriously tricky. People could perish instantly, linger for days, or simply wake up right as rain. It was truly anyone’s guess.
Curiously, he nudged her with his boot. There was no response, not even a groan. She was dead silent and still as the grave.
Perhaps Violet was dead, but perhaps not. Regardless, he couldn’t risk her waking up to tell the tale. If anyone learned that he’d been there, that he’d been in the process of killing off that rotten cur of a dog and injured her in its stead—well there would be no stone that Maxwell Able would leave unturned to find and punish him. So he made a hasty decision—one that would rid him of his problem and perhaps, if he was lucky, he would find a way to implicate the Duke in the death of his young bride. One dead wife was an accident. Two dead wives were a pattern. And he would certainly know about that, he thought with a grim smile.
With no small amount of effort, he hoisted Violet’s surprisingly heavy form over his horse’s back. She wasn’t overly large, but she was deadweight, no pun intended. Grim resolve settled over him as he prepared to disappear into the denser parts of the estate’s vast woods. Climbing into the saddle, her corpse before him, he looked down. Noting her lushly curved derriere, he clucked his tongue. Pity, he thought. He’d never gotten to sample the wares.
Then he simply vanished into the thicket, the dog as still and quiet in the garden as his mistress had been.
Max sat in his favorite leather chair, the quiet of his study enveloping him like a familiar cloak. He was thinking intently, but for once he wasn’t brooding. A fact made quite evident by the way his mouth curved into the slightest of smiles. He’d been doing more and more of that of late. Smiling. Because of her. Because Violet, after years of picking at one another, was finally his. They no longer had to pretend, no longer had to battle their natural inclination towards one another. They could not only accept it but nurture it, let it grow into something that would be nothing short of magical.
The fire crackled softly in the hearth, casting warm glows over the shelves lined with books—a testament to generations of his family’s pursuits and passions. In his hand, a glass of aged brandy caught the flickering light, the amber liquid swirling with each absent-minded turn.
His thoughts drifted to Violet once more, the remarkable woman who had unexpectedly become the center of his world. Their relationship, once marked by polite distance and then fiery clashes, had blossomed into something profoundly tender and fierce. As he sipped his brandy, his mind painted pictures of a future he had scarcely dared to dream of before—Violet, laughing in the sunlight of the estate's gardens, children with her bright eyes and mischievous smiles running between the ancient trees. They had not discussed children, but that was the natural progression of things. The idea of seeing her heavy with his child satisfied something quite primal and animalistic inside him. But it wasn’t only that.
If they had children, they would be the very best parts of them both. He imagined teaching a little boy to ride or a little girl to read, just as his father had taught him. Evenings spent by the fire, with Violet’s head resting against his shoulder as they watched their family grow. And through the years, growing old together, their hands intertwined, with a lifetime of shared secrets and love. He was mooning like a lovesick calf and well he knew it. If James were there to see them, would he be furious at their sudden change in status or would he rejoice that his friend and sister had found something so miraculous together? He didn’t know and that was the damnable truth of it all.
A soft scratching at the door pulled him from his reverie. He set his glass down, a smile playing on his lips, expecting to see Violet returning from her walk in the garden with Hampton. But as the door nudged open and the dog limped in, alone and smeared with blood, Max’s smile vanished. A surge of fear raced through him, icing his blood even as his heart thundered in his chest, so loud, in fact, that it was like a drumbeat in his ears.
“Hampton?” Max’s voice was sharp with concern. He knelt beside the dog, his hands shaking as he checked for injuries. Finding none, his heart sank—a cold dread settling in his stomach. There were no cuts anywhere on the dog, which meant the blood was Violet’s. With the dog’s sounds of distress and the way he continually looked back at the door, as if urging Max to action, he was sure of it. She had been out to the garden with Hampton. For him to come back without her, and in such a condition, could only mean that something truly terrible must have happened.
His mind raced as he rose abruptly from his crouch, knocking over one of the chairs next to him. It clattered to the floor, but he ignored it, as he strode to the window. His gaze scanned the path that led to the garden. There was no sign of her. But he wasn’t content simply to observe from a distance. He stepped outside and followed that path into the garden. What he saw there sent shivers down his spine. The grass was trampled, clearly from a horse's hooves, and in another area, he could see blood on the well-manicured lawn.
“Where is she?” He voiced the question aloud, not expecting an answer or any sort of divine guidance. It was more than he was commanding his own mind to clear, to think and formulate some plan of action, some way to save the woman he loved from whatever strange event had occurred there.
He turned back toward the house, intent on raising the alarm. But he stopped mid-stride. The setting sun, casting long shadows across the lawn, glinted off something in the grass. Some tiny bit of metal that caught the light and reflected it had caught his eye. Rushing toward it, he stooped down, ruffling the grass and bordering flowers with intent.
There, half-hidden by a cluster of primrose, lay the damning evidence—a silver button, intricately engraved with an ‘E’. It was not the first time he’d seen such an item. Katherine had kept one tied on a ribbon and tucked into the bodices of her gowns… a token from her lover, Lord Eddington. Anger and fear clenched his heart like a vice. Violet was not Katherine. She would never have gone willingly with him. Coupled with the blood and the injury to Hampton, he knew that time was of the essence. Violet was in terrible danger.
Max bellowed for the groom, his voice carrying across the estate with urgent fury. “To the stables! Saddle the horses, and hurry, lad! Every second counts!”
As the groom dashed away to obey, Max’s thoughts were a tumultuous storm. He would find Violet, save her, and make Eddington rue the day he dared to harm a hair on her head. With every beat of his heart, a silent vow was forged—nothing would stop him until she was safe in his arms again.