Page 20 of Claimed by Her Forbidden Duke (Forbidden Lords #6)

Chapter Twenty

A week after Edmund had that nightmare, he was still reeling from how much he had divulged to Penelope. Not even Julian had heard the true extent of what he had gone through.

While he had not told Penelope everything, he had told her more in one night than he had even let himself think about. Once he had started talking, he had felt something loosen in his stomach—as if there had been tension there, and speaking to her had helped to ease it. That terrified him.

To know that her presence had comforted him…

He could barely stand it. He had distracted her, but ever since then, he had seen the questions in her eyes as she looked at him. He’d also noticed the paleness of her face in the two times they had met privately. He saw how she flinched whenever Finley drew near.

Finley had behaved terribly in public enough when it came to Penelope, but how much more overbearing was he in private? Her dresses began to climb higher up her neck, bordering on being the wrong style entirely, and Arabella had mentioned that people were gossiping about them.

As soon as she shut herself in Julian’s house, Edmund always made sure to undress her almost immediately, freeing her in a way he could not in public. He hadn’t dared ask her yet what was happening at home, scared that his questions would coax out her own.

“Your Grace.” A voice from the doorway had Edmund glancing up to find Gregory poised to be received. “I have news of the Poseidon warehouse.”

Finally .

It was not bitterness, but relief. Edmund had needed a breakthrough after the investigation yielded very little. He had made it to a deep, dark place of who had been involved in his capture, and now the information was harder to get. More walls were up, and he had grown impatient.

“Report,” he ordered.

“I have evidence of illicit transportation and dealings,” Gregory said, producing a document. “This is from a man who cut ties with Cyrus Reed. He was involved in it all up until recently, but it appears his family was threatened when he lost some cargo. An innocent mistake, to have lost it, but the threat made him reform his ways. He gave me his last agreement in exchange for legal protection and not being reported.”

“Legal protection,” Edmund snorted, but then his eyes landed on the name on the page. Mr. Dominic Haddon . It was the man Edmund himself had interrogated, who he had used against Laurel Kerry to get more information on Reed.

Had he caused the threats?

“With a business like his, Haddon is lucky enough to have only received threats,” Edmund said, looking through the contract, searching for the name or signature of Cyrus Reed.

“That is why he asked for protection,” Gregory said. “For his business partner was not so fortunate. Mr. Laurel Kerry was found dead in an alley recently.”

Edmund went cold, and his hand shook. He was aware of Cyrus Reed’s signature at the bottom of the page, but he barely noticed or acknowledged it.

Kerry was found dead.

Slowly, he looked up at Gregory. “By whose order?”

“Cyrus Reed.”

It was no surprise, of course, but it still sent a violent shudder through Edmund.

“There was an altercation between Kerry and Haddon. Haddon clearly kept his mouth shut enough and escaped. Rumor has it that Kerry sold Reed out to numerous people and has paid the price.”

“But who pays Reed, I wonder?”

“Clients,” Gregory guessed. “Different ones.”

“There has to be a more controlled avenue.”

Edmund frowned at the contract, but he found no other alias, no other hint. Slowly, he realized it was time to confront the man himself. He would have to. He thought of Thatcher, terrified in his crumbling mansion, and he thought of his first kill under Logan’s authority, and how they were all afraid for their lives.

Nobody would talk now. He had to go directly to the source, Julian’s warnings be damned.

“I will speak with him,” Edmund decided, tucking the contract in his desk drawer with a hard slam. “I will confront Cyrus Reed myself.”

* * *

Penelope walked through Hyde Park alongside Mary and Daphne. Cecilia was attending a dinner with Reginald and had airily stated that although she loved her friends, little children ought to be far, far away from her.

“That is because she cannot help her vulgar mouth ,” Mary had snorted after she told Penelope and Daphne about Cecilia’s refusal.

If they only knew how vulgar my mouth has become , Penelope thought secretly, smiling away from her friends’ notice. Their gazes were fixed on their children running up ahead. Daphne watched Catherine and Elizabeth as they skipped alongside Emily and Amelia.

She was only aware she had lost her focus as she watched the girls chatter and play when her friends giggled and Mary nudged her.

“It must be His Grace,” Mary announced loudly to Daphne. “Pen is so wrapped up in him that she cannot help but think of him day and night.”

At the mention of Edmund, Penelope snapped back into focus. “Pardon?”

Her friends only laughed as they each looped an arm through hers so she walked between them.

“We know what is going on, of course,” Mary said. “You are becoming besotted with him. Although, if you ask me, you have been for a while.”

“I agree,” Daphne spoke up. “I could see it in your eyes when you told me of your… dalliance in the library.”

“I am sure I had no such look in my e?—”

“Does Cecilia know about your meetings? It is ever so scandalous,” Mary said, the two of them talking back and forth, peppering her with teasing.

“Ladies!” Penelope exclaimed, blushing. “It is merely two like-minded people meeting secretly to… enjoy life’s pleasures.”

“And only a few weeks ago, Penelope was blushing harder than a rose at the mention of intimacy,” Mary noted, giving Daphne a look. “She has joined the dark side.”

“Dark side! Heavens, Mary.”

“What? I imagine a man of his nature enjoys life’s… more questionable pleasures, no?”

Penelope thought of how rough she had asked Edmund to be at times, and how he had stilled at her requests, asking if she was sure. He was always careful. He snapped in the end, but before that, he checked with her so many times that she was certain.

“That is none of your business.” Penelope laughed.

But her eyes landed on the girls up ahead, and she wondered why she could not stop glancing at what her friends had with envy. Beautiful girls to grow up, guided by their independent mothers and strong fathers—loving parents to raise future ladies.

A pang of sadness shot through her unexpectedly.

For a moment, she blinked, and another little girl ran alongside the girls. Her hair was long, dark, and wavy, and her eyes were bright blue, and she never would know how harsh a colder upbringing could be.

As quickly as the image came, Penelope blinked it away at Daphne’s gentle prodding. “Pen? Did you hear me?”

“She was too busy thinking about her next meeting,” Mary teased.

“I asked if you were being safe with His Grace,” Daphne said softly. “When it comes to your reputation, yes, but also… physically. Is he taking measures to be safe with you?”

Penelope fought back a shiver when she thought of just how passionate some of those measures had been, the creativity he had shown her for his release.

Biting her lip, she nodded. “I am being safe.”

“Good,” Mary breathed. “After all, you do not wish to have permanency from a temporary arrangement.”

Her comment was not supposed to be harsh, but Penelope flinched either way. She thought of Edmund proclaiming what a terrible husband he would make. It was as if everything around her was determined to remind her that it was indeed only temporary.

So why did she picture a little girl with his hair and her eyes?

Why did she imagine that their conversation the night of his nightmare could have gone differently?

That he would have taken her more affectionately into his arms, opened up the whole night, and kept her there, asked her to come into his world and his business and be trusted within his heart. That he would have held her until the sun rose, uncaring about being caught because he would have professed his?—

His what?

His intentions to publicly court her?

The notion was ridiculous, and she silently ridiculed herself for even thinking of it.

“You are right,” she sighed, smiling tightly at Mary, more of a mask to hide her thoughts than displeasure at her friend for accurately describing their situation. “It is only temporary.”

“Forgive my observation, but you do not seem confident about that. You look… rather upset.” Daphne, ever observant, gave her a searching look.

Penelope turned her face away. “I am perfectly fine,” she answered. “Edmund and I are well, and the situation is what we have agreed it to be, and that is all there is to it.”

She walked on as if she might escape their questions and probing. But she couldn’t stare the slow realization in the face: that she was starting to want more from Edmund. The love she had once stopped wanting and dreaming about rose in her heart, and she wondered if it could be a possibility. That she was not a spinster at five-and-twenty.

That Edmund might want more with her. Children to play in the park, and a wedding ceremony that was well-attended.

That he might want her for a very long time, as she realized she wanted him.

* * *

She carried that realization through to the following day as Edmund settled his hand on her waist, coming up beside her as she stood in the window of Julian’s gallery. It was a dark, ornate affair, full of scandalous paintings on the wall, and a grandfather clock that chimed one in the morning.

“You seem distracted,” Edmund noted, his mouth already pressing to the line of her neck, brushing her hair aside.

Her eyes fluttered shut, automatically leaning back into his touch. He pressed soft kisses along her skin that contrasted with the sharper terms of their arrangement.

“It has been a long day,” she told him. “A long couple of days, in fact.”

He hummed against her shoulder. “Tell me about it after you pick a position from one of these paintings. My week has been rather hectic, and I wish to delight in you.”

Penelope smiled weakly but turned to face him, halting his exploration. “How about we simply talk? Just talk.”

“We do just talk.”

Edmund looked confused, and it was that confusion that almost made her give in. He cut a dark, handsome figure tonight, dressed in his usual dark attire with a cravat the color of the dress he had bought her that had started their whole arrangement.

“We had dinner, and we talked. I recall you telling me about your love for your mother’s horse even though she was a lower breed that your stepfather insisted on replacing.”

Something in her unspooled at the thought of him collecting pieces of information about her, as if that took them beyond their arrangement and offered more.

“Penelope, you know I would never push you to come to bed with me, but you seem… not yourself.”

“I am not,” she admitted. “Finley has been questioning me today, noticing I have been more talkative about life in general, and less talkative about finding suitors. It is not like me.”

Edmund slowly tensed, the teasing gone from his expression. “I see.”

“Do you know why I have stopped speaking about suitors, Edmund?” Her voice was hoarse, but she cleared her throat and tried to make herself sound bolder.

He didn’t say anything; he only gazed back at her, equal parts lust and fear in his eyes, as if he knew her answer.

For a moment, she let herself hope that he was waiting for a specific answer that aligned with her thoughts.

Instead of answering her own question when he didn’t speak, she posed a different question.

“Edmund, I cannot help but ask what will happen when you inevitably walk away. Soon, I will be six-and-twenty, and we will be sequestering ourselves in this beautiful house, never to walk down the street with one another, and we will pretend that we are fine with that and that it is satisfactory.”

“Is it not?”

An emotion crossed his face, and she didn’t know if he was insulted or if he thought the same as her but fronted the defensive question. Were his walls up? She could not tell the truth from his expression.

“You always planned to walk away,” she continued.

“As did you. As we agreed. You sought pleasure, as did I. That is all we can and will have.”

“Please,” she repeated. “That is all? That is the only thing we have found in these nights together?”

“Was there something else happening while I lay between your legs, or when you had your mouth on my?—”

“Stop!” she cried out, shoving against his chest.

He went to grasp her wrists, but she wrenched back, skirting around him.

“I-I am in turmoil, and you cannot even see it. Or, worse, you can and are ignoring it because you do not like the reason for it.”

“And what reason is that?” he challenged, an edge to his voice.

“I am in turmoil because this became more than physical a while ago. We have burned in one another’s arms, b-but what about beyond that? Because I burn in my heart, too, Edmund.”

Her breath whooshed out of her lungs, and she pressed a hand to her chest, curling her fingers into the fabric of her gown.

“Because this has become everything to me, and if you can look me in the eye and speak so sharply now that I confront you… if you can say that all we have between us is pleasure… then I fear what we have means nothing to you. You have said some beautiful things to me in the heat of the moment that do not come with only admiration of a woman’s body, surely. I understand I am new to this, but do not mistake me for a complete fool.”

That emotion flickered across his face once more, and she recognized it for what it was: a wound. One that she had seen in sparse moments of vulnerability. When he let his desperation for her show. When they had kissed endlessly, languorously, and he had held her like a starved man. When perhaps it was not only what was between his legs that drove him back to her night after night.

“You cannot admit it, can you?” she whispered. “That there might be something beyond unclothing ourselves and having this release. That there might be something that made your survival from your past worthwhile beyond your revenge plan, beyond your sister.”

Edmund’s face shuttered, and he tensed. “Penelope, do not?—”

“Why?” she snapped. “Why should I hold myself back? You froze when I first tangled my fingers in your hair in this house. You could have stopped me, could have told me not to touch you, but you let me. You let me in. Surely there is a reason! Heavens, you frustrate me with these walls you keep on building. What are you protecting yourself from?”

Her voice rose to a shout now as she stormed closer, and then moved back, and then closer, only more irritated by how drawn she was to him even in her anger.

“You know why I let you in,” he snapped back. “We both know what we entered this house for, why we met in the dark, night hours. I froze that night because that was not an action I have known to come from closeness, but violence. A way to direct me to meet angry gazes. A way to force me to look at the consequences of my actions. Yet there you were, with your fingers in my hair, only wanting me closer and—”He broke off as if he had to stop himself from showing more vulnerability.

“And what ?” she urged. “Speak to me! Stop shutting me out. I am here. I am right here , Edmund.”

But she had already lost him, and that made her gasp in distress as she saw those walls slam right back up. Tears blurred her vision.

When he spoke to her next, his voice was ever so cold. “From the start, I warned you that I am not a man who can offer you what you deserve. I laid every card on the table.”

She flinched. “Yes, and you once told me you do not lose any game you play, so is that all I was to you? A card game? And now that you have dealt your hand and won, what is your prize? Being unreachable? Wringing pleasure from me and giving it in return, but never truly letting me in? Remaining lonely so you do not stray from your quest for revenge? Two things can co-exist, but you are too stubborn to see it.”

Devastation cracked through her as she heaved for breath.

“Yes, well, we had an arrangement,” he told her, his tone formal, as if he was conducting business. Her heart lurched, her throat constricting uncomfortably. “And it is not my fault if you have decided to change that.”

“Do you not want to change it?” Her voice betrayed her heart, cracking.

He didn’t answer her. In her imaginings, he turned cold on her, said that he would much rather reenact one of the positions from the paintings as he had before. Or he walked out, not wanting anything if they could not couple.

But he was not that heartless, and her heartbreak only convinced her for a moment.

Instead, she received something much worse—his silence. And that broke her heart more than anything could have.

“If you cannot answer me,” she said, her words like the crack of a whip, hard and masking her pain, “then I am done. I am leaving.”

Do you wish to stop me ?

She didn’t bother asking, and she didn’t wait either.

Penelope turned on her heel and strode out of the gallery, out of the house where she had found a sanctuary, and got in her carriage to return to Langwaite Manor, where she belonged. Where she would always belong—beneath her brother’s thumb.

She did her best to pretend that she was merely on her way home from Julian Gray’s house that very first night. There had been no Edmund, only the escort her friends had arranged for her to see. Penelope would be a changed woman at the touch of a stranger, and she would have gone through with it all and had never met Edmund.

It was hard to convince herself of it, because her body knew the feel and the taste of his now, and she knew that any dream would never be as beautiful as what they had together. And no nightmare would ever be as awful as how she felt walking away.