Page 39 of Claiming His Lost Duchess (The Dukes of Sin #8)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

G raham stepped into the house, his eyes fixed on nothing other than his wife.

Her hair was disheveled, her cloak askew as she fought against the arm braced around her neck.

“Did you not hear me? I said —”

The sound of a gun cocking pierced the air and Joan went still, eyes wide as she watched the hand that wasn’t restraining her aim a weapon at her husband.

“You best believe on your way, boy,” Benedict spat. “There’s nothing here for the likes of you!”

As he spoke, he tightened his grip around Joan and she let out a cry of fright and pain.

That was the final straw for Graham.

His mind lost all reason, and his body was urged forward by the sight of his wife in danger, by the sound of her hurt, not caring at all about the gun aimed at him.

Benedict had not expected the Duke to charge, but even still, he fired his gun, the bullet only grazing its mark, and just like that, the viscount of Farhampton had used his one and only chance and failed.

With a roar of rage, Graham shoved him away from Joan and onto the ground, kicking the gun aside after it clattered uselessly against the floor boards.

“You —”

Benedict was cut off as a boot came out to strike him under the chin, causing him to choke and cough in pain.

As he wheezed, Graham pressed a hand onto the scratch he had gotten from the gun shot, barely flinching as his hand came away stained with blood.

“Did you really think this would stop me? I have been shot several times during hunting trips in Scotland! This is child’s play.”

And then he raised a foot and brought it down, hard, on one of Benedict’s hands. The sound of bones crunching filled the air, followed by a scream from the man on the floor who writhed around.

“That is all men like you know how to do,” Graham muttered, moving to sit on the man, before he braced a hand on him and reared the other back.

“Take. You take the peace of others, their purity, their courage, their lives and you eat it all like the gluttonous bastard you are. You should have released her the moment I asked.”

Benedict gasped, his mouth parting to speak in his defense but no one got to hear the words as a close fist collided with his face before he exhaled a single syllable.

“You are not as smart as you think that you are,” Graham tutted, tightening his hold on the man. “You are simply a weak old man who thought too much of himself because you’d never been caught before.”

Benedict groaned and muttered what sounded like pleas to Joan’s ears, but Graham did not care, only clenching his fist and hitting the other man again, harder.

The contact between his fist and the middle of the man’s face caused Benedict to bleed through his nose and mouth and he drew increasingly horrified to find that his struggles had no effect on Graham.

The Scot had nothing within him but a thirst for blood and he intended to take every single drop from Benedict.

“You dared to lay a finger on my wife? To haunt her and take away our child?”

Joan felt alarmed by the behavior her husband displayed, worried about the harm he was putting himself through for her sake.

Suddenly, she was overwhelmed by a need to have him close by, to hold him and keep him from tainting himself with that man’s blood.

“Graham,” she called, heart sinking when the man did not look her way. “Graham, please stop.”

Graham froze and she watched his shoulders rise and fall as he breathed heavily , worried he would ignore her and continue what he was doing.

But he actually rose to his feet, the sight of him shocking her as he turned to face her. He was covered… in so much blood. Streaks of it were splattered across his face and his shirt, and his hands were practically covered in it.

He wiped them against his trousers and he approached her, gingerly taking her hands in his before studying her silently. Graham’s thorough examination stretched out for long, silent minutes, which prompted in Joan realizing that he had managed to knock her uncle conscious.

“I…” she swallowed and pressed closer to him. “I am all right. Can we leave this place? Please?”

He nodded and gingerly led her out by the hand, the night air feeling crisp against her skin as they step outside.

Joan inhaled, the air in her lungs a needed reminder that she has survived the ordeal, had slipped out of that man’s greasy grasp again, only because her husband had come to her aid, quite literally.

She stared at him as he continued to run his eyes over her, his brows pinched in worry, the calm demeanor a far cry from the crazed man who had likely done some permanent damage to the face of the man on the floor in the house.

This man had unflinchingly taken on a bullet for her, bravely stepping forward to put himself between her and the danger that had haunted her for so long.

Her heart was beating so fiercely within her as she realized how badly he could have gotten hurt, and how noble it was that he had saved her the way that he did.

She couldn’t imagine that he had done so callously, for someone who was nothing more than the mother of his child.

Joan’s lips parted to assure him of her well-being, but before she could, the constables arrived.

“Your Grace! Are you all right?” one of them asked, alarmed by the sight of him.

Graham nodded, then jerked his head in the direction of the house.

“The bastard in there is the one who took my daughter and he was also holding my wife hostage. I want him punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

The men nodded and went to retrieve her uncle, which caused her to be struck by a realization.

“Sophia! Only he knows where she is! We must —”

“Do not worry,” he told her gently, reaching out to softly stroke her arm. “The others are already looking for her. I am sure they will find her in no…”

He trailed off, his gaze looking slightly unfocused for a moment. Worried, Joan reached for him, gasping as she noticed that aside from the blood on his hand and face, there was a gash along his arm that was bleeding profusely.

Before she could point it out, Graham tilted in her direction and collapsed in her arms. Joan could barely hold him up, dropping onto the floor with him, panic flooding her veins as she noticed just how pale he looked.

No… nothing could happen to him. She couldn’t lose him, not now. Not after all they had been through.

“H-Help,” she whispered, scared as the love of her life lay in her arms, bleeding. “Someone, help me!”

Graham’s body felt like lead when he woke.

It was as though he had run a marathon, only to crumble at the finish line with his muscles a fierce warning that he likely shouldn’t embark on such a journey again so soon.

When he opened his eyes, he noticed two things rather quickly.

The first was that his right arm had a bandage wrapped around it, just above his elbow, and similar work had been done around the knuckles of that hand.

The second was the face of his daughter staring down at him.

“Papa!” Sophia cried, flinging her little body against his.

Graham coughed, caught off guard by the impact, but relieved that she was all right.

“Papa, why are you hurt? You always tell me not to get hurt!” she complained, her beautiful eyes welling up with tears.

Graham held onto her for a moment longer, his heart calming in relief to see her looking unarmed.

“I’m sorry, my darling. I was not as careful as I could have been. Please forgive me,” he told her gently, pressing fleeting kisses along the crown of her head.

She buried her face in his chest and shook her head, muttering loud enough for his ears to catch her words.

“Don’t get hurt again, Papa.”

Graham smiled, thankful that she was all right.

“I promise I’ll be more careful.”

She didn’t leave his embrace and he was comfortable with keeping her there, raising his gaze to glance around his room.

That was when he realized there were three other guests around his bed side, consisting of his worried wife, his sister Margaret and her husband, Lysander.

“You gave us quite a scare, Graham. I wondered if you’d finally met your match,” Lysander teased with a grin.

Graham glanced at his wife, noting how upset she looked before he replied,

“Against a senile old man? If the bullet did not finish me, there was no chance for him to do so. Was he taken in?”

Lysander nodded. “I supervised the entire process myself. You did quite a number on him, so a physician had to be called to tend to his injuries in order to ensure his statements were collected. But he's been imprisoned, and he’ll be there for a very long time for what he’s done.

Luckily, we found Sophia in one of the estates his daughter had listed and her retrieval went as seamlessly as you can imagine — and you can see, she is as tight as rain.

Though I cannot say that your state did not upset her greatly, but at least you seem somewhat fine now. ”

Graham sent an appreciative nod in the direction of his friend, grateful to have someone as loyal and dependable as Lysander offering his support.

“Thank you,” Graham told his brother-in-law honestly. “There will never be enough words to express how thankful I am for your kindness. Thank you for finding my daughter and ensuring that that bastard is out right where he should be. He must suffer for all that he has done.”

He kept stroking Sophia’s hair gently, while his harsh tone depicted a different mood from his actions.

Margaret took the silence and her cue to state her own gripes with the situation.

“Are you trying to worry me to death, Graham? That man had a gun! What if you had been gravely hurt?” she scolded.

“I wasn’t. I had no intention of letting him cause any harm to me, not when I had a score to settle with him. I survived, did I not?” he shot back.

The look in her eye told him his only saving grace was the fact that her niece was nestled comfortably in his arms, toying with the bandage wrapped around his arm.

“What if he had actually managed to land a decent shot? What must I do to get you to behave yourself? How did you even manage to find Joan? Why didn’t you take someone along with you?”

Graham glanced at his wife and shrugged.

“Lysander was the one who discovered the property. Georgina Brooks had written three other estates that belonged to her father, but Lysander believed that with how little he cared for his daughter, he wouldn’t simply leave information that could thwart his plans so carelessly with her.

So we looked in it and discovered he had an additional property that he had won in a gambling match from a friend — which was suspicious because Georgina did not seem to know about it.

Recovering Sophia was paramount, so we decided to investigate separately.

Lysander, Julian and Sampson opted to take the other estates that were listed, and I decided to search the secret property he had kept from his daughter. ”

“It was actually Julian who had found her. Once he did, he sent word to me and I decided to go after you, since I was the closest to that location,” Lysander added, looking quite proud of himself.

Graham felt thankful once more to have such dependable friends who would go above and beyond for his sake. It was not a common thing, unwavering loyalty that stood against adversity fearlessly, but Graham was one of the lucky few who had found it.

“Thank you. I have no idea how I will repay you for helping me save my family, but I hope you will accept my gratitude,” Graham told him earnestly.

Your gratitude has been accepted, but you can expect me to request some fine spirits in the future as my reward for successfully completing this quest,” Lysander teased.

Graham nodded with a grin. “That, I can do.”

Margaret sighed, patting Graham’s knee.

“It seems I was silly to have worried. You look as right as rain.”

“I certainly will be. Thank you, sister. For being here.”

Margaret glared at him in contempt. “Do not be ridiculous.”

Graham nodded, raising his voice slightly to address his sister and her husband, “I really am grateful for this. Thank you. If you do not mind, I’d like to have a moment with my wife.”

Margaret nodded and took Sophia who had apparently fallen asleep in her father’s arms, before leaving with her husband.

Graham waited until the door clicked shut behind them before he faced Joan.

“I am relieved… beyond words that you are all right. But that does not mean that I approve of your actions tonight. In fact, I am very angry, with you. Not only did you go behind my back to meet with the man who had kidnapped our child but you also put the efforts and plans we had made in jeopardy. What if he had decided to hold you hostage as well? Or he had gravely hurt you before I arrived?” he questioned, his expression closed off and stern in a way she had never been on the receiving end of.

“I wasn’t trying to undermine your efforts of risk your plans. I was only worried about Sophia. The letter I received told me to come alone and —”

“And you played right into his hands by giving him exactly what he wanted. If you had really been worried about Sophia, you would’ve left me some sort of message or come to me for help, at least. Instead you decided to risk yourself with a man who you knew could not be trusted, yet you put your faith him the demands he made in his letter.

Would it have been so hard to rely on me? To trust me?”

Joan did not respond and unease settled within him.

“Do… do you not trust me, Joan?”

The silence persisted and he let out an empty laugh in disbelief, ashamed that he was only then realizing exactly what his wife thought about him.

“I didn’t,” she admitted quietly. “Or rather, I couldn’t trust you. Not when I knew the only reason you decided to marry me was because you wanted to keep Sophia close to you. Our marriage was born out of necessity and I feared that if I lost relevance, you would send me away from Sophia.”

Graham felt as though his heart had been shattered. Was this how she had felt… this whole time?

“I thought… our marriage is everything to me. How could you doubt that, after everything I said? After everything I did? I searched for you for five years. It was you I wanted first, you I wanted all along. It was a welcome surprise when I discovered our brief time together all those years ago had provided us with a chance to be a family and it was as though I’d been given an even better reason to propose to you.

I love you, Joan,” he told her, the feelings that had been swirling within him finally breaking free.

It was just disappointing that the reception had not been what he had expected at all.

Without another word, he slipped out of bed and walked out of the room.