Page 39 of Duke of Eccess (Seven Dukes of Sin #4)

“Octavius,” he said, coming closer to her, and brushing his knuckles down her cheek. “Call me Octavius.”

His stupid heart fluttered when the corners of her eyes wrinkled with joy.

“Octavius.”

His given name on her lips had a thrill of bliss run up his spine. “Temperance.” Her name tasted like fine wine. “As much as it pains me, I didn’t bring you here for the purpose this room serves. Something has been troubling me.”

She blinked, the slightest expression of fear widening her pretty eyes.

He’d had this growing feeling in his gut that something wasn’t right with the whole situation around her: how he’d first met her, running, alone at night; how she’d come into his house with no prior correspondence with Mrs. Davies, no references, but with luggage already at hand; and then those men chasing her and the children at Hyde Park and then the Marvels of Electricity…

“The men who pursued you today,” he said, “were not common pickpockets, were they?” She opened her mouth to protest, but Octavius interrupted. “Please don’t insult me by denying it. This isn’t the first time you’ve been pursued since I met you.”

Color drained from her face. She was afraid, which meant he was right. She hadn’t been honest with him. And if she couldn’t be honest, he couldn’t trust her.

She had tried to leave once, but he’d convinced her to stay. But what if her secrets would force her to abandon him again?

And if she left…

Octavius knew the feeling all too well. He’d stood helplessly before, knowing how insignificant he must have been to his mama for her to run away—from his father, yes, but also from him.

And now this woman. Miss Temperance Fields. She’d always been running, from the moment he’d met her. How could he have fallen for someone like her when she might do to him exactly what he’d feared the most? Was he truly a masochist, hiding under the mask of a glutton?

Terror gored him like a hunter’s spear: sudden, brutal, right in the soft place beneath the ribs where it would find its deadly way to his heart.

Should he really press her for answers? Could he close his eyes to any evidence and escape into indulgence—away from fear, from ghosts both past and future?

But that would be the old him, the one who drank and ate and made love and drove horses mad with fireworks. The one who refused to face the consequences of his actions, which had already proved themselves deadly.

Guilt gnawed at Octavius as fuzzy, drunken memories of a body twisted unnaturally under the wheel of his gig threatened to surface.

He forcefully pushed them down. He wanted to change. He’d already started to change thanks to this woman. The new him wouldn’t run from ghosts; the new him would face his fears.

“They weren’t pickpockets, Temperance,” Octavius repeated, focused on the woman before him. “Were they?”

She couldn’t look more like a cornered animal. The last thing he wanted was to scare her or force her into anything and yet he had to know the truth.

For a moment, she did not reply. Then she looked down at her feet. “No. They weren’t pickpockets.”

“Who, then?”

She looked straight into his face. “I could tell you a lie but I don’t want to.”

Sharp pain sliced through Octavius’s gut. “I’ve been nothing but honest with you. I told you things about my life that no one else knows. Do I not deserve the truth?”

She began trembling and he couldn’t stand it. Not her tears, not her discomfort or distress. He walked one step to her and wrapped his arms around her.

“I can’t,” she whispered against his chest. “I want to tell you, but I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Those men,” Temperance began, her voice faltering, “are…are trying to force me into a situation I don’t want to be in.”

His jaw tightened. “What kind of situation?”

“One where I would lose all control over my life.”

Octavius looked down at her, so safely held in his arms. Even from his tall height he could see her eyes wide with fear. “Marriage?”

Her shoulders tensed. “Yes. Other things, too.”

Someone was trying to force her into marriage…

and other things? Fury rose in him like a wall of fire.

His fists itched to tear apart anyone who threatened her well-being.

Good God, Enveigh’s references to the danger following her…

to her needing a friend. He’d known! She must have confided in Archibald before she’d confided in Octavius.

Betrayal pinched him and spurred his anger on. What had he done to cause this mistrust when he’d thought he could trust her with everything?

Somehow the remnants of his reason told him he needed to contain the fierce boar waking up deep down. He couldn’t scare her like he’d scared James when the boy had thrown about the pistol. He had to be gentle, no matter how hard it was.

Octavius leaned back and cupped her face, looking deeply into her gray eyes. “Please, darling, tell me. Who is trying to force you?”

Temperance was still hesitating, and he could see raw pain in the depths of her eyes.

He couldn’t breathe, waiting for the next thing she’d say.

“My papa was dead and this man…he is a distant relative, so there was no one else to help. It was not much at first. He’d shove me, grab me by the wrists too hard, call me a vile word?—”

Rage simmered in his gut, hotter and sharper than before. “Most certainly too much as far as I’m concerned.”

“It was nothing compared to when he came to my bedchamber at night?—”

“He—” Octavius choked on the next word. Fury and fear for her clasped his throat as he imagined someone doing that to her against her will. Please God, no.

Temperance was looking somehow beyond him. “H-he pulled up my nightgown and I screamed, and my stepmother came in and h-he let me go.”

Octavius wasn’t thinking straight. He was a being of fire, hot and scorching, a force of nature too powerful to be stopped. Words didn’t exist anymore. Just a complete and utter need to destroy anyone who’d cause a single tear to fall from her eyes. “Name,” he managed. “Give me his name.”

“I can’t?—”

“You can,” he roared despite wanting to keep his temper. “His name, Temperance, and I’ll drag him here to you by his goddamn hair! I’ve craved a human punching bag for my pugilistic practice for a long time—believe me, he won’t have an inkling to do anything like that to anyone else again.”

Temperance closed her eyes tight, clearly fighting tears. A strange mixture of relief and regret was battling on her face. “I want to—I really do. But I can’t.”

He began pacing, his fists clenching and unclenching, his gut twisting with the need to drive his fist into the shite that dared to harm her. “Why are you defending him? He harmed you and you’re not allowing someone who cares for you to—to?—”

She crossed her trembling arms over her chest, her eyes wild. “To what?”

To avenge the woman I love , he wanted to proclaim.

Now it all made sense. She was on the run from that relative of hers, and he was looking for her. Those men who followed her…

A wave of possessive outrage washed through him. The thought of another man claiming her, especially against her will, made his blood boil. “To defend what’s mine!”

The raw declaration hung in the air between them.

Temperance stiffened. “Yours?”

The last bit of restraint snapped inside him. Octavius advanced on her, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “You will tell me everything. No more lies, no more evasions. You will tell me who this man is so I can destroy him before he hurts you.”

“Octavius…”

Following a powerful instinct to hold on to her before he could lose her, he took a step forward but forced himself to stop.

His mind racing like a terrified horse, he turned away and held on to the cool marble of the mantelpiece, his fingers whitening.

“I cannot—I will not—lose another person I care for. I must insist on providing protection. A footman when you shop, a maid when in the garden. Guards around the house.”

“Octavius, listen to yourself!”

The alarm in her voice should have reached his reason, but he was too overcome with fear for her. “I’ll speak to the magistrates, the Bow Street Runners… Bloody hell, I’ll petition Liverpool himself if I must!”

Alarm flashed across her face. “Lord Liverpool—the prime minister of the country? Oh, dear God—you cannot involve anyone in my private affairs!”

She was not listening! He had to make her understand. Octavius turned and stalked to her before he took her by the shoulders. “Temperance, my household is in danger—you are in danger and you expect me to sit and do nothing? No one threatens what’s mine! ”

The words boomed forth like thunder, and suddenly he could see himself as she must see him—towering over her, domineering, aggressive, gripping her shoulders, his gut sour with rage that deep down reminded him of his father.

Temperance stood perfectly still under his grip, breathing quickly but shallowly. “Let go.”

Her calm command cut through his wrath like a blade. He looked down at his hands, still gripping her shoulders, then released her as if she’d burned him.

Good God, what had he done? Please, let him not have hurt her. Disgust with himself made bile rise in his stomach.

Temperance was glaring at him, even through her glistening unshed tears. “You wish me to exchange one form of control for another.”

“I’m not trying to control you,” Octavius protested, even as he felt the idiocy of his own words. “I’m trying to protect you. It’s perfectly justified to give up certain freedoms when it comes to security.”

But was this not what the old duke had said to Octavius’s mama?

It’s for your own good, woman. I couldn’t stand it if someone took advantage of your delicate sensibilities.

You can’t make the right judgments for yourself; you will be lost without my guidance and protection. I must know where you are at all times.

Was that one of the reasons his mama had finally broken free and run away?

Would Temperance do the same because he was behaving like the monster who’d fathered him?

No, he wasn’t like him . He couldn’t be.

Oh, God, it was already happening. This was exactly what he had feared all along.

Temperance stepped back from him. “Thank you for your concern, Your Grace, but I will manage on my own.”

Your Grace. No longer Octavius.

The loss of her proximity made him feel as if he were hovering over an abyss. His large, powerful body was utterly helpless.

“I don’t wish you to alert anyone,” Temperance continued in that cool, distant voice. “If you wish me well, please promise you won’t say a word. I’ve been foolish enough to trust people in my life who have broken my trust—that is exactly why I am in this situation and being hunted.”

Hunted…

He’d been hunted, too, standing as target practice with bullets shooting around him. He hated for her to feel that way. He wanted to take that pain from her, but she was already slipping away.

“Very well,” Octavius said, his stomach dropping to his heels.

They weren’t engaged, they weren’t married, they weren’t even courting.

They’d kissed and she’d asked him to please her just once, and he had.

She didn’t owe him anything. “Your secrets are your secrets. I—I wish you trusted me, but I see that you do not.”

She nodded, her big gray eyes filling with tears. “Good night, Your Grace.”

The loss of the intimacy of her using his given name was a physical blow to his gut as she closed the door behind her.