Page 19 of Duke of the Underworld (Regency Gods #2)

CHAPTER 19

A fter another few hours of misery, in which Hugh stared at nothing and thought of all the things in his life that had gone wrong, he eventually gave in and let Martin cajole him up to his apartments. Being in a room with a bed did technically provide some small amount of comfort, Hugh supposed, but the bland, barren walls and unadorned coverlet made the room feel like a punishment for its inhabitants.

Maybe that was fitting, though. After all, he had selfishly brought Persephone into his dark orbit, even though he’d known it could endanger her reputation. And he could tell himself that he’d done it all because he wanted to rescue her from her bastard of a father, because he hadn’t wanted to leave her at Fielton’s mercy.

But that was a lie. He’d just wanted her. He’d wanted her from the moment he’d seen her.

And now, having had her in his bed, in his arms, he wanted her all the more.

He laid back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. The plaster had cracked in the corner. Maybe it was dramatic, so much so that it was unseemly, but he felt a kinship with that plaster.

This lack of sleep was becoming genuinely worrisome.

He drifted off eventually, a light, troubled sleep that was interspersed with dreams in which Persephone was with him, her nose burrowed into the nape of his neck, her leg thrown over his. They weren’t even engaged in amorous activities in the dreams—that was the part that bothered him the most, when he woke in fits and starts. They were just together. Calm and quiet.

And he liked it so much that every stint of wakefulness felt like a blow.

It also led him to a high state of confusion when he woke and found Persephone standing directly over him. Indeed, the thing that ultimately made him realize that he was awake was that this Persephone wasn’t cuddled pleasantly against him.

This Persephone looked furious.

“Good,” she said, sounding as though she found absolutely nothing good and never had. “You’re awake.”

“Persephone? What are you doing here?” As he started to come back to himself, alarm coursed through him. “Did Daphne get home safely?”

“Yes, she’s fine,” Persephone said tersely. “I’m here to talk to you.”

“Why do you all keep showing up here to talk to me?”

He had intended to grumble this to himself. It was, alas, a mistake to not grumble it inside of his own mind, as Persephone’s reaction was more muted than the vast majority of cannon blasts.

“Why do we—You madman, we keep coming here because you keep not coming home . Where else are we supposed to talk to you, pray tell?”

She did not appear to require an answer to this, as she asked while pacing back and forth at the side of his small bed, her hands gesturing so wildly that he felt that standing up might put him in danger of bodily harm.

“Persephone,” he said. “Persephone, would you calm down please?”

This, too, was a mistake. It seemed he wasn’t capable of doing anything but making mistakes recently.

“Calm down?” she asked. “Calm down! You think I should calm down ?”

Well, he did, but he wasn’t stupid enough to say so.

She stopped as abruptly as she’d started pacing, and he realized, looking at her straight on, that she looked—well, she looked beautiful because she always did, so beautiful that he realized his dreams hadn’t done her justice. But beyond that, she did not look at all well. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and she looked wan.

She looked a lot like he did, actually, when he’d caught a glimpse of himself.

“Are you all right, Persephone?” he asked. Something in his tone must not have been a mistake, because some of the hostility dropped out of her posture.

“No,” she said. “No, I’m not all right at all, Hugh. None of us are. We need you to come home.”

His pulse surged briefly as it always did when he considered the possibility that anything bad, anything at all, might befall those women who had such a tight grip on his heart.

“Is anyone hurt?” He knew the question was likely to raise her ire, but he couldn’t resist. He needed to know.

She softened an iota more. “No, nobody is hurt. Daphne nearly gave me an apoplexy with that disappearing act of hers, but everyone is fine. I saw the girls this morning and they all slept directly through the hubbub. We just… We miss you.”

This last admission was so soft, so quiet. It made Hugh feel sick to his stomach.

This was the smaller pain, he reminded himself. Being far away from him might be hard—Lord only knew it was hard for him, too—but it was the lesser pain when compared with social ostracization, with being the perpetual subject of whispers and speculation. He knew what that felt like, after all. He knew what happened when people looked at you and saw only the worst parts of your reputation, when they saw the worst parts of the men who came before you.

He wouldn’t wish that on his family.

He clung to this reminder, used it to steady himself. He rose to his feet, straightened his clothes though they were rumpled beyond repair, and clasped his hands together merely for the sake of having something to do with them.

“I appreciate that, Persephone,” he said, focusing on keeping his voice level. “But I have to work.”

She scoffed. “Right,” she said. “And was it such a desperate need for funds that led you to pay off my father’s debts without a thought? You beggared yourself for the privilege of marrying a total stranger?”

Hugh bristled at this, and not just because her point did, as it happened, poke a very damning hole in his argument. He disliked her absent characterization of herself as someone who wasn’t worth risking everything over. He should have been willing to beggar himself for her. Any man should have been. He was just lucky to have been the one to get the chance to put something on the line for her.

And the fact that it was just money? That he hadn’t needed to risk more? That was just a twist of good fortune.

“Persephone,” he said. It was inadequate; it was all he could offer.

“You weren’t working,” she said quietly. “Or if you were, it wasn’t because you needed to be. So why haven’t you come home?” Her voice got even smaller. “Did I… Did I do something wrong?”

“What? Jesus Christ, Persephone, no . Why would you even think that?”

Except he could put those pieces together all too easily. He’d bedded her, then abandoned her in the night. A gently bred lady like Persephone would have limited knowledge of matters of lovemaking if she knew anything at all. She would have no way of knowing that matters between them hadn’t just been good, they’d been…

They’d been so good that they’d given Hugh ideas that he couldn’t afford.

He reached out and grasped her by the wrist when she refused to meet his eye.

“Persephone,” he said. “It wasn’t you.”

She didn’t look convinced. “Then what? What could be so pressing, so important, that it would keep you away from those girls? From your sister?”

From me ?

She didn’t say it, but then again, she wouldn’t—not his Persephone. She never spoke much about her family; she was not the kind of person who complained about the ways she’d been treated poorly. Hell, he wasn’t even sure that she realized how poorly she’d been treated. There was her father, of course, but he’d never gotten the sense that her mother had done anything to protect or care for Persephone, either. Rather, it seemed that Lady Fielton had treated her husband’s gambling like a personal insult, not one that affected both her and her daughter. As far as Hugh could tell, Persephone’s mother hadn’t done anything to try to help their family, either.

No, that burden had fallen to Persephone alone.

And then he’d come along and what had he done? He’d told her that he didn’t want a wife—he’d wanted a mother for the girls and a broodmare to ensure his legacy.

He had, in short, been as bad as her family.

And that meant that he had to put her first now. He had to make sure she knew it. He had to make sure she knew she was worth someone else sacrificing for her.

He took her other arm, then slid his grip down until both her hands were in his.

And braced himself to tell her the truth.

“I came here because I am a danger to you and the girls,” he said.

“A danger?” She shook her head. “No, Hugh?—”

“Yes,” he said. “My darling, I am the owner of a notorious gambling hell. I don’t even want you to know about the kind of filth that takes place here on a nightly basis. And I don’t do anything to stop it; I encourage it, because it is the thing that I needed to do to save my dukedom. And yes, we have fixed the worst of our problems for now. But the girls will need dowries. Daphne will need a Season—or several. Fixing the problems that my ancestors wrought is one thing, but there is also a future to prepare for. And I cannot rest until that future is secure. Which means I cannot wash my hands of any of the things I’ve done—that I’m still doing. And I cannot risk that stain rubbing off on any of you.”

Persephone listened patiently to this explanation. Then she paused, nodded, and said, “Daphne was right.”

He hadn’t expected that .

“Daphne was right about what?”

She looked up, and he saw that she didn’t seem uncertain or insecure any longer. Instead, she’d returned to fury—and this time, it burned brighter and hotter than before. When she smiled at him, it was full of venom.

“She said you were being a coward.” As he blinked in surprise, she tilted her head in an assessing sort of way. “Actually, she said you were being ‘a big cowardly baby,’ if I recall correctly. I thought she surely had to be wrong. Surely, you couldn’t be hiding away here because you were afraid. But you are.”

He felt his temper flare before he shoved it back down.

“I’m not?—”

“Oh, yes, you are,” she interjected with a sardonic little laugh. “You’re afraid of talk .”

“It’s more than that,” he said. She had to understand. She wasn’t a fool. She would understand if he was just clear. She had to be. “This place—” He released one of her hands to wave an arm to encompass the club. “—it’s not for you. And yet, in the short time that you’ve known me, you’ve ended up here three different times. We could say the first time was due to your father, but the other two times were because of me .”

She did not strike him as understanding .

“Right,” she said. “Of course, you’re right. I forgot that I am utterly brainless and cannot decide a single thing for myself. You are entirely in charge. I am just a silly little fool who has attached myself to your apron strings. My word, thank you every so much for explaining it.”

So, not understanding, then.

He was starting to feel less than understanding himself. She was being purposefully difficult. Couldn’t she see that this was hard for him, too? That he was doing his damnedest just to do what was right?

“Persephone,” he said, searching for calm. “I…I know my keeping away will not be easy on you. And if—” He practically choked on the words. He didn’t want to say them, but he would give her a happy life, no matter what it cost him. “—if you find someone else, I will…learn how to accept that.”

Her face went slack. Her step backward seemed more like a stumble than an intentional movement.

“You want me to…to find another man?”

He swallowed hard. He was a steady man, a sturdy man, but forcing the words past his lips made him feel as though his hands were liable to start shaking.

“If that’s what you need,” he managed eventually. “Then yes. I won’t interfere.”

He saw the flash in her gaze in the instant before she surged forward to grasp the front of his mangled shirt in her tiny fists.

“How dare you, Hugh Blackwood?” she demanded, chin jutting out defiantly as she stared up at him. “How dare you say that? Have you any idea what you’ve done to me?”

When Persephone had learned about how her father had gambled away the family estate practically down to the bricks in the chimneys, she’d been angry.

When Hugh had avoided discussing what activities were and were not permitted to the girls, not to mention his bizarre motivation for making those distinctions, she’d been angry.

But now? Now?

Now she felt like that volcano that had erupted and destroyed Pompeii. She felt like the fire that had burned down London a century and a half prior.

How dare he? How dare he?

How dare he make her feel all these things and then tell her to go off and try to feel them with someone else? How dare he bring her into a family then try to shut her out of sharing in that happiness?

How dare he make her love him and then push her away?

Hugh, apparently determined to further her rage, did not immediately fall to his knees, thank her for showing him that he was not only a big baby coward—Daphne’s characterization was beginning to grow on Persephone—but an idiot atop that.

Instead, he nodded somberly, bringing up a hand to caress her face.

“I know,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I will bring you nothing but pain. I hope you can still find your way to let me come visit you—just enough to produce an heir, as we agreed—but if you cannot… I understand. I free you from that promise.” He paused, then cleared his throat like he had to really labor to speak. “I will recognize any child you have, I swear it.”

Oh, Persephone was going to murder him.

“Let me see if I understand this,” she said, her voice sounding foreign even to her own ears. “You intend for me to find another man, take him to my bed, get myself with child, and then pass off the babe as your heir?”

She was sickly satisfied when he flinched.

“I only want you to be happy,” he said, his voice a low grumble. “You are…you’re worth everything, Persephone. Your happiness is worth everything.”

Her body reacted so quickly it took her by surprise—took them both by surprise. She raised her hands to his shoulders and shoved , knocking him back onto the bed from which he’d risen when she’d entered. She knew she would have a chance in the world of knocking him back if he’d been prepared, but she was swift and he was visibly exhausted.

So, down he went.

And she, still propelled by some sort of feverish, furious energy she didn’t understand, climbed atop his prone form and straddled his torso. When he lifted his hands to try to put them around her waist, she moved up his body until she could pin his arms down with her knees.

“Persephone,” he said.

“Hold your tongue,” she snapped. “I’ve heard quite enough from you. Now it’s my turn to speak.”

He opened his mouth again, so she clapped a hand over it, and leaned heavily there, too. He likely could have bucked her off if he’d really wanted to, but perhaps he recognized that she would not be put off. He wanted her to believe she was worth everything? Then she was damned well worth listening to.

“You are going to listen to me, Hugh Blackwood,” she said. “I will not be with another man. I cannot . You think I can so easily walk away from you? You think that you are interchangeable to me?”

He mumbled something against her palm which was perhaps fair enough—she had asked questions—but she was so far beyond wanting to be fair that it was well out of her eyeline. She leaned a bit harder on him. He was on a soft bed. He would survive.

“You make me feel alive, Hugh,” she told him. “You make me hunger for your touches, for your company. You brought me to those girls, and I love those girls. And, yes, half the time, you make me feel positively mad, completely furious, like I could absolutely throttle you. But you also make me so happy, too. You make me laugh. You make me desire. You make me feel . And I cannot merely transfer that to some other man . Do you understand me?”

He narrowed his eyes briefly, then looked meaningfully down at where her hand was still clamped over his mouth. She held it there for a moment longer, just to make sure that he knew she wasn’t listening just because he told her to. She was still in charge here.

Slowly, to make her point, she removed her hand.

“Persephone,” he began.”

She put her hand back. That was his I’m not arguing, I’m reasonable tone. She was not in the mood for that tone.

“Do let me help you out first,” she said. “The correct answer is ‘Yes, Persephone, I understand and am not going to be difficult any longer.’”

She’d thought this would annoy him. She had planned this to annoy him.

And therefore she was very surprised when she felt, beneath the curve of her rear where she sat astride him, the telltale hardening of a specific part of him.

Suddenly, she felt her authority in a whole new way. It was no longer just about making him listen to her. Instead, their encounter took on that erotic edge, the one that she had only ever felt from the other side of this sensual exchange of power. It was like those moments where she resisted his authority merely for the sake of that resistance, only heightened with the force of all the emotions coursing through her.

Emboldened by this reaction, she leaned back just a little, pressing her rear against his hardness with just a little bit more force. He growled beneath her hand.

“Say, ‘Yes, Persephone,’” she ordered before lifting her hand.

Hugh, too, paused very meaningfully.

“You know,” he said, with a devilishly conversational air about him, “when I tell you to obey me, you very rarely listen until I force your hand. So tell me, my sweet, why should I do as you say?”

She almost put her hand back over his mouth but paused when a flash of wicked inspiration overtook her. She thought about the last time they’d been together in this club, when Hugh had put his weight over her, pinning her down…

And then he’d put his mouth upon her most sensitive parts.

She reached for her skirts and began tugging them up. She’d worn her simplest dress again, one of the ones that Hugh had complained were not suitable to her new status. And maybe the dress wasn’t uncommonly beautiful or stylish, but it did come up easily around her waist without many layers to get in the way.

“Persephone,” he said, eyes going wide, “what are you doing?”

“Did you mean it?” she asked him. “When you said I was worth everything?”

His breathing was growing heavier, moving her up and down with each heavy inhale and exhale.

“Yes,” he said, eyes locked on hers. “I did.”

She smiled at him, bright and broad. “Then show me,” she told him.

And then she moved up his body, higher and higher until her most intimate place hovered above his face. He watched her movements with naked hunger in his expression. Instead of feeling bashful as he stared at her with mere inches between them, she felt empowered.

She could make him feel this way. She could make him burn with hunger and desire, too.

Her adjustments freed his arms from where they had been pressed under her knees, but when he was able to use his hands again, he used them to pull her closer, not to push her away. He reached up and grasped her waist, pulling her down, down, until she wasn’t hovering over him. Instead, she laid pressed atop him, the hot touch of his mouth making her gasp with pleasure.

And then, his hands guiding her, she began to move.

At first, she was a bit too conscious of her body, afraid that she would crush him. But Hugh pulled her ever closer, teasing every inch of her with lips and tongue. And when he swirled the tip of his tongue around the sensitive nub at the apex of her thighs, she lost her inhibitions entirely, let him draw her against him until she was grinding against him, the rough scrape of his beard abrading the sensitive skin in her inner thighs in a way that made her squirm with pleasure, his fingertips clenching so tightly into her hips that she suspected she’d have small, fingertip-shaped bruises left in her flesh—an idea that she found shockingly appealing.

“Oh, God, Hugh,” she gasped as she barreled toward her crisis. It was all so very much—the delectable feeling of power, the view of him as she gazed down her body to see how his eyes had gone half-lidded with desire, the physical sensations of the way he feverishly devoured her body.

“Yes, yes,” she cried out as the tide inside her rose higher and higher. She grasped for the peak, could feel it coming increasingly close to being within reach. “Hugh, please.”

One of his hands left her hips, his thumb coming to her nub while his mouth worked its wicked power against her. It took only a few moments longer before she crossed over into oblivion, her pleasure hitting her so hard that she nearly toppled over.

And then she was toppling over, Hugh’s hands around her waist guiding her to lay back against the mattress, nestling her in the divot of space that his warm body had left behind. He reached down briefly to fumble with his own trousers and then he was thrusting inside her, no preamble needed, making Persephone cry out again.

“God, you are so beautiful,” he grunted, his words punctuated with the thrusting of his hips against her. It was no slow or sensual coupling; this was hard and raw and everything Persephone needed. “Every moment with you is a blessing.”

“Oh, God, oh, Hugh, oh, my lord,” she babbled, her words growing increasingly loud.

At this, Hugh put his hand over her mouth.

“Shh,” he chided, though he was not being particularly quiet himself. “Anyone could hear you. Anyone could come in. And this is not for anyone but me, my dear girl. You are mine. All mine.”

It was a far cry from what he’d been saying earlier about letting her carry on with another man, should she so desire it. A fierce, possessive beast inside her roared its approval. Finally he understood that they belonged to one another, that they were bound, and that no other person, no man nor woman, would ever come between them. Who would dare?

“Yes,” she gasped when he moved his hand away so that he could brace more firmly against the bed. She reached up to his shoulders, grabbed him hard. She dug her nails into the muscles of his shoulder, hoping that she would leave her mark on him as he had on her. “Yes, Hugh. You are mine .”

Her declaration made him gasp; his movements started to stutter. They became erratic as he shouted out his pleasure, any worries about volume abandoned as he spilled inside her. The raw, undone look on his face tipped Persephone into one last crisis, and she convulsed around him.

They were indelibly inked onto one another now, she thought with satisfaction. They would not, could not be torn apart.

After their breathing calmed and their heartbeats slowed, Hugh rolled them both to their sides, then gently slipped free from her body. He made to smooth down her skirts before pausing at the place where his fingers had clutched at her so tightly. Persephone was too wrung out to lift her head to check, but the flesh there felt sensitive.

She glowed with happiness over the mere anticipation of seeing what they looked like on the morrow.

When Hugh’s fingers stilled, however, tension crept over him until his body was as rigid as a board.

“I hurt you,” he said.

She gave him a sleepy smile as she reached to pull his hand away, to try to tangle her fingers in his. “It’s nothing,” she said. Then, with a blush, she added, “I liked it.”

His posture did not relax; nothing in his body unclenched.

“This is the problem; don’t you see? This is why I cannot be with you. I am no good for you.”

All of the relaxation that their lovemaking had engendered in her vanished in a puff of smoke. She pushed up to sitting, hastily batting down her tangled skirts.

“You cannot mean that,” she said, tone full of disbelief. She could feel hurt creeping up on her, but it was slow to pervade her senses. “After…after everything we just did, you cannot mean that.”

He was looking at her with as much confusion as she was sending to him.

“I hurt you,” he said. “I didn’t even mean to, and I hurt you.”

Her emotions were catching up now. She felt the hot burn of tears prickle at the back of her eyes.

“ This is hurting me,” she said. She gestured between them. “You keeping yourself away—that hurts me. It hurts all of us. Me. Your sister. The girls. You say that we’re afraid that others will reject us because of your reputation, but don’t you think it’s worse that you are rejecting us now?”

He looked like a man in agony. “It isn’t rejection,” he said. “I just want what is best for you.”

“You are what’s best for me,” she said. She was crying in earnest now, scalding tears spilling down over her cheeks. “You’re what’s best for all of us.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m really not. I’m dangerous to you.”

“The only part of me that you are dangerous to,” she said bitterly, wiping away the tears, “is my heart. Please don’t do this. Please. You made me feel this way about you. You cannot send me away now.”

She was barely staying calm enough to be considered anything other than sobbing. It was the one line she was determined to hold. She could not lose this last shred of dignity, not when it was all that she had left.

“Please, Hugh,” she said. Her heart felt as though it was lodged in her throat.

She knew his answer before he spoke. It was written all over his face, was etched in the lines of determination, was lurking in the guarded expression of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a long, painful moment. “I can’t.”

Persephone felt her heart break. It felt like something cleaving in half in her chest—like something inside her was actually splitting in half. It was a clear reminder as to why ancients had been so sure that love existed in one’s heart, before modern science had learned that this was a matter for poetry, not one of medicine. Because who could have ever suspected that this pain was anything but deadly? Anyone would have thought that this was the kind of thing that could kill a person.

“Very well,” she said. Her voice was so small, but it didn’t catch, and that was something. “I’m going to go, then.”

“Persephone,” he said. And goodness , how it hurt to hear him speak her name. He’d said it to her so many times in so many ways. This one felt like a goodbye. She feared that she wouldn’t survive it.

So she said it first. It was the only way she could think of to protect herself.

“Goodbye, Hugh,” she said.

And then she turned and fled before he could see the devastation that was no doubt written on her face.