Page 19 of Duke with a Debt (Wicked Dukes Society #2)

CHAPTER 19

T he day was a dreary one, a fine mist falling and the sun blotted out by fog and clouds hanging overhead. Rosamund pulled her wrap about her more closely and hastened her steps. She had paid a call to Mr. Watts this afternoon, a necessary visit to her man of business after having been gone from London for a fortnight. The news had been good, and yet she couldn’t seem to shake a knot of dread in her stomach. A deep-rooted feeling of foreboding that seemingly had no source.

It was likely silly.

She was overreacting.

Their ignominious return to London the day before had left her at sixes and sevens. And it was understandable with so much upheaval, from the dreadful mess awaiting them in the town house, to Stuart’s unexpected revelations about his brother, and realizing she’d fallen in love with her husband. Naturally, she was guarding that discovery close to her heart. If she confessed her feelings to Stuart and he didn’t return them, she would be devastated.

No, it was best to bide her time and?—

A hand gripped her elbow in a harsh grasp at the same time something hard was shoved into the small of her back. The scent of spirits and hair grease and unlaundered clothing assailed her.

“Don’t make a sound, or I’ll put a bullet in your back,” Wesley warned in her ear.

“What are you doing?” she asked, fear making her mouth go instantly dry.

He led her in a different direction and pushed her toward a waiting carriage that wasn’t hers. “Walk.”

Her instinct was to run. To tear away from him and flee. But the damning pressure of the pistol’s barrel in her back told her that running would be a terrible mistake. If Wesley shot her, she would die in the street.

And she couldn’t die. Not now. Not when she and Stuart were just beginning their life together. Not when she was so close to having the family she had always yearned for.

“This is madness,” she hissed, frantically looking around for someone who might aid her somehow.

But no one was looking in her direction, the busy street filled with merchants and hacks and horses, everyone going about their day, so caught up in their own routines that no one took note of her plight.

“Shut up,” Wesley bit out, jamming the pistol into her back with so much force she knew it would leave a bruise.

He moved close to her, keeping a tight hold, the pistol hidden from view. To any observer, they likely looked as if they were a couple, Lord Wesley escorting her to their conveyance. Not like a desperate man with a gun, attempting to spirit away his unwilling sister-in-law for heaven knew what purpose.

Icy fear licked down her spine.

She was afraid she knew what purpose.

“You can’t kidnap me like this,” she countered. “Wesley, please. Let me go, and I won’t mention this to Stuart. I’ll pretend as if it never happened.”

“I said, shut your bloody mouth,” he growled, increasing his pace and giving the pistol another painful shove into her back.

They reached the carriage, and he yanked the door open, urging her inside with menacing force. She nearly fell as she scrambled within and settled on the worn squabs. Wesley clambered up and into the conveyance as well, his pistol trained on her as he slammed the door closed and then rapped on the roof. The vehicle swayed into motion.

There was no way to escape. Nothing she could do with the barrel of a gun pointing at her. She could scream, but who would hear her? And she would run the risk of further inciting his wrath. In this moment, he seemed capable of anything.

Even her murder.

“My dear Rosamund,” he drawled, his tone nasty. “How lovely it is to see you again.”

“What do you want, Wesley?” she demanded tightly, trying not to allow him to see her inner terror.

“What do I want? Ah, such an excellent question. I’m so glad you asked.” He leaned forward, his lip curling. “What I want is what I am owed, and you’re going to help me get it.”

Her mind whirled. “If it is funds you need, consider them yours. Please, just take me home, and I’ll see that Stuart gives you what you want. He was angry with you yesterday, but I’m sure he’ll see reason.”

“Do you think me an idiot, my dear?” he asked. “You’re not going home. You’re staying with me.”

“Please, Wesley,” she pressed. “I’m begging you. Take me home, and we can forget all about this. Stuart will help you. There is no need to hurt anyone?—”

“Enough!” he snapped, interrupting her. “Stop talking. Nothing you say will alter my course. My brother has left me with no other choice.”

“There is always another choice,” she countered.

“He cut me off without a farthing. Threw me into the street like a common thief.” Wesley shook his head. “No, no. The time for choices is done. I’m doing what I have to do. What I should have done a long time ago.”

“What is that?” she dared to ask, fear making her stomach clench.

He smiled, and it was an ugly smile, a sinister smile. The smile of a man with nothing left to lose.

“Taking what’s rightfully mine.”

“How was the house party at Wingfield Hall?” Stuart asked the Duke of Kingham as they sat, nursing brandy and soda water in his study.

Thanks to his wedding and honeymoon, he had missed the most recent house party being held by their club. Not that he minded. While their wild house parties had once held endless allure to him, their appeal had waned. He was a new man now. A married man.

A married man who was hopelessly, helplessly besotted with his wife. And although the old Stuart would never have been able to conceive of such connubial bliss, the new Stuart wouldn’t change a bloody thing. Because he’d realized something astounding last night as he’d held Rosamund in his arms.

He had fallen in love with her.

He just hadn’t told her yet.

“It was deadly dull,” King said, taking a meditative puff of his cheroot. “Whitby spent the entirety of the house party sniffing the skirts of a scandalous divorcée. Riverdale was as exciting as a wheel of moldy cheese, Richford was in one of his terrible moods, and neither you nor Brandon attended because you’re married .”

King shuddered dramatically at the last word.

“You make it sound as if we’ve contracted the plague and died,” he observed wryly.

“Because I’ve scarcely seen or heard from you in weeks,” King returned, giving him a disdainful look. “Although, if I were wearing a fusty waistcoat like that, I would hide myself away at home too.”

Stuart glanced down at his waistcoat. “What’s wrong with it?”

King shook his head. “My poor lad, have you learned nothing from me?”

He grinned. “Not to drink any of your potions before half past eight in the evening?”

“A wise lesson,” his friend agreed. “But please, for the love of all that is pure and holy in this world, stop wearing paisley waistcoats during the day. You’re in desperate need of paying a visit to my tailor, and now that you’re flush in funds, I strongly encourage you to do so.”

Stuart laughed. “Send me his direction, and I’ll make the time.”

“Damned right you will, or I’ll refuse to be seen in public with you,” King grumbled good-naturedly. “Now then, do tell me why your study stinks of stale piss.”

“Does it?” Stuart sniffed the air. “All I smell is your cheroot.”

“I have a sensitive nose, as you know,” King drawled. “There is a distinct odor in here. I recommend having the carpets replaced.”

“Blast. I can thank my arsehole brother for that.”

“Your brother has a propensity for pissing in the corners of rooms?” King asked mildly, as if they were discussing something as mundane as the weather, before taking a slow inhalation of his cheroot.

“No, he has a propensity for making me want to throttle him,” Stuart growled, before explaining the chaos he had returned to the day before and how he had finally banished Wesley from the town house and his life.

He had just finished his tale when a rap at the study door interrupted them.

“Come,” Stuart called, frowning as he wondered what could be the cause of the intrusion.

The door opened to reveal a pensive-looking Fleetwood. “Forgive me for interrupting, Your Grace. However, there is a matter of some urgency which I thought you might like to immediately be apprised of.”

He didn’t like the sound of that.

“Go on,” Stuart urged. “What is it?”

“Her Grace’s carriage has returned without her,” the butler said. “The coachman says that Lord Wesley told him to proceed home, that he would escort Her Grace. He also gave him this missive.”

Dear God.

Wesley had taken Rosamund.

Dread and fear colliding within him, Stuart rose to his feet, striding across the room like an automaton to take the missive from his butler’s hand.

“Thank you, Fleetwood, that will be all,” he muttered, tearing open the missive and reading its contents.

The butler bowed and took his leave as Stuart’s world shattered around him.

“What is it?” King’s voice cut through the din in his brain. “What’s happened?”

The words swam before him. “My brother has kidnapped my wife and is holding her for ransom. This is instructions for where I am to meet him and how much money I’m to bring.”

He felt numb.

Helpless.

Stupid.

How had he failed to realize that Wesley would retaliate? Why had he allowed Rosamund to leave for her father’s offices? Why had he not accompanied her?

“You’re not going alone,” King told him, giving him a reassuring clap on the back. “I’m coming with you.”

Rosamund was seated on a dirty, uncomfortable chair in a dim little room, her hands tied behind her back. Wesley had brought her to the unkempt flat where he kept a room for, as he had so succinctly phrased it, sleeping and fucking. The place was littered with empty gin bottles and it smelled of soot and old water, and she’d seen a mouse skittering about in a corner.

“Why have you brought me here?” she asked, trying to distract him so that she might work at the bindings on her wrists without his noticing.

“To have tea,” he said snidely. “Why do you think?”

“So that you can lure Stuart to you,” she guessed. “That is what you hope, is it not? That he will come for me? What do you hope to gain, then? Money? If that is what you are after, I would gladly give it to you. All you need to do is release me.”

“That’s part of what I want, yes.” He lifted a bottle to his lips and took a long drink from it before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “But that’s just the beginning.”

He had been drinking steadily since their arrival, and he was beginning to slur his words ever so slightly. She didn’t know if she should be hopeful that he would become too inebriated to do her harm or fearful that he would shoot her by accident. The pistol was on the table before him, the barrel facing her in a grim reminder of the danger she was in.

She wetted her dry lips. “What do you mean, this is just the beginning?”

“I want to be the duke. I should have been the duke. Sheer luck and a little over a bloody year, and it would have all been different.”

Cold dread iced through her.

Dear heavens , he intended to kill Stuart.

“But you cannot be the duke,” she reminded him, wriggling her wrists subtly at her back in an effort to loosen the ropes holding her. “You are the second son.”

He smiled evilly. “Soon enough, I’ll be the only son. And I have you to thank for it.”

“You can’t murder him,” she burst out. “You’ll go to prison.”

He took another sip of spirits. “No, I won’t. I’ll be the grieving brother, heartbroken over his brother’s and sister-in-law’s deaths.”

He intended to kill her as well, then. But of course he did.

“You cannot believe you can murder a duke and duchess and that no one will be the wiser,” she said, still struggling with her bonds.

Wesley gave a bitter laugh. “Of course I can, you stupid cow. You were having an affair with a commoner, you see. Good old Stuart catches you here in your love nest. In a fit of rage, he shoots you and then himself. It will be a terrible tragedy. A horrid scandal.”

Every part of her was numb. Cold.

Terrified.

Wesley had thought of everything, and she had allowed herself to be neatly caught in his trap. And now, she and Stuart would both be murdered if she didn’t do something to stop this madman. But her wrists were tied so securely, and it seemed that the more she struggled, the tighter the rope became, cutting into her wrists until they were burning and raw.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Ah, there is brother dearest now,” Wesley said.

“Stuart, don’t!” she cried out, wanting to save him. “He’s going to kill us both!”

“You fucking whore!” Wesley snarled, launching himself across the table and slapping her soundly. “Shut your mouth.”

Pain exploded in the side of her face, a hot trail of blood trickling from her lip, down her chin. Everything that happened next was a blur of color, sound, and motion. The door burst open, and Wesley scrambled for the pistol, bringing it to her temple.

“Welcome, brother,” he greeted. “Come inside and close the door.”

Stuart’s eyes locked on her. “Rosamund. What has he done to you?”

“I said come inside,” Wesley repeated sharply. “If you don’t, I’ll put a bullet in your wife’s head. Is that what you want?”

“No, of course not,” Stuart said. “Don’t hurt her. You have no quarrel with Rosamund.”

“In,” Wesley ordered him.

“Don’t,” she begged Stuart, pleading with her gaze.

“Stubble it,” Wesley said, grabbing her chignon and pulling so hard that tears sprang to her eyes.

“Stuart, I love you!” she cried out, the words torn from her. Words she had been too proud to say, too scared. Words she should have given to him freely, from the warmth of his embrace as they lay side by side in his bed.

But if she was going to die, she would do so with him knowing how she felt for him.

“I said, shut up!” Wesley snarled, shaking her.

“I love you too, Rosamund,” Stuart said, his gaze locked on hers as he crossed the threshold slowly. “Put the pistol away, Wesley. We can talk about this. I’ll give you whatever you want. Just please, don’t hurt her.”

“Close the door,” Wesley commanded, the cold, hard barrel of the pistol biting into her temple.

“Cam, old chap,” called another masculine voice from the hall.

Wesley snatched the pistol away from her temple as the Duke of Kingham suddenly came into view at the threshold. He was dressed elegantly, as out of place as a zebra in this hovel.

Kingham sauntered over the threshold, closing the door smartly at his back. “What is taking so long, Cam? I have a dinner engagement awaiting me this evening, and I do so detest being tardy.” He glanced toward Wesley and Rosamund then, wearing a look of surprise. “Hullo, Lord Wesley, Duchess. As charming as it is to see you both, I cannot imagine why you’d wish to meet Cam in such a distasteful little slum.”

He was carrying on as if they were engaged in a social call. Was the man a fool?

“What are you doing here, Kingham?” Wesley demanded, his voice sounding shaken.

Rosamund wondered where the pistol was. Had he hidden it in his coat? Was it pointing at her back? Surely Kingham could see that her lip was bleeding.

“Waiting for Cam,” Kingham said calmly, reaching into his waistcoat. “Sweet God, is that a rat?”

Rosamund turned to follow the direction of the duke’s gaze out of sheer habit, so she only saw the flurry of movement in her peripheral vision before the crack of a pistol rent the air. Behind her, something fell to the floor as a cloud of smoke billowed from a gun in the Duke of Kingham’s hand.

“Rosamund!” Stuart cried.

Gasping, she looked over her shoulder to find Wesley slumped on the floor, a pool of blood around his head growing larger by the moment. A scream tore from her throat, and in the next second, Stuart was upon her, cutting her hands free and taking her into his arms.

“Rosamund,” he said her name, over and over again, holding her so tightly she could scarcely breathe, but she didn’t care because she was alive and so was he. “My love. You’re hurt. What did he do to you?”

She inhaled the beloved scent of him, sandalwood and musk and the man she loved, his heart a steady, reassuring thump in his chest. “I’ll be fine. What about you? What happened?”

“You’re safe now,” he said grimly. “We all are. It’s over.”

“Did the Duke of Kingham…” She allowed her words to trail away, unable to finish her question.

“Yes,” Stuart said simply. “Wesley is dead. He can’t hurt you or anyone else ever again.”

Her eyes fluttered closed, and a sob shuddered through her, shock making her knees go weak. Stuart gathered her up in his arms, keeping her from falling, and she didn’t protest, beyond speech.

“I’m going to take you home now, sweetheart.”

“Yes,” she said, half plea.

Dimly, she was aware of him making arrangements with Kingham, who spoke coolly and calmly, as if he had not just killed a man and saved their lives. The dichotomy of the fashionable rake and the merciless hero was something she would make sense of later, when her overwrought mind could properly function again. For now, it was enough that he had saved her and Stuart both with his unwavering precision and clever distractions.

She clung to Stuart tightly, burying her face in his chest, and somehow they were in the carriage and it was rocking over the rutted streets, taking them away from the death and horrors in that dank room. He held her on his lap, his face buried in her hair, and for a few moments, neither of them spoke.

They just held each other.

“What did he do to you, my love?” Stuart asked at last. “Will you tell me?”

“He…he came upon me when I was leaving Mr. Watts at my father’s offices,” she managed, her breath catching. “He pressed a gun to my back and f-forced me into a carriage and took me to that room. He was intending to kill the both of us. H-he wanted to be the duke. He planned to make it look as if I was having an affair and y-you had caught me and killed me and then yourself.”

“My God, sweetheart,” he murmured, tipping her head back so that he could see her face, tenderly caressing her bruised cheek. “I am so sorry. I had no notion he was capable of something like this. If I had, I never would have let you out of my sight this morning. To think that I could have lost you…”

His eyes glistened, and wetness shone on his cheeks. Stuart was weeping, she realized, and so was she.

“You didn’t lose me,” she said. “I’m here.”

“Did you mean what you said to me?” he asked softly, his gaze searching hers.

Rosamund swallowed down a lump of emotion in her throat. “That I love you?”

He nodded. “That.”

“Of course I meant it,” she answered, cupping his cheek gently and smoothing her thumb over the wet trail of a tear he’d shed over her. “I love you, Stuart. I never expected to fall for you. This was meant to be a business arrangement and nothing else. But the more I grew to know you, the more I realized I couldn’t resist you. You are loyal and charming and witty, and you grudgingly adore my parrot.”

“I don’t know about adore,” he teased. “That’s a rather strong word for the winged demon.”

She smiled, grateful for this man, for this love. For this life, for the air in her lungs and the hearts beating in both of them, for the catlike instincts of the Duke of Kingham, for the carriage that was taking them home where they belonged.

For the future that awaited them.

“You adore her,” she insisted.

“I do,” he allowed, giving her a tender smile. “But I love you most of all, Rosamund. You’ve changed everything for me. When I thought I was going to lose you today, I could scarcely breathe. I don’t want to live in a world without you in it. I love your sharp mind and your determination, your kindness and your stubborn streak and the way you stammer when you’re embarrassed and… Hell, I just love you, sweetheart, full stop. I love you more than I ever imagined possible.”

“Oh, Stuart.” More tears blurred her vision of his handsome face. Tears of happiness and sorrow, of shock and fear and relief, all coming together as one.

“Hush, love. Don’t weep. I’m here. I have you now.” He kissed her slowly, softly, and her split lip ached, but she didn’t care because they had faced death and emerged alive, and because she loved him so much it hurt. They kissed and kissed until at last he lifted his head and they gasped for precious air, staring at each other in awe.

“I have you forever,” he added.

And Rosamund believed him. Because here, in the loving circle of her husband’s arms, was exactly where she had always belonged.