Page 7 of The Big Bad Duke (The Shadows #9)

G ideon stumbled through the thick smoke that wafted around him, biting into his eyes and coating his tongue with its acrid taste. Heat licked at his skin, burning, scalding, suffocating. Fire roared like a living creature, devouring everything in its path, the sound reminiscent of a wild beast.

“Sarah! Sarah!”

He shouted her name repeatedly, but each time, his voice grew quieter until it refused to emerge at all.

What in the devil was going on? He scrubbed his eyes, and then, as if by magic—there she was, standing in the doorway of her bedroom, haloed in light, calm and still amid the chaos.

Sarah.

Relief crashed over him. He reached for her, but she vanished right before his eyes.

The doorway was empty.

She was gone.

Like she’d never been there. And so were the flames.

It was eerily quiet and blindingly dark.

The ground shifted beneath him. Somewhere—far, near, impossible to place—came the thin, high wail of a child’s cry.

Maddie? Emily?

He spun around, but the hallway had disappeared.

Now he stood outside, barefoot in the snow. The cold bit into his ankles. The house blazed before him like a pyre, black smoke curling into a starless sky.

No!

How had he gotten out here? He was just inside. He saw her; he heard the children’s cries. They were alive, they were there.

His breath hitched.

He took a step forward, and the snow turned to ash beneath his feet.

He tried to scream, but nothing came out.

The fire grew louder. Or was it laughter? Or was it weeping?

No. No. No.

Gideon jerked awake with a strangled gasp, drenched in cold sweat, the echo of screams still ringing in his ears.

His chest heaved.

The fire, the smoke, Sarah… the girls.

A warm hand pressed against his arm.

He flinched violently, instincts kicking in before thought could catch up. He twisted toward the touch and caught a sleeve, yanking hard. A surprised yelp escaped the woman now tumbling into his bed, limbs tangled in the sheets, her long hair spilling across his bare chest.

“God’s teeth!” he rasped, his voice rough from sleep. “What in the devil…?”

The woman thrashed against his chest, trying to sit up. He reached to steady her, shoving the twisted linen aside as he sat up. Her wide eyes met his for a breathless moment before she attempted to retreat.

Leila.

“What are you doing here?” Gideon grabbed her by the shoulders, preventing her from rolling off his bed when a metallic glint caught his eye.

Something flashed in her hand. He seized her wrist and forced it forward.

A dagger.

Small. Curved. Sharp.

“And what are you doing with this?”

She tried to wrench her hand away, but he held fast. “I thought… I heard a noise.” Her voice quivered slightly. “I got scared.” She didn’t sound scared. Perhaps defiant.

“So you came into my room with a dagger?” Gideon eyed the weapon held tightly between them.

“Yes.” She jerked her hand again, attempting to free herself in vain. “I didn’t know if you were in trouble.”

He raised a skeptical brow. “So you barged into my room with a dagger that you conveniently had in your possession?”

“I am a Pasha’s wife,” she replied, her chin lifting slightly. “I have to be careful.”

“And a dagger helps you accomplish that?”

“What would you propose?” she asked coolly.

“A hairpin would be less conspicuous.”

“I am a woman alone in a foreign land,” she replied, “without a father or a husband to protect me. I prefer to be conspicuous.”

Gideon tilted his head in thought. Something about the way she phrased that felt off. As far as he knew, her husband was ill, yes, but still in London. He was still capable of offering protection, if not physically, then at the very least in name.

Perhaps he was reading too much into it.

But he understood her concern for safety, especially after the bizarre circumstances of the night.

It might not have been the first attack she’d endured.

He wouldn’t have been surprised to find that was the case.

She was a diplomat’s wife, after all—of the Ottoman Empire, a country that England could not call its friend.

“Well,” he said, glancing at the sword cane by his bedside, “you don’t need a dagger under my roof. You’re under my protection here.”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she looked at him with a curious expression in her eyes.

“You had a nightmare,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

What an abrupt change in subject.

Gideon dropped his hand but didn’t release her wrist. With his free hand, he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Yes.”

The admission felt like a weakness. He hadn’t spoken of his nightmares to anyone, yet here he was, confessing to a woman he barely knew in the sanctuary of his own bedchamber—the place where his demons and ghosts came to visit him nightly.

“What was it about?”

The fire flared in his mind—Sarah’s face vanishing in the smoke, the children’s cries fading into silence.

His throat constricted, the familiar weight of guilt pressing down on his chest like a stone. He could still smell the acrid smoke and feel the searing heat that had driven him back when he should have pushed forward. When he should have saved them.

He didn’t speak.

Time stretched between them, the clock on the mantel ticking away. Each second served as a reminder of time passed, of time wasted.

“I used to have nightmares when I was younger,” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

“You don’t anymore?”

She swallowed, her gaze dropping to their still-joined hands. Her brows drew together for a fleeting second, then her expression smoothed, and she smiled. “No. I suppose my real life is enough of a nightmare.”

She meant it as a jest, but he didn’t perceive it as one—not with that flicker of something raw beneath her words. She was still shrouded in mystery. He didn’t know her at all, but something within him longed to uncover all her secrets.

Odd, that.

Or perhaps he was projecting his own horrors onto her words. Because though the nightmares still plagued him at night, his waking hours were not much better.

They sat in companionable silence for a few long moments. Neither of them speaking. Neither feeling the need to fill the quiet.

She sat beside him on the bed in nothing but a thin, oversized nightgown, only a foot of space between them, her wrist still in his, a dagger lying between them.

He was naked under the sheets, he just realized.

It was too intimate a tableau. Yet it didn’t feel strange or shameful. It felt as though it were a regular occurrence for them to sit like this, in a dark bedchamber, alone.

Quiet. Familiar.

And that terrified him more than any nightmare.

This ease between them was dangerous. It reminded him of before. Of a time when he believed in tomorrow. When he thought he deserved happiness.

It couldn’t have been normal for her either, to be in such intimate quarters with a strange man. Or was it?

“I don’t suppose your husband would be pleased to learn that you’re in another man’s bedchamber in the middle of the night,” he said, keeping his tone neutral.

She scrunched her nose slightly and looked away. “Actually, I don’t believe he would care.”

“Ah.” He released a slow breath. Perhaps it was normal then. “A marriage of convenience?”

“For him,” she said quietly.

“And for you?”

She looked at him, her gaze filled with both defiance and despair. “For me, it’s just another cage.”

Her voice was flat. Emotionless. But there was a storm brewing in her dark eyes.

He studied her a moment longer. She stared back. That open, curious gaze that had ensnared him at a ball just a few days earlier.

“So… you’re free to have affairs?” he asked before he could stop himself. Where the hell had that question come from?

Wherever it came from, it now hung heavy between them, and he couldn’t take it back. Most importantly, he wasn’t so certain he wanted to take it back.

She didn’t flinch, but her delicate throat moved with a swallow.

“I am.”

A pause.

“And are you?”

She licked her lips. “Are you asking if I’ve had them?”

“No. I’m asking if you’re currently having them.”

“Not at this exact moment.” She paused. “Yet.”

He shouldn’t have smiled. Not at that. But something in her audacity—direct, unapologetic—sparked heat low in his gut.

“Yet,” he echoed, his voice an octave lower than before.

She tipped her chin up slightly, daring him to say something, testing how far she could push him. Or perhaps how far he would go on his own.

Gideon was not a man easily pushed. “Is that your intent?”

She raised a brow. “Is it yours?”

Was it?

She was another man’s wife. Yes, in an unhappy marriage, but he had never stooped so low as to cuckold another man.

Wedding vows were sacred to him, even if they weren’t to her.

And yet… a part of him ached for this one moment of warmth in a life grown cold.

Gideon’s gaze dropped to her lips. Full. Soft. Inviting.

She leaned forward, and though he hadn’t consciously registered his own movement, he found himself leaning in too. Her breath brushed against his cheek. Just one inch more, and their lips would meet…

Gideon jerked away and jumped out of bed.

What the devil was he doing?

He grabbed his banyan and threw it over his naked form, then stalked toward the door, his hands shaking.

“Where are you going?” she asked, confusion evident in her voice.

“Away.” The word came out harsh and angry, but the anger wasn’t directed at her—it was aimed at himself. At the traitorous response of his body that had, for just a moment, forgotten why he didn’t deserve happiness.

“This is your room,” she called after him.

Her words followed him into the corridor.

He closed the door to shut them out, pressing his back against the solid wood as though it could somehow keep the chaos of his emotions at bay.

It was his room. The room where he had never welcomed a single woman in his life. Not even his wife.

And he should have kept it that way. Should have kept it sacred, untouched, pure.

But Leila had been in his bed now, her scent clinging to his sheets, her warmth still whispering across his skin.

Confusion, desire, and guilt all warred inside him. The ghosts he had guarded so carefully in his house, in his mind, began to fade away.

He couldn’t let them.

Not now.

Not ever.

* * *

Leila let out a breath as she heard the footsteps retreat down the corridor.

She closed her eyes briefly and let out a shuddering breath, collecting her wits. When she opened her eyes again, she looked down at her dagger and weighed it in her hand. Clutching it in her fist, she rolled off the bed and slowly made a circuit around the duke’s room.

It was well-ordered, with nary a thing out of place. The fire still crackled in the hearth, illuminating the room just enough for Leila to make out the furniture.

She walked toward the dresser by the window and found a little leather-bound notebook carelessly lying on top of it. She picked it up and brought it close to the light of the fire.

There was nothing of note in the notebook—just dated entries and lists of tasks to accomplish each day. She flipped through the pages and stopped at the date of Lady Hargrove’s ball.

Her gaze immediately fell on the last crossed-out entry.

Lord Wrexham

She licked her lips and furrowed her brow before flipping back through the pages to analyze each list for more names.

And she found them.

Portsmouth

Crossed out.

A few pages earlier…

Porter

Crossed out.

A few pages more…

Hardgrove

Crossed out.

She flipped forward again to see if any names appeared in the upcoming entries.

Not yet…

She paused as she heard noise from outside.

Was he returning?

She couldn’t risk being caught snooping through his things. Not by him. Not by anyone.

She rushed back to the dresser, placing the notebook down carelessly to mimic how it had looked before, trying not to raise any suspicion that anything had been moved.

Then she tiptoed toward the door.

Yes. The sound of shuffling feet indicated that someone was indeed making their way down the corridor toward this room.

She silently padded to the side door and slipped into the adjoining chamber.

Spying on Wolverstone hadn’t been her intention for tonight. But barring the success of her actual mission—and considering how careful he always was—this was the next best thing.

And for tonight, that would do.