Page 14 of The Duke is Wicked
Case sputtered a laugh and turned to Sebastian. The young man was painfully handsome. Not as impressive as Finn, because almost no one was, but attractive enough to garner attention and not know, at this delicate age, what to do with it. “Normal? What gave you the idea she’s”—he jerked his thumb toward Delaney—“normal?”
Sebastian wiggled a flask from his waistcoat pocket and took a lazy sip. He wasn’t going to tell the boy it was only tea. “Oh, I meant you. I knowshe’snot normal. Gone into that closet of hers twice and come out with information she shouldn’t know. While I watched. Regrettably, she and I are long past normal.”
“Attic,” Case whispered, “not a closet.”
Sebastian stilled, the flask dropping to his thigh. “Come again?” he asked, his fingertips starting to sizzle.
Case released a breath that sounded like he’d been holding for years. Conceivably, the young man was coming to realize he wasn’t going to have to shield his sister all on his own anymore. At least, for a time. “It’s her story, not mine. And not for me to share. You need to ask her about the way her mind works…” He slouched until his bootheels bumped the carriage seat across from him, rocking Delaney slightly, but thank God, not waking her. She hadn’t slept well the night before, if the dark slashes beneath her eyes meant anything. “She goes into that attic and thinks it’s two minutes when it’s two hours.”
Interesting.Disturbing.“Where does this happen?”
Case held out his hand. Sebastian sighed and gave him the flask, thinking to tell him it contained no comfort. “Everywhere, anywhere. In the middle of the street. A market. A ballroom. Nearly run down more than once while she flipped pages in her mind.” He drew a circle around his temple with the flask, the letter A etched on the metal glinting in the lamplight. After a moment, he took a drink, coughed to find it wasn’t what he’d expected, and thrust it back in Sebastian’s direction with a grimace. “I prefer coffee, just so you know. Anyway, she’s created her own jail and locked herself in, though she doesn’t realize it.”
Sebastian tucked the flask in his pocket, thinking how wise a deduction this was. For Delaney, for him. “I ask again, why did you leave America?”
Case traced another raindrop as it wobbled down the window and gave a broad-shouldered shrug. “Not for me to say.”
Fine, Sebastian decided. Time to play cricket. “Do you know where Seven Dials is?”
Case grunted, gave the glass pane a hard tap with his knuckle. “Who doesn’t? A gin palace down there I quite like, The Rosy Dell, though you risk your neck getting to it.”
“I caught your sister headed there last night, dressed in your clothing, I presume, to meet a rather menacing bloke who completed our circle of association, mine and Delaney’s. And since you asked, the reason you’re sitting in this carriage on the way to Oxfordshire was the note her messenger provided.”
“She didwhat?” Case’s face went as white as the folded vellum tucked in Sebastian’s pocket. The runner’s note he’d purloined from Delaney after their trek to the rookery, and refused to return.
Sebastian extracted the Soul Catcher from his waistcoat, lamplight striking the stone’s facets and sending a dazzling crimson array across their boots. “This bauble is very valuable to me and the people you’ll meet here, but it’s not an item a troublesome American heiress should know anything, and I meananything, about.”
“Why would she then?”
“Delaney hinted that she’s protecting you as well as herself. Do you have any idea why that would be?”
“I know, but it’sherstory.” Case brought his hand to his head and rubbed hard, as if he could wipe out the memory. “I’m not lying. I just can’t tell you.” He swallowed, and Sebastian could see he was close to tears. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a twin who’s different. Be the only man left in her life. Be the oldest by five minutes, forced to keep her safe when she can’t help who she is.”
“No, but I know what it’s like to have brothers who can’t help who they are, when all I want to do is keepthemsafe.” Julian, Finn, Simon. Sebastian rolled the Soul Catcher between his palms and felt it warm against his skin. With modest effort, he refrained from staring at the bothersome bundle sleeping on the seat four feet away. One minor move and he could touch her. Stroke his finger across her cheek, the nape of her neck, the inside of her wrist, all areas on vulnerable display before his oddly ravenous gaze.
One minor move and he could leave the woodlands they traveled through in cinders.
Contradictory desires tore at him. To protect her; to protect himself. To seek everything; to seek nothing. To run to her; to run away. Discernment of the path he should follow unraveling like silken thread until there was no path. He gazed at the twins, the girl dozing, the boy close to it, with a weighty feeling permeating his chest, similar to the boulder that had landed there when he’d returned to find his brothers dead and the ducal title his.
Responsibility, dread, anticipation.
They were alone, these Terrible Two. Through a Bow Street Runner he’d hastily engaged, Sebastian had learned enough to determine this. One connected to his world by her formidable mind, one by love for his sister. In over their heads in a sea he was considering diving into to try and rescue them. When he wasn’t such a solid swimmer himself.
Who was he—firestarter, scoundrel, scapegrace, lost duke—to think he could save anyone when he’d barely been able to save himself?
“She’s smarter than you,” Case murmured sleepily from where he’d wedged himself against the carriage wall. “Which is always the problem.”
Maybe that’s the attraction, Sebastian reasoned, and turned to stare out at the stormy world he traveled through.
Maybe that’s the attraction.
* * *
Delaney was in love. At-first-sight, total and complete love.
Not with the Duke of Ashcroft—but with hiscastle.
It was wondrous, it was amazing, even more magical by candlelight.