Page 2 of The Duke’s Only Desire (The Dukes of Darkness #3)

London

February 1818

S ophie Winter breathed a sigh of relief as she slipped through the French doors and out into the rear garden of Granville House. The garden was dark, silent, and deserted. Thank goodness . If she had to endure one more set of well wishes, she would have screamed.

Yet remorse panged inside her chest that she’d fled her own party when tonight should have been the happiest in her life. After all, she was announcing her engagement to a fine man. One she’d picked herself for love.

She bit her bottom lip. Sort of.

James Norton had fallen for her when they’d met just after Christmas, officially courted her by the start of the new year, and asked Papa for permission to marry her by the end of January. She nearly laughed at the rapidity of it. Why, the blanket of snow covering the garden was probably older than their courtship. But Papa liked him and was relieved to know that Sophie would have a good husband to care for her if he passed away, and Sophie was relieved when James insisted they wait until after tonight’s engagement announcement to work through the marriage settlement. Her father’s weakened condition in the aftermath of a bout of fever and nerves that had sent him to bed for weeks had been worsened by the overwhelming weight of running an earldom on the brink of bankruptcy and the stress of his mounting debts. He had never recovered and continued to decline. The last thing he needed was the increased pressure of having her engagement be contingent upon the negotiations. This way, Papa had time to ease his way through the contract.

Oh, there was no passion between them, but that would come in time. He was kind to her, affectionate, and concerned about her father. And while James’s family wasn’t titled the way hers was—he came from a family of middle-class bankers and accountants—she liked him even more for it. After all, she had never cared about titles. Her late grandmother had been obsessed with them, which caused Sophie to despise them even more. Especially when she’d been forced into that contract to marry John Douglass, a contract that, thankfully, died with John.

She only wished they could have waited until later in the year instead of having a winter wedding, one they’d scheduled for just two weeks from now, under special license.

Which was why her engagement party was being held on one of the coldest nights in recent memory.

“Brr!” She pulled her fur wrap tighter around her shoulders, then risked wetting her blue satin slippers as she walked into the garden to take a few daring steps down the snow-covered path. Finally away from the crush and suffocating heat of the party, she could breathe much more easily and welcomed the cool air into her lungs and the tingle of it across her skin. A childish impulse made her stop, slip off her right shoe, and fluff the snow with her stockinged toes. She laughed at her own silliness, a liltingly soft sound on the hushed night.

Feeling happy for the first time all evening, she bent over to slip her shoe back on—

And froze. A shiver twined icily up her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

Someone was there.

She’d heard—no, she’d felt a presence, one which tickled the backs of her knees. A ghost? The silly fear leapt into her chest before she could remind herself that whoever was there was merely a party guest. Besides, she was too old to be afraid of ghosts.

“Who’s there?” she called into the shadows.

She held her breath and listened. The layer of snow covering the barren branches of the trees and bushes hushed the quiet midnight even more. From the townhouse, the distant noise of the party came muffled.

“I know someone’s there.” She prayed that her voice sounded much more forceful than it did to her own ears. “Show yourself.”

Her breath choked as the outline of a man emerged from the black darkness near the garden wall. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and made even more imposing by the great coat that layered over clothes as black as the night around them. Certainly he wasn’t a servant or one of the drivers who should have been waiting out front with the carriages. Yet his clothing wasn’t at all the kind of evening finery that guests wore to dance attendance on an earl’s daughter, even a dubious one. The shadows of the moonless night covered his face too darkly for her to identify him, but something deep inside her sparked a distant memory she couldn’t quite grasp that told her she knew him, the same way deserts recognized the rain.

“Who are you?” she demanded, fear increasing her anger.

No one should have been in the garden, not at this hour, not in this cold. She shouldn’t have been here herself, except that the engagement announcement would come soon and she needed a few minutes to collect herself before her life changed forever.

But she didn’t expect to be spied upon. Her fingers pulled tighter at her wrap. “Who are you?”

The specter took another step toward her. “Hello, Pixie.”

The deep voice twined around her like a velvet ribbon, winding her up in its masculine comfort, as the memory lingering at the edge of her mind rushed back with full force—

“Shay?” she rasped out, stunned.

But the man in the shadows couldn’t be him. Impossible. He’d ended all contact between them years ago after his brother’s death. He certainly wouldn’t show up again now at her engagement party, not given their families’ histories.

And yet…

She whispered uncertainly, holding her breath to bear the force of her heart slamming against her ribs, “Seamus Douglass, is that you?”

“And here I thought you’d forgotten all about me,” he confirmed as he continued slowly toward her.

Not for lack of trying . “I had.” She hoped he couldn’t hear the lie in her voice.

Heavens, how could she not know him, even now? After all those nights when she’d lain in bed and dreamt of him, of his easy grin and his golden blond hair that curled against the collar of his red army uniform…her dashing and brave soldier who would come and save her, who would sweep her into his arms and carry her away.

But that dream died with his brother.

She’d loved him once, although she’d never dared utter her feelings aloud. Her heart had slowly become his through the letters Shay had written to her when he was in the army and she was still engaged to John. John had never written to her. Not once. But Shay had, from all the places he’d been posted, first with the Prussians and then later when he’d taken a commission with the British. He’d filled his letters with stories of army life and descriptions of all the places he’d seen and all the people he’d met. Afraid he would find her boring or dull compared to the women in his officer’s world, she had tucked into her letters small gifts to remind him of home…pressed flowers and leaves, paintings and drawings she’d made of London, pieces of ribbon, a bit of embroidery. She had fallen in love with him through his letters and those precious little gifts he’d sent from his travels, through every minute of the rare but wonderful visits he paid to her whenever he had returned to England. Fate had nearly wed her to the wrong brother.

“Good.” He stopped at the edge of the shadows. “Better for everyone you did.”

Now he was the one lying. “Why are you here?” She crossed her arms over her chest against the memory of his brutal rejection. Even now, after all these years, it still hurt. “You weren’t invited to this party.”

It hadn’t even crossed her mind to do so. They hadn’t been in contact for nearly five years. Five gruelingly long years since his last unexpected visit when he’d called on her in London on his way to Ravenscroft Manor from Spain, on several weeks of well-earned leave. At eighteen, she’d been starry-eyed and thrilled to see him again. They’d shared a wonderful afternoon of walks through the park and quiet conversations in the garden, speaking of nothing and everything… everything, that is, except her impending marriage to his brother.

But the wedding never happened.

She and Grandmama had been waiting at the village church for the ceremony to begin when word arrived that John Douglass had been killed the previous night. Still in her wedding dress, Sophie fell to the floor in uncontrollable sobs, but not because she was grieving. How could she grieve a man she had never known except for their one and only meeting when he’d said unforgivable things to her? No, she had cried tears of relief and joy, and for that, surely she’d damned her soul, because on the heels of that news came word that Shay had been severely injured.

The doctors refused to let her see him, telling her that his condition was too severe for her delicate constitution to bear, too uncertain to receive any visits at all, even from his uncle Malcolm who had rushed to Ravenscroft Manor at the news. Grandmama, herself shaken and in tears—although for a completely different reason than Sophie—had taken her back to London to begin her mourning period, most likely so the old woman could put Sophie right back on the marriage market in hopes of yet snagging a peer. Her grandmother had been nothing if not mercenary.

Nasty rumors begin to pour through society only days after her return—that the fire was Shay’s fault, that he was responsible for his brother’s death, that he wanted the title for himself… Nonsense! None of that was true. But all her letters to Shay begging for an explanation went unanswered, even as the weeks advanced into months, even as he recovered and should have reached out to her, even as his own father died only two months later. No word, no plea to see her. Nothing…until he wrote to her to tell her to leave him alone.

She never saw him again. No one in London ever saw him again. He’d become a recluse who never left Ravenscroft Manor.

Until tonight.

A bittersweet pang tightened her chest. As she stared at him, saying nothing around the knot in her throat as he slowly came closer, her eyes burned until his shadow-covered face blurred, although she couldn’t have said whether her tears came from surprise or anger. They certainly weren’t from joy.

“I thought my invitation had been lost in the post,” he drawled.

“You were most definitely not invited.” She didn’t care if she were rude. He’d wounded her irreparably, and she had every right not to forgive him. “And you know it. So why are you here?”

“I’d heard there was to be an engagement ball tonight.”

She shivered, not from the cold air chilling through her silk gown but from the frigid tone of his voice. “You’ve come all the way to London to offer me congratulations?” Unable to stop the bitterness from dripping from her tongue, she added sarcastically, “How kind.”

“Kindness has nothing to do with it.” He took another step, this time fully out of the shadows.

Her breath tore from her throat. His face. His handsome face— oh God.

She stared, unable to believe her eyes. His left side was exactly as she remembered, with its high cheekbone, smooth skin, and firm line of his jaw. But the right… Her hand flew to her mouth—oh, she was going to be sick! Through the hot tears blurring her eyes, she saw the thick scars of old burns which marred his skin, rough and hideous like ruined leather, and made him unrecognizable. A monster.

He let her stare, remaining as motionless as a statue, although she felt the cringe inside him and the self-abhorrence, both as palpable as the cold air pricking her skin.

“I haven’t come to congratulate you.” When he spoke, the left side of his mouth didn’t match the right in its asymmetrical movements. “I’ve come to stop you.”

“You’ve come…” she whispered through her fingers at her lips. “Why?” she choked out, the strangled words barely more than a breath beneath the stunned confusion paralyzing her.

“Because you’re already engaged to the Duke of Malvern.” His lips curled deliberately into a dark smile, ghastly and uneven, the scarred side of his face immobile. His icy words slithered down her spine. “To me.”