Page 14

Twelve

Sandy

Six Months Later

Alexander Dartham, the new Duke of Jarrell, was absolutely fucking miserable.

As if it wasn’t bad enough on its own to learn how to run the ducal estate with all its dealings and enterprises, Sandy also had to confront the sheer scale of Reginald’s sins. Peregrine’s hamlet hadn’t been the only village gutted by Reginald’s enclosures, and searching for the villagers and cottagers who’d migrated away so Sandy could offer some kind of restitution was long, difficult work. Some had gone to towns where they had relations; some had tried to eke out a new living elsewhere in the countryside. Some had gone all the way to London, and one family had even emigrated to America. But with the help of the Foscourts, he managed to find a way. Sandy liked to think that he would have tried to ameliorate the wounds Reginald had left behind even if he’d never met Peregrine Hind, but he couldn’t deny that it was Peregrine’s face he saw in his thoughts when he directed his lawyers to issue payments, Peregrine’s voice he heard in his mind when he read the letters of thanks some of villagers sent in return.

And while Sandy didn’t miss Reginald and Judith in the usual ways of grief, he had to accept that their deaths still affected him—perhaps more so for the complicated relationships he’d had with them before they died. Figuring out how to mourn while figuring out how to duke was already unpleasant. Added to his new responsibilities with the Second Kingdom and the continual ache in his chest from Peregrine’s absence, it was torment.

And after months had passed and his highwayman still hadn’t returned, Sandy didn’t even bother trying the things that he used to do in order numb his unhappiness. There was no amount of bed-play or gambling or wine that would erase the truth.

Peregrine Hind, the first person Sandy had ever fallen in love with, had lied. He wasn’t coming back.

Sandy was alone, and there was a beautiful irony to that.

He had placed his bloody, trusting heart in Peregrine’s hands the night the highwayman had ridden away from him, having no idea that the thief would trample it underneath his steed’s hooves the minute he turned and left. Sandy had hoped and longed and cared like he never had before, and it was thrown back in his face every day that Peregrine didn’t come back.

He was haunted and bereft, and so, in a perverse way, Peregrine had his revenge against the Dartham family at long last.

Because the Duke of Jarrell was as miserable as a living person could be.

One of the first things he’d done as the duke was return Lyd’s family property to her, which had been a fucking headache , since thieves were not generally reachable by mail or courier. He’d had to personally loiter on the road to Exeter for several nights in a row, having his driver roll an unmarked but expensive carriage back and forth for hours until he’d finally baited Lyd out of hiding. The first thing he’d done when he’d been hauled out of his carriage by Ned was to search for Peregrine’s grim face and broad shoulders. When he couldn’t find his highwayman among the band, his shoulders had slumped and his heart had slowly slid into his stomach, where it sat there like a dead, disappointed weight.

“Here,” Sandy had said, handing Lyd a sheaf of paper when she’d grumpily lowered her pistol after realizing who she was aiming it at. “The property is yours again. Free and clear. Along with the ransom my brother would have paid you.”

She’d stared at him, not taking the papers. “Why?”

Sandy had flapped the papers at her. “Because it should have been yours to begin with. And I’m trying to be better than Reginald. And—and—” He made a face, screwing up the courage to say what he needed to say. “And because I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help you when I could have. I could have searched for you after I found out what happened, or tried to get your family land back to you earlier, or at least made better sure that Reginald and Judith would stop searching for you. And I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

He looked up to see Lyd’s mouth twisting to the side—but in thought, not in disgust.

Finally, with a short nod, she took the papers from him. “Very well, then.”

“All the rights to the water and the mill have been restored to you,” Sandy said. “With that and your share of the ransom, you could live very comfortably without taking to the road ever again.”

“Hmm.”

Sandy asked, with all the casual charm he could muster, “So, are you still going to rob people?”

Lyd cocked a grin, tossing a look over her shoulder to the other thieves, who were grinning back at her like Sandy had just told an incredible joke. “Maybe,” she said with mock-coyness.

“Will you at least stop robbing my guests?”

“Is that a condition of this?” Lyd asked, holding up the papers.

“No,” Sandy said honestly. “But it never hurts to ask.” He gave her his biggest smile, the one that usually got him whatever he wanted.

She didn’t look impressed, but she did say, “I’ll think on it.”

“You really still prefer this life?” Sandy asked, gesturing to the cold night around them. “Waiting in the cold and in the dark? Robbing people? Fleeing from them?”

Lyd had grinned again. “People flee from me , Sandy. Should I go back to embroidery by the window? Sitting quietly in church and thinking of what repairs the dairy will need next year? After I’ve gone wherever I’ve liked, done whatever I’ve liked, and chosen who shares my bed and when? Do you really think I would want to go back to a quiet gentry life after that?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Sandy said. “But there’s always the Second Kingdom. I could invite you, you know.”

Her smile turned into a baring of teeth. “I don’t want your kingdom of rich hypocrites, Sandy.”

“I’m trying to make the Kingdom better,” Sandy said, a little wearily.

“Is it working?”

Sandy could only be honest. “I don’t know,” he’d said. “But I have to try, don’t I?”

Who else would, if he didn’t? He was the duke, and the Kingdom was his. It was his duty to end the petty infighting and favoritism that Reginald had fostered, and he hoped that things were already changing. He only wished he didn’t have to do it alone. He had Juliana and her family as staunch allies, and a few other friends in the Kingdom, but he wanted someone at his side, nearby always, holding him at night while he worked through the never-ending list of problems that came with the Kingdom.

He wanted Peregrine.

He finally asked Lyd what he’d been dying to from the moment they’d stopped his carriage. “Is Peregrine with you?”

Lyd gave Sandy a pitying look.

“Please,” Sandy said quietly, not above begging, not above demanding they take him captive again just so they could bring him back to Peregrine. “Please, Lydia.”

“He isn’t with us, Sandy,” Lyd said. “I’m sorry.”

“No—” he started as she moved back toward the others and their horses. “Lyd, wait?—”

But it was too late. They were on their horses and riding away, leaving Sandy only with his driver in the dark. He’d climbed numbly back in the carriage, signaled for the return to Far Hope, and tried not to cry the entire way back. He’d believed Lyd when she said that Peregrine wasn’t with them, but then where was he?

Had he retired? Rusticated? Left the country altogether?

God. Was that really so preferable to a life with Sandy?

“So you’re not planning on marrying? At all?”

Sandy and Juliana Durrington née Foscourt, the daughter of the Earl of Kellow and Sandy’s lifelong friend, were walking through the ballroom with stars on the ceiling after a heavy lunch. She’d come to stay for the latest Second Kingdom revel—only the third that Sandy had presided over in the last half year—and he’d shamelessly made her plan the entire thing. It was enough to adjudicate the membership disputes and manage the tangle of internecine politics Reginald had left behind. He couldn’t be bothered to plan the menus for the orgies too.

Luckily for him, Juliana lived for such things, and even luckier for him, she was more than happy to seed little rumors on his behalf here and there. Mainly that his current abstention from the pleasures of the Kingdom was due to the loss of his beloved brother and sister-in-law, and for no other more scandalous reason.

Like that he was pining for a lover who didn’t want him back—and who was also currently wanted by the Crown.

It was raining buckets and buckets outside, making a dull roar everywhere in the manor house, a roar which echoed the noise inside Sandy’s head these days.

He took a minute to answer Juliana’s question. “I have a passel of first cousins already, and all of them are breeding like rabbits. There are plenty of heirs with the Dartham name.”

Juliana looked over at him. “Are you sure, though?” she asked softly. “A marriage doesn’t have to be about heirs alone. A wife could help shoulder the burden of the dukedom and the Second Kingdom. She could make life easier for you—and be a friend and companion.”

Sandy cut her a look. “Are you volunteering, Juliana?”

She let out a laugh. “No, no, I’m quite enjoying my new life as a widow. But it’s something to consider. You’ve bedded women before, after all, and you might also find someone who is happy to seek their pleasure outside your bed, if you’d rather not have a sexual relationship.”

“I’ve bedded everyone before,” Sandy said impatiently. “But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to marry someone so I can have help answering letters.”

Juliana seemed to think about that, the silk of her mantua hissing on the ballroom floor and mingling with the sound of the rain as they walked. “It’s about him, isn’t it?” she asked. “The highwayman?”

Sandy had told Juliana everything once the dust had settled after Reginald and Judith’s deaths, and so she knew exactly how much it had gutted Sandy when Peregrine had ridden off into the night.

How much more it had gutted him when Peregrine never came back.

“I’m a goddamn fool,” Sandy said bitterly. “I’m here with a broken heart, pathetic and moping, and he’s probably off kidnapping some other future duke and tying him to a bed.”

“Didn’t you tell me that he’d been living like a monk before you?” Juliana asked. “And at any rate, he’s not kidnapping anyone, or even robbing travelers anymore. He’s disappeared.”

“He’s what ?” asked Sandy.

“I’m shocked you haven’t heard. I thought you’d searched for him?”

“I went to the priory two months or so after Reginald died, but it had been abandoned. I’d thought they must have moved their hideout because of me...I hadn’t realized they’d stopped altogether.”

Maybe Lyd had listened to his advice after he’d given her the rights to her property back. Maybe she’d settled down with her house and her money and taken up a nice, quiet hobby that didn’t involve pistols.

“ Peregrine Hind hasn’t been seen on the road,” Juliana said. “But his former band has. Led by a woman, they say.”

Ah. Well, that was Lyd for you.

“Sandy,” Juliana said in the careful voice of a friend about to point out the obvious. “Have you given any thought as to why he’d stay away?”

“Of course I have,” snapped Sandy. “Because I’m a Dartham, and I’m everything he hates and because I complained too much about the wine when I was his captive.”

Juliana stopped walking, turning to face Sandy with a look that was both impatient and pitying. “No, you fopdoodle. He’s staying away because he thinks there’s no place in your life for him.”

Sandy nearly sputtered. “That’s ridiculous. I told him all about the Second Kingdom. He should know that in our world?—”

Juliana waved a hand. “You don’t live your entire life in the Second Kingdom, Sandy. He would know that you’d be expected to marry and that you’d have duties in London to fulfill. And he would know even inside the Second Kingdom that there’d be plenty of people whom he’d robbed and who wouldn’t exactly be happy to see him at your right hand. If I were him, I would assume that staying in your life would not only compromise you as the duke, but as the leader of Second Kingdom as well, and that he could love you best by giving you the very thing you wanted most when you were his captive: freedom from him.”

Alexander frowned. “But then why not just say all that to me? I could have told him immediately how wrong he was!”

“Is he wrong?” Juliana asked quietly. “Would it not make your life harder and his less safe to have him at your side?”

Alexander hated that she was right, but he couldn’t deny it. “A wanted criminal does have some inconveniences as a lover,” he finally admitted. “But I?—”

He stopped, clarity coming like the rain outside, cold and drenching.

“I am a duke now,” he said, realizing slowly. “I could fix this.”

“You could,” Juliana agreed.

“A pardon,” said Alexander, getting excited. “James Clavell was issued one, wasn’t he? And so many others too! If Peregrine’s issued a pardon, then even if a disgruntled member of the Second Kingdom wanted to turn him in, it wouldn’t matter.”

He paced once and then stopped. “But if I do this, how will I find him to tell him?”

Juliana shrugged. “Think like a highwayman. Where would a highwayman go to hide?”