In the Devil's Bed (Sins of the Duke Book 1) (15 page)

Damn him for being so tall. She tilted her head up and her bonnet hit the bedpost. “Captain Hazard, in this particular circumstance, you have overstepped your mark. I do not hide from the world.”

He leaned down, his hair falling at his temples. Then he grabbed a handful of her veil, trailing from the back of her bonnet. He yanked the tail of it around, holding it between them. “Then what the hell do you call this?”

The black lace veil stared up at her. She missed her father so much. He’d been torn from her. No chance to say goodbye. She’d been abruptly left alone. Regan lifted her eyes from the veil, refusing to let the pain of it take hold. She couldn’t. If she did, the fragile exterior image that she had so carefully crafted would fall completely apart.

“I am in mourning for my father.”

“It has been over a year since your father’s death.” His voice softened. “Regan, you hide behind these black clothes and veil and do nothing but work. And you use your father’s wishes to separate yourself from the world. Would he have wanted this life for you?”

Regan sucked in a breath and it stuck in her chest. How had the conversation changed to this? They had been talking about being lovers and now— Pain stung her eyes and tears pooled just behind her lids.

The muscles in her throat worked, tensing with pain. She looked away from the veil and up at Jack.

“Don’t hide anymore, Regan. You’re a strong woman worthy of a vibrant life.” The gentleness of his voice shook her to her core.

A hot tear slipped down her cheek and her chest expanded as she sucked in a huge breath. It was coming. She could feel the pain tearing loose inside her. “Leave. Please. Leave.”

“Rega—“

“I don’t want you here,” the words rushed from her mouth. She needed to say them while she still could, before she threw herself against his broad chest and cried.

He nodded and let her veil slip from his grasp. “Regan. I. . .“

She looked up at him, wanting him to say something that would make the pain go away, but pain warred in his own eyes. Pain from a lifetime of hurt. How could he make her pain go away when his still tore at him from inside?

Jack turned and strode from the room, shutting the door with a hard swing. The crash of wood on wood bounced off the walls. She stared at the door for a moment then closed her eyes. Her lungs tightened and an aching sob ripped itself from her chest.

Tiredness filled her limbs, the tiredness she’d forced herself to ignore for the last year, and she slid down the length of the bedpost. Her bottom hit the soft rug. Regan reached up and untied the velvet strings of her bonnet. She pulled the thing from her head and brought it in front of her.

Tears streamed down her face, tracing her skin with salty water. Jack was right. So right. Her father hated black. He’d loved life so much. Lived it with every ounce of passion he had. And she— She was hiding from it.

Regan flung the bonnet across the room and buried her face in her hands. Jack knew her. He knew her in a way no one else ever had. And it terrified her. Because she wanted to know him, too.

***

J
ack slammed his hands against the walnut wood desk at the far end of his room. Pain stabbed his flesh and he embraced it.

What the hell was he doing?

He was being a bloody nob.

Anger at himself rushed through his veins. He’d pushed too hard. Acted too soon. He’d made her cry.

Hell, he’d done that to men before. He knew how to maneuver people. To leave them twisted and in pain. But Regan? A growl ripped out of his throat and he shoved himself away from the desk.

When that single tear fell down her cheek, it had felt like a knife blade in his chest. He’d caused her pain. And she already had enough of that.

He saw it every day in the way she always smiled, even when it didn’t touch her eyes. The way she never mentioned the pain her father’s death caused her. The way she never complained about anything in her life.

The way she had no life save her work.

It had hit him, because that was his life. A life spent running. From pain.

He’d embraced his pain and was locked in battle with it. One day, he’d defeat it, but not before he destroyed others.

Jack grabbed the lapels of his great coat and yanked it off. He tossed it onto the dark leather chair positioned by the fire. Why did he ruddy have to say
not yet
? He should have bloody kept his mouth shut.

He snorted and lowered himself onto the bed, his tight muscles shifting. He’d said it because he’d had a taste of her in the carriage. Jack thrust his hand through his hair.

Hell, he wanted her like an addict wanted his opium.

Damn Lady Wells and her insinuations. They’d put Regan on guard.

Jack turned to the fire, the glowing embers fading before his eyes. He paused.

She hadn’t said she did not
want
to be his lover. She had only said why she
could
not be.

Chapter 20

The dining room glittered with wealth. Every penny made on the backs of his kind. Jack followed Regan further into the den of gilded cutthroats. He spared a quick glance at Brent who was lingering to the back of the room, a look of disgust barely masked on his hard face.

Jack looked back to the graceful arch of Regan’s neck and the soft, red curls caressing her skin. He wanted to ask if she was well. But instead, he focused on the table and the lords and ladies.

Gold glimmered on the shining cherry wood table. Disgust coated Jack’s tongue. Slavery. One of Lord Wells’ primary sources of income came from the trade in human misery.

“Captain Hazard?” Regan asked.

Jack snapped towards her. Somehow, she’d hidden any evidence that she’d been crying. The bruise on her cheek had long faded and her pale skin looked bloody goddess-like in the faint lighting. “Yes?”

She tilted her chin up, her eyes searching his face. “Will you take me in?”

He smiled tightly. “I hardly think that would be acceptable or pleasing to your host and hostess.”

Regan blinked at him then looked over at Lady Wells preening over one of the king’s distant relations. “Possibly, but do I look as if I care what’s pleasing to that old cat?”

Jack choked back a laugh and coughed. “No. No, you don’t.”

“Then?”

“Well, if you’re willing to face their fury, I am.”

“Glad to hear it. We shall enter as a united front.”

Jack hesitated. If only she understood that they could never be united, that he was, in fact, her enemy. An enemy who wished her no harm, but would destroy her nonetheless.

Jack offered her his arm and leaned into her.

“I should not have said those things to you this afternoon,” he whispered.

Glancing up at him, her eyes wide, she let her fingers hesitate just above the fabric of his coat before sliding over the smooth wool. He flexed the muscles beneath her hand and she stiffened. A small smile tilted the corner of her lips. “What you said was true. I appreciate your concern.”

Confusion swirled inside him. She wasn’t furious with him? “I was an ass,” he murmured down to her.

A laugh rippled from her throat, bubbling through the air. “Only a bit of one.”

Jack’s breath caught in his chest. She was so damned beautiful when she laughed. He wanted her to always laugh. To see her eyes crinkle and cheeks glow. To never know pain. “Shall we?”

She nodded and they followed the couple ahead of them. A general silence surrounded them as they strode forward, but no one moved to stop him from leading Regan towards her place. It took Jack a moment to realize they were seated in a complete contradiction to precedence, for they were sitting at the far end of the table. Lord Wells’ end.

Jack ground his teeth together. It was one thing to spend the night in the same monstrous house with the bloody prick, but to dine within two feet of him? Hell, he’d be lucky if he could swallow soup.

Jack took his seat opposite Regan and glanced down the table. Seated on Regan’s right was Lord Lumley. The man’s blond hair sparkled in the candlelight, like the damned effeminate snob he was. A man who had more money than the monarch and, if possible, had less brain.

Jack let his gaze drift to Regan’s other dining partner and his stomach twisted. Bloody everlasting hell. Lord Brookhurst sat to Regan’s left.

Lord Brookhurst turned in Jack’s direction and offered a disarming smile. “I have made your acquaintance before, have I not?”

“Yes, my lord,” Jack replied.

The servants, in one sweeping move of efficiency, brought out the first course. Jack looked down at the clear broth before him. The Wells family crest, a blue boar, stared up at him from the pale porcelain. Jack took hold of his spoon. The edges of it dug into his hand and he forced himself to relax his grip.

“Where have we met?” Brookhurst queried.

“I believe you made my acquaintance on the continent.”

Brookhurst’s smile broadened and his hard blue eyes glinted like unpolished rocks. The bastard was doing this on purpose. Jack smiled assuredly back at him. Smiling at enemies had become an art he’d perfected in the last years.

“Ah, yes. I do recall.” Brookhurst’s voice cut across the room and Regan looked at the young lord from the corner of her eyes. Her red brows drew together, confusion heightening the color of her cheeks.

She sensed it. A man going in for the kill.

Seeing exactly where Brookhurst was heading, Jack took the initiative, robbing the lord of the upper hand. “Actually, for a brief time I served in your regiment.”

The lady on Jack’s right tapped his arm with her pasty white hand. Her painted red lips parted into a smile that revealed slightly yellowed teeth. “What a fetching pair of officers you must have made,” she breathed, her brown tresses tilting towards him.

Here it was, the moment Brookhurst had been waiting for. Jack seized it out from under him. “Actually, no, madam. At that time, I was still a private.”

She blinked with small, deep set eyes, and a silence descended on his half of the table. Brookhurst lounged back in his chair for a moment, as if enjoying the scene he’d just arranged.

Regan stared at him, her eyes wide, anger sparking in their depths. At what? Brookhurst?

Jack looked away from her and returned his attention to the flabbergasted woman to his right. “I am sorry to disappoint you.”

She opened her mouth in a remarkable imitation of a gaping flounder. “Do you mean to say that you are not a gentleman?”

“Of course he is a gentleman,” snapped Regan.

The entire table turned their heads in her direction. Regan shifted on her seat. “I mean to say, how could an officer not be? And Captain Hazard was lauded by many, including Lord Wellington as one of his best.”

A murmur, like the buzz of bees, rippled around the room.

Brookhurst leaned forward, cocking his head to the side. “Forgive me, old man, I never had any intention of putting you in such an awkward position.” He swept his gaze across the nobles sitting at their end of the table. “Captain Hazard is a remarkable soldier. I’d say it was his calling.”

Jack forced himself to incline his head at the less than complimentary words disguised as a compliment. Waging war was not a calling that he wanted. Even if he was good at it.

The woman to Jack’s right blinked her short lashes. She swayed towards him, leaning so that her large breasts that overflowed her brass-colored gown squeezed together. “Of course. How foolish of me.
You
are Captain Hazard.” She clapped her hands together as if someone had given her a sugar plum. “What a novelty to have a man of your. . .
origins
with us.”

Hell. This was going to be a long night. He inclined his head then turned his attention back to his soup. Tonight, he would damn propriety and not speak through the rest of this course.

Both Lord Lumley and Lord Brookhurst crooked their bodies in Regan’s direction, their eyes drifting towards the contrast of Regan’s plump white breasts against the black of her evening gown. Brookhurst flicked his eyes over her, his fingers tightening on his wine glass.

A growl fought to free itself from Jack’s throat.

Lord Lumley laughed, a girlish sound. And suddenly, Jack realized he had not been listening to the conversation. He’d been staring at Brookhurst, wanting to take the man’s head off.

“My dear Lady Regan, how is it that you are not married?” inquired Lord Lumley.

Jack lowered his spoon to his bowl and stopped himself from straining to hear. But this was something he’d also been curious about.

Regan gently leaned her forearm against the table. “Well, I—”

“You really are too beautiful and well placed in society to not be married,” twitted Lord Lumley with a twirl of his lace-cuffed wrist.

The corners of Regan’s lips lifted into a wry smile. “Thank you.”

“I find I must agree with my peer, Lady Regan. You are far too exquisite to be on the shelf.” Lord Brookhurst angled his body towards her and, for a brief moment, the fabric of his coat brushed Regan’s arm. “We must find you a husband.”

Jack blinked, comprehension hitting him smack in the head. This was why Regan had been sent here. To her grandfather’s closest friend’s house. The old bastard wanted her married to a man like Brookhurst. Hell, perhaps Brookhurst specifically. The man was one of the duke’s devotees. As a married woman, she’d never cause trouble for the family again. With Brookhurst as her husband, she’d be controlled with an iron fist.

Jack put his spoon down, deliberately setting it gently against the porcelain bowl’s edge. His fingers curled into a fist in his lap.

Lumley shook his head sagely. Lips pouting, he said, “Indeed! We must find you a husband.”

Regan laughed and shook her head. “No. I have quite enough troubles without a husband.”

“Ah, but a husband would take care of those problems for you. You’d have no cares.” Lord Lumley winked at her.

“A life without care? How very boring.” Then Regan took one last sip of soup. “Wouldn’t you agree, Captain Hazard?”

Jack fought back a grin. She’d just extricated herself from a damned annoying situation and turned the focus on him. Clever little devil that she was. But his grin faltered.