To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke Book 8) (29 page)

“I do not expect you to repay me,” Rutland replied automatically. “But, Wessex?”

He glanced up.

“You believe you will find solace in revenge. You will tell yourself that as long as you ruin him, you will find happiness, but that isn’t true.” The marquess jerked his chin at the sheet. “That thirst for revenge, it will only destroy you. The only thing that will heal you, or the lady that sent you here to me today, is love. Until you accept that, neither of you will be free.” A dull flush mottled Rutland’s cheeks, and as though embarrassed by those words, he picked up his brandy and downed the remaining contents of his glass.

Allowing him his dignity, Marcus returned his focus to the page. Atbrooke’s name glared mockingly back. Another surge of rage ripped through him. “Perhaps you are right,” he said when he trusted himself to speak. “But if anyone hurt your wife the way he hurt…” A spasm gripped his heart and he cleared his throat. Even the hint of a suggestion of the crime committed against Eleanor would bring her undeserved scorn and additional agony. In coming here to obtain information from Rutland, Marcus had sought the far lesser of the two evils. By the marquess’ frank candidness he’d no doubt Marcus’ confidence would be kept. Still, he’d already said too much. “Thank you,” he murmured. “I am in your debt.” In every way, imaginable.

Rutland tossed his hands up. “I do not want you in my debt,” he growled. “Bloody hell, Wessex, I am looking to be free of it all.”

Then, weren’t they all seeking to shake free the demons of their past? How futile their attempts were.

The marquess again drew open the front desk drawer and withdrew a peculiarly shaped velvet box. He hesitated and then pushed it across the table.

Marcus eyed it and then wordlessly accepted the package. He lifted the lid and peered down at the heart-shaped pendant. Puzzling his brow, he glanced up. “What—?”

“It was a gift given my wife by the Marchioness of Waverly. The wearer is fabled to land the heart of a duke.”

Despite the hell of that morning, Marcus’ lips twitched. “I’m rather hoping the lady is content with my mere title of viscount,” he said dryly.

A chuckle rumbled from within the marquess’ chest. “Yes, well, the real truth is that the wearer will earn the heart of their true love.” He motioned to the necklace. “You are better entrusting yourself to that emotion, than the revenge that would destroy you both, Wessex.”

Brought ’round to the very reason for his being here, Marcus closed the lid. “I thank you. But I cannot—”

“Take the necklace. I just ask when you are married and happy, that you see it returned.”

Marcus looked down at the two gifts given, humbled by this stranger’s kindness. This man feared by all had proven himself more human than Marcus could ever hope to be. “I don’t—”

“There is nothing to say,” the marquess murmured.

The door opened. “Edmund, where have you—oh.”

Their gazes swung to the entrance of the room to where a lady with nondescript brown hair and blue eyes stood staring back at them. Marcus and Rutland rushed to their feet.

“Phoebe,” the man murmured with a reverent tenderness. “I was meeting with the Viscount Wessex.”

“Forgive me,” she said softly. With her plainness, there was nothing extraordinary about the lady, and yet there was a kindness and warmth in her eyes, and as Marcus stole a glance at Lord Rutland, the man’s transformation made sense.

“No, my apologies,” Marcus said, tucking the marquess’ offerings in his front pocket. His gaze went to her rounded middle and a wave of potent longing so strong hit him so completely that it robbed him of breath and thought. In the marchioness, he saw Eleanor as she’d been, with her belly full with child, and he ached for the need to be a true father to Marcia, and to have more children with Eleanor. Forcing his eyes back to Rutland, he held his hand out, much the way Eleanor had a short while ago. “I cannot thank you enough.”

For the marquess’ waving off what he’d done this day, he’d turned over a fortune when most men would have exploited Marcus’ weakness.

“Remember what I said,” he returned and accepted the offering.

Marcus bowed his head and then with a polite goodbye for the marchioness, he took his leave. The marquess’ words reverberated around his mind; the warning clear. He would turn himself over to love—as soon as he could be sure that Atbrooke would never threaten Eleanor and her daughter again.

Taking his leave of the marquess, Marcus drew his hat on and bounded down the steps to where a boy waited with the reins of his mount. Withdrawing a small purse, he tossed it to the lad. “Thank you,” he murmured and climbed astride.

He had but one more call to make this day…and then there could be, if not a total healing for Eleanor, at the very least some peace and assurance that she need never fear the Marquess of Atbrooke again.

A
short while later, the Marquess of Atbrooke’s butler ushered Marcus from the foyer and down the hall.

As he walked, a vitriolic hatred spun inside him. It filled every crevice of Marcus’ person until he tasted his seething animosity for the man whose company he now sought. He took in the chipped and cracked plaster walls, the threadbare carpets lining the floors, and reveled in even the small material discomfort the man had known. When it should have been far greater suffering.

“Lord Wessex!” The faint breathless cry brought him to an abrupt stop.

He stiffened, and angled around. Lady Marianne smiled that sultry, enticing smile and he fought down apathy for this woman who shared the blood of a beast. How had he ever entertained anything more with this one? “Lady Marianne,” he said brusquely. “If you will excuse me? I have a meeting with your brother.”

“La,” she pouted and flicked his sleeve. “Surely you can spare a moment for me.”

The butler discreetly dropped his gaze and a shudder of revulsion went through Marcus.

“I am here on a matter of importance,” he said curtly.

She flared her cat-like eyes and triumph glittered within their cold depths. “A matter of importance, do you say?” she breathed. With no regard for the servant at their side, the lady layered herself to him, and rubbed her breasts against his chest. “You will not be regretful in your decision, my lord. I promise you that.”

“Indeed, I won’t.” Then disentangling himself from Atbrooke’s sister, Marcus followed along after the butler.

They came to a stop outside the marquess’ office door and Marcus curled his hands, staring at the wood panel, wanting to take the door down with his fingers and choke the life from him.

The servant pulled the door open and announced him.

Atbrooke stood at the center of the room, a wide grin on his small lips. “Wessex, a pleasure,” he boomed, waving him in as his servant took his leave. “I suspect what has brought you here.” The man’s mouth moved as he spoke but Marcus remained frozen, rooted to the floor, staring at that mouth, torturing himself with the hell of imagining those lips on Eleanor’s, silencing her cries. “Would you care to sit?”

The marquess’ words came as though down a long, empty corridor. Marcus strode across the room and, without breaking stride, buried his fist in the other man’s face knocking him on his arse. He relished the crack as he shattered Atbrooke’s nose and the warmth of his blood cascading over his fingers as Atbrooke wailed.

“Wessex, by God—”

Marcus hauled him up by his lapels and, for good measure, planted him another facer that sent his head reeling. He jerked the other man to his feet and dragged him to his face. “If I did not give my word to not kill you, Atbrooke,” he seethed. Then with a violent bloodlust raging inside, he clasped his hands around the man’s throat and strangled off airflow. The man’s face turned a splotched red, and shades of blue and purple. God help him, Marcus wanted to kill the man. His breath came hard and fast. He wanted to end this bastard’s right to live. He released him suddenly and Atbrooke collapsed to the floor gasping for breath. “I would see you gladly at dawn and end your miserable, worthless life for what you did.” He leveled his fist into the man’s stomach and a sharp, guttural groan split Atbrooke’s cracked and swollen lips. “And I promise you, if you threaten my family again,” For that is what Eleanor and Marcia were. “Then I will finish what I started this day.” Chest heaving from his exertions, Marcus stared at the man’s prone form.

Yet, with the bastard’s blood staining his fingers and the piteous moans spilling from his lips, there was no sense of satisfaction. There was no vindication or triumph. For nothing could right the wrongs done eight years earlier.

Atbrooke struggled to push himself onto his arse. “Sh-she wanted it.”

Marcus buried the tip of his boot in the man’s groin, relishing the high-pitched squeal as Atbrooke writhed and twisted on the floor. He waited until the man quieted and then leaned down, shoving his face into the bruised and battered visage of Eleanor’s attacker. “You are not to go near Eleanor Collins or her daughter. If you so much as utter their names, I will make this morning appear a pleasant social call for what I’d do to you.”

Atbrooke continued to shudder and gasp, all the while glaring up at Marcus. “I have a right to the lady.”

By God, the man was relentless. No wonder Eleanor would rush off with her daughter to be rid of the man’s threats. He jammed his heel into Atbrooke’s soft belly and the air left him on a hiss. His breath coming fast, Marcus yanked the ivory sheet given him by Rutland and stuck it in Atbrooke’s face.

The man’s eyes went wide. “What is that?” he rasped.

Pasting a hard, unforgiving smile on his lips, Marcus elucidated. “It is your debt, Atbrooke, transferred from Lord Rutland to myself. I own you and I will see you in Marshalsea.” The color leeched from the marquess’ flushed cheeks and Marcus relished the tangible sight of his terror; the trembling lips, the chattering teeth. “You will end up in a cell with other worthless bastards like yourself, feeding with the rats, and pleading with your gaolers.”

Atbrooke clasped his hands to his throat. “You cannot.”

He widened his smile. “I can and I will. Or….” he paused, allowing that word to linger. “Or you can leave. You can take yourself off and get the hell out of England. If you ever return, I will meet you at dawn and I will gladly end you.” There were, after all, other ways to ruin a man that went beyond the polite pistols at dawn Eleanor worried over. “Are we clear?” he infused a lethal edge to that whisper and earned a juddering nod.

Tears streamed down the cowardly bastard’s cheeks. “But where will I go?”

“I don’t give a goddamn where you go.” Marcus spat on the marquess’ boots and then stuffed the vowels back into his jacket front. “You have until tomorrow morning, and if you are not gone, I will see your debts called in. I will sully your name with the truth of who you are so not a single desperate mama would ever accept you now or ever. Are we clear?”

“A-abundantly,” the marquess slurred, his lower lip trembling.

Without a backward glance, Marcus turned and marched out of the room. He strode down the hall, as rage spiraled through him.

“Lord Wessex.”

He cursed as Lady Marianne stepped into his path, a saucy grin on her crimson lips. She ran her long fingers down the lapel of his jacket. “I take it you’ve spoken to my brother.”

Marcus stiffened. “I did.”

She leaned up on tiptoe and he turned his head so that her kiss grazed his cheek.

A husky laugh bubbled from her lips. “Come, we are permitted certain liberties now that we’re betrothed.”

He choked. “You misunderstand,” he retreated, putting distance between the grasping lady and himself. By two dances more than three weeks ago, she had ascribed more meaning to his intentions…
but then, if Eleanor had not reappeared, I would have pursued more with this lady. I would have found myself a member of this nest of vipers.
Bile stung his throat as he imagined calling Eleanor’s rapist, brother-in-law. “I am marrying Mrs. Collins.”

That admission wrung a shocked gasp from the young woman. Disbelief flitted across her face and she at last looked to his bloodstained hands. Atbrooke’s sister shook her head in a befuddled manner and then quickly yanked her gaze up to his. “Marrying her?” she squawked. “But I thought…” She veiled her lashes and drifted close. “Why would you marry her, when I can bring you so much pleasure?” Lady Marianne layered her palms against his chest. “More than you ever knew possible,” she promised, wrapping her tone in a sultry, seductive whisper.

He disentangled her hands from his person. “I am sorry you believed there was more there, my lady, but my heart is otherwise engaged.”

All warmth extinguished from her brown eyes. Fury glinted hard in the gold flecks, and the icy glare transformed her into a thing of ugliness. “She is a poor widow with nothing to offer you. Allow me to give you babes of noble birthright, and she can be your bit on the side.”

His lips pulled back in a grimace of loathing for this grasping woman who was too much a fool to see that Eleanor, with her courage and strength, was far nobler and of more honor than all the peerage combined. “She can offer me her heart and that is all I require,” he said quietly. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Her cry echoed off the walls. “I made friends with your pathetic sister,” she hissed. “I was her friend when no one else gave a jot about her because of you.”

He balled his hands. His innocent, friendless sister would know hurt at this woman’s treachery. How many members of the Hamilton family had brought pain to those he loved? At last, however, they would be free of their evil. In time, Lizzie would come to know that.

Marcus continued walking, with the lady spewing vitriolic curses in his wake, away from this house of ugliness and toward his future.