Page 48 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

His hands were wet with his wife’s blood.

His hands were wet.

But he was still, he stayed still and hoped that Barnes might think he had gotten lucky with one of the stray shots. Might stop firing long enough to give him a chance to -

There was a pause. “I have a pistol aimed at your head, Westall,” Barnes called. “Get off my sister. I want her to watch as I put you down in front of her eyes. That will teach the slattern her place.”

Rage boiled underneath his skin and for a moment red floated in front of his vision, but he did not move. He could not make a mistake at this moment, he could not take a wrong step.

“Westall!” the voice was closer. “Come on, man! Are you too cowardly to face me?”

“Westall!” closer again. Stephen counted his footsteps and listened to Elizabeth breathing, shallow and weak. He did not know where she had been hit, just that she had protected him with her own body. He could not let her down now. He would not.

“Have I truly ended you at last?” the voice was close, now, but a breath away and Stephen felt the toe of a boot in his side. He rolled with it, latched around Barne’s legs and pulled him to the ground in a smooth movement that set off his final shot like a crack into the air.

It was a pistol shot and he knew that the difference in sound would have the others running towards them. He could already hear their voices, the shouts of alarm. Whatever happened next, Barnes would not kill his Elizabeth. That was enough for him.

“Curse you, you blaggard!” Barnes flung himself out from Stephen’s grasp, crawling backwards and throwing the gun from him. “I will see the end of you and your line if it’s the last thing I do!”

“Run,” Stephen said, getting up into a crouch, blood trickling from his lip. “Run like the cur you are, Barnes. I will lead a wolf hunt after you and you will see what the last thing you do is this day.”

The voices were getting louder. Barnes looked at him, hate and revulsion in his face and bolted into the woods. Stephen waited barely a moment, just long enough to see that some of the people joining him would be able to care for Elizabeth before calling to Perceval and to a few of the servants running up and taking after Barnes.

His feet pounded the loamy earth, Perceval at his side, his men at his back. It felt right. It felt the way things were always going to end, perhaps. Putting down a mad dog in his woods, culling a wolf from a pack. He could see Barnes ahead, ducking around the trees and knew that he would do anything to escape.

They ran through the woods, and then towards the fields beyond.

“What happened?” Perceval called, his voice stern and serious.

“He shot Elizabeth,” Stephen growled. He felt like an animal that had been let off its leash at last. He wanted blood, blood that was not his own dear wife’s on his hands. He wanted to tear anddestroy. He wanted to kill. “You will have to be my sanity. He shall face justice, and not at my hands.”

Perceval nodded. He knew this role, they had done this before. Stephen’s rage and need for justice flared bright and cold and he could see the way to destroy a man, to burn and salt the earth. Sometimes he needed someone to hold him back, and while Perceval could not actually stop him, his old friend was a good balance for his anger.

“There he is!” one of the gamekeepers called, pointing to where Barnes was racing for a horse that had been left for him. It was so clearly planned and prepared that Stephen felt a rush of cold fury run through his blood. How long had Barnes been planning to do this? How could he sit at supper with his sister, looking her in the face and intending to murder her on the morrow?

“Faster, lads,” he said through gritted teeth. They would need to catch Barnes before he reached his horse or there would be no stopping him.

One of the groundskeepers cut to one side at a nod from him and the other went to the left while he and Perceval ran straight ahead. Barnes saw them coming and redoubled his efforts but he was tiring, clearly unused to this much activity. Perceval put on an extra burst of speed and darted in front of him, forcing him to turn and face Stephen himself, bold cruelty on his face, daring him onwards.

He was a weak man, Stephen realized. A weak, cruel, small man who hurt people for the pleasure of it. He was a cancer intheir lives, in the whole of England. Perhaps if he had not had Stephen’s family to focus on he would have turned that sickness on those around him, those nearer to him. No more.

“How does it feel to watch your wife die?” Barnes asked, face twisted into a sneer. “Come on, Westall. Spill my blood. Murder me like your family have wanted to all this time.”

Stephen slowed his pace and walked up to the man, rage and vengeance in his heart. He wanted to take his throat out. He wanted to tear out his heart. He wanted tokill.

But he didn’t need Perceval to stop him.

Elizabeth would want him to do the right thing, the thing that would be best for their family. Elizabeth would want him to be bigger than her brother.

Barnes smiled at him. “I knew I’d kill her one day,” he said softly, like he was speaking a prayer.

Stephen said nothing, simply stopped in front of him and hit him hard enough in the jaw to knock him to the ground. “Secure him, take him back to the house. We will summon the authorities.”

Barnes was still calling him names, demanding that they fight as he turned away. Vengeance was for the past. Elizabeth,hisElizabeth was for the future.

Stephen started to run, feeling hope and fear war in his chest. His future had been left on the ground, bleeding. He could only hope he would not come back to find that she was dead.

CHAPTER 23

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