Page 5 of The Duke of Lies
He’d asked to go inside. She wanted to scream that no, he couldn’t come inside, that he couldn’t come anywhere near her or Beau, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. This was his house. The fact that he was asking her was…odd. The Rufus she’d married would’ve stamped past her and expected her to fall in step behind him. If she didn’t, he’d simply go back, grab her by the arm, and drag her along.
She folded her arms across her chest and wrapped her hands around her biceps, as if she could ward off his touch, should he try to thrust it upon her. “Of course.” She turned and walked along the path, leading him toward the upper gate. Her back tingled as she expected him to do something untoward—make a denigrating comment or seize her in some way. But she made it all the way to the upper gate, where she paused and looked back at him. He was several feet behind her, moving quite slowly, it seemed, as his head swung this way and that, taking in every bit of his surroundings. It had to be quite strange to be home after all this time.
Wherehadhe been? For the first time since seeing him, an emotion other than shock and fear crept over her: curiosity.
She continued through the upper gatehouse and across the upper courtyard to the back of the castle. She climbed a small set of rounded stairs and opened the door to the King’s Hall. With the family crest hanging over the wide hearth, the room was the most formal in the castle. Suits of armor stood in the corners, and an impressive array of medieval weapons hung from the walls amidst portraits of Beaumonts from eras gone by.
There was no formal portrait of Rufus, just the small painting that hung in Beau’s room. It had been commissioned, along with one of her, after their wedding, and had been completed after Rufus’s disappearance. Because of that, she’d never thought it was a true representation. The artist had made him look far more affable than he was.
She moved to the windows that looked out over the back lawn. He went directly to the portrait of the former duke—his uncle—and stared up at Augustus, for whom Beau was named, captured in his thirties. She hadn’t noticed before, or perhaps she’d forgotten, but Rufus bore a striking resemblance to the man.
Except Rufus was bigger. In fact, he seemed bigger to her than he had seven years ago, and back then, his size had frightened her. Now, however, his shoulders were broader, and hewastaller than she remembered. But perhaps her memory was faulty.
When he finally turned from the portrait, his gaze traveled the room, looking a bit as if he’d never seen it before. But that was absurd. Perhaps his memory was just a bit hazy.
“Do you want refreshment?” she asked. “I’ve no idea how long you’ve been traveling.”
“You deserve to know where I’ve been. Will you sit?” He gestured to the seating area in front of the hearth.
Again, he asked politely. In the past, she would’ve done as he instructed without thought, but that was a long time ago. Still, she couldn’t suppress the tingle of apprehension that danced along her flesh.
Summoning a bead of courage, she went to the seating arrangement closest to her that overlooked the back lawn. She perched on the edge of the settee and waited to see what he would do.
He walked slowly toward her and sat in the chair angled to her right. He set his hat on the arm of the chair. “You look well.”
“Thank you.” She ought to tell him the same, but it was hard to make idle conversation with a man she regarded as a beast. She managed to say, “You do too.” Which only made her imagination run wild. Why had he come back now? Why couldn’t he have stayed gone? Her insides clenched with a distress so fervent that it bordered on pain. What she wouldn’t give for him to disappear again. Everything had been so perfect—
He interrupted her thoughts. “You will likely want details, but I won’t provide them. I prefer to put what happened behind me.” That sounded more like the authoritarian she knew.
Verity braced herself, clasping her hands together and squeezing them in her lap.
“I was taken by an impressment gang and forced onto a privateering vessel.”
The tension pulsing through her stopped as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. “You were kidnapped?”
“That’s another way of putting it.”
“But you’re a duke.” Who would kidnap a duke?
“I told them that at every opportunity, but they didn’t give a damn,” he said wryly. He rushed to add, “Pardon my language.”
Who was this man? That bit of humor—both in his tone and in the tilt of his mouth—was perhaps more shocking than his revelation. And then he’d asked her topardon his language? He’d said far worse in her presence. He’dcalledher far worse.
She struggled to take a deep breath as anxiety rolled back through her. “You’ve spent the last six and a half years on a ship?”
“For the most part. I fought in the war with America. It was horrific. I’d prefer not to get into the specifics, if you don’t mind.”
Again, he treated her with a deference she would never have expected. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him intently. He looked like her husband. Mostly. Except for his size. He had the same strong, square jaw, the same sandy brown hair, though she now realized it was a bit lighter, probably from spending so much time out in the open air on a ship. And the same nose, or so she thought. Damn, but it was difficult to summon an exact picture of him. If he yelled at her or bared his teeth in anger, then she would know for sure…
She froze for a moment. Did she think he wasn’t her husband? That was beyond absurd.
“No,” she finally said, recalling that they were supposed to be having a conversation, however bizarre after all this time apart. “I’d rather not know the specifics either. But how is it that you are now here? Did you break free of your captors?”
“Yes. The ship caught fire, and I was able to get away and find my way here.” He glanced around again, drinking in his surroundings as if they were water and he was dying of thirst. “Home.”
“You look as though you can’t quite believe it.” She wanted to bite the words back as soon as they left her mouth. They didn’t say such things to each other. He wasn’t…amusing or, God forbid,charming, and she wasn’t conversational.
“I can’t, actually. I never imagined I’d return to Beaumont Tower.” He said nothing of her. Or Beau.
