Page 21 of The Runaway Duchess
His body humming with annoyance and hunger, Damien scrubbed his face with his hands, then clamped his palm firmly around his jaw, rubbing tensely at his bottom lip over and overas the storm grew louder.
“Wait a minute,” Caroline said, breaking the tense silence a few minutes later as she leaned once more toward the window. They had just made the left turn, taking a road that was lined with large English oaks on each side. “I think I recognize this place.”
“I should hope so,” Damien replied. “It belongs to your family.”
Caroline’s eyes darted to him, and she licked her plump lips. The small darting of her tongue sent his nerves into a tizzy, and his already taut muscles tightened even more as he willed himself not to lean forward and capture her tongue with his mouth.
“Is this…? Are we going to visit Evander?” she asked, her tone soft.
Damien nodded curtly. “Let us just hope that despite his need for solitude, he will take us in,” he replied tersely, his entire body starting to ache from the stiffness.
“I am afraid that His Grace is not receiving visitors,” a solemn butler replied as Damien and Caroline stood at the door.
With a stern look, Damien shouldered past the man. He broke Caroline’s no-touching rule and took her hand, just long enough to lead her inside the darkened mansion. To his relief, she did not make a fuss about it.
“He will receive us,” Damien stated, his tone full of authority as he stepped into the dark foyer. After he let go of Caroline’s hand, he waved toward her. “This is the Duke of Redgrave’s cousin, Miss Mason, and you will not be denying her a warm bath and abed as we wait out the storm.”
Though the butler appeared disconcerted over breaking his master’s rules, he gave a stiff bow toward Caroline.
“Do follow me, Miss Mason,” he said politely. “I shall show you to a room.”
As he walked away, Caroline turned a worried look toward Damien. He gave her a nod, urging her to go. After a moment of reluctance, she turned away from him and followed the butler toward the stairs. Damien waited until they disappeared from view, then turned once more to the darkened foyer, letting loose a tense sigh.
It had been ages since he had been a guest in the Mason country estate in the countryside, but he still remembered what it used to look like. Curtains drawn open wide, candelabras and sconces lighting up every room. The ghost of laughter echoed through the empty space, reminding him of a time before all of the chaos. Now it was the exact opposite.
Knowing that revisiting such memories would do him no good, Damien walked, listening as his footsteps echoed through the quiet, darkened expanse. He moved through the foyer, down the hall, and then stood in front of the dark wooden door he figured his old friend would be behind. Taking another deep breath, he turned the door handle and entered.
Just as it was in the rest of the estate, darkness consumed the vast study and the large man sitting inside it.
“Go away,” a familiar voice rose from the turned-away chair. Familiar. But so very different now. His voice still held an edge, but it sounded hollow and hoarse.
“I must say I do love what you have done with the space,” Damien stated, ignoring the angry command from the other man. “Though I always thought I was the one who was shrouded in darkness.”
The man in the chair turned, his face a mask of shadows.
“Damien?” he hoarsely replied.
Despite the walls around his heart, it quivered with pity and worry at the sound of his old friend’s voice.
“How are you, Evander?” Damien answered.
Evander did not speak again until after Damien had lit a fire in the hearth. The warm glow of the flames cast a light over the man he loved like a brother, and for a moment, Damien wondered if he should have left them both in the darkness.
Though mostly healed from his years of torture and captivity, Evander appeared very different now. His black breeches and white laced-front shirt were baggy on a frame that was once larger and more muscular than Damien’s. There were hollows under his piercing blue eyes, but even more unsettling was the emptiness in his gaze. What was most troubling to look at out of it all, though, were the scars. One wrapped around Evander’s throat like a choker that could never be removed. With his loose sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Damien could also see the matching ones on each wrist. The man had been to hell. Was most likely still there in his mind.
But hewas alive.
“What are you doing here, Damien?” Evander asked, his dull eyes settled on him.
“My betrothed and I were on our way back to London when we got caught in this monstrous storm,” Damien replied, helping himself to a seat across from Evander. Then, as if nature wanted to prove him right, a clap of thunder shook through the mansion. “We were close by. Needed a safe place to spend the night.” He paused for a moment before adding, “And I thought it would be a good time to check in on an old friend.”
“I am fine,” Evander replied curtly.
Liar.
The word was on the tip of his tongue, but Damien did not say it. Instead, he let the silence stretch between them as the fire slowly seeped warmth into the cold room.
“So you are getting married again,” Evander said after a moment. “So soon after your first. What happened? Did you scare your first wife away?”
