Page 68 of The Haunted Duke

“Each of our children has been of good size,” Bridget noted in agreement with Nora.

“As have mine,” Elara said with an exhausted chuckle and a shake of her head. “However, worry not, Helena; the pain becomes a distant memory once your child is in your arms.”

“Oh, imagine how beautiful your children will look,” Nora fawned, looking at Helena. “You are most pretty, and despite his injuries, my Evander is one of the most handsome men of the ton.”

Helena smiled at that, her fear of a painful childbirth fading as she pictured what she and Evander’s children would look like. Her heart throbbed as she pictured Evander holding their child. He was such a large man that she thought the baby would look amusingly small in his arms!

Worry slithered into her joyous thoughts as she then thought of what Evander would be like as a father. He would be protective, for certain, but what would that protection look like when an incident would snap him back to that brutal past? What demons would he fight for the sake of making sure his children would never suffer the way he had?

She wanted so badly to speak with him about it, about all of it, the nightmares she heard through the wall some nights, the scars he still would not let her see. But every time she thought she had found the right moment, he would turn the conversation elsewhere. He was carrying so much already. She did not want to be one more weight pressing down on him, one more person demanding he relive what he had survived just to satisfy her own curiosity.

Perhaps, one day, he would truly let her into his past.

Chapter 24

You survived the rope once. Do not think you will be so fortunate a second time.

Evander read the letter for perhaps the tenth time that morning, his jaw clenched so tightly it ached. The hand that had written it was unfamiliar. He had told no one about the burning ropes. Not even Adrian or Damien. Not even his own mother knew the specific manner of his torture.

Which meant whoever was sending him these letters was not just some demented person who had read the stories of Evander’s rescue. It was someone who had been aboard Augustus’s ship and had somehow evaded the constables when they had seized the ship and its roster and books.

Either that, or Augustus had not been working alone.

“Your Grace, a Mr. Forks and Mr. Ridge are here to see you.”

With effort, Evander dragged his gaze away from the threatening note.

“Send them in, Toby,” Evander stated, willing his fraying nerves to settle as he stood up.

A moment later, Toby returned with the two men Evander had hired to look into Lord Ingram. Though their names were quite ordinary, Evander knew their talents for investigation were anything but. If they had been working for the Royal Guard, he might have been found sooner, but these gentlemen preferred more private, more expensive terms of employment. Evander greeted them with a polite nod and a glass of whiskey, then waved them both toward the two empty chairs as he leaned against his desk.

“Have you uncovered something new?” he asked, getting right down to the matter at hand.

“Indeed, Your Grace,” Mr. Forks replied, handing Evander a missive.

“What is this?” Evander asked, opening it.

“An inventory list of Lord Ingram’s last few shipments,” Mr. Ridge replied. “Looks a bit cocked, doesn’t it?”

Evander’s brows furrowed as he studied the paper. The columns meant little to him at first, strings of abbreviations and figures that could have belonged to any merchant’s ledger. Cargo weights. Ports of call. Numbers that did not quite align with the goods listed beside them.

“What am I looking at?” he asked, glancing between the two men. “These numbers here, they do not match the manifests.”

“No, Your Grace, they do not,” Mr. Forks said grimly. “Because the manifests are false. What is truly aboard those ships is not silk or spice.”

Evander’s gaze dropped back to the page, to the strange notations he had dismissed, and a cold, creeping understanding began to take hold.

“These figures…” he said slowly. “Under the column marked for cargo weight. Are they…”

“Heads, Your Grace,” Mr. Ridge said quietly. “We believe that is what they are counting.”

The paper nearly slipped from Evander’s fingers. His lips drew back into a feral sneer as rage seethed in his chest.

“He is trafficking women?” Evander gritted out, his hands beginning to shake. Just like Augustus.

“How long?” he demanded, wrenching his gaze up to his two informants.

“At least three years,” Mr. Forks replied calmly. “Which is suspicious, as his old business partner—”