Page 82 of The Haunted Duke

For the first several minutes, she sat quietly in the carriage, wondering why Evander needed her so desperately. As the minutes ticked toward half an hour, her nerves became frayed, and she tried to call out to the driver to ask how much longer it would take. Only silence answered her, and her stomach tightened with knots as she imagined the worst. She thought about Evander’s scars—how they marred his muscles and told the story of his long torture at sea. She pressed a hand to her mouth, fearing that something bad might have happened to him, then yelled for the driver to hurry.

No sooner had the words left her lips, though, than the carriage came to an abrupt halt. She pushed open the door, too impatient for the driver to do so for her, and scrambled out of the carriage. Fear clawed at her throat as she looked up at the dilapidated mill shrouded in darkness. She listened. For screams, for groans, but she heard nothing.

Then an even worse thought struck her. What if she was too late? What if he had not been able to sneak his letter out in time? Before her, a small door opened. No light came from within. No voice to call her in. Yet still she went toward it, determined to help her husband any way she could.

“Evander?” she whispered into the pitch black as she stepped through the threshold. “Are you here?”

“Not yet. However, I am certain he will be joining us shortly.”

A shiver ran up Helena’s spine as tears of joy welled in her eyes. She recognized that voice—one she had not heard in four long, heartbreaking years. Light flickered when a match was struck, and she spun around. Her eyes confirmed what her ears had heard, and she let out a sob as her father’s familiar features emerged into view.

“Papa?” she breathed, taking a step toward him. His brown eyes grew soft as a smile spread across his rounded face.

“How are you, my beauty?” he replied, his love thick in his voice.

“You are alive! Oh, how we have missed you!”

Helena sobbed again as she threw herself toward him. A patronizing chuckle escaped from Lord Robinson’s lips as he wrapped one arm around her waist and patted her back with the other.

“Oh, I missed you, too, dear,” he said fondly.

“We thought… We were told you were dead,” she sobbed out, burying her face into his coat as she clutched at his neck. “They told us you were lost at sea.”

“I know,” he answered, his tone pitying. “Alas, it needed to be done.”

Helena stilled. She took a steadying breath and blinked away her tears. Her moment of relief fled as quickly as it had arrived, and she took a wary step back as she remembered why she had come to the mill in the first place.

“I do not understand,” she said, her tone wary as she looked up at her father. “What do you mean it needed to be done? And why was I told Evander would be here?”

She turned around, taking in the damp ruin of the mill, and her arms’ flesh broke out in goosebumps as she realized she was not alone. Lord Ingram stepped out of the shadows, his wicked and pompous smile as always.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped, taking a step toward her father.

“Where else would he be?” Lord Robinson asked as his hands clamped tightly down on Helena’s upper arms. “He is my business partner. He has been by my side every step of the way.”

“I do not understand,” she repeated, looking back up toward her father.

“Our business was growing too risky thanks to a certain duke,” her father explained, his tone tinged with bitterness as he forced Helena into a chair. “I had to disappear so as not to raise suspicions until he was out of the picture. I was planning on returning earlier, but then his blasted family could not give up their search or believe the stories we paid for.”

More questions bloomed in Helena’s mind as her father approached her, his brown eyes pleading for understanding as he kneeled down in front of her.

“I was always going to come back, my little sunshine. I just needed the right time. I am sorry I left you and your mother and your brother alone, but that is why I left Lord Ingram to so generously care for you in my absence.”

Rage spiked through Helena’s fear, her lips drawing back in a sneer as she looked over to Lord Ingram.

“Generously?” she hissed. “Is that what he told you?”

Ingram’s smile dropped at once as Helena’s father looked quickly toward his business partner.

“Spoiled child,” he snarled. “Nothing was ever good enough for you!”

“You kept us on the edge of poverty!” she shouted. “You compromised my mother! You tried to defile me! You did not care for us, you nearly destroyed us!”

Rage contorted her father’s face before he whipped his head toward the monster that had haunted them.

“Ingram!” Lord Robinson snarled. “What is she speaking of?”

“Nothing but lies from a spoiled little girl too high in the instep!” Ingram yelled back.