The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(11)

Likely both.

Mortimer chucked him on his injured arm. “Maybe we’ll find out one day, which of us is more dangerous…” Straightening with a derisive snort, he turned on a boot heel, and walked away, hands clasped indolently behind him.

Chest heaving, he trembled in the light of the lone candle. Railing at his own helpless body.

Oh, Mortimer Weatherstoke was going to find out a great deal about him …

On the day he slaughtered Lorelai’s brother for making her weep.





CHAPTER THREE

Lorelai’s lantern trembled, turning midnight shadows into sinister wraiths as she crept through the hall, as best her foot would allow. Her heartbeats echoed off the walls of Southbourne Grove’s east wing. Her breaths like rapid-fire pistol shots in the consuming silence. Loud enough for the ghosts to hear, surely.

When the horrible sounds had first roused her, she’d thought maybe Cyrus and Joan d’Arc were at it again. Howling and scuffling. The two hounds boasted only seven legs, three eyes, and one tail between them, but still they played like puppies. And sometimes their play turned serious.

They were not, however, nocturnal animals.

The raw, animalistic cries beckoned her to his room. She paused at the door, pressing her ear against the cool wood.

No animal she knew made a sound like that.

No man, either.

The torment expelled upon such a cry was almost otherworldly in its macabre timbre. A whimper. A plea. And then a long lament, too hoarse to be a call, but lower than a scream.

Something about the noise caused her to hesitate with her fingertips on the door handle. What if he wasn’t alone in there? Could someone be hurting him? It certainly sounded that way. Should she go for help?

What if Mortimer was disturbing him?

Urgently, she pressed the door open, hurling herself into his room.

Lorelai didn’t know whether to be more relieved or distressed that his great body battled naught but the darkness.

And whatever demons haunted his dreams.

Dr. Holcomb had relieved him of his sling some two days past, and his long, powerful arms fought off invisible assailants with alarming desperation.

“You’ll not have me,” he growled. “Not tonight.”

Who would not have him? Have him what?

She abandoned her lantern on a sideboard by the door, convinced it wasn’t safe anywhere close to his flailing limbs. Venturing closer, she noted the damp sheets tangled about his lean, restless hips. His nightshirt lay crumpled on the floor, as though he’d rent it from his body for some imagined offense.

His face remained in the shadows, surging side to side on a neck corded with strain.

“Touch me with that and you’ll regret it,” he warned.

“Me?” she squeaked, lacing her hands together.

“I’ll gut you with a dull blade and fuck your corpses, see if I don’t!”

“Pardon?” she gasped.

His voice sounded younger than it did when he was awake. A note of terror thrummed beneath the bravado.

“Let me go,” he threatened.

“Let me … go.” This time, he begged.

Begged. And thrashed. Fighting a battle that became more and more evident he was about to lose in some horrific way.

Dear God. Let this be a nightmare and not … a memory.

She had to stop this. Somehow.

Fists as large as his became hammers. This she knew. But what other choice did she have but to approach?

She wasted precious seconds strategizing. Where did one touch a man in the throes of a violent nightmare to avoid injury? A skittish horse, you touched his withers. A snake, you held behind his skull. A rabbit, you turned upside down by both feet until the blood rushing to his head calmed him. A dog, you dug your fingers against his throat, like an alpha would with his teeth.

Then you stroked them, comforted them. Let them come to trust you.

But first, the animal must be subdued for the safety of all involved.

A good rule, with creatures great and small, was to avoid the face at all costs.

But a man? What sort of animal was he, really? She’d learned no tricks to calm such a violent soul but avoidance.

And that wouldn’t do in this case.

A low groan decided it for her as she neared the bedside. His cheeks were wet with tears. His ebony hair matted with sweat.

Someone was hurting him. She couldn’t bear it.

His knuckles narrowly missed her throat as she ducked around them, and tentatively splayed the fingers of one hand over his chest above his bandaged ribs. “Wake up,” she admonished him, jostling him a little. “Come back.”

Two monstrous hands shackled her arms like iron cuffs as he gasped awake, his entire body seizing, convulsing. He wrenched her hands away from his skin.

Fearing he might snap her bones in two, she couldn’t contain her own sob of pain as it cut through her.

To her astonishment, he didn’t let go.

He stared up at her, his eyes two volcanic voids of unfocused wrath. His teeth were bared, sharp and menacing. His breaths sawed in and out of him, as though he’d run a league at full tilt.

This was not the man to whom she’d fed soup only two days prior.

This man … might just be a monster.

“It’s me,” she whimpered. “It’s Lorelai.”

As quickly as she’d been seized, she was released.