The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(32)

For an angel she still was, even so far as to have maintained her virginal purity. After all this time.

He’d made a fatal mistake. One he never could have prepared himself for. He’d assumed that enough of his humanity had been beaten out of him by torture, tragedy, and treasure-hunting that he could claim her while remaining unaffected by her protestations.

But time did strange and dreadful things to memory, and he’d underestimated what her touch would do to him after all this time. He’d forgotten about her power over him. The girl whose voice could raise the dead.

He pressed a hand to the tattoo over his heart, willing the organ beneath to still as a familiar hatred welled within, smothering all softer sentiments.

He’d had a plan, goddammit. One he’d painstakingly shaped since making his way back to England. And, once again, Mortimer fucking Weatherstoke had bungled everything. By forcing Lorelai to marry, he’d likewise forced the Rook’s hand.

As he’d stated, he’d left Lorelai in peace at Southbourne Grove because the Rook had ascertained through the spies he’d installed there that since the earl had married Veronica, he’d all but forgotten his sister existed.

A tragedy for the Countess Southbourne, to be sure, but it bought him the time to craft his revenge to correlate with his reclamation of Lorelai.

In order to claim any kind of life with Lorelai, he’d wanted to retrieve his memory.

His identity.

In the twenty years it’d taken to make his way back to her, he’d lost himself. Again. Not just his memory this time, but his humanity, as well. And he’d gained quite a few things along the way. Not just unimaginable wealth and infamy, but innumerable enemies, and a crew of men who would also make powerful adversaries should he not fulfill his duty to them.

To beat a metaphor to death, if he were the king of hell, they were his demons. Demons with an insatiable appetite for blood, women, and above all … wealth.

So, he’d devised a plot in which he might satisfy all involved.

The Claudius Cache.

If he could find the fabled treasure, not only could the Rook and the crew of the Devil’s Dirge retire, but the answer to the gigantic question mark in his past might be buried alongside it. Even if he found nothing regarding his lost childhood, he’d have mercifully granted Lorelai time without him.

Because the devil in him was a dark and needful thing. Selfish. Lustful. Oh, so lustful. He’d known that once he’d gotten his hands on Lorelai … he might lose all control. He might take if she didn’t offer.

Tonight, he’d come so close …

It’d been so long since he’d even had a temper to lose. He’d learned that the most useful fury was a patient one. And that was why he hadn’t ripped Mortimer Weatherstoke apart the moment he’d had the chance.

No. He’d had a plan. One that would have fed the devil’s own sense of justice. One that fit the crimes Mortimer had perpetrated.

But the second word had reached him that Lorelai had been gambled away, that Sylvester Gooch had kissed her and was preparing to claim her.…

The plan fucking altered as swiftly as the ocean winds. That is to say in the course of a single day, he wrenched his ship around the island, made quick work of Gooch and Weatherstoke, and did the one thing he could think of that would irrevocably tie Lorelai to him until death did they part.

Perhaps … in hindsight … he might have been a touch hasty.

But for twenty years he’d been a man obsessed. A man possessed of a woman whom he could no sooner let go of than he could abandon his own appendages. She was a part of him. Perhaps the only part of him that mattered anymore.

And now she was his, for better or for worse.

So why did he feel worse instead of better?

Because, as he’d predicted, she wasn’t particularly keen to attach herself to the devil.

To the Rook.

She wanted Ash.

A pity, he thought. Because, just like her brother, her beloved Ash had been murdered.

More than once.

And now his black soul occupied the shell of the boy who’d loved her. The body of the man who’d lay claim to her. He was the devil who’d returned to fulfill the promise of a ghost.

Because despite everything, the sun still set in the west.





CHAPTER NINE

Sebastian Moncrieff had sworn allegiance to the Rook four years ago chiefly out of sheer disbelief at finding a man who truly gave fewer dusty fucks than he did. About anything.

Or anyone.

Until now.

Sagging against the door frame of the galley, a fine cigar lodged in his teeth, Sebastian squinted against the spray of relentless droves of rain and frenzied white-capped storm surges breaking against the ship. The sea did its best to crawl onto the deck, and his captain stood with both legs planted against a widow-maker gale. One hand gripped the rigging, as the other was flung wide, daring the innumerable gods of the sea to strike with whatever they could. Fire. Lightning. A rogue wave.

Moncrieff saw this for exactly what it was.

A shower of ice to quench the flames in his blood. Or loins, as the case may be.

Sebastian had nearly taken one, himself, after a grapple with a writhing, spitting countess left him as aroused as he was bedeviled.

However, he had orders to leave Veronica Weatherstoke untouched, and so he’d not seduced her, regardless of how badly he’d ached to do so.