Hold Your Breath 01 - Stone Devil Duke (23 page)

“After that first day, I came back here again and again, each time wearing down the path a bit more, bringing
my books. It took one long walk back to Stonewell in the rain, for me to decide to build a shelter. And my first attempt was pathetic—twigs and sticks.”

He set a few warped books onto the desk.
“I spent more and more time here, and then Thompson, being the nosy ass he can be, followed me one day.” Devin chuckled. “I was lying under my twigs, reading, when Thompson’s head poked through the bushes at me. You can imagine my outrage.”

“I can. I have seen it.”

“But all he did was ‘harrumph’ and leave. Said nothing.”

Devin
moved to a wooden chest with a heavy iron latch, opened it, and pulled out two faded blankets. “For days I stewed about it, but Thompson never said a word. And then one day, I walked into my room and on the middle of my bed was a tiny replica of the Circle. It had miniature trees and shrubs, some moss for the grass in the clearing, and an improved shelter in this spot. It was the neatest thing I had ever seen. The model cabin was as it is now—complete with the opening ceiling and hidden entryway. And it was built exactly as it was to be life-size, so I could just follow the construction of the miniature.”

Devin
knelt with the blankets at the wall of shrubbery and crawled back out of the cabin into the Circle. Aggie followed him out.

“
He would be horrified if he knew I told you, but he is actually a skilled craftsman and carpenter, although no one knows that about him. His father was a carpenter, and he learned at an early age. But he has kept his skill well-hidden so as to not threaten his position or the respect he demands from the staff.”

Standing,
Devin shook the mustiness out of one of the blankets and Aggie followed suit with the other.

“
He taught me everything late at night in the kitchens using the model, about how to build the cabin correctly. And I honestly do not think he ever came back here.”

Devin
laid out the blankets on the grass mounds in the middle of the Circle. Then he stripped off his jacket, folding it and setting it on the edge of the closest blanket.

“
Devin, that is a wonderful story. I knew I liked Thompson for good reason. Plus, this actually proves you did not just appear one day, full-grown man out of thin air. I was beginning to wonder.”

“
Good. Will this finally stop your harping on me about my childhood?”

Aggie sat down on one of the blankets and gave the question real thought, then shook her head.
“No, probably not, but it may temper me just a bit.”

Devin
sank to his knees, facing her. “I will just have to keep you quiet other ways then.”

Instant
predator, he straddled Aggie, moving up her body, forcing her to recline onto the blanket. He hovered over her for a moment, eyes searching her face.

Breath held, Aggie’s chest
tightened at the glimpse she was seeing of Devin’s soul. She had no idea her heart could actually hurt like this when she was with him—physically hurt—a constant crush in her chest that never allowed a full breath to take root.

He came down on her hard,
lips meeting lips as though he tried to take her very essence. Then he lightened, the kiss turning long and soft, and curling Aggie’s toes against the earth.

Just as Aggie started to work her hands under Devin’s shirt, he abruptly stopped and rolled off of her.

Breathless and
eyes still closed, it took Aggie a moment before she realized Devin had truly stopped and wasn’t rolling back on top of her. Disgruntled, she propped herself up on an elbow, and glared at him as he stretched out on his back.

He chuckled at her distorted face.
“Lie back down, Aggs. This is the other thing I used to do out here—”

“Begin to ravage women and then abruptly stop like a lunatic?”
Aggie went to her back, her right hand cupped under her head.

“No,
you are the first and only woman I have ever had here.” He reached out and put a hand on her flat stomach, fingers running over her hip-bone. “And I do intend to take you here in this spot. But first, look up. I just wanted you to experience this as well. I used to lie like this for hours, not moving, soaking in the moist air, staring up at the passing clouds.”

Placated, Aggie looked up at the translucent blue sky,
and watched as a rolling white cloud meandered by. She was trying to imagine the man next to her as a little boy, lost in the perfect wilderness around him. Time standing still. Nothing to be scared of. Nothing to think about. Devin had no idea how much she needed a place like this.

They stayed on the faded blankets, silent, staring up at the sky for a long period of time. When the passing white clouds stretched out, shifting to grey, Aggie’s thoughts followed suit before she
could stop them.

“It
is one month we have been married.” Aggie’s voice broke through the noise of trees rustling.

Devin
shifted his arm and slid it under Aggie’s head, pulling her onto his chest. “Yes. One month.” He kissed the top of her head.

“
Devin…” Aggie paused, fingers playing on the shirt over his stomach, debating whether to continue. She took a deep breath. “It has also been almost a month since we have talked about my…problem.”

Devin
stiffened. Silence.

She winced, knowing she was moving into
treacherous waters. But she needed to know. “I have not asked because I believe that you are taking care of it.” Aggie turned her head and set her chin on his chest so she could see his face. Not looking at her, he kept his eyes fixated on the sky, line of his jaw flexing.

“
I still need to know, Devin. I gave you so few clues, and I know he must be near impossible to find. So I cannot help my worry. I need to know when he is taken care of—if he has not been already. I need to know when I can stop worrying about him and my family…and you.”

Devin
sat up, and Aggie slipped awkwardly off his chest. “You are worried?”

H
is voice sent a chill down her spine. She had asked all wrong.

“
Devin, I trust you. I do. And this month has shown me—I can almost touch it, touch the life I truly want—because this month has been wonderful. Simple. The two of us. It is simple and beautiful when it is you and I. I have seen what this is like. What life could actually be. I can feel the happiness that could be mine. But it isn’t mine. It cannot be. Not with this threat hanging over my head. And I want us more than anything.”

Aggie watched the
line of his jaw tighten with each passing moment. He stood up, staring at her, hands clenched at his sides, and Aggie could see nothing in his face. His voice had chilled her, but the blank set of his face froze her heart.

“
Devin, you need to understand, every time I have let my guard down, every time I stopped—for even a moment—he attacked. And my guard has been down for a month. And that terrifies me.”

“Are you saying you don’t feel safe?”

Aggie flew to her feet, her hand on his arm. “No—you know that’s not why I ask—”

“Because the only reason for you to worry is if you don’t feel safe.” His arm jerked away
and he turned from her.

Light
ning quick, Aggie’s own ire exploded. “Devin, this man has been terrorizing me for more than a year—and you want me to just stop worrying? He killed my father. He carved a blade through my flesh. He tried to get into my home and do God-knows-what to my mother and sister. My family. The only family I have left. And you want me not to worry? To not ask? To just believe the world is all roses and what?” Her arms swept about. “Perfect little Circles?”

Devin
whipped around, icy glare boring into her. “Yes. That is all you should believe, Aggie. That is all you need to know.”

“No. Unfair.
I have given you a month with not one question on the subject from me—and I, of all people, deserve to know what is going on.” Aggie tried to notch her voice into control with little success.

“
You don’t think I want this? What we have? I have been able to recognize myself again. Little parts of me I thought were lost, are actually still in here.” Her palm pounded on her chest. “Happiness, laughter, love. I thought I lost all of that, all of who I was. I have seen glimpses of myself again, not of who I became. What I have done. I have killed people. And what that made me into. So no, of course I would rather live this life, this one—the one where I don’t have to be terrified and carry a gun and look over my shoulder.”

Her arm swung wild.
“But that can never happen. Not until he is dead. Until he is dead or in prison, I am only fooling myself. I cannot be who I was. Protecting myself, my family—it is still my responsibility and getting married didn’t change that fact.”

“It did change.”
Devin snatched her flailing wrist mid-air, interrupting her tirade. He leaned in, lethal, inches from her face. “It changed the second you said ‘I do.’ At that moment you became mine. I am your family.”

She tried to jerk away. He gripped her wrist harder.

“You, your problems, and most definitely your responsibilities.” He threw her arm down. “I would thank you to remember you are a wife now, duchess. You have no responsibilities. They are mine.”

The fury in
Devin’s eyes stole all words from Aggie’s lips.

Silently, he turned
from her, bundling up the blankets and going into the cabin. Aggie could hear him cranking the rooftop down. He came back into the Circle, grabbed his jacket, and barreled through the shrubs. Aggie had no choice but to follow.

The returning trip was silent. And painfully long.

E
xhausted, both in body and spirit, Aggie crawled alone into the bed in her chambers for the first time. Sheets cold, they did nothing to ward off the chill that had set in when it had started to mist on the way home, soaking her to the bone.

It was dark when t
hey got back to Stonewell. Without word to Devin, she had disappeared into her rooms, changed out of her sopping riding outfit, and knowing the pit in her stomach would not allow food, decided to forego dinner and crawl into bed.

Curling
into a ball under the covers, she tried to generate enough heat to stop the shivering. She had just dozed off when thunderous steps came to the door connecting her room to Devin’s. The crack of the wood swinging hard into the wall set her upright, her heart violent in her chest.

“You will not leave our bed.”
Devin stood in the doorway wearing pants but no shirt. In the dim light from his room, Aggie could see his chest heaving. “We are not resolved, but you will not leave our bed. Do you understand.”

It was a command, not a question, but Aggie nodded nonetheless. She didn’t have the energy to resolve anything
either. And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she still ached to be next to him, angry or not.

He left the doorway and disappeared. Aggie flipped back her covers, grabbed her robe, and switched beds. Her sleep was fitful until
Devin finally joined her, setting his hand on her waist, his warmth filling the bed. Darkness took her over.

Hours later,
a snap crash of thunder woke her. Cold wind and a mist escaping from a brutal rain blew in through the open window next to the bed. Half-conscious, Aggie hopped up, closed the window, and dove back under the warm covers.

Rolling over, she discovered
she was alone in the enormous bed. It surprised her, even in spite of their earlier argument. Devin was almost always next to her when she opened her eyes.

Aggie
stared at the emptiness next to her, then reached her hand under the covers to feel Devin’s side of the bed. It was cold. He had left the bed a while ago.

Why demand
she get into his bed, and then leave? Was he that upset with her? It didn’t make sense.

Was it that he
tried, but then couldn’t stand to lie next to her?

At that, Aggie’s heart started to thud, slow and painful.
His current bull-headedness aside, she had begun to believe that a life with him was going to be more than she could have possibly hoped for. In the deepest corners of her soul, she knew she loved him. And she had even begun to believe that Devin might someday love her in return.

She wanted this life with
him. Wanted his bed. Wanted to love him. Wanted him to love her.

And now he had left their
bed in the middle of the night.

How ofte
n had he done that? How many nights could he not stand to sleep the whole night with her? He had done it before. Did he leave every night? How many times had he left their bed?

Aggie knew she was working herself up, but she didn’t care.
If he was deserting their bed, she needed to know why. And then she needed to end it.

She threw the c
overs off and got up, yanking a robe around her shoulders. Sliding her feet into a pair of silk slippers, she walked into the hallway after finding no sign of Devin in his adjacent rooms.

The lightning
flashed at quick intervals, producing enough light that Aggie didn’t bother to light a candle. Checking in several of the bedrooms along the way, she found nothing and went down the main staircase. She veered to the library first, since that was where his was the last time she looked for him in the middle of the night.

Stepp
ing into the library, a thunder clash hit, making her jump as it shook the floor. She stopped to let her nerves settle, waiting for the next flash of lightning to hit in order to look around. Three successive flashes came, and Aggie was disappointed to not find Devin.

The next
logical place was the study, and Aggie hurried along the hall. Sliding open the study door, Aggie stepped into darkness. She scanned the masculine room as intervals of lightning came and went, checking past the desk and the large leather chair behind it. All sat neat and tidy.

Biting her lip, Aggie stared into the darkness, sighing. She was going to have to light a lamp and search every room in this place. And then the stables. And then, hell, she would grab a horse and fight her way to the Circle if it meant finding
Devin and getting some answers.

Aggie spun on her hee
l to leave, just as a lightning flash filled the room, and out of the edge of her eye she saw a slight movement in the corner of the room. A leg twitched in front of a chair facing one of the floor-to-ceiling panes of glass that lined the entire north edge of the room.

She moved to where she could see who was in the chair, already knowing the answer.

Facing the thundering storm, Devin sat in a winged leather chair, his forehead buried deep in his propped-up hand. He wasn’t sleeping—his leg movement that had caught her eye had already clued her to that. He was just sitting in the dark, facing the rain.

A sudden
, deep insecurity gripped Aggie, and she almost backed out of the room. But with a quick breath to steady herself, she planted her feet, concentrating on the instinct that told her to stay.

“Do you leave
our bed often?”

There was no response, no movement from
Devin’s inert frame. Was he drunk? Disgusted with her?

Aggie took a few steps closer
and cleared her throat. Maybe her voice was drowned out by the pounding rain.

“Do you leave
our bed often?”

Still no response. W
orry hit Aggie. Her challenging questions usually elicited some sort of response, even if it was of mockery.

She
strode across the long room and stopped next to his chair. No movement or recognition of her presence. She didn’t see a glass near him, but the smell of brandy wafted up at her.

Aggie
ignored her mounting fear and went in front of him, kneeling as she set her hand on his robe-covered knee. Her voice came out soft. “Devin, do you leave our bed often?”

Her knees pressed
hard onto the parquet floor. She watched his hand-covered face, letting seconds slide into minutes as she was determined to wait this out. No amount of ignoring would get him out of answering what, to Aggie, had suddenly become the most important question in the world.

The wind whipped harder
, slashing the rain onto the window behind her. Lightning flashed, illuminating Devin’s shadowed face and hidden eyes. Aggie waited.

An eternity passed, and
Devin moved his hand from his forehead, setting it along the arm of the chair. His eyes opened, only to stare past Aggie at the window.

“It
is the rain.” His coarse voice set the hairs on the back of her neck on end.

Aggie waited.

“The rain.” A touch of anger crept into his voice.

Her hand moved ever so slightly on his leg, urging him on.

“The rain wakes me…memories, guilt, they haunt me, have plagued me for far too long.”

“Guilt?
” Aggie brought her other hand to his leg.

“Look at the rain
, Aggs. Turn around and look.” Devin leaned forward and grabbed Aggie’s shoulders, gently twisting her around. She sat on the floor, tucking her legs under herself, and wrapped an arm along his calf. As she stared at the pelting rain, lightning would strike the sky, and in those moments, Aggie could see Devin’s face reflected in the glass—hard and tortured, as memories consumed him.

Devin
leaned back in the chair. It took all of Aggie’s willpower to wait through the silence and not turn back to him.

The pit in her stomach grew, and when he finally spoke, it dropped, taking her breath.

“My father killed my mother during rain like this. I watched. I stood paralyzed. My mother cried for me to help her, but I could not move. Not one muscle. Not one step.”

Aggie froze at the words.

“I watched as he beat her with a metal stoker, hitting her, over and over. The entire time her arms were out to me, as were her words, for help. She died on the floor, arms still begging. I did nothing. It is why people think I am a monster. It is why I leave you when it storms.” His blunt voice held no emotion.

She forced herself to take a breath
, but she couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t tear her eyes off the spot on the window that held his reflection. “How old were you?”

“Twelve
.”

Bile filled her throat.
The gruesome image flashed in her mind, a twelve-year-old boy, witness to cruelty beyond sanity. He had just laid it out for her.

The pain she caught in his eyes at unguarded moments.
Why he wanted her to know nothing of his childhood. The slight surprised glance he gave whenever she spontaneously touched him. She had never imagined the horror he held.

Without warning, her own father’s face, dying, came into her mind. She
tightened her arm around his leg as tears began to slide down her face, her heart breaking at what that one destructive moment in time must have done to him.

She couldn’t
—didn’t want to hear any more of it. But she knew she had to. She also knew she couldn’t dare to turn around and face him. Facing the window, facing the storm—this was the only way she was going to hear the truth he had tried to hide.

“How? Why?
” Her choked whisper was loud against the rain hitting the window in front of them. “Tell me all of it.”

He stayed silent, and just when Aggie thought she would need to prod him
, his voice cut through a crash of thunder.

“
You once asked about the small dining table. This is the story of why.” Aggie watched his reflection as he took a deep breath. “My parents did not love each other. Rather, my mother never loved my father, loathed him at best. I understand he loved her, or at least was infatuated with her at the beginning. That was his ruin. That was his mess. And he eventually echoed her sentiments. He married her for her beauty. She married him for his money and title. After I was born, the necessary heir, she collected a number of lovers. She flaunted them. She was deep on laudanum most of the time.” Devin’s voice remained detached.

“Despite the animosity,
if the three of us, mother, father, and myself, were present in the same household—usually it was here at Stonewell—my father demanded we all take dinner together. I was four when I first remembered this hell. Our dining table ran near the length of the hall. Mother would sit on one end, father would sit at the other, and I was exactly in the middle. Conversation was never had at these dinners. Rather, my mother would berate my father, his lacking in bed, through all the courses, her voice echoing down the table. Father ignored her. He reveled in the fact that he could still make this one demand on his wife. I heard everything. I felt everything. Those were the coldest moments of my life.”

Devin
’s legs moved, stretching out aside Aggie. She moved her right hand up, wrapping it under his robe around the warmth of his thigh.

“
For the longest time, I wondered why she didn’t love us. Why she looked at me with disgust. I gave up on her long before father did.”

Fresh tears
filled Aggie’s eyes. She could only picture Devin as a little boy, face falling time and again as his mother discarded him.

“My
father moved into town almost exclusively, and mother stayed here, a line of lovers tromping through the halls. I stayed in town with father. She was mean. He was bitter. I was lucky to stay in the household of bitterness. I finally escaped both of them when I left for school. The night it happened, it was on a rare occasion we were all at Stonewell, and father and I had left for London. A storm came up, just like this one, forcing us to return.”

Lightning
flashed as Devin paused, giving Aggie an agonizing glimpse of his taut face.

“When we
arrived back at the estate, we were soaked, tired, hungry. Father was walking down the hallway before me and passed by the dining hall.”

Devin
’s entire body tensed around her. Aggie’s fingers tightened into his leg.

“My mother and one of her lovers were on the dining table, naked
. On the table. To my father, the table was a symbol of the last bit of control he had over his wife. He snapped. He picked up a fire stoker. The man ran. But my mother just laughed. Ridiculed him. Cruelty in every word. He attacked her. He killed her. Then he climbed out of an upper window, screaming at God. I don’t know if he slipped or jumped to his death. The entire time I heard him ranting above, I stood in the dining room, paralyzed, the dark rain pounding on the glass behind my mother’s body. Taunting me with every echoing drop. The first thing I did after their funerals was to destroy the table.”