Page 83 of The Haunted Duke

“Did he tell you how he earned that hole in his hand?” Helena asked, straining against her father’s grip. “Did he tell you that my husband put it there after he threatened to take my innocence?”

“You did what?” Lord Robinson roared.

“As if you are any better,” Ingram snapped back with open disgust. “Do not forget what we trade in, old friend. I have seen you pluck fresh berries with my own eyes, with their resistance or not, do not dare feign disgust for my appetites when yours rival my own!”

Vomit threatened to surge up Helena’s throat as several things connected in her mind at once. Suddenly, her father’s embrace, something she had longed to feel for four years, felt vile. She wrenched herself free from his grip and whirled on him.

“You?” she breathed, taking a step back. “You captured Evander? But Augustus confessed that he did it!”

“Augustus was our third partner,” Lord Ingram said from behind her. “He was given a larger share of our profits to do the dirty work. He was supposed to kill that blasted duke, but he just had to waste our time with torture.”

Helena let out a groan as her stomach twisted and her mouth began to water, her supper threatening to come up as she heard this.

“This is how you made your riches?” she asked, slowly looking up at her father. “This is how you took care of us? By trading people?”

“It is a nasty business,” Lord Robinson begrudgingly agreed. “But a very lucrative one. One that is threatened now that your husband is back in London. As soon as we resume operations, he will know. And we cannot risk having him come after us again. He needs to be dealt with once and for all.”

His gaze turned pitying as he looked down at her.

“I never dreamed that you would be involved in this,” he said, striking with a quickness that startled her. His meaty fist clamped around her wrist like a vice, sending pain flaring through her arm and hand.

“But you are the key to luring him here. He ignored our letters. Instead of coming out and addressing our threats, he hid behind you. The coward that he is. But once we get him alone, we can be rid of him. I can return home. Be yours and Alex’s father again. Be a husband to your mother. Just think of how happy it will make her.”

“No!” Helena snarled, clawing at her father’s grip with all her might.

“Careful,” Ingram chuckled. “Seems as if Redgrave has made her into a beast as well.”

“Helena!” her father commanded through gritted teeth. “Be still!”

She refused, clawing and pulling at her father’s grip as she brought her leg up to kick him in the gut, yet as she swung her leg, an arm came around her throat, clamping down in a way that Evander’s hands never had, never could—because he loved her. Would never hurt her.

As she lost her breath and her love for her father, she fainted.

Chapter 30

“But I do not wish to go,” Nora said.

Evander flinched at the childlike tone in his mother’s voice. Adrian had warned him about what she experienced while they had thought him dead; how her mind, like his, sometimes seemed trapped between this world and another. That was why, after he had given up his solitude and returned to London, he did not say a word when she announced she would be moving in with him.

Things were different now, though. After what he, Adrian, and Damien had discovered. Danger was coming, and he had to keep his family safe.

“I promise you it is only temporary,” Evander assured her as he kneeled down before her. “But for now, you must. I will not be moved on this.”

Nora studied his face for a long moment, and then, without warning, she reached out and pulled him into her arms, holding him as tightly as her small frame allowed. Evander went still with surprise before he let himself sink into it, his large shoulders curling forward so she could reach.

“I lost you once already,” she whispered against his shoulder. “I will not survive it a second time, Evander. Do you understand me?”

“You will not have to,” he murmured, his voice rougher than he intended. “I promise you that.”

She pulled back just enough to hold his face in both hands, searching his eyes the way she had done so many times since his return, as if she still could not quite believe he was real.

“Then go and finish whatever this is,” she said, her voice steadying. “But you come home to me. Both of my boys. Do you understand?”

“I promise,” he said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“Caroline needs your help anyway,” Adrian spoke up from behind his big brother. “Bridget and Elara are with her, but the baby is coming soon, and they need you, Mother. You must go to them while we take care of this.”

At this, the sadness in Nora’s eyes dissipated, and a look of determination took over.