"So. You kill one son and disinherit the other. The only hope for Dearingham is my child, my son. What if this child is female,
Your Grace
?" The last was said with a deadly hiss that brought to mind the strike of a cobra. "What will you do with your scheme then?
"What if there are no more children, Your Grace? Can you go to your reward knowing that I have brought about the end of Dearingham simply by refusing to bed my wife?"
Izzy's blood turned to ice, but she stayed unmoving in her position. The hatred in Julian's voice, the unholy joy in his revenge against his father made her ill.
She understood by now that he had been disinherited in favor of their firstborn son. The notion that he intended them to have a sham marriage, to cost her the children they might have together, to forever reject her made her want to die on the spot.
Rage fought with helplessness as she understood just how much of their future, of
her
future, he was willing to sacrifice to defeat the machinations of one old man.
"Perhaps you should marry again, Your Grace, and kill another wife in childbed. You'll receive no heir from me!" Without noticing Izzy, Julian strode swiftly from the hall.
Izzy felt the ice continue to encroach on the remaining pieces of her heart. She could forgive him his indifference to her, his inconsistency, she might even have forgiven infidelity, although not easily.
But never, never would she forgive him for turning her love and their marriage into a mockery for his own selfish need for revenge. Izzy spared only a glance for the white-faced old man who had just seen his only dream laid to dust.
She knew she had only one chance to change this. She must take it now.
Izzy found Julian standing at the window in his study. The purpling sky gleamed coldly against the glass, but the chill that made her shudder came from within the room.
He stood so very straight, his jaw hard and his eyes flat as he stared at the fire. With only the orange glow to illuminate him, he looked like Lucifer, himself. Beautiful, elegant, and quite the most frightening thing she had ever seen.
Even as she ached for his pain, she could not forget the wicked intent of his threat to his father. She must discover his true intentions. With the sour clench of fear in her stomach, she drew near to his rigid back.
"Julian, will you not speak to me? We need to talk about this." She reached to touch his arm, then pulled back. "Please, Julian. You must tell me that you did not mean what you said to your father."
She gasped and jumped back as he whirled with feline swiftness and roared viciously, "
That madman is not my father
!"
Shaking, fighting back helpless tears of terror, she looked into his beautiful golden eyes and saw nothing but furious hatred. This fearsome creature before her bore more resemblance to the duke than to the Julian she loved.
She almost withdrew from the fray right then, but there was too much at risk. Though her soul quaked in the face of such rage, she knew she must try again. Placing her hand on the stone-hard muscle of his arm, she pleaded once more.
"Talk to me. Please, tell me you did not mean what you threatened."
Pulling away from her as if she had no more consequence than an insect, he barked one harsh laugh. "My dear, I have never meant anything more." Without a single glance in her direction, he turned back to his scrutiny of the flames.
Izzy felt as though a giant fist had plowed through her, leaving her no breath to survive upon. Nor any hope.
With the knowledge, the dread certainty, of Julian's ruinous intentions came the awareness that they had no future together.
She would not allow another generation of malignancy to grow from the innocent being inhabiting her womb. If it was, in fact, too late to save Julian from his father's fate, it was not too late to save her child.
With the heavy shroud of grief already upon her shoulders, she turned to leave. He paid no notice to her departure, but she could not go without trying to reach him once more.
"There was something missing from your grandfather. There is the same deficiency in your father. You once possessed that elusive element, but I fear you are about to throw it away. Do not abandon your humanity, Julian. You will become more like them than you ever imagined possible."
He did not turn, nor did he show any sign of having heard her words. Almost unable to move under the weight of the sorrow enveloping her, Izzy turned away from her husband and left him with only his rage for company.
He was wrapped in darkness. His every heartbeat echoed with fury, and wild plans for vengeance chased each other across his mind.
But the hatred was the strongest, and the darkest. Black, brutal hatred toward his father and his grandfather. Oh, he knew the old duke had had a hand in Manny's murder, even if just by the raising of the son in madness.
The years of fear and loveless anguish rose up to choke him, and his soul cried out for revenge. He would destroy the estate, he would burn the house to the ground, he would systematically destroy every trace of the heritage that was Dearingham.
God help him, he would salt the fields themselves to show the duke that there was more to life than living and breathing and killing for the past!
"Do not abandon your humanity, Julian. You will become more like them than you ever imagined possible."
Where had that come from? He was nothing like them, nothing like these monsters who had ruined his every moment of youth, who had robbed his brother of his life! He would never sacrifice everything for the empty honor of a past long gone—
He caught his reflection in the glass, only the dimmest outline of his features by the fire. But it was enough to send shock vibrating through him.
He saw his father. He saw his grandfather. In the black hatred that etched his features, he saw his legacy from them.
In that moment, he knew. He had a choice.
To choose his humanity, or to choose the past, and the darkness that came with it.
Sinking down into the chair, he slowly lowered his head into his hands, rubbing at his face. He could feel his father's brow, his father's chin. He was a mirror image. There was no escaping it.
On the outside. But what he became on the inside, that was his own creation.
Julian rubbed his eyes. His head ached, and his stomach roiled. He blinked, finally comprehending that he was sitting in his study chair by the dead, cold fireplace. He felt a kinship to those gritty ashes lying within it. He felt as though he had gone through fire himself, after the flames of grief and rage that had possessed him so completely throughout the night.
Surprised, he discovered that the last rays of sunrise had crept over the smooth, rolling hills of Dearingham and sent questing gleams into the darkness of his study. He vaguely remembered the fire dying and the cold darkness filling the room, and feeling nothing but that it seemed most appropriate. Of the night just past, he remembered nothing.
Now, however, in every tissue he felt the ache of his long night in purgatory. And like one who had emerged from that legendary place, he felt cleansed of his darkness and rage.
In fact, he felt weak and a little sick from it all. Laying his head back against the leather of his chair, he closed his gritty, reddened eyes and began to slide gently into an easy, healing sleep.
Yes, he would sleep, and when he awoke, he would leave this wretched place for which his father had sacrificed everyone who had ever loved him, this birthplace he never again wanted to call home. He would take Izzy and—
Izzy!
He sat up abruptly, eyes wide and unseeing on the dawn. He had been so submerged in his hatred and his need for vengeance, he had given no thought to her reaction! He felt a tendril of pure fear enter his heart at the thought of what she must believe.
Bolting to his feet, he ran, heedless of the curious servants he passed in the hall. As he raced, her visit the night before ran through his mind.
Though he had paid no heed at the time, now every excruciating detail came rushing back to him. Her tears, her pleas for him to recant the dreadful threats of retaliation he had flung at his father.
Retaliation that would imperil Izzy's happiness as well as the duke's. Surely she knew he had not meant those hideous words. Except that, last night, he
had
meant them. And he had told her so.
Oh, dear God! Desperate now, he sped down the vast hall to her rooms. He must stop her—
Her door stood open. The only person in sight was Betty, carrying a pile of folded fabric from the vicinity of the bedrooms. As he stepped through the door into the room he had not seen since bringing his wife here, Betty turned and gasped at the sight of him.
For a long moment, she merely gazed at him, frankly curious at his disarray.
Then, lips tightening in obvious disapproval, she turned her back on him and moved away toward the dressing room. It was clear that if the maid were angry, then the mistress must be truly furious.
Surely, Izzy awaited him inside her room. She must be dressing. No, Betty would be with her. She might be bathing, he thought desperately as he opened the door. Yet even as he did so, he knew the room would lie empty.
She had gone; his bright treasure had slipped away during the night that he had wallowed in hollow, worthless rage. His body jerked as if from a blow, his breath leaving him in a great helpless gust. He had done it. Like his father before him, he had given up his very heart for something without meaning.
No, he was worse, for the duke had forfeited any love in trade for the land, the title, and the family name. He had thrown away his love for nothing but a black and empty wrath. No more light, no more kindness shining in this house of desolation.
What Izzy had brought to him, with her sweetness and her laughter, he had squandered. She had left before he had managed to kill it entirely. The pain threatened to engulf him. Perhaps she was right to go, he thought. Perhaps it was better—
No
! She could not have gone far in one night. He would go after her, and…
And let her go.
But not before he told her he was wrong. Not before he told her that he loved her. It was imperative that she know that. Turning swiftly, he strode determinedly back to her chamber.
"Betty!" he roared, bringing the maid popping out like a jack-in-the-box. "Where did she go?"
To his utter astonishment, the tiny woman only gave him a mutinous glare and a good look at the back of her head. As she walked away from him, he shook off his surprise and stepped forward to grasp her by one arm. Bending low and gazing deeply into her eyes as she warily withdrew, he growled one word.
"Where?"
"To the
Catherine
!" The words burst from Betty in a breathless gasp, and she looked as if she wished she could swallow them right back.
The
Catherine
! Wasn't that the name of the ship Eric used in his trading ventures with America?
Julian smiled and gave her a resounding kiss on the lips before setting her back on her feet. He had plenty of time then. On Tristan, he could outrun her—even after such a great lead.
The waiting was going to drive her mad. The tension combined with the exhaustion from the tedious journey to the docks left her both numbed and unstrung.
She sat, as she had been sitting for hours, on the narrow bed in the grimy dockside inn. She could have found better, but the fact was that she wanted to be as close to the ship as possible. She needed to be able to step out practically onto the gangplank.
Only proximity could convince her that she was really going. She feared if she stayed any further into town, she might lose her determination to leave.
So she stared at stained, mildewed walls, and listened to crude language uttered outside her door by unsavory persons. She was a bit frightened, to be entirely truthful. Hands clasped protectively over her belly, she winced at the loud, inexplicable noises from the street outside.
When a firm knock sounded on her own plank door, she jumped outright.
"Who… ?" she whispered, then cleared her tight throat nervously. Before she could attempt once more, a familiar male voice called her name.
"Izzy! The captain told me you were here. Izzy, I must speak to you."
Startled by the recognition of that voice, she leaped to open the door.
"Eric? Whyever are you here? What is it?" A cold fear suddenly gripped her. "Is it Julian? Has something happened to him?"
"No," he growled furiously, "but then I haven't gotten to him yet." He entered the tiny chamber, looking about in dismay. "Izzy, why are you here? What has happened to send you from your home?"
"Not
my
home," Izzy retorted swiftly. She turned from his searching gaze. "I have no home here in England."
"I never truly believed you would leave Julian. You love him more than he deserves." Coming to her, he took her shoulders in his hands and turned her to face him. "What has he done?"
Izzy only looked at him helplessly. How in Heaven's name could she explain it all? Julian, his father, Manny— so many stories tangled in a sickening snarl, all for the glorification of one family's name.
She tried, haltingly, to convey some small part of the tale. Eric surprised her, having always suspected about Julian's brother and what had really caused his death, although he had not guessed at the duke's part in it. Apparently the only one not aware of the old gossip about Manny had been Julian. Eric was not surprised by Julian's disinheritance, either, but he was appalled by his friend's declared revenge.
"I know he must hate his father right now, and I have always feared the day would come when he would have had enough of his father's abuse. Nonetheless, this revenge is a barren road for him to follow. I would have hoped his love for you would have turned him from it."
"Love!" The word came out in a caustic bark. "You know he loves me not."