Too Great a Temptation (24 page)

Damian pulled her quickly along.

Mirabelle let out a cough, her throat parched and sore from the fumes. Up on the second floor, though, the corridors were relatively clear of smoke. Evidently the thick stone walls served as good buffers against the fumes.

Damian opened a door at the end of the hall and pushed her inside the chamber.

Lamps already burning, Mirabelle glanced around the cavernous space. It was gloomy. Cold. Lifeless. No color at all, except for the bloodred curtains that framed the balcony doors. And those gargoyles! Perched above the hearth in hideous poses, jaws gaping, wings fanned.

She shivered at the ghastly sight. “What is this place?”

“My bedroom.”

She made a grimace. “It’s awful.”

“I know.”

He stalked over to the writing desk and discarded the two pistols.

Mirabelle let out a shuddering sigh, relief and joy and thankfulness all billowing in her breast. But soon the anger came back, swelled in her veins.

“
How
could you think my brothers murderers, Damian?”

“I’m not so sure they’re innocent, Belle.”

So he
still
had his doubts? Well, she had to quash those right quick.

“James would never give an order to sink an unarmed ship. You know him better than that, Damian.”

He ripped a shaky hand through his tousled mane and strutted across the room. “I know no such thing.”

Angry and restless, he was acting as if he’d made a terrible mistake in sparing her brothers.

A tickle of fear gripped Mirabelle, and, frazzled, she demanded, “Then why let my brothers live?”

He thundered up to her. “Because I couldn’t hurt
you
!”

Something snagged on her heart. A nameless sentiment of frightening intensity. It warmed her. It comforted her. But she shooed the emotion away. She had one angry duke breathing over her head, and she had to soothe his agitation before she could even think about what she was feeling.

“Damian,” she said in a more even voice, wheedling him to settle down. “You made the right choice.”

“Did I?” Dark clouds of torment swirled in his sea blue eyes. “You’re a pirate. If
you
think it’s the right thing to do then it must be wrong.”

She made a noise akin to a snort and marched over to the marble-top washstand. “Even pirates adhere to
some
laws.” She immersed a towel in the washbasin. “We’re not all uncivilized cutthroats.”

He grunted behind her.

Mirabelle took in a rather shaky breath. She had to calm the implacable duke. If he continued in this erratic manner, he might reconsider letting her brothers go. And she couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let her brothers die…and she couldn’t let Damian sink into despair, become a murderer himself. It was not in his nature, she was sure. He was wounded, in horrific pain. Grief for his brother had blinded him to the truth. She had to make him see reason. She had to make the hurt inside him go away.

Squeezing the excess water from the towel, she sauntered up to the duke. “You don’t believe me?”

He was staring at her—hard. Such a piercing stare, full of agony and conflict. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

She grabbed his wrist.

He jerked slightly, then sighed in acceptance.

Mirabelle guided his hand to the towel and dabbed at the blood smeared across his knuckles. “You know exactly what to think,” she countered with confidence. “You’re just stubborn.”

“Damn it, Belle, I’m—”

“Hold still!” She gripped his wiggling fingers firmly. “You’re reckless, too.”

“This coming from
you
?”

She caressed his injured hand, washing away the bloodstains, mesmerized by his robust fingers and the power surging through them. Fingers with enough strength to crush a man’s throat. And yet gentle enough to evoke the most divine pleasures.

“A reckless pirate is a dead pirate,” she said after a thoughtful pause. “There’s nothing reckless about me. Or James, for that matter.” She met his troubled gaze. “Can’t you see that, Damian? It would be
reckless
to sink a passenger ship and enrage a whole nation. It would be
reckless
to provoke the navy into a cat-and-mouse chase.”

“I thought scruples stopped your brothers from sinking the ship?”

“They did, but
you
don’t believe me.”

“So if you can’t appeal to my emotion, appeal to my sense of reason? Is that it?” He laced his wounded fingers with hers. “You would say anything to save your kin.”

The low timbre of his voice made her quiver. “You don’t want to believe the truth, do you, Damian?” She gave his bloody hand a tender squeeze. “You want someone to blame. To hate.”

A strapping arm slipped around her waist, holding her snug. She made a noise of surprise, as she was pulled so close, she could see more intimately the chaos in his eyes, his soul.

Damian’s brow touched hers. In an aching voice, he whispered, “But there is someone to blame, Belle…me.”

“I wholly agree with that.”

Mirabelle gasped.

A cloaked figure stepped into the room, knife drawn. She recognized that voice right away. It was the masked stranger from the ball!

Even more disquieting was the tortured expression on Damian’s pale face. His next utterance was no less disturbing.

“Adam.”

D
amian took in a ragged breath, lost, the chaos in his soul blinding. “You’re alive.”

“Am I?” Adam stepped deeper into the room and yanked off his hood. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

Coal black hair disheveled, features burned and toughened by the heat of the sun, Adam had lost his youthful glow. His slender figure, too. The man before Damian
was
a man. In strength. In physique. A broad chest, bulky stature, Adam was more akin to Damian’s size. And apparently to Damian’s temperament, too, for the renowned sincerity in his delft blue eyes was gone—replaced by a burning hate impossible to ignore.

Shoving his bewilderment aside, Damian quickly noted the shimmering blade in his brother’s hand, the metal luminous under the resplendent lamps.

Aware of the warm body pressed snug against him, Damian whisked Belle across the room, and all but shoved her onto the balcony.

The key snapped in the lock.

Belle pounded on the glass.

Damian turned to face his brother once more, tortured disbelief still stinging in his breast—and yet joy. Trickles of joy seeped through the cracks in his hardened heart at the sight of his brother. Alive.

But how could this be? “I thought you had died at sea.”

“Oh, but I did.” Adam kicked the bedroom door closed with the heel of his boot. “I died on the night Tess perished.”

Twisting pain beset Damian’s senses at the mention of his sister-in-law. Teresa had been young, not yet one-and-twenty, on the day of her wedding. And vibrant, too. Full of life and laughter. Damian could understand the horror of losing one so dear. His thoughts shifted to Mirabelle, still pounding on the balcony doors, and he shuddered at the morbid image of her limp body floating atop the waves.

“Adam, where have you been?”

“In hell.” Unhooking the clasp at his neck, Adam allowed the cloak to slip free. “All thanks to you.”

A flash of grief choked the duke. “Adam, please, tell me what happened.”

“Why? You don’t give a damn.”

Oh, but he did. Damian cared a great deal. He always had. He had just never said it aloud to Adam. Now his brother was back. Ironic, but it seemed too late to tell Adam how much he cared.

“Please, Adam, tell me. I have to know.”

“Do you, now?” Adam moved closer to the writing desk. “Very well, then. A wretched storm hit, sinking the ship. I washed ashore on a little island off the coast of Wales, where a group of monks living in an isolated monastery looked after me. For more than a year I had no memory of who I was or where I had come from. And then one night, during a brutal storm, a burst of lightning hit the holy dwelling and my memory came back.”

Cumbersome sorrow nestled in the duke’s gut. “So it wasn’t pirates who destroyed your ship?”

“Pirates? No. It was you.”

In the haunting stillness that followed, old wounds, still rankling, swelled in Damian’s heart. He realized his brother’s intent then, and he did nothing to dissuade him from his goal, for the shuddering agony swirling in Damian’s gut, the tortured regret, crippled him in a way no mortal wound could.
He
had done this to Adam.
He
had taken away his brother’s wife…his soul.

Adam picked up one of the pistols on the table. Armed with both knife and gun, he resumed his steady advance on Damian.

The duke didn’t retreat, icy torment hindering his steps. He merely shifted from his spot, away from the glass balcony doors, so if Adam fired and missed, the bullet would not strike Belle.

“It’s your fault she’s gone.” Dazzling fury beamed in Adam’s eyes. “I had to sail home to drag you from your filthy existence. I had to wallow in muck for most of my life, lugging you out of whorehouses and gaming hells—and I lost Tess because of it.”

The squeezing ache in Damian’s chest made his sorrow all the more bitter. What he wouldn’t give to grab his brother in a tight hold. To celebrate his return. To shout with joy. But no. He stood rooted to the spot, shivering with despair, taking in the wild rage Adam pounded him with.

“You.” Adam pointed to him with the knife, the blade trembling in his shaky hand. “You’ve destroyed everything good in your life—and mine. You’re no better than Father.”

Damian could scarce find breath to speak. It was true. So true. He whispered, “I’m sorry, Adam.”

“Oh no.” Adam shook his head vehemently. “That paltry and insincere gesture isn’t going to absolve you of what you’ve done.”

Damian knew that, but he had to say the words nonetheless. And he
was
earnest in his repentance. He would gladly forfeit his own life if it would bring Tess back. Not that Adam would believe him.

It was a mocking cruelty, the family reunion. Adam, always serene and brimming with laughter, was now a twisted soul filled with grief—the very loneliness and despair that had plagued Damian for much of his life. An unsavory thought, but it seemed both brothers were now destined to dwell in hell.

Damian could feel the tears burning his eyes. Tears! He had not shed a drop since he was a babe.

Wracked with conflicting emotion, Damian stared at the knife in his brother’s bandaged hand. Comprehension suddenly filled him.

“It was you in the prison courtyard,” said Damian, his voice taut with stress, memory of that night welling in his mind. The night he had met Belle for the first time. The night she had shot a pistol from a prison guard’s hand—Adam’s hand—and saved
his
life.

“And I almost had you, too,” affirmed Adam, taking another step forward. “You’ve been a bloody nuisance to track this past year, always disappearing at sea. I’d traced you as far as
New York
—to a gaol, no less.” He sneered, “You can’t keep your despicable habits under control in any country, can you?”

Damian knew it was a moot point, but the fiery pain in his breast compelled him to admit the truth: “I was looking for the pirates who I thought had killed you.”

“
You
giving a damn about someone other than yourself.” Adam snorted. “I don’t believe you.”

Damian didn’t expect him to. The “Duke of Rogues” changing his ways? It was rather hard to swallow. But it was the truth nonetheless. “So you followed me home?”

Adam nodded “I wasn’t going to let you out of my sight again.”

“Then it was you who tried to sink the
Bonny Meg
?”

“It wasn’t my intent—at first. I had no wish to devastate what I thought was a simple merchant ship. I only wanted
you
,” he said with deafening purpose. “I got too close to the ship one night, trying to keep up with you, and almost clipped the vessel. I strayed behind a bit after that, but when I saw the pirate flag hoisted, I decided to try and sink the ship. I figured I’d get rid of two pests at once.”

Adam came to a halt before him. He must have realized by then that Damian wasn’t going to attack him or even try to defend himself, for he lowered the pistol to his side—though he still maintained a tight hold on the knife.

Mirabelle banged away on the glass, frantic, her muffled screams piercing to the heart.

Adam finally peeked her way. “She appears to care for you a great deal.”

An icy knot of despair choked the duke, for he knew those words could not be true. She couldn’t care for him, not after what he had done to her and her brothers. She was frightened, was all. And wanted out of the room. Away from the madness unfolding before her.

“And I suspect you care for her, too?” Eyes filled with venom, Adam glanced back at him. “I followed you both to London, and then I followed
her
to the ball. I didn’t want to lose sight of her. I sensed she meant a great deal to you.”

A pang of fear sprouted in Damian’s chest. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to set things right,” said Adam, seething. “In memory of Tess, I’m going to take your place as the next Duke of Wembury and put an end to the dynasty of misery you have wrought…or I was. But I’ve changed my mind. I think there’s an even better way to make you pay for what you’ve done.”

Adam suddenly lifted the gun and aimed it for the glass doors.

Mirabelle stumbled back in surprise.

Damian roared,
“No!”

The duke pounced on his brother and both men crashed to the ground with a tremendous thump.

Struggling for the weapon, Damian blasted, “You will
not
hurt her, Adam! She is as innocent as Tess. Your strife is with me!”

Adam stopped fighting. He glared at his brother, chest heaving.

The pistol hit the rug with a muffled thud.

Bitterness flickered in Adam’s eyes. “You’re right.”

Damian gasped at the stinging pain, as cold metal sliced through warm flesh and blood.

“I think it’s time your wicked ways come to an end, brother.” Adam pushed the knife in deeper. “You’ve disgraced this family long enough.”

Mirabelle screamed.

The blade thrust deep in his chest, Damian sensed the strength withering from his limbs and slumped forward, gripping Adam by the arms.

In one swift movement, Mirabelle kicked up her leg and sent her boot through one of the small windows in the balcony door. Knocking away the broken fragments of glass still embedded in the frame, she reached her hand through the opening and desperately fumbled with the key in the lock, trying to open the door.

On his knees, Damian watched her. He wanted to shout to her to stay on the balcony—away from Adam—but he had not the voice to do it. Blood gurgled in his throat and he could not get the words out.

Adam shrugged off his brother’s hold and stood. He yanked the knife from Damian’s chest and lifted it high above his head, ready to take another stab at the duke. He was trembling, his eyes wide and luminous in the dimly lit room. “Why won’t you fight me now!?”

Damian gripped the gash in his chest, blood seeping between his fingers, and managed to croak, “Because I love you.”

The blade hovered in the air.

The room was still, but for Mirabelle’s weeping and hysterical struggle with the door.

The moments ticked by; the knife flickered in the light. Finally, after a long and tense pause, the blade clattered to the floor.

Adam dropped to his knees, opposite Damian, and raked his fingers roughly through his hair. Eyes fresh with tears, lips quivering, he stared at the duke, a heavy mist of confusion evident in his tortured gaze.

He suddenly grabbed Damian by the sides of the head and leaned in to whisper wretchedly: “Why did it have to be like this?”

Damian could not answer, blood suffocating him.

Adam was back on his feet, stumbling toward the door. He opened it just in time to collide with his mother, who clutched her breast and took a staggered step back.

Adam paused briefly, just long enough to touch his mother’s cheek in tender regard, before he disappeared into the corridor.

That was the last thing Damian saw before darkness clouded his mind.