Rescue Me Please (44 page)

Persephone watched as the duke’s face turned from dark and stormy with the lift of his mouth.  “She is more than content to hold our babe in her arms.”  His eyes glowed bright, full of an all-consuming love.  “I would not have left her side if it weren’t so.”  His eyes turned serious again.  “Besides, I believe I owe you, and this will make us even, for now.”

Parker inclined his head in acknowledgement and
Hawksley
mo
ved to flank Persephone’s side when
Parker stepped away. 
Parker
glanced back at his friend.  “I’m not keeping score.”

Hawksley
reached out his right
hand and placed it firmly on Parker’s left shoulder.  “Poppy would have had my hide if I hadn’t come to your defense.”

“How were you made aware of the magnitude of this situation
so quickly
?”

Hawksley
raised a brow.

“
Ahh
.  Aunt Adele.”

Hawksley
’s
brow
rose
even higher.

Parker swiveled his head towards his other friend.  Rockwell just tilted his head with a grin and shrugged.

“Pipe
r
?
” 

Rockwell nodded to Parker, a glint of amusement in his eyes. 
“Among others.”

Parker
tapped his toe once on the hardwood floor
, his mouth thinned
.  “Leave me alone with Granville.”

Peyton fell back beside Parker his brow furrowed.  “Do you think it wise to be left alone
with this bastard
?” 

Persephone turned her back on the two men, her gaze colliding with
Hawksley’s
, as Parker and Peyton began to argue.  It seemed a useless, pointless argument.  She wasn’t normally a
cruel person, but she wanted Granville
and the other men to pay for what
they had
done not only to her, but to all the other
s that had
suffer
ed
under their
cruel
hands.

For the games. 

For their pleasures. 

For their evils. 

She licked her lips nervously
and tried to straighten against the painful clenching in her stomach
.

Parker turned cold eyes on his brother.  He swiped his fingers through his hair, pushing back the brown strands and revealing the tension in the honed perfection of his face
.  “I have no plans to kill him,” he promised.
 
“
He is not worth the effort.”  He stepped nearer to the
man now
trembling
beside his desk
. 

Peyton chuckled despite the seriousness of the situation.  “You’ve always been a stubborn bastard.”  He flinched, sobering slightly.  “Pardon, my lady.”

Persephone glanced at him
.

Parker glared at Granville. 
“But he will be praying for death before I’m through.”

“Parker?”  She watched his face soften as he shifted his eyes in her direction at the
concerned sound of her
voice
, impressed with how he switched off his anger when he looked at her.
 

“Damn it to hell,” he muttered, then added, “I need you to l
eave the room, Persephone.  I have no desire for
you to see me like this.  I don’t want you to
be scared of me,” he begged softly. 
It was all he could do to keep his voice level, to rein in his anger long enough to see her safely out of the room.  His hands were in tight fists, his knuckles white, he wanted to pull at every hair in his head, and he wanted
—
no needed a bloody
fight. 

“I understand your anger, Parker.”  Her voice was soft and soothing to his soul, but he didn’t want to be soothed right now.  He wanted to pound on Granville. 
To draw his blood.  To scar him as he had done Persephone. 
He wanted to take his anger out on Granville.  He wanted to hear Granville beg for
mercy.  To beg for his
life
which was more than he allowed others
.

She raised her pain filled eyes to his and saw the same pain reflected in his.  Her pain was his pain.  Her hurt was his hurt. 
“Do not let your emotions cloud your judgment.  I
have
come to realize that he is not worth it.”  She wanted to touch him, wanted to ease the tortured anger from his face, his eyes.

He rubbed his hand over his cheek, grimacing at the rough day’s growth of beard and realized he must look like a madman.  A savage.  “My emotions aren’t clouding anything, Persephone.”  His brows lowered over his eyes, brooding anger shaping his face and thinning his lips.  He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose.  Perhaps patience wasn’t his strong suit after all.  “He will face retribution and you will have
your
justice.  It
i
s my responsibility,” he said, his voice heavy.

“No it
i
s not, but I have it now,” she said softly.  “I see him for the weak man that he truly is.”  Her gaze locked with her uncle
’
s.  “His only power comes from harming those he sees as weaker than he.  And I’ve won.” She turned
her eyes back to Parker’s.  “I ha
ve exposed his wickedness to the light.  He can no longer slink in the shadows of night without fear that the world will know of his
mis
deeds.” 

Parker nodded
slowly, his gaze intent, locked with Persephone’s.

A hint of a
smile flickere
d in her eyes
.  S
he tugged at the ribbon
tucked in
to the front of her bodice
,
the sapphire
signet that he had
recently
returned to her belongings attached.  “I won.”  She turned and walked out of the room
with
Hawksley
,
Rockwell
, and Peyton
trailing behind her
.

Ring around the rosy

A pocketful of posies

“Ashes, Ashes”

We all fall down.

P
ersephone chewed on her lower lip
as she paced back
and forth in front of the
massive fireplace.
  She wished she could hear what was going on in her uncle’s study but all she could hear was the muted pops and crackles of the burning wood.

Hawksley
had
placed his warm hand on the small of her back, gently
escort
ing
her
to the
sitting
room
that now belonged to her uncle
.  He insured that she was seated with a glass of
Mediera
before he excused himself to search the house further.  Leaving her alone with nothing but her thoughts, her ideas challenged since she met Parker.  These men whose presence commanded a room, their very size would elicit fear from even the most hardened criminal, turned to gentle beast full of polite power when surrounded by women.  The ideas that had been hammered, or beaten, she supposed, into her spirit were all being shredded by these tender giants making her rethink all that she thought she believed.

She found
herself needlessly smoothing the skirts of the borrowed navy blue riding habit
,
nervously
wiping her damp palms over the soft material as
she waited impatiently
. 

She knew she should have told him everything.  She should have told him of her plans, but she knew he wouldn’t have allowed her to come. 
Or
s
he
had feared he
would have pushed her away in revulsion.
  And the thought of not seeing him again had been agonizing.  She wasn’t ready to face that fact.  The fact that he could tell her to leave and never come back start
ed
the tears pooling in her eyes.  She dashed them away.  She was frightened of the outcome
of tonight’s meeting
. 

How would he truly take the revelations that had been thrust upon him? 

Would he truly not blame her for her past? 

Would he truly not run from her repulsed? 

Yet he had
come for her; she trembled, wringing her hands together. 
How could she dismiss that he had ridden several hours to follow her?  How could she dismiss that he had even known her destination? 
She could feel her nails biting into her flesh.  But he hadn’t known who she was?  What she was? 
Had he?

Now he knew. 

Her sins revealed to her angel.
 
Persephone’s heart clenched. 
Could he offer her forgiveness for her past?  Could he redeem her soul? 
Her mind was full of confusion. 

She ran her fingertips over the carved mantle.  Her mothe
r’s favorite.  How she hated that
her uncle had made the fond memories of her childhood home into nightmares of dark dungeons
and sadistic men
. 
There were too many evil memories associated with this place now. 
The familiar bitterness mingled with sadness, and then
she brushed the emotions away.

She had escaped.  Some were not so lucky. 
She had come here to face her de
mons.  To face evil incarnate, h
er
uncle
,
and she had.  She
felt very
proud of herself.  Now she could tuck
this away where it belonged, in the past. 
Unfortunately, she had no idea how long that would take. 

She looked up when she saw someone approach out of the corner of her eye. 
Her heart pounded, and her breathing grew shallow, she turned and tried to avoid his piercing blue gaze. 
Peyton stood by her holding out a glass tumbler a quarter filled with rich amber colored liquid.
  An uncomfortable feeling lodged in the pit of her stomach
, squirming
uncomfortably.
  She wanted to forget that he knew everything and had seen her at her worst.
 

“L
ooks like you could use this.”

She turned fully towards him expecting to see disgust clearly visible in his eyes, but s
aw
nothing but kindne
ss not even a hint of judgment. 
She raised one
eyebrow, but didn’t argue.  Reaching for the
cut crystal
glass
,
she sniffed before taking a tentative sip.  The fiery burn of the alcohol heated her from the inside out
and distracted her from
her depressed
thoughts
. 

“Parker has waited a long time to have this
talk
, but he’ll be fine.”
  His voice soft, m
easured, and soothing.

Persephone couldn’t stop her snort.  “Talk?”

“There’s more to this than you know.”  Peyton shrugged.  “Hell, pardon me, my lady, there’s more to this than even I know.”

“I don’t unde
rstand,” she said, her eyes
filled with questions she was
suddenly
too timid to ask
, but she
kn
ew that she
must
.  “What do you mean?”

“Something happened a long time ago.”  He looked into the fire and took a swallow of his brandy.  “Parker tried to protect us from the rumors, but he couldn’t.”  He looked up with a half-smile.  “There are too ma
ny that relish sharing gossip a
nd at the time, this was the juiciest
morsel
.” 
He shrugged.

She copied him by taking a large swallow from her glass, sputtering and coughing as the unfamiliar liquid left a
nother
fiery trail down her throat. 

Peyton grinned, reaching out to remove the offe
nding drink from her hand and se
t it on top of the mantel.

“If this gets out, it will trump anything else,” Persephone said worriedly.  “I cannot imagine that the rumors of him are worse.”
  She felt the blood drain from her face. 

“Once we’ve left this house, you will never hear a word of
this
breathed again,” Peyton assured her.  “You and only you will be in control of who knows of your past.”