Hunters

Vaughan knocked at the door and awaited an answer. He noticed that the vases in the hall had fresh flowers; they weren’t roses and that was all he knew about it.

He heard a call from within and straightened himself so as not to ever appear unlike a Duke. After all, he’d spent many years perfecting himself for the job. The latch clicked and the door opened gently to reveal Lecia and not the maid. Vaughan stiffened for a moment, surprised, and then relaxed.

“Where’s your—?” he started.

“I do like to be alone sometimes,” she told him. She smiled, but she was unhappy. “Come in,” she opened the door all of the way and closed it once he’d cleared the threshold.

Her sitting room was in disarray. There were fabric and wallpaper samples everywhere, and a box of…letters? Notes? He couldn’t tell. Frankly, he was shocked that she was capable of making such a mess.

“Are you busy?” he asked. Lecia noticed how he couldn’t help but keep looking at her disorganized planning.

“Not at the moment,” she grinned. “I’ll have you know, planning this Grand Soiree is more of a task than any one person can manage. Poor Izzy has tried to clean up after me, but I’m afraid I just get angry with her for it. There’s a structure to it all, I swear it.”

He watched in silence as she glided through the disastrous place, moving things around and into order so that they could sit.

“I feel as though I haven’t seen you in ages,” she told him. It had been awhile.

“I know,” he sighed dolefully. “That’s why I’ve come now. I have time tomorrow for a ride, and I was hoping you’d accompany me.”

“I’d love to,” she said softly, staring into the empty pit of the hearth.

Vaughan was justifiably concerned at this point. He’d noticed the sullen shift in her behavior almost a month ago. It had been at the Ascot, she’d become despondent right before his very eyes and it sickened him. He knew it was his doing. What else could it have been?

“Really, Lecia, what’s troubling you?” he practically whispered, moving to sit beside her. He didn’t yet dare to touch her, but he needed to be closer.

“What?” she tried to laugh. “What makes you think something’s the matter?”

“You’ve been apathetic and detached, and I just…”

“Oh,” she sighed. “Planning this ball has just been consuming so much of my time lately. I’m just fine, really.”

Not convinced, Vaughan took her hand in his and gazed at her until she finally looked at him.

“Tell me.” He was more stern than he’d intended.

First, she blinked. Then she swallowed and pulled back her shoulders.

“Zora is with child,” she declared. It was a simple statement. Her chin was up, putting on airs that she wasn’t the least bit bothered by the fact, but clearly—as they were in the current situation—it was eating away at her in some capacity or another.

“Ah,” was all Vaughan could manage at first. His instinct was to release her hand from his and retreat to the opposite settee, but, looking at the darkness in her usually bright eyes, he knew he had to stay. “Is that…bad?” Lecia’s expression blackened.

“No,” she said. “I’m quite happy for her, truly.” She was honest, at least, he could see.

“Then I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” he said softly.

Lecia tore her hand from his and squared her shoulders to face him. She seemed to be mustering the courage to tell him something that had apparently been on her mind for some time. The honesty excited him, not knowing exactly what to expect, however, was distressing.

“I realized that you don’t want children,” she started. “Well, I suppose that I always knew that—you were quite explicit in your proposal. What I’m trying to say is…I finally understood that you had no desire for me to produce any heirs, and I—” She broke off suddenly, her breathing had hitched; clearing her throat, she continued: “I wanted to know why. I need to know if I should be anticipating rumors or scorned lovers or…not-so-scorned lovers.”

Mystified by the implication, Vaughan leaned back. He couldn’t look her in the eye just yet, the bewilderment visible in the wrinkles of his brow. She was tense as she awaited a response, which really only made him more uneasy.

“I—” he still couldn’t look at her, so they sat in silence for longer than a few moments in time.

“I’m not a confirmed bachelor, if that’s what you mean to ask,” he finally asserted. Still reverently confused, he peered up at her and asked, “What on earth could have made you think that?”

Perceptibly relieved, Lecia took a deep breath. “I know that your reputation precedes that you’re…fond of women, but I expect my mind just devised a reason for you not to…desire me,” she said. “Not that I want you to!” she amended quickly. “Now that the fanfare has worn off from the abruptness of our wedding, and the parading of the season, I have had time to reflect on the situation fully. My father had said it was ‘an unsound man’ who would wish to marry a lady of ill esteem, and what Duke doesn’t want a son to carry on his name? At first I thought you were charming me into accepting the marriage, but when you reassured me that I would have no…function as your wife, I just…” A tear came to her eye and she shrugged, defeated. “I’m sorry.”

Dazed, Vaughan wrapped an arm around her and took her head into his chest. What had he done? He hadn’t been angry; did she think he was angry?

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he whispered. Her ragged breath was hot through the layers of his clothes. “It was unfair to not tell you the truth all of those weeks ago.” He contemplated his next words carefully. “I do desire you,” he admitted. His wife braced beneath his touch at the words. “I would have to be blind not to, which was somewhat unfortunate to accept when we finally met. It makes it much more difficult than I had planned, but you had been so unyielding in your efforts to stay unmarried; that’s why I chose you. I expected that you wouldn’t want children.”

“I didn’t,” she said, breaking from his hold to sit up again. “I don’t think I do.”

He took in the sight of her: she hadn’t truly cried, but her eyes were glazed; her perfect hair was disheveled just slightly; and she couldn’t sit up as proudly as she had before.

Lecia Harper was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen; that was a fact without pretense, without adulation, that any one person that had seen as many women as he—anyone of the ton, the peerage, the crown—would corroborate. There truly was some magic in her bones, glamour in her skin, which made it impossible to find her ugly in any light.

Lecia Cantington was a woman who was arduously divine. Their marriage had evolved her; she had somehow become lovelier, more exquisite to observe. It wasn’t just her face that he admired; it was her confidence, her defiance, her humor. She had become his friend without falsity to drive her. They enjoyed one another’s companionship. Conversation was easy, silence was comfortable. Although he loved to see her smile, he would confess that it was her presence that made him happiest.

“I married to displace the Dowager. She has been my nemesis for most of my life, and she was becoming far too comfortable with my bachelordom. Not having a wife to call a Duchess gave her far too many freedoms, and more interaction with me than I preferred. I had been silently searching for a wife for a while when I heard word of you at Henry’s celebration so long ago.

Fatherhood has never been something I desired, but I knew that I couldn’t just take any woman to wife. Some of those girls would have told their friends—their parents—that I refused to take them to bed. It would have all been very suspicious to some, caused much more of a ruckus than I’d like, but you…you didn’t want a family either. You were supposed to hate me; I should have made you hate me,” he sighed.

Outside, the wind dusted the flowers against the window. Some birds sung as they played in one of the fountains. The summer had ignited. Inside, however, the tension was suffocating.

“The Dowager, she wants William to take your place more than anything,” Lecia stated. “To me it seems that having a son would be the most effective way to silence her forever…so why avoid children?”

“I hate her, I do,” Vaughan acknowledged, “but not enough to do that. Part of me knows she’s only so horrid because she wants what’s best for my brother. She wants him to have the world like I do, and I love William, I want that for him too. He can have this all when I’m gone, after his mother is gone; I won’t mind that in the least.”

Lecia was puzzled. Sometimes Vaughan was too.

“I don’t want children because I’d be a rubbish tad,” he finally said. He’d never told anyone that before.

“I would think that your fear of being a horrible father would prevent you from being one,” Lecia countered. Her husband agreed that that would be reasonable.

“It’s about more than that, though. I was made to be a Duke; generations of breeding and pruning. There isn’t gentleness in my blood; there isn’t tenderness in me.”

“But,” Lecia said, “You weren’t bred like that. Your parents loved each other. They broke the rules to have you.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s the temper that scares me. My grandfather was a monster. He learned it from his father. My father would have been one too, but instead he drank himself to death. I cannot trust myself to care for anyone other than myself for risk of killing them instead.”

When he had first started to speak, Lecia was sorry for him; she pitied the boy who must have had a distant and uncaring father. Now, though, she was concerned.

“What do you mean?” she carefully asked.

“The Dukes of Cambria and Martisine are fierce men, born from a long line of fiercer men. To everyone else we are rich, we are envied, and we are loved. In this house, I was only ever afraid. I told you my visits were frequent and short, but in those times I would have rather been at home with my mam, curled under threadbare burlap and smelling from the cow shit. I hated it here, and my grandfather hated me. Father was powerless to stop it, as was grandmother before she…died; Drothea would have happily watched my death. I saw things here, experienced more than a small child ought to. After grandfather died, after mam had been gone awhile, daid made it hard to love that home, too.”

“What,” Lecia murmured, taking one of his hands in both of hers, “happened?”

With a contrite turn of his lips, he told her.

“When I was six—my mam died when I was only five—I was here for my time with father. It was only the second time I’d been here, so it was still new and I didn’t miss the cow shit yet. My father had a younger sister named Adeline; she was younger than Drothea, sixteen at the most.”

Already, Lecia did not like the way this story was unfolding. In her little world at Lekenbourgh she learned a little about a lot of people, but she’d never heard of an Adeline Cantington, the daughter of a Duke. Never. When someone disappears from even gossip, there cannot be a decent reason for it.

“Inspired by my father’s love for my mother,” he continued, “Adeline had fallen for one of the grooms. Maybe she didn’t love him, per say, but she’d certainly spent more time with him than necessary. For the week I’d been at Martis, she’d been lain up in her bed. When the physician had finally come, he’d gone straight to grandfather to tell him what had been wrong. I think, now, that grandfather had known before the doctor told him, but the confirmation sent him reeling.

“Some of the words that were used that night I still loathe to hear…” He took a deep breath. “Part of me wonders if he’d have found more satisfaction in allowing her to give birth first, but, as horrible as he was, I don’t think my grandfather could have murdered an infant. He didn’t call for the doctor until morning. My grandmother, the staff, everyone was too scared of him to help her. She died, bleeding and ruined, on the ground with nothing but fear in her eyes. All of her things were hauled out the next day, the rug she’d ruined with her blood was burned out back; every trace of her was scrubbed from existence with such force and fervor that no one even knows her name anymore. Adeline Cantington was never born, never died. She doesn’t even have a headstone. I’d have given her one if I knew where she was buried.

“Grandfather didn’t hide his rage; he made sure I had seen what he did. By my next visit, grandmother was gone; I don’t know whose hand took her life, but I know whose fault it was. I will admit that he hurt me, I will not tell you how, but daid’s fist was child’s play after two years of coming here.”

Knowing now, Lecia comprehended the sorrow in Catherine’s eyes. Her brother had killed her niece in this house; her father had probably beaten them both when she’d lived her. Vaughan’s father hadn’t been violent, but he’d been drunk. What a house of horrors; a palace of misery.

“If you’re afraid of becoming them, you don’t have to be,” she said to him. He looked ready to cry and she loved him for it. “You’ve already shown me kindness that cannot exist in a heart that black. You said once that you took after your mother; I cannot know what she was like, but I can see that you are not at all like your father, least of all your grandfather.”

The mist disappeared from his eyes, and he let her keep his hand. She was more complex than he’d imagined a woman could be.

“I don’t mean to say that I want children,” she began, “but I would it accept them if you changed your mind. I’ve never thought of myself as a very good candidate for motherhood, but I hear the maternal instinct is impossible to avoid. I think you know me well enough now to see that if you ever raised a hand to them—to me—you would regret it immensely. I would not allow it.”

He laughed at the thought. She would be ferocious to cross. Perhaps she would never outmatch him physically—though he could see her taking flesh while he slept—but she could certainty lash him with words. Still, he’d prefer not to invite demons to dinner.

“No, you would not,” he smiled. His other hand found her cheek and he bent his head to rest his forehead on hers. “You have been a tremendous friend, and I do not have the words to thank you.” His hand dropped to her lap and maneuvered one of hers into each of his. “You will come ride with me tomorrow, won’t you?”

Lecia nodded. There was a knock at the door and Izzy slipped in.

“Your Grace, My Lady,” she said meekly, no doubt because Vaughan was there. “Her Ladyship would like to visit with Her Grace.”

After clearing his throat, and taking a breath to regulate his quickening heart, he let her go and got to his feet. Their conversation had not at all been what he’d expected, and he was glad for the interruption to what would have surely been a mistake.

“I was just leaving, Izzy,” he told the maid. He glanced at Lecia and smiled. “I’ll see you at supper, my love.”

He took his leave, walking much too hastily away. In all his years, he had known many women. There was a definite truth to his reputation as a degenerate. Maybe it was because of the fear, maybe it was because of his appetite, but Vaughan had never been intimate with anyone. Not a woman, nor a close friend; he’d never been so free to share his secrets. He was sure Zeke didn’t even know what he’d just told Lecia.

“She’s my wife,” he muttered to himself.

He meant it to justify his honesty. Lecia was his wife, she was his friend; it was okay to tell her everything. However, once he said it, he realized that it only vindicated his need to ravage her.



So... MEREY CRISPERS. I will be getting wasted on Patrón margaritas later, so unless I write another chapter while getting beautiful - unlikely - I probs won't post again until tomorrow. Maybe. I dunno. Have fun. I hope you liked this one. I started it at 4:30 this morning and just finished. For the record, I woke up at 4:30 because I went to bed at 7 last night after I didn't sleep for over 24 hours, so I'm almost on a normal schedule