Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,65

you lost your mother three years ago, Dr. Grafton, and that your father was all you had left.” I take another step, careful to keep my gaze trained on her face. “He was ex-military.”

“Army,” she says with a shaky nod that matches the way she shoves trembling fingers under her thighs, “he was in the Army.”

“Love is carnage,” I reply, and hear Rowena’s hushed intake of breath from behind me. “That’s the last thing the king ever said to me. Dramatic, I thought, but it’s true, isn’t it?” Dropping to my haunches, just beyond Sara Grafton’s reach, I prop my wrists on my bent knee. “Love is ruin—devastation wrapped in a pretty package—but what happened at The Octagon was carnage, plain and simple. My brother was saving the person that he . . . loves, and I think, if you let yourself, you can understand his motivation.” When her lips press flat, I add, quietly, “You can love your father, Dr. Grafton, but you can’t save the man when he’s already dead.”

“Trust me,” she snips, her gaze hyper-focused on my chest, “I’m well aware that he’s gone.”

Slowly, I extend my arm, palm to the ceiling. “Give me the knife, Doctor.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The knife,” I repeat, firmly, never looking away from the hand that she slipped under her leg. “I’d hate to have you bleeding all over Miss Carrigan’s rug.”

It’s a thinly veiled threat.

The doctor swallows.

I flatten my palm, waiting.

Under the loose sleeve of her pullover, her wrist rotates like she’s debating making a move. One upward glance at my face, though, steals the fury from her gaze and leaves behind only weariness. She thrusts the knife out to me without ever making eye contact.

I make a point of tucking it, flat, against my forearm while I turn back for Rowena. Standing across the room, her violet eyes are wide, frantic, the color high in her cheeks.

She couldn’t hear me, I realize slowly.

And while everyone else, including Gregory, watched me take the knife from Dr. Grafton, Rowena didn’t.

Correction: she couldn’t.

Jesus.

She hasn’t complained, not once. Hasn’t asked anyone to make allowances for her, even though she’d absolutely be in the right to do so. I’m not sure any of my brothers-in-arms would be able to say the same if they were in her position. Hell, Jude would howl like a fucking banshee, and I’d be only too happy to knock him out and shut him up.

Fifteen pairs of eyes follow my path from the piano to Rowena’s side. I lower my head. Put my mouth next to ear, so that my words are for her alone: “Make them fall in line, or I will.”

At the command, Rowena’s chin jerks in my direction and her hand locks around my wrist. Her lips part on a near-silent hiss when she comes in contact with the cool metal. “Damien, are you . . . is that a knife?”

“Tell them.”

“Tell us what, Rowan?”

I turn my head toward the new voice entering the room and recognize him instantly. Brown hair. Lanky build. The man Ian Coney stood with in the photograph that I found. With their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, the similarities between them had seemed miniscule. Staring at him now, however, it’s more than obvious that they’re related—were related. Brothers.

Pulling her fingers away from my wrist, Rowena greets, “Hugh. Good of you to finally join us.”

Hugh.

The same name she uttered in her bedroom before I spoke and gave myself away. How often does Hugh Coney make a habit of waiting for her, alone, that he’s where her mind went first?

“I was seeing to our guests.” His dark eyes slick down over Rowena’s hourglass figure, deliberately pausing at her breasts and hips. Possession bleeds from his gaze before disappearing altogether when he turns on me. “So, the Mad Priest has graced us with his presence.”

Jaw cinched tight, I merely stare at him.

Hugh steps further into the room with all the flair of the pope emerging from the Vatican. He presses a hand to Dr. Grafton’s shoulder and pauses beside the redhead to exchange a quick word. Then, sweeping into the center of the drawing room, he folds his hands behind his back and smiles thinly. “Did Rowan mention that we have Alfie Barker?” he asks. “Grabbed him from the cell myself. Never met a bloke so happy to see me.”

I just bet he was.

Alfie Barker would be happy to see King John’s ghost if it meant being released from his