In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,69
against a quivering mouth, and that evidence of her sadness sent his fury ratcheting. A rusty, empty chuckle shook his chest. “And do you know who I thought of the night I escaped? I thought of myself. I didn’t think of Bragger or Maynard.” Or of Angus, or even the girl, Valerie. “The moment I had the chance to break free, I fled and didn’t give a single fucking thought to the boys and girls I left behind.”
He closed his eyes. There’d been Bragger’s small sister. A bloody little girl, and Hugh had just snuck off with the coins he’d traded his soul for, like some Judas Iscariot. And where had he eventually gone instead after wandering the streets? Bitterness pulled the words from his throat. To fight Boney’s forces. A good, honorable English lad, using every coin he could for commission. His heart thundered. Hugh opened his eyes and stared blankly at the crude armoire that housed that hated crimson uniform. A token to always remember who he was and all he’d done.
“My babe . . . please help . . . she’s just a babe . . .”
He inhaled through his nose, hearing that mother’s screams. Her pleas. Only to be cut down by another honorable member of the 15th Hussars.
Lila stared back, stricken . . . and still so very silent.
Coming onto his knees so that his body mirrored hers, he stuck his face close to Lila’s. She angled slightly away, but Hugh caught her chin hard between his fingers, keeping her close. “You think me somehow less because I ceded to my partners’ request—”
“No,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t—”
“You ask me why I’m loyal to those men and ask why I’d respect their orders? Years after I’d betrayed them, when I didn’t have so much as a piece of weevil-infested, moldy bread to put in my belly, Maynard and Bragger provided me with food. They gave me a place to live. They offered me work.” Even as he abhorred it. And that was a debt he’d pay. It was why ultimately, if—when—they called for it, he’d fight. “Bragger and Maynard are no family. What we are, are men with shared aspirations, and that’s enough.” Wasn’t it? That was the best a person could hope for in the rookeries, and that’s what he’d found. He scraped his gaze over the delicate planes of her face. And he certainly wasn’t going to break that vow for a woman who’d shaken his world this past week. As it was, she’d already left him weak. Hugh abruptly released her and swung his legs over the side of the bed to leave . . . when silken palms came to rest on his shoulders, delicate and soft, and yet they still managed to anchor him to the edge of his lumpy mattress.
He felt the press of his coarse sheet slide against his back, and then that barrier was gone so that his and Lila’s heated skin touched.
Lila touched her lips against his neck. “I don’t think those things about you, Hugh,” she whispered, her breath fanning his skin and bringing his eyes closed. “I believe you’re a man of honor.”
He opened his eyes once more, looking to where his uniform hung, hidden. “Men of honor don’t abandon people in need,” he said, his tones deadened by life. Honorable men didn’t storm fields filled with innocent men, women, and children, whose only crime had been coming out to advocate for more, only to be set fleeing from the government’s oppression.
Lila leaned over his shoulder so their eyes met. “Honorable men don’t ask other men to pay a price for kindness shown, Hugh,” she said gently. “Your partners, they’d have you fight. They’d hold you to whatever rules they set . . . That isn’t a true relationship, Hugh.”
He stiffened. Her meaning was clear . . . And yet he’d not allowed himself to think of the fact that Bragger and Maynard had exploited him. Because what did that say that Hugh had allowed them to, in the name of that unpaid debt?
Is it truly a debt that can ever be paid, though?
Lila continued speaking, her quiet murmurings cutting across that tumult. “You spoke of shared hopes with your partners. What are they, Hugh?”
“Hopes,” he echoed. A finer, prettier word than aspirations. Because hope was a word that still meant something for the innocent, who still hadn’t been fully jaded by the harsh reality that was life. “Financial security so that there’s food