Erotic visions of taking her also tended to keep him restless deep into the dark hours of the nights. The ones that scared the hell out of him weren’t the sexual visions of her riding him slowly, of seeing Constance on her knees, her lush hips and back arched in the most sensual manner to take him. No, those visions tied him in hot chains of lust and need. The ones that petrified him were when he dreamed of laughing with her, reading a book and having a lively discussion before the fire, of seeing her swollen with his child, strolling by the lake. He imagined her green eyes challenging him, teasing him, and the feelings that encompassed him had been more intense than what filled him when he thought of making love with her. The lady was dangerous. Lucan needed to keep a safe and emotional distance. No more touching, and certainly no more kissing, despite the cravings in his body and soul. He needed that damn distance if he ever hoped to succeed in ruining Calydon.
It is not your sin.
Lucan closed his eyes against the words he had uttered to Constance. He had not known he would say such a thing to her until they spilled from his lips. But they had slapped him with the truth, and it was an ugly truth he had forced himself to consider over the past few days. The sins of Calydon were not hers to bear.
Marissa’s life had been forfeited way before her time, at the tender age of twenty-two, and Calydon had been the one to execute it surely as if he had put the rope around Marissa’s throat. But was it Constance’s sin? Lucan could not seem to pacify his growing disquiet. He had been so sure of his path of vengeance, so undoubting. Now a mere slip of a girl was enough to shake his resolve. It angered him that he could be so easily swayed from years of plotting. And for what? Pleasure? To taste her lips again?
“Please, Your Grace, I beg of you. Have some mercy,” the sobbing voice pleaded. “I will find means to pay my debts, I swear to you, Your Grace.”
Lucan gazed at the pitiful form of William McFarlane, Earl of Stanhope, his late sister’s husband. Several months ago Stanhope had not been pitiful. Far from it. He had been living a lavish life style, one of wild decadence. He had gambled heavily, certain with a roll of the dice, he would regain his fortune. Lucan had extended credit to the man for months, despite his mounting debts. And when Lucan owned all of Stanhope’s non-entailed properties—his lands, horses, and possessions—Lucan called in the debts, and revoked Stanhope’s entrance into his club. Lucan had ensured Stanhope would never see wealth again.
Nothing Lucan could do would atone for his sister’s death. Nothing would bring her back. But each man that contributed to her downfall would surely pay, and Stanhope was the guiltiest of them all. He had brutally beaten Marissa until she had taken her own life to escape. Lucan held Stanhope’s gaze. “Marissa Alicia Wynwood,” Lucan said without an ounce of emotion.
Understanding was slow in coming, but when it came, all the blood leeched from Stanhope’s face, and he sunk to his knees. With a twist of his lips, Lucan turned and walked out of the man’s townhouse, deaf to his wails and pleas for forgiveness. He had only visited because he wanted the man to understand the reasons for his downfall.
Lucan exited without fanfare and jumped into his waiting carriage. His driver knew exactly where to carry him, and they rumbled into motion. No, he would show no mercy to all who had participated in Marissa’s ruin. He had already claimed vengeance on two of the men responsible for her demise. And in a very similar manner, Calydon would be the last. Lucan would not be swayed. No matter how tempting it was to pursue a different path with a green-eyed beauty.
…
An hour later, Lucan stood in bleak stillness in Kensal Green Cemetery, immune to the cold gust of wind at his sister’s grave. He stared at the carved letters on the monument: Marissa’s name, her date of birth and death—the sum of her existence. No withered flowers other than his to show anyone thought of her beyond the foul rumors that whispered of her demise.
Even now, years later, he could still unearth the whispers that had tainted her name. Marissa the pure, Marissa the lovely, had slowly become Marissa the mistress, Marissa the abandoned. Misused and abandoned by The Duke of Calydon.
When Lucan had started his hunt, old gossips had surfaced of the duke himself being her murderer and people were sure he had strangled Marissa with his own hands. Lucan heard of how Calydon had fought with Lord Stanhope in his country home over Marissa. Then later when Calydon had been spurned, they said he had killed her. Then the rumors changed, insisting Lady Stanhope had killed herself. Lucan, however, knew the full truth; he had dozens of her letters, which he read over and over again.