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“I can’t say much. I know you were distraught yourself, Chastity, or you would have noticed the state of his health at that time. How angry he was before your father’s death, how many duels he engaged in, that he didn’t care what happened to his body. And how damaged he was when he returned home for the funeral. You’re a smart woman, Chastity, and so are you, Duchess. I can’t, however, tell you anything else. And I do suggest that you stop digging, even though I know it’s difficult. He won’t ever tell you. And you’re going to ruin what little chance of happiness you have with him. I regret I will have to inform him of your enquiry.”

Patience shook her head in frustration. “I wish your loyalty was to the truth, not to your brotherhood.”

Lucien leaned back and sighed. “Impossible. We will always protect each other, to the death. That’s what our parents made us. Each of us lacked true family. We found one in each other. All seven of us.”

Patience and Chastity exchanged a long look.

“Well, then,” said Patience, putting her teacup on the table and getting to her feet. “I suppose I have to find comfort knowing my husband has six loyal friends who would support him no matter what.”

Chastity stood up, as well.

Lucien followed suit. “I am sorry I can’t be of more help, Duchess.”

As Chastity preceded Patience to the door, Luhst’s gaze lingered on Chastity’s back, and Patience heard him murmur, “How sweet is the fruit one can never taste.”

26

Dorian marched through the hallway towards the back doors of Rath Hall. Three days he’d kept away from Patience, hanging on to sanity by a thread.

He finally came home—to this?

“Dorian—” Lucien’s warning voice sounded after him. “Goddamn it, don’t do anything you’ll⁠—”

“Shut up, Lucien!” Dorian roared over his shoulder. “Stay out of this!”

However, Lucien’s hurried footsteps followed Dorian.

She’d gone to Lucien! She had asked Chastity for help! Would Chastity find out, too, that her brother was a murderer?

Fear and hurt worse than he’d ever known split his heart in half. She hadn’t promised him she’d stop digging, so why did her going to Lucien feel like a betrayal?

And yet, that secret would destroy her, too. Destroy their happiness.

There was not much to destroy, his demon reminded him.

He had been avoiding her like a coward for three days since he’d taken her virginity, even though it killed him to think of how she’d probably failed to sleep during that time.

She must think you just used her for your own pleasure. She must be so confused.

That was of no consequence. He covered the length of the hallway quickly, and pushed the back doors open so forcefully they crashed against the outer walls with a loud bang, almost falling off their hinges.

He saw her working in the garden, her back bent as she used the shovel. She had a simple straw bonnet on to protect herself from the sun, and her sleeves were up to her elbows. As usual, she wasn’t wearing gloves, and her hands would be so blistered and painful later.

She looked up at the sound of the crash, and her face changed from being deeply satisfied with her work to alert. The footmen and gardeners who had been working all around the garden looked up, as well, pausing.

He didn’t care. He didn’t even stop to notice that after only a few days the garden he had hated so much had changed significantly. With the overgrown branches now gone, sunlight flooded the space, transforming it into a place of light and warmth. A few dried and sick tree limbs and a thick trunk lay on the ground in the farthest corner of the vast garden. The sounds of a hand saw and axes being wielded resounded as the tree’s dark gnarly branches trembled.

“Duchess,” he hissed as he stopped before her, remarking distantly how strangely pale she looked.

Was that because she couldn’t sleep without him? Guilt gnawed at him like that hand saw at the tree.

“You’re back,” she said, and he could hear a longing in her voice that made a pleasant shiver rush through him.

He’d slept in the cottage on the other side of the estate as he’d decided to see the tenants there. Normally, his demon would have had him hurry to Elysium and take Lilith or run himself into a grave by boxing and fencing. But his visit to the Battens and Cohen and the other tenants nearby with Patience had reminded him he could be useful. And so he’d spent the past three days channeling his fury, his pain, into mending roofs, doors, animal pens, and making lists of more repairs that were beyond his personal ability but would need to be seen to.

It was deeply satisfying work.

But he couldn’t tell her that. Not now anyway. Now he had to stop her.