Damned by Him

Xandros remained standing near the door for several moments after Lucien’s voice had answered from the other side, while Rosaline stood a short distance away with one hand still resting against her dress and an expression upon her face that suggested she was attempting very hard to appear unaffected by everything that had happened only moments earlier.

Neither of them mentioned the kiss.

That silence alone was becoming increasingly unbearable.

Rosaline had turned toward the window as though the gardens outside had suddenly become the most fascinating thing she had ever seen, while Xandros slowly straightened the front of his clothing and ran one hand through his shoulder-length hair, pushing the dark strands away from his face before releasing a quiet breath.

Rosaline noticed the movement from the corner of her eye.

For reasons she refused to examine, her face warmed again.

Xandros reached for the door.

When he opened it, Lucien Valecrest was standing outside with one hand resting loosely against the corridor wall, although the easy confidence he usually carried seemed noticeably more restrained after what had happened in the marketplace.

Lucien had clearly expected Rosaline to answer.

The moment his eyes settled upon Xandros instead, his expression changed slightly.

"Your Grace," Lucien said politely as he straightened away from the wall, his gaze briefly moving past Xandros toward the interior of the chamber before returning to him again. "I had hoped to speak with Lady Rosaline for a moment, but I believe there is something considerably more important that needs to be addressed between us first."

Xandros stared at him without immediately responding.

Rosaline’s attention sharpened from inside the room.

Lucien continued after a brief pause, his voice remaining calm despite the faint mark that was still visible upon his face.

"If you would permit me a few moments of your time, I would prefer that we speak privately, particularly since the last conversation we had ended with considerably more force than I believe either of us intended."

Rosaline’s eyes widened slightly.

Xandros did not appear particularly apologetic.

"Come with me," he said at last, stepping into the corridor before closing the door behind him.

Rosaline waited.

The moment the door closed completely, she stared toward it.

Then her gaze slowly moved around the chamber.

There was absolutely no reason for her to involve herself in a conversation that did not concern her.

That was what a sensible person would have done.

Rosaline had never claimed to be particularly sensible.

She moved toward the door.

Quietly.

Very quietly.

Then she leaned closer.

Outside, Xandros and Lucien had already begun walking a short distance away from the chamber.

Rosaline immediately frowned.

She could not hear anything.

Her lips pressed together.

"Of course they had to walk away," she muttered beneath her breath, irritation moving through her as she lifted the edge of her dress and quietly opened the door just enough to step outside.

She followed them.

Not closely enough to be obvious.

But certainly closely enough to hear.

Xandros and Lucien had stopped near one of the tall windows overlooking the gardens, and Rosaline immediately positioned herself behind one of the stone pillars further down the corridor, where she could hear their voices without being seen.

Lucien spoke first.

"I owe you an apology for lying to you earlier," he said, his expression considerably more serious than it had been during their earlier encounter. "I knew that withholding information during an investigation involving the Western District would anger you, yet I still chose to trick you."

Xandros remained entirely unmoved.

Rosaline could not see his face properly from where she stood, but she could imagine the expression he was wearing.

"You did not receive that punch because you tricked me," Xandros replied, his voice calm enough to make the words sound considerably colder. "You received it because you looked directly at me and allowed me to believe you were telling the truth when it’s involving Rosaline."

Lucien released a quiet breath.

Rosaline’s brows lifted.

Xandros continued before the younger man could respond.

"If you intend to lie to me again, Lucien, I suggest you first learn how to endure the consequences of doing so. I have little patience for men who create problems and then expect apologies to repair them after they have already been discovered."

Rosaline’s mouth slowly parted.

Pompous.

That man was unbelievably pompous.

She should have been irritated by it.

Instead, much to her annoyance, a faint smile touched her lips.

There was something about the complete certainty Xandros carried within himself that she found difficult to dislike, even when he was behaving like an insufferable Duke who apparently believed the entire world should simply accept whatever consequences he decided to give them.

Lucien seemed to understand that an apology would not be coming.

"I suppose I deserved that answer," he said eventually, his lips curving faintly despite the seriousness of the situation. "However, I would still like you to understand that I did not lie because I have any interest in your wife."

Rosaline immediately leaned closer.

Xandros became quiet.

Lucien’s expression slowly changed.

"Lady Rosaline is not the woman I have been searching for, nor am I in love with her in the manner Christophine appeared to suspect earlier," he continued, lowering his gaze briefly before lifting it again. "The truth is considerably stranger than that, because I do not understand why she feels familiar to me at all."

Xandros’ gaze sharpened.

Rosaline became still behind the pillar.

Lucien continued speaking.

"There are moments when she moves in a particular way or says something that makes me feel as though I have witnessed it before, yet I cannot remember where or when it happened. I have spent years experiencing fragments of dreams that disappear the moment I wake, and now that Rosaline is here, those fragments have become more difficult to ignore."

Xandros stared at him.

For the briefest moment, something moved through his expression.

A thought.

Rosaline did not see it clearly enough to understand what had changed, but Xandros seemed to have considered something before deliberately pushing it away.

There were too many possibilities.

And far too little evidence.

"You believe my wife is connected to memories you cannot remember," Xandros said at last, his tone carefully measured. "That is an unusual confession to make after spending an entire afternoon watching her closely enough for Christophine to question whether you had fallen in love with her."

Lucien gave a quiet, humourless laugh.

"When you put it that way, I understand why you punched me."

Xandros’ expression did not change.

"Do not mistake understanding for forgiveness."

Rosaline pressed her lips together.

There it was again.

That unbearable confidence.

And again, she found herself liking it.

Lucien’s faint amusement disappeared as he became serious once more.

"Whatever Rosaline reminds me of, I do not believe it is connected to love," he said quietly. "There is someone else, someone whose presence exists within those broken memories, and although I cannot see her face clearly, I know that the feeling I carry whenever I think of her is entirely different."

Xandros studied him.

"And you believe this has something to do with the Western District?"

"I believe everything happening here may be connected in ways none of us understand yet."

That answer brought silence between them.

Rosaline slowly lowered her head and the conversation had changed.

This was no longer about the punch.

Xandros finally turned away from Lucien.

"Take me to your father."

Lucien looked toward him.

"My father?"

"If Alistair is truly responsible for controlling the Western District and its trade routes, then I want to know everything he has discovered since we began questioning the merchants," Xandros replied as he began walking down the corridor. "And if there is someone beneath him who has been using those routes without his knowledge, I would prefer to discover it before our remaining time here becomes even more limited."

Lucien followed.

Rosaline remained behind the pillar until both men had disappeared around the corner.

Then she stepped out.

For several moments, she simply stood there.

The thought of Lucien’s strange familiarity with her remained somewhere inside her mind, but another memory had pushed itself forward considerably faster.

The kiss.

Her face immediately became warm.

Rosaline turned and hurried back toward the chamber.

The moment she entered, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it briefly before pressing both hands against her cheeks.

Then, deciding that standing there would accomplish absolutely nothing, she crossed the room and threw herself upon the bed.

The bed was considerably smaller than the one they had shared at the mansion, and Rosaline had to shift herself carefully before finding a comfortable position, but that did not stop her from rolling onto her back and covering her face with both hands.

She had kissed him.

No.

That was not entirely correct.

He had kissed her.

And she had not stopped him.

Rosaline groaned quietly into her palms.

"Why didn’t I stop him?"

The question received no answer.

Naturally.

She rolled toward the edge of the bed before immediately rolling back again, her face still hidden behind her hands.

"He was jealous."

That realization did not help.

Rosaline pulled one of the pillows over her face.

"I am never speaking to him again."

The pillow muffled her voice.

She remained beneath it for several seconds.

Then she pulled it away.

"That is impossible because we are married."

Her expression became even more miserable.

She covered her face again.

Elsewhere within the residence, Xandros and Lucien entered Alistair Valecrest’s private office, where the Warden had been waiting with several documents spread across his desk.

Alistair immediately straightened when he saw the Duke.

"Your Grace, I was beginning to wonder whether you would return before evening," he said as his gaze briefly moved toward Lucien and then back toward Xandros. "The merchants have been questioned again, and several officials from the Trade Office have provided additional information, though I am afraid what we have discovered is considerably more complicated than I initially expected."

Xandros moved toward the desk.

"Then stop apologizing for the complications and explain them."

Alistair’s expression tightened slightly.

Lucien remained near the doorway.

"The smuggling operation does not appear to have a single person physically managing every shipment," Alistair explained as he moved several documents toward Xandros. "The merchants are being used by intermediaries, and those intermediaries receive instructions from people who appear to be equally unaware of who is truly controlling the operation."

Xandros looked through the documents.

"So the merchants are not connected directly to the person responsible."

"Not that we have been able to discover."

Alistair pointed toward several names written upon one of the papers.

"Every person we questioned knew someone above them, but whenever we followed the information upward, we found another middleman. The operation has been designed deliberately to prevent anyone from reaching the person at the centre."

Xandros’ eyes narrowed.

"A man controlling an entire smuggling network while ensuring that nobody working for him can identify him."

"Precisely."

Lucien slowly pushed himself away from the doorway.

"Which means we may have been looking in the wrong direction from the beginning."

Xandros turned toward him.

Lucien continued.

"We have been questioning merchants because they are the people whose routes are being used, but the real organisation may not exist within the trade system at all. The merchants simply provide the movement while someone else provides the instructions."

Alistair nodded slowly.

"That possibility has begun to concern me as well."

Xandros placed the documents down.

For several moments, the office remained silent.

Then Lucien looked toward his father.

"I believe I should leave the two of you to discuss this further. There are several people I would like to speak with regarding the eastern routes, and if what we are suspecting is correct, someone may have noticed something they did not consider important before."

Alistair nodded.

"Be careful."

Lucien gave him a faint smile.

"I usually am."

Xandros watched him.

Lucien turned toward the door.

Alistair waited until his son had stepped into the corridor before looking back toward Xandros.

"What do you intend to do now, Your Grace?" he asked, the concern in his voice becoming more obvious. "We have merchants, missing records, unofficial routes, and a network of middlemen, yet none of us knows who is truly standing at the centre of it."

Xandros’ gaze moved toward the documents.

Then toward the window.

Finally, he looked back at Alistair.

"You do not need to worry about the plan."

Alistair waited.

Xandros’ expression remained calm.

"I will figure something out."

Neither of them noticed immediately that Lucien had not walked far.

He remained standing just beyond the partially closed door.

Those words reached him.

I will figure something out.

Lucien’s expression slowly emptied.

The faint amusement he usually carried disappeared completely, leaving behind something strangely blank as he stared down the empty corridor.

Then, without saying another word, he finally walked away.

Later that afternoon, Xandros left Alistair’s office and moved through the quieter section of the residence, his mind still occupied by the information they had uncovered.

They had two days remaining in the Western District.

Two days to discover who was using Alistair’s routes.

Two days to find the person hiding behind the merchants and middlemen.

Two days before the investigation became someone else’s problem.

Xandros rounded the corner.

Seth was stepping out of his chamber.

The young man stopped when he noticed the Duke approaching, and although his expression initially carried its usual careless quality, something about the way Xandros looked at him immediately made Seth straighten.

"Your Grace," Seth said as he glanced briefly toward the corridor behind Xandros. "You look as though someone has either given you terrible news or asked you to do something you didn’t enjoy."

Xandros stopped before him.

"I have a task for you."

Seth’s faint smile disappeared.

For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

Then Seth’s expression became considerably more serious.

"What kind of task?"

Xandros looked toward the long corridor stretching ahead of them.

"The kind that requires you to be careful."

And for reasons Seth could not explain, those words made the atmosphere around them feel suddenly colder.

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