The Ruined Duchess

Pippa glared at the sliver of moon through the window as if it were the source of her life’s torment.

“You must stop fighting it,” Michael said gently. “Fighting the change will not help you learn to control it.”

“I’m not fighting it, dash it all.” Anger stippled Pippa’s features as she looked up again, her chest tight. For the last five hours, it had been a constant battle to maintain her calm.

“Yes, you are.” Michael sighed. “Is it because you are concerned about damaging the room?” He looked around. “All the furniture has been removed, and walls can be repaired. Arjun and I will make sure your wolf form cannot get loose. We promise.”

Pippa gritted her teeth, her bare feet pressing into the wooden floor.

Michael continued, “Then are you afraid to change into a wolf in front of me? Do you worry about propriety? I can leave before you attempt to change back, if you are concerned about being seen unclothed.”

Color flooded Pippa’s cheeks. “That is the least of my concerns,” she grumbled. “Though I can think of many other things I’d rather be doing at the moment.”

“Nakedness is a part of this life,” Michael said gently. “Soon there will come a time when it doesn’t bother you in the slightest.”

“I said I’m not bothered by it, Michael,” Pippa shouted, completely out of character.

Arjun and Michael exchanged a glance. “Believe me,” Arjun joked, “I’m not bothered by it either. Another man gazing upon the bare figure of my wife . . . he should be so lucky.”

Pippa sneered in response, her anger spiking.

It could not be helped. Even during the daylight hours—when the pull to shift into a wolf was at its weakest—Pippa’s emotions were volatile. Fury lingered at the surface, always at the ready. The slightest provocation would elicit a harsh word of rebuke from her. Or, on rare occasions, an actual growl.

As someone who had spent most of her life priding herself on her English sense of decorum, this sudden volatility chafed Pippa’s nerves. It made her feel uncertain in her own skin. Anytime a hint of an emotion like sadness would take root, no more than a moment would pass before it blossomed in her chest and overwhelmed her, until she would find herself sobbing in a corner, unable to stop crying.

The skies over New Orleans had shifted from the near darkness of a new moon to the slender crescent shape that now hung low in the sky. The very idea of facing a full moon sent Pippa into the beginnings of panic, especially after Michael had admitted he still felt apprehensive when the sun began to set on those particular nights.

“You must stop fighting the change,” he repeated. “If you keep fighting it—if you let fear rule your mind—then you will never be able to control it. You will always be at its mercy.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Pippa yelled. “You think I don’t feel it every morning I open my eyes? Even my dreams are plagued by fear. They are vivid and chaotic as never before. They leave me with the heart of a hummingbird and the rage of a caged beast. I am never rested, nor do I feel at ease, even when I desperately need it. How am I to overcome this, Michael? How? Will I be forced each month to chain myself to a tree in the middle of the woods like your great-grandmother?” She refused to cry, despite the knot of anguish collecting in her throat. Pippa had cried more over the last month than the whole of her entire life.

Michael sighed. “I regret telling you that. It was a mistake.”

“Amazing,” Pippa replied in a droll tone. “The great Michael Grimaldi admits to making a mistake.”

He pursed his lips and kept silent. Pippa knew she should apologize. Indignation followed the thought, like a fox chasing after a hen. Why should she be the one to apologize? Why, when all she wanted was to be left in a room to rage and destroy everything in sight?

Pippa glanced around for something to break. With horror, she realized how much that behavior resembled her father’s. Then she stomped over to the windowsill to pour herself a drink of whiskey, her wild emotions swallowing her whole.

“If I can’t conquer the beast in me,” Pippa muttered as she thought again of her father, the duke, “I may as well surrender.” She replaced the cap on the decanter, her hand shaking as she raised the full tumbler to her lips.

It was Arjun who came to her side. Arjun who gently pried the whiskey from her hands. Arjun who threaded her fingers through his.

Pippa spoke through clenched teeth. “Why are you allowed to drown your sorrows, yet I am not?”

He nodded, his expression circumspect. “Right. That does seem unfair, doesn’t it?” He returned the metal tumbler to her and waited.

Pippa considered the amber liquid as it sloshed near the brim of the cup.

“Do you want me to join you?” Arjun said, his tone casual as he raised a tumbler of his own. When she did not respond, he uncapped the decanter from its place on the windowsill, the nearby lantern flickering.

“No,” Pippa whispered, guilt clutching at her stomach. She wanted Arjun to be stronger than that. Which meant . . . damn it all . . . that she should be stronger, too.

Something softened in Arjun’s expression. “It is because I know what it is like to drown your sorrows that I want you to be better than I am. Fight harder than I did. Because you are better, Pippa.”

“Poppycock.” Pippa sniffed. “I am a growling beast who bites the head off anyone unlucky enough to cross my path. Just like my father.”

“That isn’t true,” Michael said. “From what I’ve heard of your father, I doubt he could have survived as you have.” Pippa watched him select his next words with care. “I think we choose anger because it is the easiest reaction to have. Anger grants us the freedom to behave as we never would under normal circumstances.” He paused. “Wolves often turn to it as a result.” Then his focus seemed to waver, his mind lost in thought. “It makes us feel powerful.”

“You’re thinking of Émilie Saint Germain.” Pippa bade herself to remain calm. Still, she could not banish the memory of Bastien’s werewolf sister sinking her fangs into her skin. “There’s no need for you to apologize anymore, Michael. I know you did not intend for this to happen.”

Anger flashed across Michael’s face. “I should have known better than to trust her.”

“I don’t think it was about trust,” Pippa said.

Arjun hummed in agreement. “Jealousy would be my guess. Not that I blame you. Bastien is an easy chap to hate. A tortured soul with ungodly amounts of money and the rakish good looks reserved for Greek statues. If he weren’t so generous, he’d be insufferable.”

Michael closed his eyes. “Jealousy does not become me.”

“Actually, I rather think it does,” Arjun said. “I believe we all become our strongest emotion, sooner or later.” His expression turned somber. “I became sorrow, for a time.” He glanced toward Pippa. “I’m not proud of it. But even the strongest among us are weak when it comes to our feelings.”

Michael’s eyes flashed open. “I never thought of it that way. Becoming the thing we feel.” He canted his head. “An interesting thought. I wonder what might happen, Pippa, if you tried that.”

“I don’t wish to be any emotion,” she said. “I want to go back to who I was before.”

“I know.” Michael nodded. “But maybe the reason you can’t seem to control your shift is because you’ve become your own fear. What if you tried to become . . . something else?”

Pippa frowned. “I can’t be happy when I’m not happy, Michael.”

“Maybe not happy,” he continued. “But . . . determined, perhaps? Maybe try for a feeling that does not control you, but is something you can control instead?”

“Like . . . patience?” Pippa quipped. “Or serenity?”

“I know it sounds simple,” Michael said. “But that shift in thinking may help you shift in truth.”

A knock resounded from beyond the room. Before Michael could respond, the door swung open with a surprising amount of force. Michael’s elderly grandmother walked in without a word, her black lace shawl swinging from her shoulders and a mahogany walking stick thumping the hardwood floors in time with her strides.

“Michael Antonio Grimaldi,” Nonna said in her lightly accented voice. “There are two vampires gracing our doorstep, asking to speak with Arjun Desai. Tell them to leave at once.” She eyed Pippa and Arjun askance, but the look was not unkind. “I knew nothing good would come from this.” With the first two fingers of her right hand, she made the sign of the cross. “In the past, we never allowed blood drinkers close to our home.” Her gaze clouded over. “I hate to turn away any of our kind, but when you fraternize with the devil . . .” Nonna finished by muttering something unintelligible in Italian.

Michael opened his mouth to reply, then stopped himself. Again he looked at Pippa, that same thoughtful expression on his face. “Nonna,” he said after a few moments of silence, “perhaps the past served us well before. But it’s time for us to consider a different way.”

“No.” Nonna sniffed. “My mother taught me never to trust a man who won’t eat dessert and never to put garlic in my tomato sauce. Shallots and sweet onions only.” The end of her walking stick struck the floorboards three times in rapid succession. “There is a reason we look to the past. Because we wish to learn.” She stood to her full height. Even though she was still two heads shorter than her grandson, she managed to tower over them all. “Do as you’re told, Michael. Tell the vampires to leave, for I will not address them directly. Remind them this is not where they belong, and they are not welcome here.”

Pippa listened to the conversation unfold in silence. Nonna’s words resonated with her. Looking to her past—and learning from it—had provided her with many of life’s most important lessons. It taught her what she needed to know to leave Liverpool and brave the Atlantic for a new world.

But looking to her past meant having her eyes behind her rather than before her.

“Nonna,” Pippa said, “please don’t fret. Arjun and I will leave, and we will make sure your unwanted guests go with us. But . . . if you will permit me to share something that has only just occurred to me.” She took a deep breath. “I never thought I would turn to werewolves for help, especially after what happened to me on the bridge. But here I am because”—she gnawed at the inside of her cheek—“I need you. Your family is the only place I can turn. And despite my struggles, I’m not sorry I have done so. Maybe our enemies are only our enemies because we are unable to let go of the past.”

Nonna harrumphed, the wrinkles lining her mouth becoming more pronounced. “Vampires care only about their own. They turned their backs on us when they no longer saw value in our kind, and they will do it to you one day, cara mia.”

“I hope you’re wrong.” Pippa moved to don her stockings and boots. “But thank you for everything. Your kindness won’t be forgotten.”

Nonna’s frown deepened. “For your sake, I hope I am wrong, too.” She made a shooing motion. “Off with you now.”

“Nonna,” Michael said, something suddenly occurring to him. “Whatever brought these vampires to our door must be important, or they would have simply sent a messenger.” His features hardened. “If it’s about Celine, I want to know what has happened. I want to speak with them.”

“No. I will be struck by lightning before I allow a vampire in my home,” Nonna said.

“Then in the garden.” Michael walked to the door to lead the way downstairs. “If there is trouble on our doorstep, we need to know exactly what kind of trouble it is.”

---

Pippa stood with Arjun to one side of the garden, her apprehension mounting. The high wrought-iron fence surrounding the Grimaldi family’s home in the Marigny was lined with tall oleander and holly hedges to provide privacy. Though the garden was small, it was well kempt, with tomato vines, lemon trees, and an elegant herb garden running parallel to the house.

The scent blooming around them reminded Pippa of a time when she was very young, before her family lost their fortune and their standing in British society. They’d spent a month together touring Tuscany by rail. It had become one of her fondest memories. The way the basil and the thyme and the rosemary would waft through the open windows of the train car, carried on a warm countryside breeze.

Despite the reminder of a happier time, Pippa could not shake her growing discomfort. And it had everything to do with the pair of vampires now facing the werewolf in the torchlit garden of the Grimaldi home.

Pippa hadn’t expected the vampires waiting outside the Grimaldi residence to be Odette Valmont and Sébastien Saint Germain. She wondered how La Cour des Lions had even known to look for them here. Perhaps they were watching the Grimaldi home. Pippa thought maybe Boone or Jae had been sent to fetch them. The fact that Bastien would dare to show his face in the Marigny after all the enmity that had passed between him and Michael Grimaldi meant that this was a serious matter, indeed.

Bastien may have won Celine’s heart, but Michael had fought for it first. He’d loved her first. And he’d been the first to lose her after professing his love.

Michael had proposed to Celine. Asked her to build a life with him.

In return, she’d run away with Bastien. A vampire. His mortal enemy.

Pippa noticed that Michael’s fists had yet to relax. They remained clenched at his sides. His feet were spread wide, and the way he puffed his chest before him indicated how he felt in Bastien’s presence. With Pippa’s newly sharpened senses, she could even detect the faint pounding of his heart.

“What are you doing here, Sébastien?” Michael demanded in a gruff voice.

Bastien’s eyes were steely, though he maintained a casual stance, his Panama hat at a jaunty tilt. “In your garden? I haven’t the faintest idea. You were the one who invited me back here, after all.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Michael growled back. “Why did you come to my home, if not to deliberately provoke me?”

Odette’s lips puckered as if she were kissing the air. Her eyes shifted from side to side. With a lace-gloved hand, she attempted to take hold of Bastien’s arm in a soothing gesture.

“Please, Bastien,” Pippa said. “Be kind. Celine wouldn’t want you to act like this, especially to someone who is helping me.”

Bastien flinched. His expression sobered. Though Pippa could sense how much it irritated him, he shifted backward. “I . . . apologize for coming here. It was because I needed to speak with Arjun.”

“Why?” Michael demanded.

“Have you changed your name to Arjun since we last saw each other?” Bastien smirked.

“If you came to my home to speak with him, it must be important,” Michael said. “Where is Celine?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Bastien replied. “Arjun and Pippa, if you wouldn’t mind, I think it’s time for us to return to the Quarter, where we belong.”

“Where is Celine?” Michael stepped in front of Bastien, blocking his path, his posture rigid.

Something flashed in Bastien’s eyes. “It just so happens that Celine Rousseau’s whereabouts are none of my concern either.”

Though he kept his gaze light, Pippa realized what she was detecting in his face.

Pain. Carefully controlled. But pain, nonetheless.

Michael shifted backward, casting Bastien a searching glance. “What have you done?”

“Mon Dieu, you really are tiresome, Michael Grimaldi,” Odette said with a long exhale. “Thank you for inviting us for such a delightful soirée. Thank you for regaling us with wonderful stories of your shared youth. We shall be leaving now.”

“Bastien, what happened? What’s wrong?” Michael asked, all the fight leaving him. “If something is wrong . . . we deserve to know. And if there is something to be done”—he bit down on nothing, his jaw rippling—“then perhaps we can help.”

With a snide smile, Bastien bared his fangs, the torchlight dancing across his chiseled face. “Unless you know how to mount an army of dark fey in less than a fortnight, I will be bidding you a good evening.” He tipped his Panama hat.

“Just like your uncle.” A voice echoed from the darkest shadows beside the Grimaldi home. “Arrogant. Conceited. Destined to fail.”

Nonna emerged into the torchlight, her long white braid hanging across one shoulder and her shawl wrapped tight around her small body.

“Why did you come to our home, Sébastien Saint Germain?” Nonna demanded while she strode closer. “You would not have done so unless you were very afraid. Unless you wanted something you were too afraid to ask for.”

Odette bit her lip. Pippa looked from the lovely vampire’s worried mien to the unmoving stare Bastien fixed on Michael’s grandmother.

“What is this you say about needing an army of dark fey?” Nonna refused to back down.

“Nonna, please forgive me.” Bastien cleared his throat. “A tasteless joke. I apologize.”

“Non dire cazzate,” Nonna said. “That is horseshit.” She glared at Bastien.

“The Summer Court has demanded that Bastien fight in some farcical duel. Some kind of trial by combat against an odious lord named Vyr,” Odette said softly. “An accusation has been levied at Bastien that he was the one responsible for a recent assassination attempt on the Lady of the Vale.”

Bastien’s steely gaze flicked Odette’s way.

“I won’t apologize.” Odette raised her chin. “I am so wearied by male posturing that I could write a fucking song about it. ‘Odette’s Lament,’ I shall call it.”

Nonna’s lips twitched.

“Good God,” Michael whispered. “A . . . trial by combat? Are we in King Arthur’s court?”

Distress flooded Pippa’s body. She shook her head. “Why would they do this? Why would Celine ever allow it?”

“Celine wouldn’t,” Bastien said. “The summer gentry are looking for an excuse to launch an invasion of the Sylvan Wyld. If they can blame me for the assassination attempt—if I were to lose in a trial by combat—then they would have all the justification they need to say the Winter Court is responsible.”

“Even if you win the duel, they will still go to war,” Michael murmured. “You will have murdered one of their own, right in front of their eyes. They will say you cheated. This is a trap.”

“I know.” Bastien looked at Michael. “It’s why I needed Arjun’s help. I wanted to see if he could think of a way to avoid my having to fight this duel. Is there anything in the Summer Court’s lore to—”

“No,” Arjun said, both his hands raking through his head of dark hair. “And even if there were, Vyr has you cornered. This is likely what he wanted all along. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d planned the entire thing.” His brow furrowed.

Pippa swallowed the lump gathering in her throat. “But I can’t understand why he would deliberately provoke Celine and Lady Silla with this.”

“I don’t think he’s provoking Lady Silla,” Bastien said. “I think he’s in league with her.”

“How do you know this?” Michael asked.

A pause. “I have my suspicions,” Bastien said.

Nonna’s laughter was dark. “And you will share them with us now, Sébastien Saint Germain.” With a final wary glance at the two vampires standing in her garden, Nonna sat on a nearby bench to take her place in the circle, her expression fierce. “Because I will tell you something no vampire of this city has ever known.” She took a careful breath. “If it is an army of dark fey you need, look to the mountain in the center of the Sylvan Wyld. Those who would protect it are still there. They have been there in secret for centuries.”

Pippa gasped. “The wolves. The ones who took me from the bridge. They brought me to some kind of cave. Are they the ones you’re speaking about?”

Nonna’s features turned grave. She nodded.

“Why are they there?” Bastien asked. “Why did they stay, despite the order of exile that was decreed on them hundreds of years ago?”

“Because these wolves are beholden to a higher order from something older and greater than any foolish edict. They swore by blood to stand guard over a secret chamber deep in the heart of the mountain. A cavern of ice.” She canted her head as she regarded Bastien, who remained strangely silent. “Where winged statues and forgotten legends and the darkest of nightmares dwell.”

“What?” Arjun blinked. “What are you talking about?”

Satisfaction spread across Nonna’s face. “I think you know exactly what they guard, Sébastien Saint Germain. And now you will tell us everything.”

Bastien stared back at her.

“Now,” Nonna repeated, “or else the devil take you and your troubles.” Her eyes narrowed. “These werewolves of the mountain will never listen to a vampire. You will need my help. And I will never let you forget it.”

After a final pause, Bastien began speaking.

And Pippa soon learned exactly what Nonna meant.

The darkest of nightmares indeed.