"But if someone whom you met years ago recognized you, others will as well."
"Then I will just deny the acquaintance as I did just now," he said mildly. "Stop worrying about me, love. It will only give you gray hairs."
His answer dismayed her. Nicholas seemed oblivious to the danger he was in, indeed, seemed to thrive on it.
Giving him a look of frustration, Aurora marched off toward her carriage, leaving him to follow with his sister.
"You shouldn't tease her so, Nicholas," Raven said tightly. "She's worried that you will come to harm and only wants to protect you."
Nick glanced at her quizzically, surprised to hear the anger in her voice. "Was I teasing her?"
"You know you were. If you understood what Aurora has endured, you would not be so unkind."
He raised an eyebrow. "What has she endured?"
"She may be a wealthy duke's daughter, but her father made her life a misery. It must have been wretched for her, living under that tyrant's thumb, having to suffer his rages."
"I trust you mean to explain what you are talking about."
Raven glanced toward the carriage where
Aurora awaited her. "There is no time to discuss it now. Meet me at Tobley's Bookshop tomorrow afternoon and I will tell you."
His concern aroused, Nick found himself impatiently waiting for Raven the next afternoon. When eventually she arrived with her maid, he followed her to a rear corner of the shop. They each pretended to peruse the shelves of novels while Raven explained what she had meant about the Duke of Eversley's rages.
"His grace has a vicious temper," she murmured in a hushed voice, "that I had the misfortune to witness shortly after we arrived in England. I was living with my Aunt Dalrymple by then, but Aurora spent the first few days at her family's London house. Naturally she wrote to her father and told him of her marriage to you. She was concerned about his reaction, I knew, but I never dreamed it would be so violent. The duke came to London in a fury, outraged because she had sullied the family name by wedding a condemned criminal. I saw their confrontation myself."
Raven shuddered. "I had just been admitted to their house by the butler – Aurora planned to escort me shopping, you see – when I heard someone shouting. I found Aurora in the drawing room with her father. His grace was standing there, shaking his fists at her and screaming. I could scarcely believe how livid he was. When Aurora tried to calm him, he picked up a heavy vase and threw it at her! Thank God it missed and merely shattered against the wall. It could have killed her."
Nick felt a sudden knot of anger and revulsion coil in his gut at the picture his sister had drawn for him.
"To my shame," Raven went on in a low voice, "I was too stunned to react, but her butler tried to intervene. That poor man is nearly a relic, he's so old, yet even though he was no match for the duke physically, he stepped between them. Eversley shoved him to the floor and went after Aurora, his fist raised. I honestly believe he would have struck her if he hadn't seen me. He stopped only because he didn't wish to commit such an outrageous indiscretion in front of a stranger."
"What happened then?" Nick asked in a hard voice.
"Well, the duke looked as if he would have an apoplectic fit, trying to control himself. He warned Aurora to get out of his sight, in fact, to leave his house entirely – saying that she was no longer his daughter – and then he stormed out."
Raven drew a measured breath. "Aurora was shaking, but she was more concerned for poor Danby, who had struck his head on a table when he was pushed. It was only later, after he had been tended to, that she confessed that sort of violence from her father was not uncommon. I think Aurora was vastly relieved he had washed his hands of her. She wouldn't say anything else against him, but later O'Malley was able to glean more from her servants than she would divulge to me. The tales only confirmed what I saw, that the duke is a terrible tyrant."
"Tyrant is obviously too tame a word," Nick said sardonically.
Raven nodded. "From what I gather, Aurora had to keep others safe from his rages for years, at no little cost to herself. That wasn't the first time he had threatened to strike her."
Nick's brows snapped together in a scowl of disbelief. "Eversley beat her? His own daughter?"
"It's monstrous, I know. But his servants paid even more dearly for his temper. Reportedly he took a crop to a groom once and nearly blinded the poor man."
Nick felt his gut tighten, repulsed by the thought of any man taking his anger out on defenseless dependents. And the idea of Aurora being at Eversley's mercy sickened him.
"Every one of her servants," Raven added quietly, "says that Aurora did her best to protect them from her father's fits of violence. More than once she had to physically intervene. And when he turned them out without a reference for the slightest infraction, she found them positions elsewhere. She never forgot them, either. When she set up her own household several months ago, she searched out those who had suffered at her father's hands and offered them employment. At least two of them were nearly destitute and were so pitifully grateful… It is small wonder they think Aurora is a saint."
"No, it's no wonder," he replied tersely, struggling to keep his anger in check. When he'd proposed to her, Aurora had implied her father would be angry at her marriage, but never could he have imagined she would be in actual danger.
"What are you thinking?" Raven asked, eyeing his scowling face.
The smile Nick gave was wintery. "About how much I would enjoy ten minutes alone with the duke."
"I know," Raven said, understanding. "He deserves to be taught what it is like being at the mercy of someone stronger and more powerful. But you cannot reveal yourself to him, Nicholas. You are supposed to be in disguise."