The Beast's Bluestocking (The Bluestocking War), Eva Devon [e textbook reader .TXT] 📗

was making him think mad things. He was going to be absolutely destroyed and there was no point in uniting with Philippa.

He could offer her nothing but a cold position of duchess. And that didn’t seem to be her dream. Position.

Beyond that, he could offer her absolutely nothing but agony and perhaps the role of a nursemaid.

That was nothing to offer a young, bright woman like her. He turned to Merrill. “I’m Grey now?”

Merrill’s gaze softened, though there was still understanding there. “Yes, my friend, indeed you are. And it's time we got you home. No more battles for you.”

Anthony looked at Merrill.

He wanted to laugh. No more battles? he thought to himself. Oh, the battles were just beginning, but they would be of a very different kind. For the ruling classes of this world would want nothing to do with his ideas or his plans, but fight he would, even if he had to do it from his castle. Even if he could never leave Cornwall again.  Somehow, he would make change because he could not allow things to go on as they stood.

And Captain Adams was not going to get away with the cruelty he’d perpetrated. And he wouldn’t let him perpetrate more. Even if it was the last thing he did. Somehow. It didn’t matter how, he was removing that man from his position of power.

“I want Joe's body,” he grated. “I want Joe's body to be brought home with me to Cornwall, and I want to give him a good burial.”

Merrill took his hand and replied gently, “We have not found it. I'm so very sorry, my friend.”

Anthony swallowed and looked back to the wall, his bed still swinging as the ship crashed over waves in the storm.

He squinted and, through the laudanum, he noticed the lantern overhead swing back and forth, casting shadows and his stomach turned.

Usually, he felt no illness upon the water, but today with his body in agonies, the laudanum racing through his blood, and the pain pounding through him, he felt sick. He felt sicker than he had ever been. For all hope seemed gone from him, even though he was a duke now, one of the most powerful men in the world.

What was he without Phillipa?

Revenge. That’s what he was. He was walking revenge.

Chapter 2

Wind whipped in off the seas swirling Phillipa's pale linen gown around her legs.

Cornwall was a wonder with its wild cliffs, hidden beaches, and water so blue she could hardly countenance it.

She stood on the cliff's edge staring out at the horizon, trying to let go of the tension holding her frame.

It had been quite a year.

Her sister was now the Duchess of Blacktower.

It was a feat that she had fought for and arranged herself. Oh, what plans she had had for her sister. She'd been so sure of her own triumph in the making of them. She'd made serious errors in her quest, and she was lucky it had not all gone terribly wrong. It almost had. Not in regards to Augusta, thank goodness!

As Phillipa knew she would be, at least Augusta was happy. That had worked out well. Thank goodness. Otherwise, she did not think she would be able to live with herself. But in freeing Augusta and giving her happiness, she had put Felicity into a terrible situation.

It had seemed so essential to find her eldest sister a good husband so that Felicity might at long last be allowed to marry the man that she loved.

Much to her shame and horror, that man had turned out to be a terrible bounder and now as Phillipa stood by the sea on the cliff's edge, tears stung her eyes.

She should have felt triumphant in Augusta’s happy ending, for she and Blacktower truly loved each other.

But Felicity?

She drew in a great breath, focusing on the salty taste.

What a great failure that had been.

Her sister had nearly been ruined and their father had been exposed to be the truly awful person that he was.

They'd all known him to be selfish, a spendthrift, a gambler, someone who cared for no one and nothing but himself, willing to sacrifice his daughters to questionable husbands to gain his own comfort.

But the extent of his willingness to use his daughters and cooperate with a man of a truly duplicitous nature?

Well, the debacle of Felicity’s near escapade had surprised and horrified them all.

No, Felicity, poor thing, had gone off to Europe to get away from it all. She was now at a mountain resort town taking in the Prussian air, made perfect by its endless forests.

There, she was trying to escape all of England and the almost never-ending gossip. It had died down a bit in the last several months. Perhaps, she’d eventually be able to return.

But most important? She'd been saved by the Duke of Blacktower before she'd married a complete and total villain, a villain who would have used the connection to take money from their brother-in-law, the duke, and no doubt make Felicity’s life a living hell.

They were all trying to heal from that infamous moment. She closed her eyes, turning her face into the wind. The Duke of Blacktower had saved them all from terrible lives. It had been her instinct that he would do so, despite the claims that he was a bounder and a rake.

Now she wondered at her own future and her own internal instincts. For the man that she cared so much about had stopped writing months ago.

She had not heard a single word from Anthony, Duke of Grey, since before the Battle of Trafalgar.

Of course, when she had begun writing to him, he hadn't been a duke at all.

He'd merely been Lord Anthony, brother of the Duke of Grey, but oh, how he had filled pages and pages of letters with fascinating pieces of information about the war, his life aboard ship, and his own personal musings about life and how he believed the world should actually be.

And he had listened to