Dangerous Exile (An Exile Novel Book 3) Read online

  Dangerous Exile

  An Exile Novel

  A Regency Romance

  K.J. Jackson

  Copyright © K.J. Jackson, 2021

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, Living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any forms, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

  First Edition: October 2021

  ISBN: 978-1-940149-60-8

  http://www.kjjackson.com

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  Don’t miss my other books

  Historical Romance

  If you haven’t already, be sure to check out my other historical romances—each is a stand-alone story and they can be read in any order (here they are in order of publication and series):

  Hold Your Breath

  Stone Devil Duke, currently free!

  Unmasking the Marquess

  My Captain, My Earl

  Lords of Fate

  Worth of a Duke

  Earl of Destiny

  Marquess of Fortune

  Lords of Action

  Vow

  Promise

  Oath

  Revelry’s Tempest

  Of Valor & Vice

  Of Sin & Sanctuary

  Of Risk & Redemption

  To Capture a Rogue, A Logan’s Legends Novella

  To Capture a Warrior, A Logan’s Legends Novella

  The Devil in the Duke

  Valor of Vinehill

  The Iron Earl

  The Wolf Duke

  The Steel Rogue

  Box of Draupnir

  The Heart of an Earl

  The Blood of a Baron

  The Soul of a Rogue

  Exile

  Exiled Duke

  Wicked Exile

  Dangerous Exile

  Paranormal Romance

  Flame Moon #1, currently free!

  Triple Infinity, Flame Moon #2

  Flux Flame, Flame Moon #3

  – For my favorite Ks

  Contents

  { Chapter 1 }

  { Chapter 2 }

  { Chapter 3 }

  { Chapter 4 }

  { Chapter 5 }

  { Chapter 6 }

  { Chapter 7 }

  { Chapter 8 }

  { Chapter 9 }

  { Chapter 10 }

  { Chapter 11 }

  { Chapter 12 }

  { Chapter 13 }

  { Chapter 14 }

  { Chapter 15 }

  { Chapter 16 }

  { Chapter 17 }

  { Chapter 18 }

  { Chapter 19 }

  { Chapter 20 }

  { Chapter 21 }

  { Chapter 22 }

  { Chapter 23 }

  { Chapter 24 }

  { Chapter 25 }

  { Chapter 26 }

  { Chapter 27 }

  { Chapter 28 }

  { Chapter 29 }

  { Chapter 30 }

  { Epilogue }

  { Chapter 1 }

  London, October 1826

  It sat white.

  Across the street, a gleaming wall of marble in the midst of wretched, dirty chaos.

  The whole of London havoc. So many people. So many horses, carriages, carts, wagons. So many sounds. So many smells.

  So many jarring collisions smacking into her broken arm.

  So much pain.

  But there sat the Alabaster. Or so it had to be. What else would be on this street, named for the very white mountain of stone it was? Five stories. White marble from street to sky. Each window lined with gauzy white curtains that only peeked at shadowed darkness within.

  White on the outside. Shadows on the inside. What had she been expecting?

  Her right fingers unclutched from holding her left arm in the only position that didn’t aggravate the pain, and Ness reached out to touch the shoulder of a passing girl, maybe twelve, dirty and disheveled but easy enough to stop.

  “Please—is that the Alabaster?” Her voice a whisper, she couldn’t speak any louder. The last of solid air had left her lungs a day ago, leaving only tattered wisps of breath.

  The girl’s wide orbs of eyes looked to Ness’s face, then at her left arm hanging unnaturally at her side. The girl’s eyes went wider, the whites of them swallowing the top half of her face.

  “It is, ma’am.”

  The girl hopped quick steps away from Ness. Not that a broken arm was contagious. A broken spirit, maybe.

  This was it, then.

  Her gaze found the white wall with its neatly symmetrical windows. There. A door. One door, painted black.

  But odd. No one walked in front of the building.

  Decrepit piles of brick buildings stood on either side of the structure, where people were gathered all along the street. Hawking wares. Carrying baskets. Dumping pots into the street. But if they were walking, every single person would venture to the edge of the white building, then step out into the street to move in a wide arc around the front of the place, then would veer back onto the walkway to continue onward. Almost as though a curse sat at that black door, taunting anyone that dared to step too close.

  Ness attempted to focus on the street—wagons, horses, and carriages crisscrossed in front of her, going in and out of focus. Ten more steps was all she needed. Make it across.

  There. Open space in front of her.

  She darted forward, her feet tripping, stumbling in the muck of the street. Sliding, leaning forward. Forward with enough momentum to hit the door.

  Agony seized the left side of her body as her left arm got between her and the hard wood.

  Her right hand grasped onto the golden handle, the only thing that held her upright. With the side of her head, she banged on the door.

  Nothing.

  She tried the handle, tried to open the latch. It was frozen in place, immobile. She slammed into the door with her right shoulder, only to suddenly realize the door lacked hinges. It would never open. The whole of it—the door, the handle—it was nothing. A façade. An entry to nowhere.

  Her grip on the handle loosened and she slid down, crumbling onto the wide front stone step, everything draining away.

  Hope. Energy. Willpower.

  Her eyes slid closed, her body too parched to even offer up tears.

  “You can’t be here, lass.”

  Her eyelids cracked open to find a large form drifting above her, swallowing what little light the London clouds allowed. Her hand went up, reaching for the handle of the door. The door that didn’t open. With strength she thought long gone, she wedged her feet under her, pulling herself upward, her blurry gaze on the darkness that was a man above. “Blackstone. Talen Blackstone. I need to talk to him. Only him. Juliet sent me. Only him.”

  The last of the words left her tongue and every speck of determination that had gotten her this far abandoned her, leaving her to fall, slip downward, consumed by blackness that swallowed her whole.

  Blackness in itself, a gift.

  ~~~

  Standing at the front of his desk, his knuckles resting on the worn wood, Talen Blackstone stared at lines in a ledger with a decided frown stretching his face.

  Expanding his empire into Hoppler’s territory in the rookeries had been proving trickier than he’d imagined when the opportunity had been
presented by Hoppler himself. An offer born of respect, as Hoppler was currently attempting to disentangle himself from the most sordid enterprises currently in his realm.

  Talen had to make some hard choices about what ventures to keep, and what to set free into the world to fend for themselves. It was a risk. The businesses he cut loose could very well rise up under a new hungry cutthroat ready to set war upon him for territory.

  He already knew what he wanted to set free. But the numbers didn’t agree with his assessment.

  His hand ran across his eyes, clearing the jumble of blurry numbers from his sight. The whole of it exhausting. Change was coming and he didn’t care for change. Steady. Straightforward. That’s what he liked. That’s what he excelled at. Not grey areas. Not attempting to predict the future.

  The door behind Talen opened without a knock and Talen shoved off from the desk, turning around. Only one person entered this room without knocking.

  Declan moved into his office and at his side…shit.

  Talen froze, his body and limbs suddenly cast in stone he couldn’t break free from. A familiar terror raced through his bones—a terror that he worked damn hard to never have to feel in his life.

  “Tal.” Declan closed the door behind him.

  Talen didn’t look to him, couldn’t shift his eyes off the pitiful being that Declan had just ushered into the room.

  If a portal to hell had opened, snatched this woman from the earth, sank her into the depths of torture, then spit her back up atop the dirt, she would have fared better than she currently did.

  The devil had nothing on the hell that already existed in this land. Demons of men. And the destruction that one of those demons had obviously wrought upon this woman was almost too much to bear.

  A face beaten to mush. Black, swollen skin on every part of her body that showed. Cuts, lines of dried blood snaking across every surface.

  The petrification of his muscles eased and Talen puffed out a sigh, looking from the swaying woman in a dark cloak in front of him, to his best friend and partner. “Why are you bringing me this, Declan?”

  Declan lifted a hand to the woman to prop her up before she fell over and the instant his fingers wrapped around her upper left arm, a squeak came from her bruised lips.

  She jerked out of Declan’s grasp and lost her balance, teetering, her slow feet not able to keep up with her momentum.

  Talen’s hand flung out, clasping around her right shoulder to force her back upright. Lots of cloth, little meat under his fingers. Easy to push.

  His gaze landed on her face for the smallest second and he quickly looked back to Declan. “Why?”

  His same height, Declan met his gaze, unruffled by the annoyance in Talen’s voice. He shrugged. “She would only talk to you. She faded out, outside, and the only thing she spoke when I nudged her awake was your name.”

  “I didn’t know that request would gain just anyone access into my office.”

  His office was sacred.

  He could count on one hand the only people that had ever been allowed in this room. From his vantage in his office, he could see down onto the main room of his gaming hell, the Alabaster, from the windows that lined one wall. He looked down, a dark figure in the shadows, and it only magnified the mystery of his persona that he’d cultivated over the years. No one looked up. No one got into his office. He wasn’t to be trifled with.

  Declan didn’t squirm under his glare. “Madame Juliet sent her.”

  That made him pause.

  It made the woman pause as well, as her battered face turned to Declan. Talen assumed surprise was in her eyes, if he could see her eyes through the black, swollen skin that fully swallowed her left eye. But her right eye showed definite shock.

  Her face turned back to him and the distorted line of her lips opened, the tiniest voice squeaking out. “Juliet Thomson. Hide me.” She gasped a breath, her voice fading as if each word was taking her last shards of strength. “Selkie South Brothel.”

  With that, she crumpled downward. Not falling forward, backward, to the left or right. Straight down, her body disappearing into a pile within her dark cloak, the hood covering her face.

  Dead? Possibly.

  But not likely with his luck.

  His body still, Talen took a measured breath, concentrating on the air going into his lungs. His look shifted to Declan and he pointed at the lump of her body on the floor. “You brought her in here. You get to bring her out.”

  Declan shook his head, his arms threading across his chest. “You can’t be thinking the street, Tal. You see the state she’s in.”

  His scowl sliced into his friend. “I’m not an ogre, Declan. I’m also not stupid. If Madame Juliet sent her, this is serious. Put her upstairs in the Blue Waters room.”

  Declan nodded, then moved to pick up the woman. He glanced over at Talen as he stood with the girl draped over his arms. “You’re paying attention now?”

  Talen looked to the tiny form swallowed in the cloak in Declan’s hold. “Aye. I’m paying attention now.”

  { Chapter 2 }

  “She’s awake.”

  With a nod to the gentlemen playing Faro in the private Peacock room, Talen moved past Declan to the door his partner had just entered with the news. There was a sizable amount on the table at the turn. A breeding stable of racing horses, land in Dorset, a mine in Cornwall. All going to the house if the cards flipped well.

  None of that was more interesting than the woman that lay in a bed two floors above him.

  Declan followed him out of the room and Talen looked over his shoulder to his friend once the door was closed. “Did she say anything?”

  “Verity indicated that she wouldn’t say anything. Only your name.”

  Talen heaved a sigh. Not that he expected anything less.

  His long legs carrying him fast up the stairs, Talen entered the Blue Waters room without knocking.

  Going directly to the side of the bed, he stared down at the mangled mess of the woman’s face framed by disheveled dark brown hair—a face so bruised and battered and swollen it roiled his stomach to look at her.

  Nevertheless, he had to at least look into her one eye he could see as he talked to her. Respect. Madame Juliet would demand it of him, and he owed her. Madame Juliet was the bawd at the Den of Diablo, the central gaming house owned by Hoppler, his main rival and begrudging compatriot in rookery empire building. The last Talen had heard, Madame Juliet was headed north with a Scot, posing as his betrothed.

  This lump on the bed was apparently a result of that ill-advised scheme.

  Focusing on the oddly colored amber eye looking up at him, he pointed down at her arm closest to him. “Declan said you were seen getting off the Edinburgh mail coach. You rode in a mail coach all the way to London from Edinburgh with your arm like this?”

  Her left arm lay atop the blue coverlet beside her body, the bottom half of her forearm grotesquely jutting the wrong way out from her elbow.

  Her right hand clutched the top of the coverlet, pulling it up under her chin. Her voice still a squeak, her one eye didn’t look away from him. “You are Talen Blackstone?”

  He nodded.

  Her good eye closed, her head tilting back into the pillow. “Why am I naked?”

  “We took off your cloak after your body collapsed, dead to the world, and we saw your arm. We had to make certain there were not other bones askew.”

  She gave the slightest nod.

  At least she didn’t fight him on it or take offense. Not that she was in a position for either reaction.

  Talen cleared his throat pointedly. “I repeat, you rode in a mail coach all the way to London from Edinburgh with your arm like this?”

  “I—” Her breath left her and it took concentrated effort for her to suck in air and force words out. Her right eye opened to him. “I did. I had to.”

  She was lying. He’d seen her battered body. Bruises everywhere. The broken arm. The pain—every jolt of the coach would ha
ve been torture. Days of it. No woman could have suffered that and not gone mad.

  He stared at her.

  She stared back with her one open eye. In the middle of her unfocused look, her amber iris challenged him.

  She blinked and her head shook slightly before her unfocused right eye veered off to the side, then snapped toward the ceiling searching again for him. “You are Blackstone?”

  Talen stilled. She wasn’t following the conversation. That wasn’t good. “I am.”

  “Juliet.” She gasped a breath. “Hide me. Selkie South Brothel. Hide me, please.”

  The door opened behind him and he looked over his shoulder. Declan had popped his head into the room. “She’s here.”

  Talen nodded to him and returned his attention to the woman. “You are safe here. The bonesetter is ready. We have to reset your arm properly.”

  “I know.” A whisper, so thin he almost didn’t hear it.

  “It will be painful.”

  “I know.”

  At least she knew what was coming. Better that than the shock of what was about to happen to her.

  Talen reached into an inner pocket and pulled free a small vial, tugging the stopper from it. He set it to her bottom lip, but she didn’t open her mouth, sudden fear in her one good eye.

  “It’s laudanum. I don’t know that your heart would survive this without it.”

  Staring up at him, it took silent seconds before her lips slightly parted. He tilted the vial, the liquid dropping into her mouth.

  “What’s your name?”

  Her mouth closed and her throat visibly flexed and constricted as she swallowed. Even that looked to hurt. “Ness.”

  He nodded to her as Declan came into the room with the bone setter, Mrs. Jenkins, in tow. A thick woman, her sturdy hands of steel had the strength of ten men for the limbs he’d seen her twist and set. There was none better in the area, in the whole of London, for that matter.

  Mrs. Jenkins went directly to the side of the bed, wedging herself between Talen and the woman and she bent, her fingers skimming over Ness’s arm. Ness didn’t flinch away from Mrs. Jenkins’s touch.