Page 1 of Down Bad with the Iron Duke

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Rafe

The carriage rattled. The scraping of rocks and dirt sliced through the silence. But Rafe couldn’t hear it. Not over the violent drum of his pulse in his ears. His gaze was locked on the pale cream stone out the window. It rose from the ground like a monster breaking free from the underworld as the carriage lurched toward it, rapidly surging from the depths of the earth. It loomed, it sneered, it crushed Rafe with its presence.

Ironcrest Castle.

Home.

Hell.

His stomach wrenched tight, and he fisted the bench as he did his best not to double over. His shattered breaths ricocheted through the cab.

Everything is fine. Everything will be fine.

His father was long gone. And with him, his circle of friends. Perspiration crawled down Rafe’s back, and his skin twitched. A low growl built deep in his chest, rang out, and slapped back at him. The bastard was dead. He couldn’t hurt Rafe any longer. His muscles flexed. Not that he’d been a match for Rafe now. Rafe was as much a fortress as the grotesquely large castle he was approaching. Just as impenetrable. Just as hard. Just as unfeeling.

Am I man enough for you now, Father?

Weak. Pathetic. Spineless.

Soft.

But Rafe had proven him wrong at the age of fifteen.

The carriage rolled to a jerking stop.

Rafe thrust the door open and shoved away all hauntings of his past. It was a temporary visit. He could survive this. The only things left here were skeletons. Skeletons of the monsters he’d grown up with. Nothing but dust beneath his boots.

Servants lined the front stone drive, an assembly before their master, considering they’d yet to meet him. A failing he hadn’t been in any haste to rectify. He recognized some of them. His eyes clashed with his butler. Haverford. No expression, no different from when Rafe was a child. A soft, flickering fire thrummed through his veins. How many of the servants were complicit? His gaze traveled over the maids. The footmen. How many were victims?

The housekeeper stepped forward with Haverford. But Rafe continued past them, not deigning to glance their way. He strode toward the stairs. They were shaped in an arch, approaching the giant wooden entry doors from the left and right. He took them two at a time, heart pumping, lungs tightening. He needed exertion. He needed to run. Instead, he walked through the giant doors that had opened the minute he’d reached the landing. And stumbled straight into his past.

Air. Air. Where’s the bloody air?

It didn’t seem to matter that his bastard of a father was the one dead and buried. Because Rafe was the one who was no longer breathing. The stones that made up Ironcrest Castle’s entry walls closed in on him, squeezing the air out of the space, out of his lungs. They were a leaden fist covering his mouth as he writhed and bucked, desperate for oxygen. But was denied.

An experience he was all too familiar with.

He finally managed to suck in a breath, and the entry slowly came back into focus. His attention fell on the hall that led to the service wing. There. His destination rested just down that hall.

“Are you well, Your Grace?”

Rafe barely suppressed his flinch at the low monotone of his butler. He grunted in response.

Haverford didn’t seem fazed in the least by Rafe’s incivility. Though, since the man had served Rafe’s father, he was sure to be familiar with those who were the epitome of uncivilized.

“We’ll have your items brought up to the master suite straight⁠—”

“No.”

Haverford’s hazel eyes swept over Rafe’s face, but he remained silent.

“Prepare a guest chamber for me.”

Haverford started to nod.

“Not in the right wing.”