Chapter 25 （Continued）
“And I hope to be able to dance with you as often as I like,” Ella said, her eyes twinkling.
Dietrich’s heart broke a little more. She couldn’t know that she was to marry another young lord—not if she was saying these things.
But how could he tell her and break her heart?
She deserved for her heart to be whole as long as possible, and he didn’t have it in him to be the one to break it—at least not yet.
He was saved from having to answer by someone tapping on his shoulder, and he turned to see the young lord.
“May I cut in?” the young lord asked, and Ella’s smile faltered as she turned to him. She looked back at Dietrich, her eyes wide, begging him to say no, but he could not.
He took a step back, nodding to the young lord and bowing to Ella, with his heart in his throat. He turned and nearly ran off the dance floor, bursting through the servant’s door and tearing the mask from his face.
She was not his. She never had been, and he was a fool if he allowed himself to think that he could be hers. Duchesses did not marry stable boys.