Chapter 2 #2
Before she could answer, her carriage driver, who had remained near the steps in growing unease, cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but I am perfectly capable of seeing my lady safely to the proper chapel.”
Rowan turned his head toward him. “I do not doubt it. But this is a matter of duty now.” His gaze shifted back to Emmeline. “You were brought here because of my household. I will make amends for that myself.”
“It was only a mistake,” she said, though there was hesitation in it now. “You need not trouble yourself further.”
“I will trouble myself exactly as much as the situation requires.”
She fell silent, her fingers knotting in her skirts before forcing themselves to let go. She looked at him, and the heat in her gaze struck the coldness that had taken root in him that morning, melting it where it stood.
“Very well,” she said at last.
Rowan inclined his head once. “Good.”
The carriage had been moving for several minutes before Emmeline found the courage to look away from the passing trees.
The Duke sat opposite her, broad-shouldered and silent, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the window. His jaw was locked so tightly that even the shadow of his beard could not soften it.
Emmeline folded her gloved hands in her lap. She told herself not to speak. It was not her place. She had been pulled into his family’s disaster by accident, nothing more.
And yet she remembered Lady Juliet. Not well.
Only from one or two assemblies, where the young lady had seemed sweet, quiet, and almost painfully eager to be agreeable.
Emmeline remembered a soft smile, a nervous laugh, and the impression of someone who felt everything more deeply than she was allowed to show.
Her concern slipped past her caution.
“Is Lady Juliet all right, do you think?” she asked quietly.
The Duke’s gaze shifted to her at once. “All right?”
“I only meant…” Emmeline hesitated, aware of the danger in prying into a matter that was not hers. “We have met before. Not intimately, of course, but she seemed very gentle. I cannot imagine she would have done such a thing lightly.”
His expression hardened. “You cannot imagine it, yet she has done it.”
“Yes,” Emmeline said softly. “Which is why I wonder what must have driven her to it.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
The silence in the carriage changed. It grew tighter, charged with something more than inconvenience. She saw then that he was not merely angry. He was afraid, though the fear had been forced into the shape of control.
“She was not driven,” he said. “She ran.”
Emmeline looked down at her hands. “Perhaps she felt she had no other way to be heard.”
His eyes sharpened on her.
“You believe she was right to run?”
Emmeline drew a slow breath before meeting his gaze. “I believe no one should be made to marry against their will.”
The Duke’s jaw tightened, and the air inside the carriage shifted with it. The quiet was charged in a way that made Emmeline suddenly too aware of the space between them.
“She was not forced,” he said. “She understood what was expected of her.”
Emmeline held his gaze, though something in her chest pressed tighter at the certainty in his tone.
“And yet she ran,” she replied.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The Duke leaned back slightly, though there was nothing relaxed in the movement, his broad shoulders still holding that same rigid control she had seen from the moment he stepped toward her.
“You do not know the situation,” he said.
“No,” Emmeline agreed, her voice softer now, “but I know what it is to stand before something that feels… wrong, even if everyone around you insists that it is right.”
His eyes sharpened at that. “And you would still choose duty.”
Emmeline’s breath caught. She should not have said that. She should not have let him see even that small piece of her. And yet—
“I would choose what must be done,” she said. “Yes.”
The words came out steadier than she felt, but something in her chest twisted as she spoke them. They sounded colder now, spoken aloud, than they ever had inside her own mind.
The Duke watched her for a long moment, his gaze searching in a way that made her pulse quicken, though she could not have said why.
“And you think my sister right for not doing the same?” he asked.
Emmeline shook her head slightly. “I think your sister… brave.”
The Duke’s expression hardened at once.
“Brave?” he repeated, a sharp edge creeping into his voice now. “She has left her family to face the consequences of her actions. She has humiliated herself, her household, and the man she was meant to marry. That is not bravery.”
“It is,” Emmeline said quietly, “if she believed she would lose herself otherwise.”
Something darkened in his eyes then, and he leaned forward slightly without seeming to realize it, closing the distance between them. Emmeline felt his breath press against her skin, and it sent shivers down her spine.
“And what of those she leaves behind?” he asked. “Do they not matter?”
“They do,” Emmeline said, her voice steady even as her pulse quickened and she became acutely aware of how close he was now, of the faint scent of something clean and sharp that seemed to cling to him. “But so does she.”
The Duke’s gaze dropped to her mouth before returning to her eyes. The movement was so quick she might have imagined it, if not for the way it sent a sudden, unexpected heat through her.
“She made a choice,” he said.
“As did you,” Emmeline replied, before she could stop herself. “To decide what is best for her.”
The Duke went very still.
“I did not decide,” he said, and there was something sharper beneath the control now. “I ensured stability. Security. A future that would not depend on whims.”
“On love,” Emmeline blurted before she could stop herself.
Silence fell. There was something deeper in the Duke’s eyes now that made her breath feel suddenly too shallow.
“Love,” he repeated, the word sounding almost foreign in his mouth. “Is that what you would have chosen?”
Emmeline’s throat tightened. She should not answer. She should remain composed, distant, untouched. And yet, sitting across from him, with his eyes fixed on hers, she felt her last careful defense give way.
“Yes,” she said softly.
The Duke did not look away.
“And you would throw everything else aside for it?” he asked, his face drawing even closer to hers.
“No,” Emmeline said, her voice barely above a whisper now. “But I would want it to be there.”
Something flickered in his expression then, gone almost as soon as it appeared.
The carriage slowed.
The shift was subtle, but Emmeline snapped back to herself, just enough to let reality press back in. The Duke leaned back again, the distance returning between them, though the air did not settle as easily as it should have.
The carriage came to a stop.
The door opened, and the outside world rushed back in—voices, movement, the faint echo of a gathering already in disarray.
The Duke stepped down first and then he turned and reached up for her hand.
Emmeline hesitated for the briefest moment, her gaze dropping to his hand, to the strength in it, the steadiness, before she placed her gloved fingers in his. A small, sharp current passed between them, burning her skin.
The Duke’s grip tightened just slightly as he helped her down, his hand lingering a fraction longer than necessary before releasing her.
Emmeline stepped onto the ground.
“Emmeline!”
Her father’s urgent, relieved voice broke through the noise.
She turned at once, her heart lurching at the sight of him rushing toward her. “Papa—”
He reached her quickly, taking her hands in his, his gaze moving over her as though to confirm she was truly there, unharmed.
“Where have you been?” he demanded, panting. “We sent men after you, and then—”
His gaze flicked briefly toward Rowan, confusion settling in.
Behind him, Emmeline saw the guests; some were already leaving, others lingering, their movements slowing now that she had arrived, their voices rising again, whispering, watching.
Something was wrong.
“I—there was a mistake,” she said, her voice tightening slightly as she looked back at her father. “I was taken to the wrong chapel.”
“Come,” he said quickly, guiding her gently toward the side, away from the growing attention. “We must speak.”
The Duke followed a step behind them. Emmeline felt that awareness of him again, even as her focus shifted to her father.
“What has happened?” she asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
Lord Weston’s expression faltered.
“You took too long,” he said, his voice lower now, strained. “When you did not arrive, I sent men to look for you. They went toward the village and returned with… with talk.”
Emmeline’s stomach tightened. “What sort of talk?”
He hesitated. “A lady,” he said slowly, “a bride, passed through the inn not long ago. She offered her wedding dress in exchange for another’s clothes. She fled.”
A chill ran through her spine, but she didn’t speak.
“And when the Duke of Foxdale heard this,” her father continued, his grip tightening slightly on her hands, “he assumed it was you.”
Emmeline felt the ground shift beneath her. “He… what?”
“He called the wedding off,” Lord Weston said quietly. “It’s too late.”