The Runaway Duchess (The Lost Duke #3)

Chapter 1

“Where is my bride?” Damien snarled.

His white-knuckled fists were clenched tightly at his sides as he paced the altar of the church.

The guests, though few, all looked at him with wide-eyed apprehension.

No doubt, wondering what the Duke of Ravenshaw was going to do if his bride would not show up.

His friend and Caroline’s cousin, Adrian, was the only one who did not look at him with such wariness.

Instead, he stepped up to Damien calmly and grasped his shoulder, forcing him to stop his pacing.

“Relax, man,” Adrian soothed. “Caroline is only a few minutes late, and it is not at all uncommon for women to be so. Especially on their wedding day.”

Damien paused in his anger and unease enough to watch Adrian cast an affectionate gaze toward his wife, Bridget, and their nearly two-year-old son, Samuel. Their courtship had been… tenuous, but now they had a bond deeper and far more passionate than any marriage Damien had seen before.

Damien would not be fortunate enough to have such a union, though.

He knew that, understood it, and accepted it.

Even if he had gradually become obsessed with Caroline’s calm, quiet demeanor over the years, he knew that such a lovely creature could never love a monster like him.

A marriage sanctioned by the state would be the closest he could ever get to claiming such a woman as his own.

“No,” Damien insisted, shaking his head.

“Her stepmother had been a little too eager to agree to this marriage. And what is even more strange is that she would not let me see Caroline. And the short engagement she insisted upon? She would not even wait for Caroline’s dearest friend and cousin, Elara, to return from abroad, married without her there. Something feels off.”

To his surprise, Adrian let out a laugh.

“I will be damned! You are nervous!” his friend exclaimed. “You are simply looking for things to go wrong, that is all. I know how long you have wished for this.”

Damien scoffed and rolled his amber eyes before setting a narrowed warning gaze on his friend.

“You know I do not get nervous,” he grumbled under his breath. Even as he said so, his palms began to sweat.

Something was wrong. He just could not place it.

“I am just curious as to why someone like Caroline, who is normally so very punctual, is late to her own wedding,” he added.

Damien could feel his friend’s piercing blue eyes on him as he began to pace again, but instead of smirking, Adrian’s lips had formed into a straight line, as if he understood now was not the time to jest.

“To be fair, Damien, you and Caroline have been acquainted with one another for years, but you have rarely, if ever, talked to each other,” Adrian said calmly. “You do not even know her.”

He did, though. He might not have talked to Caroline, but he had watched her.

Watched how, even as she smiled with her cousins, Elara and Bridget, or with her aunt and matron of the Mason family, Nora, there was always a tinge of sadness in her eyes.

He watched as her gown style shifted from the latest designs to simple, slightly out-of-fashion ones.

How quiet she kept herself. How, even when Elara would ask how she was, Caroline always answered with a quiet ‘fine’ before changing the subject.

He watched how she always arrived precisely on time when she and Elara used to meet before sneaking out into the night to investigate Evander’s disappearance all but a year ago.

A bolt of pain moved through Damien’s chest at the thought of his once-suspected-dead friend, the oldest Mason son.

Caroline was not the only person missing from the wedding.

Elara and Constantine had found the supposedly deceased Evander nearly a year ago, badly beaten but alive.

Elara and Constantine had brought Evander home, but once he had healed from his physical injuries, he had reassumed his title as the Duke of Redgrave, holed himself up in his estate in the countryside, and refused to leave it.

The church doors opened then, saving Damien from the painful reminders and memories, and all heads, including his own, snapped to look at the back of the church.

There, standing beside an exquisitely dressed Agatha Mason, was his bride, adorned in white from head to toe; a thick veil covered her face so that not an inch of flesh was revealed.

“See?” Adrian muttered, squeezing Damien’s shoulder as the church’s organ began to play. “I told you all would be well. You must learn patience now that you are to be a married man, old boy.”

Damien could hear Adrian’s words; he could see that the woman in white was finally walking toward him.

Yet as she and Agatha drew closer, the alarm bells in his head would not desist. In fact, they only grew louder as the bride took her place before him and the priest began to speak about the solemn sanctity of marriage.

The man’s voice began to drone in Damien’s ears as he took a harder look at the woman before him; his brain fired off all of the inconsistencies that contrasted with what he knew about Caroline.

Caroline was of average height and of sleek build, but this woman?

She was shorter, much shorter, and even with the layers of wedding fabric, her curves were different than Caroline’s.

“Stop,” Damien commanded, his anger ticking higher. “Stop the ceremony.”

The priest paused, and the bride let out a soft gasp as she took a step back.

“Your Grace,” Agatha hissed in warning.

“Quiet,” he bit out, and reached for the veil covering the bride’s face.

She tried to take another step back, but Damien was faster, pulling the veil away. Gasps echoed through the church, and Damien’s vision blurred with red as he realized he was looking at Lilian’s face, not Caroline’s.

Did she think she would trick me into marrying her other daughter?

Fury choked him as Lilian’s wide, terror-filled eyes met his narrowed ones, and he let out a growl of disgust as he quickly stepped back, as if burned.

Lilian appeared mortified. “Your Grace, I—”

“Out!” he roared, his gaze not leaving Lilian’s face. “Everyone out now!”

At once, Lilian began to move, but he caught her arm and hauled her back to him.

“Not you,” he snarled, then flicked his gaze to Agatha. “Or you either.”

He seethed quietly as the church emptied, waiting until it was only he, Lilian, Agatha, and Adrian remaining.

“What is the meaning of this, Aunt Agatha? Where is my cousin?” Adrian demanded behind Damien.

“Caroline chose not to participate, Your Grace,” Agatha said in her usual, irately calm but icy tone that Damien hated. “So I brought you the better choice. A smart man would leap at such an opportunity.”

Something pinged in the depths of Damien’s mind, and he was sure it was the last withered restraints of his patience finally snapping.

“Step behind your mother, child. This has nothing to do with you,” Damien commanded Lilian through gritted teeth.

The look on Lilian’s face showed she was thankful for the chance to get away from him, and she quickly did as she was told. However, Agatha stepped up to Damien and lifted her chin in a challenge.

“Where is Caroline?” he demanded, staring directly into her small eyes.

Agatha’s smile was slow to form as she looked back at him coolly.

“She does not want to marry you, Your Grace,” she practically purred with delight. “That ungrateful wench ran away as soon as I told her of your proposal. I tried to tell you my daughter was the better choice, but you did not listen. Now she is your only choice.”

Damien’s clenched fists began to tremble at his sides as he felt his violent fury begin to choke him.

He had never struck a woman before, but the haughty look on Agatha’s face was making him think twice about that rule.

He forced himself to take a step back, expelling a pent-up breath through his flared nostrils as his teeth gnashed together.

“If you value your head, you will get out of my way.”

A sliver of satisfaction tried to break through his rage as the confident look on Agatha’s face faded into doubt, and he took another step back.

“Damien,” Adrian muttered from behind him, his tone warning.

Without a word to either of them, Damien turned on his heel and stormed down the aisle to the church’s double doors.

“Your Grace, you cannot just—” Agatha began to yell, but Adrian’s sharp tone cut her off.

“I suggest you take yourselves home and hide, Mrs. Mason, for, by tonight, the ton will be abuzz with what you just tried to do.”

Damien almost smirked, knowing it was true. He did not have to lift a finger to punish Agatha’s attempt. The ton’s gossip mill would do it for him.

“Damien!” Adrian called, hurrying to his side as Damien shoved the church doors open. “Damien, where are you going?”

“Where do you think?” Damien barked back, loosening one of the horses from the bridal carriage awaiting them. Even without a saddle, Damien drew himself up onto the horse’s back, using the leads as reins. “I am going to find my runaway bride and bring her back.”

“Damien, you do not even know where she is!” Adrian said, his tone vehement as Damien kicked at the horse’s sides.

No, Damien thought as his horse began to gallop through the cobblestone streets. But I am certainly going to find out.