Oh no.
It was only two words, but they landed like stones in her belly. He had never spoken toherlike that. He had never touchedherlike that. And here she was, wild-eyed and hiding behind a tree, muddy and torn because she had chased a rabbit intohissecret domestic interlude.
Cordelia pressed her back harder into the bark, her hands trembling slightly.
Calm. Breathe. Compose yourself. Do not cry, you idiot; he is not yours to grieve.
She breathed shallow and fast then deeper, willing the tears to recede. She was fine. At least, she would be, for she had known what men were like. She had seen what love became after vows were exchanged. She had promised herself she would not want this for herself. But she had not counted on wantinghim.
A moment later, she dared peek again through the branches. He was gone, and the woman was, too. Cordelia let out a long breath, willing the knots to unravel. She looked around. Perhaps she could retrieve the rabbit and steal away before her absence became gossip. Perhaps she could pretend none of this had happened. Perhaps, if she were lucky, the earth would simply swallow her. But before she could move, she heard it.
“Looking for me?” His voice was low and dangerous, almost like a growl, and it made all the little hairs on her body stand on end.
The world seemed to quiet around her. Even the birds, those impolite gossips, had gone silent. She turned slowly, and therehe was. Mason Abernathy, the Duke of Galleon, was standing behind her. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
He took one step closer, gaze sweeping over her muddied hem, her flushed cheeks, and her windswept hair.
“Well?” he said, voice still low. “Are you?”
Cordelia could not breathe. Or rather, she could but only in short, sharp bursts, like a bird beating itself against the inside of a cage.
The Duke stood before her, impossibly close, every inch of his frame radiating cool authority and that confounding, infuriating silence. It was as if the forest itself had bent to his presence. She, meanwhile, was a crumpled sketch of a lady: smudged, startled, and hopelessly ill-equipped for conversation.
“I wasn’t looking for you,” she said too quickly and far too loudly. “Obviously not. That would be… I mean, I wouldn’tlookfor you, ever, Your Grace. You told me not to come into the woods and so, naturally, I… well, I did, but that was for entirely unrelated reasons and had nothing to do with?—”
“Miss Brookes,” he said, a single brow lifting with excruciating calm.
Cordelia took a breath. Then immediately lost it again.
“I was chasing a rabbit!” she blurted, pointing accusingly at the henhouse, where Poppy, the treacherous beast, had now decided to nap. “She belongs to the cook’s daughters. Very stupid and very fast. The rabbit, I mean, not the girls. I adore the girls. The girls were crying, Your Grace. And what was I to do? Leave her to be devoured by foxes and forest spirits? Obviously not. So, I climbed the fence, which is a great personal failing, I know, and—why are you here?!”
He blinked. “I live here.”
“No, you don’t! I mean, you do—in the house. The big one with drawing rooms and portraits of scowling ancestors. Not—” she flung her arm toward the modest cottage, “this secret second residence with hens and… domestic entanglements!”
“Domestic—?”
“It’s very improper,” she added in case that had not been clear. “And I shouldn’t have seen anything… truly. If I had known you were here, I’d have tripped in the other direction. I’d have fallen straight into a bog out of decency.”
His expression had changed subtly, and damn him, he appeared even more handsome right now than before. Heat unfurled from the pits of her stomach, and although she never felt that sensation before, she knew exactly what it was. She was jealous.
“I see,” he said. “So, you think me some kind of… rake, then? Is that it?”
“No! I mean, perhaps! I don’twantto think that, of course, but you must understand, it looked a certain way?—”
“And what way was that, precisely?” he asked a touch too quietly.
Cordelia felt herself flush to the roots of her hair. She had not meant to say any of this. And yet here she was, lurching helplessly through every thought she had promised herself she would keep locked away.
“You were with a woman,” she said finally, “and she was very… attached to you. And you made a promise, and she called you back soon, and then she put her arms around you, which, frankly,anyonewould interpret in a certain light and?—”
That was when she stopped because he wasn’t angry anymore. He was staring at her, completely still, with his mouth parted as though she had struck him across the face. Then, after a moment, in a voice half wonder, half disbelief, he voiced himself.
“That’s what you thought I was hiding?”
“What else could you possibly be hiding?” she asked, instantly regretting it. “Is it worse than an affair? Are you—married?”
He gave a short, incredulous laugh, one that sounded almost like it had been startled out of him. “Married? No. No, of course not. Good God.”
