She didn’t turn around again, but she knew that he was chasing her now.Of course, he was.Dashing dukes had long legs and far too much moral fortitude, but what she had was more motivating: madness.
She bolted through the front doors of Galleon House and into the open night like a wild, disgraced governess fleeing her tragic past. The wind hit her face instantly. Her slippers slid on the gravel, but she didn’t stop. The woods at the edge of the estate loomed ahead, black and tangled and absolutely perfect for hiding from responsibility.
“Miss!” the Duke’s voice rang behind her, this time sharp and commanding.
She dodged a hedge, and she tripped over an ornamental urn. Then, she found the gap in the hedgerow, the one she’d seen earlier when the footmen lit the garden torches. She squeezed through with all the dignity of a disoriented squirrel and vanished into the trees.
Behind her, somewhere in the dark, she thought she heard the Duke shout her name again, but the night swallowed it whole.
Cordelia Brookes ran deeper into the woods, heart hammering, slippers ruined, and dignity long gone.
Despite what she had just done, Cordelia had always fancied herself a woman of reasonably sound judgment… until approximately twenty-seven minutes ago.
The forest, it turned out, was much larger than it had seemed from the terrace. It was darker and colder. It was also filled with birds which she did not appreciate one bit, particularly when they flapped out of the trees like winged goblins sent to punish her for inflicting blunt trauma upon a viscount.
“This is fine,” she muttered aloud, clutching her shawl tighter around her shoulders and stepping delicately over what she dearly hoped was not animal droppings. “Everything is entirely fine. I’ve read novels. I’ve seen paintings. Heroines do this sort of thing all the time, this running into the night and escaping the confines of cruel society. Surely, there’s a rustic inn just over the hill with a kindhearted stable boy and a room with gingham curtains.”
She paused and stared around her. There was no hill, no inn, and absolutely no gingham. There was, however, mud and lots of it.
“I am going to die in these woods,” she breathed to herself. “And worse, someone’s going to find me, and they’ll say, ‘She perished tragically with half her bodice undone and twigs in her hair like a lunatic hedgehog’.”
She spun slowly, surveying the trees. “Which direction is north? Where is the road? Isawa road, I think. Unless it was a footpath or a decorative trench for rainwater or something equally misleading and unhelpful?—”
Her words were interrupted by the sound of wheels. It immediately made her heart leap. And there, through the trees, she saw blessed, beautiful lights of lanterns swaying left and right.
She bolted toward it. “Stop! Hello! Wait! I am not a highwaywoman!”
While she was so utterly overwhelmed with relief to have seen someone, she realized, albeit too late, that she was running directly into the path of the oncoming carriage. The carriage driver screamed something unintelligible, which was probably a prayer or an insult, so it was for the better that she didn’t hear him. The carriage veered, the horses shrieked, and Cordelia, in all her bedraggled glory, stumbled straight into the chaos.
She did not get run over which felt like a miracle. However, the horse seemed to have some unspoken grudge against dramatic women, and it tossed its head in alarm, catching her squarely in the shoulder.
She flew backward with all the grace of a dislodged scarecrow, hit the ground with a thud, and promptly decided to lie there for a moment while she re-evaluated her entire existence.
A face appeared above hers.
“Oh,” she whispered faintly. “Have I died? Are you an angel? Because if you are, I should warn you, I’m not at all dressed for it.”
“Darling,” came a voice both elegant and alarming in its calmness, “are you quite finished attempting to throw yourself under carriages for the evening?”
Cordelia blinked up blearily. It was a woman. She was a tall, stately figure wrapped in a deep green velvet cloak, her silver hair immaculately coiled beneath a small, feathered hat, and her eyes were fixed directly on Cordelia’s mud-splattered form with a peculiar sort of fondness.
“I—” Cordelia opened her mouth and promptly forgot every word she had ever known.
The woman stepped down from the carriage with all the ease of a queen descending from her throne. “I do hope you haven’t completely dislocated your limbs. That would be tremendously painful.”
“I… what… no I don’t think so?” Cordelia stammered, attempting to sit up straighter and brushing wildly at her hair which now contained at least three sticks, one pine needle, and something that may have been a beetle.
The woman gave her a long, assessing look. Then, she turned toward the startled footman, who had clearly not expected the evening to include frantic women emerging from the underbrush.
“James,” she said kindly. “Blanket, please.”
Cordelia blinked again. “Are you… an angel?”
The woman turned back to her. “Hardly, my dear. I’m the Dowager Duchess of Galleon. And you, young lady, are coming with me before you frighten any more horses.”
Cordelia’s stomach dropped. “The Duchess?”
She tried to rise but failed spectacularly.
