Geoffrey blinked.“It’s to be immediate, then?No fortnight’s notice?”
“You’ll find a full year’s compensation inside that satchel.”
“I see.”Geoffrey rolled back his broad shoulders.“You are generous to a fault, my lord.”
You are worth that and more, the duke responded only in his head.
Geoffrey nodded once, then turned toward the door.“I’ll be gone within a quarter hour.”
Donovan watched him leave.His hands still gripped the side of his desk to prevent himself from reaching for the leather satchel and flinging it aside, then yanking his valet into his arms and crushing his firm lips with a kiss.
It was better to leave things like this.Cold.Professional.
Final.
When the door clicked into place, Donovan sank back into his chair.If his columns of accounts had blurred before, there was no hope of making sense of them now.
Not when it felt as though the satchel itself was a grenade.Once which had gone off without warning, exploding through Donovan’s chest and shattering him into a thousand tiny shards.
With growing agony, he watched the minute hand on his tall case clock tick forward.Five minutes.Ten.Fifteen.
Geoffrey was a man of his word.He had left by now.
Gone.
Forever.
“God damn it.”Donovan swiped his arm across his desk, knocking all of his ducal responsibilities to the floor.
In most aristocratic households, a lord in possession of a household of servants would barely have time to hear fallen objects clatter before maids and footmen rushed in to tidy his mess.In Donovan’s home, it was always Geoffrey who hovered a heartbeat away, ready to step forward at the slightest sign he might be needed.
He wasn’t here now, and would never be again.Those days were done.The clock marched on.
The question was whetherDonovancould go on.One day, yes, he would be forced to take up the full mantle of his title and all the matrimonial responsibilities it entailed, but today need not be that day.If he acted quickly, he might still manage a short reprieve.
Donovan sprang up from his chair and bolted from the study.Heart pounding, lungs panting, he raced through the corridor and down the stairs and past the startled butler and out the front door and onto the garden.
A hackney carriage was just pulling to a stop next to Geoffrey and a single tall valise.
“Wait!”Donovan shouted, the word tangling in his throat and getting whipped by the wind, yet somehow reaching Geoffrey’s ears.
His valet spun about, hope and wariness competing in his eyes.
“You’re right,” Donovan called out.“You deserve a fortnight’s notice.It’s only fair.I was hasty.I wasn’t thinking… I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be able… A year’s severance isn’t enough.I’ll fix that, too.Just… Come back.Comewithme.”
Geoffrey blinked.“Go with you where?”
“To Marrywell,” Donovan answered.“Where even dukes fall in love.”
Chapter4
The following morning, Donovan and his not-entirely-dismissed valet set out for Marrywell in the ducal coach-and-four.Ten yards ahead, a similar black carriage contained his brother Bernard and sister-in-law Sorcha.
They had invited Donovan to join them, and to send along any necessary attendants in one of the two trailing carriages containing trunks and servants.The duke had declined as politely as he was able.Making this pilgrimage was concession enough.Suffering through two blissful lovebirds chirping on about all the beautiful women Donovan would soon be surrounded by, and the imminent date in which he would be leg-shackled to one for the rest of his life…
Good God, no.He’d ratherwalkthe sixty miles than pretend to smile for eight hours at the prospect of a future so bleak.
Not to mention… Eight hours in a private cabin with Geoffrey was not a treat the duke was willing to deny himself.
