Her kind, tender Fox.
How she loved him.
And, logically, Leah understood that Fox cared for her in his way. A man didn’t drive ten miles down a mountain glen and arrange the management of an entire farm simply because he was bored.
But their fragile tentative new growth toward a true marriage had now been uprooted.
Would the pain and grief of Madeline being torn from their grasp freeze the tender bud of Fox’s devotion?
And if it did, how was Leah to bear it?
“She’s unconscious!” theduchess shrieked, panting rapidly, hands pointing to Madeline. “Do something!”
She looked wildly between Fox and her husband.
The duke stared down at his grandchild, eyes wide.
Madeline lay unmoving on the carpet, skin pale, her eyes fluttered closed.
She was, thankfully, breathing again.
Fox shook his head. If he hadn’t watched his niece do this same thing scores of times before, he would have been just as panicked as the duke and duchess.
But even so, his heart still beat a rapid tattoo in his chest.
“Oh!” The duchess fluttered her hands before her bosom. “This is simply too much to withstand!” She gasped, and then abruptly, her skin paled, her eyes rolled back into her head, and her knees buckled.
Her Grace fainted dead away.
Only Fox’s quick reflexes kept the woman from hitting the floor.
Fox eased Her Grace gently onto the sofa.
The duke stared, gaze darting between his unconscious wife and listless granddaughter. The poor man looked haggard.
He said nothing for a long moment.
“She always wanted a daughter, you see,” the duke murmured, all the boom gone out of him. “We had one once, but our tiny girl only lived a week. I don’t know that my duchess has ever recovered from her grief. When we heard about Madeline, it seemed . . . heaven sent.”
The man’s broken recitation tugged at Fox’s heart strings.
But Fox hadn’t been a military captain for nothing. He recognized a crumbling defense when he saw it.
“I am sorry for your loss, Your Grace. But Madeline has a family here. You are taking her from everything and everyone she has ever known and loved. My wife loves her.Ilove her.” Fox’s voice broke. He spoke through the emotion. “Taking her from us would be akin to the loss of your own babe. Even after every vile, inhumane thing Dennis did to—to Susan, to myself personally—I have always treasured his child as if she were my own.”
That got the duke’s attention.
His head snapped up. “Dennis hurt you? Specifically? Not just your sister?”
“Yes.” Fox’s eyebrows lifted in surprise that the duke didn’t already know the entirety of the tale. “Honoria Hampstead, or I suppose Lady Dennis Battleton now, was my betrothed. Lord Dennis seduced her. Knowing that I would call him out for his actions—betraying my sister and debauching my intended bride—Dennis ensured I was placed at the front-line of Coorg and prayed I would meet my end there.”
The duke hissed in a pained breath.
“My son sent you to die.” It was not a question.
“He did.” Fox held the duke’s gaze, letting him read the truth of those words.
A troubled furrow creased Westhampton’s brow. His eyes dropped back to Madeline on the floor. “I always knew you were cut from a better cloth than my son. But until now, I have not appreciated how much nobler of heart you truly are, Captain.”
