She’d had to leave. What choice had she? Could she trust those words?
Yet… the way he’d spoken them…
They’d hit her heart like the truth.
But how could there bethattruth when lies lay between them?
All she’d known, sitting at that dining table, was that she needed to get out of those borrowed clothes, out of that duke’s castle, and beneath the stars and open air where she could draw proper breath and think clearly.
First, she would get herself back to Matlock Bath. She and Tilly still had three days on their room, and perhaps the Dowager Duchess would arrive tomorrow for her dressmaking session as planned, like nothing of import had transpired tonight. Like Nell hadn’t refused the woman’s offer of hospitality and rudely marched out of the family castle without so much as a fare-thee-well.
Perhaps… But not very likely. Tonight, she’d most assuredly lostGalante: Dressmakers Extraordinairea valuable client.
Tonight, she’d lost much more, too. She felt it in her gut, in her bones…
In her heart.
She felt it everywhere she could feel.
Loss.
She’d known it before. She touched her locket.
Loss throbbed. It ached. It turned the world dull gray.
But what she knew, holding on to Ewan’s locket, was that there was light at the end of that dark tunnel.
And yet these last three days… It was as if a whirlwind had swept her up and transported her into a dream. Past loss had taught her to be wary of such forces, but how had it been possible for her to resist? They’d been a perfect three days. She wouldn’t change a thing about them, save one.
Lucas wouldn’t be a duke.
He would still be a mister.
But…
Would the last three days have happened if she’d known he was a duke?
The answer was instantaneous and stopped her in her tracks.
No.
He would have told her, and she would have given him the smile. The one that never failed to provide her a safe distance.
She would have only seen a duke. She would’ve never been able to see Lucas. He would’ve gone his way and she hers.
Would that have been fair?
No.
For hadn’t he known who she was all along? And hadn’t he treated her on equal footing to him? Aristocrats were the ones who were supposed to be snobbish. But wasn’t she the one with prejudice in this situation?
Was it possible that he’d been in the wrong, but perhaps, so had she?
Then she heard it.
The rapid clip of footsteps crunching across crushed gravel. She turned and saw a silhouette limned in light from the distant castle racing toward her.
Lucas.
