“Cheverley met her and was unmoved.”
She frowned. “Cheverley...” Her frown deepened. “I know that name.”
His heart seized, but he nonchalantly folded an arm behind his head. “An old friend from Eton.”
“Cheverley...” she repeated.
He could almost see the connections being made. “I doubt you would have met. He served in a diplomatic position during the war, and has been missing for some time.”
“A situation no family should bear,” she murmured.
He thought of his mother, declared dead after seven years gone. Then, he thought of Chev’s wife Pen. “Agreed,” he said. “It’s been hardest on his wife. She still holds hope. I helped them elope.”
“Really?”
“Yes. His father was furious. When he could not annul the marriage, he sent Chev away, hoping he’d never return.”
She sighed. “How cruel and unjust.”
Unjust. Yes. “Do you truly wish to speak of Cheverley?”
She studied him for a long moment. “Actually, I wish to be in your arms.”
Clever woman, Lady Stone.
“Well, then. We are in complete agreement.”
He set aside the tangled mess of their pasts and fully embraced their present.
The duke was as beautiful in slumber as he’d been atop his horse. They’d spent their second day alternating between making love and making conversation, so why did he seem an even greater mystery?
How could someone with an air of such menace be so gentle? How could a man rarely in society anticipate her every need? Believing Ashbey was a man of consummate power had been easy, catching a glimpse of the pain he denied left a cavern in her heart.
Ashbey was like that castle atop the hill, wounded, sad, and vacant. And like the castle, she wished Ashbey could be healed and made whole. She was certain the inky force swirling around him like the never-ending storm beyond the window was capable of drawing men to him as easily as it pushed them away.
If only there were someone willing to bring light back into his life.
She gazed at his slumber-softened features, and tenderness bloomed in her heart. A tenderness that encompassed all she wished for and all she could not have.
The duke could never be hers. And if some small, rebellious part of her heart was wishing the impossible, she had only herself to blame.
She would never be breathtaking like the duke. She would never be dazzling like the countess. She was just Alicia, orphan from the West Indies, childless wife, duty-bound widow.
Even if heaven parted the waters between them, how could she be enough for the duke, when she’d never been enough for Octavius?
The thought caused a stabbing pain. She pulled away and clutched the cover.
For the past two days, she’d become someone else. Someone exciting. Someone free. Someone who seized what they wanted. Someone bold.
She was not bold, nor exciting, nor, heaven help her, even free.
She had Octavius’s family to care for and protect. And she had to do so in the all-encompassing shadow of the countess and her child.
All she had was one more day. One more day to inhabit this other self. She would do so. And then she would find a way to live in the cold, lonely echo of what had been.
She drew the sheet up to her chin, as if drawing the fabric close could protect her from all she did not know and all she feared she would never understand.
Chapter Ten
