“I made a choice,” he said. “To protect you. You have made a mockery of your name, Johnathan. You have courted scandal for a decade. But dragging a woman through the country like a lovesick pup? That was not you. You are a rogue who has adamantly sworn off marriage.”
Johnathan’s voice dropped. “You think I would hurt her?”
“I think you have lost sight of who you are.” He shook his head. “I assured everyone that her reputation was the only thing in danger. You always were good at underestimating what matters most.”
“I found who I am,” Johnathan growled. “With her.”
For long heart-beats, neither spoke.
Then William exhaled. “It does not signify. He is on his way. Cranford. With furry and the lady’s father’s blessing. With power.”
Johnathan stared at him, the truth curdling in his gut.
“You have no idea what you have done,” he whispered. “You think this is about a wayward match? About gossip and embarrassment? He does not want her because he loves her—he wants her because she humiliated him. Because she refused him. I love her”
“I did not know,” William muttered.
“No,” Johnathan said. “You did not ask.”
“And if I had?” William arched an eyebrow.
Johnathan turned away, chest heaving, the fury rising in him dark and sharp. Bloody fool that he was would not have said he loved her before leaving London. William was right, but it scarcely excused his betrayal.
William did not follow.
Johnathan strode from the garden, up the path, toward the center of the hamlet where the sun glinted off rooftops and the scent of heather rolled in with the breeze.
He needed to find Frances.
He needed to marry her or hid her at once.
Before, it was too late.
Johnathan found Frances at the edge of the hamlet green, her basket tucked over one arm, a small loaf of bread and a folded kerchief of strawberries balanced inside. She wore a shawl draped loosely around her shoulders, her cheeks pink from the morning sun.
She looked up when she saw him, smiling. “You ought to have come with me. They are selling the most divine shortbread?—”
“Frances,” he interrupted, too sharp, too fast.
Her breath caught, her heart giving a startled lurch, her fingers tightening around the handle of the basket. For a heartbeat, everything fell away—the sunlight, the market sounds, the scent of strawberries.
She met his gaze, her smile faltering. “What is it?”
He reached her in three long strides and took her arm more firmly than he intended, though his touch immediately gentled. “We must go.”
She blinked. “What? Why?”
He lowered his voice. “Cranford is coming. Someone betrayed us.”
The basket slipped from her arm and hit the grass with a soft thud.
“Who?” she asked.
Johnathan did not answer. He did not need to.
Her eyes narrowed. “One of your friends?”
He nodded once. “William, Duke Powis.”
