Frances stilled.
“Oh.”
Johnathan grinned. “I thought it deserved a proper goodbye.”
They stood at the crest of the ridge, looking back at the path they had ridden so frantically, so fearfully, just days ago. The same hills. The same trees. But everything had changed.
“Do you remember the night we made camp by that crooked tree?” Frances asked softly, pointing to a knot of twisted oaks in the valley below.
He nodded. “You told me I snored.”
“You did.”
“I was trying to impress you with my rugged wilderness survival.”
She laughed. “It was adorable.”
They stood quietly, hand in hand, until Frances spoke again.
“Will it always be like this, do you think? Scandal chasing us. The past nipping at our heels?”
Johnathan turned to her.
“No,” he said. “One day, we will be the ones leading. Not running.”
Frances stared at him. “Leading where?”
“Anywhere you like.”
And just like that, the ache in her chest eased.
Because she believed him.
The walk back to the inn was quiet. It was the stillness of two people who had said all that mattered—and now only wished to be near one another.
When they reached their room, the midday light had turned buttery and soft, slanting across the wooden floor. The hearth had burned low, but the coals still held a glow. Frances set her bonnet on the bed and began gathering the last of her things—her brush, her books, the ribbon she had worn that night they danced under the stars.
Johnathan leaned against the doorframe, watching her.
She looked up, catching the faint tilt of his head and the softened curve of his lips. “You are staring.”
“I am memorizing.”
Frances raised an eyebrow. “Memorizing what?”
He stepped into the room, his expression suddenly serious in a way that tugged at something deep inside her. “You. Here. In this moment. Before we return to the world.”
She stilled.
“I want to remember you like this,” he said, “before the gossip columns and the invitations and the stares. Before, we are the subject of someone else’s narrative again.”
Frances crossed the room slowly and took his hand. “Then remember this too.”
She drew him close, pressing her forehead to his.
“I love you,” she said softly. “Not because you saved me. But because you did not ask me to be anyone but myself.”
His arms closed around her, the warmth of his coat seeping into her skin as she pressed her face against his chest, breathing in the familiar scent of wood-smoke and something uniquely him. “And I love you, Frances Seton, Duchess of Hargate, because you made me remember who I was supposed to be. Not the rake, not the duke. Just the man who could stand beside you and not flinch.”
