Fortunately, she did not need to prolong it even further, because just as a dance was about to end and she had begun to search for another unsuspecting hero, a hand pulled her by the wrist from her dance partner. She whirled around to face Godric, her heart sinking into her stomach fearfully.
“Your –”
“Be quiet. We are going home.” He stated, as he begun to walk off the dance floor.
“Now, hold on a moment,” her dance partner tried to protest but after Godric shot him a withering glare, he wisely decided to mind his own affairs.
Nora struggled against Godric’s grip, embarrassed that he could easily drag her through the crowd of onlookers without any concerns.
“Y-Your Grace, stop. Let me go!” she demanded, still struggling to free herself from his grasp. “You are going to incite a scandal about us!”
“I do not care!” he snapped, not faltering in the slightest as he pushed her in the direction of his carriage. “Get inside. Now.”
Feeling humiliated, Nora did as he asked, climbing into the carriage, pointedly keeping her gaze on the window. He embarked after her, settling in the seats on the opposite side and soon the carriage began to move, taking them back to their dwelling.
Nora did what she could to brace for the earful she believed she would receive, but nothing but silence filled the carriage as the journey progressed. Nora tried to ignore the tense silence, butshe could not help but feel uneasy, even more so because she could feel his gaze fixed on her.
Eventually, she reached her limit and she faced him, demanding angrily,
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Godric’s dark eye remained trained on her as he questioned in turn,
“I should be asking you the same thing. What did you think you were doing – behaving like that tonight?”
“I was dancing, Your Grace. I am sure that a man of your social standing and proper upbringing is familiar with the activity, no? It is an activity that is meant to be fun and shared by two individuals or more. Seeing as I had no company of chaperone for the night, I decided my time was better spent dancing the night away.”
Nora was all too aware that she sounded like a petulant child. But she had no interest in giving Godric the satisfaction of thinking that she feared him. He needed to understand that he held no place of importance in her life.
“You were finding your own partners, moving from one man to another, like a desperate creature, all night long. Do you have any idea what that would do to your reputation?” Godric asked, his expression growing darker with each passing moment.
“I imagine that it cannot be worse than the damage incurred after you dragged me out of the ballroom ten minutes ago,” she hissed, folding her arms. “I do not understand why you are acting so rashly. You are being rather dramatic, and it is unbecoming of you.”
It took a moment and a deeper furrow of Godric’s brows for Nora to realize why his expression seemed so foreign to her.
He was angry. Angry enough that she could see and recognize it for what it was clearly. A thrill ran through her, but her joy was short lived because the duke was not done with his line of questioning.
“What have you been doing lately? I have made several house calls personally and I have also sent letters. But none of the lettered received any response and you never agreed to see me. Your maids informed me that you were feeling under the weather, and I suspected that was the reason that you refused to grant me an audience. The least you could have done was respond to my letters.” Godric told her with a grimace.
“You sound as though my sudden absence in your life left quite an impression. Tell me, Your Grace; were you worried about me?” she shot back, expecting quick denial.
But the duke simply stared at her blankly, silence filling the carriage once more.
Nora had reached her limit and had grown sick of his childish mannerisms. If he wasn’t sulking silently, then he was letting hiscold expression speak for him. But Nora knew there was much more to him that any of that and no longer would she pretend otherwise.
Not if she hoped for some sort of resolution and understanding between them tonight.
“Were you worried about me, Your Grace?” she repeated.
Godric’s gaze was locked on hers and then slowly, nodded.
“Yes. I was really worried.”
His admission filled her with immense satisfaction, and instinctively, Nora’s lips parted and she demanded,
“Kiss me, then.”
It was a challenge she had not expected him to take, but when he moved forward to comply, gently curling his fingers around her chin to tilt her face up to him, her heart began to quake as their lips met.
