Can it really be him?
The man tearing through the dockside crowd was not the pristine, dashing Duke she had known in Welton House. Gone was the effortless poise and the sharp, tailored silhouette of the aristocracy. This man was a specter of desperation. His fine wool coat was stained with the grime of the East End, and there was no cravat at the collar. He was hatless. His golden brown hair was whipped into a chaotic frenzy by the gale. His cerulean eyes, once cool, distant, and calculating, were now wide and burning with a terrifying, singular heat that burned only for her.
She watched with wide eyes as he moved with a jagged, animalistic urgency that sent porters scurrying and crates toppling in his wake. As he sprinted toward her, a frantic silhouette against the towering hull of theAtlantic Star, Imogen realized with a jolt of pure ice in her veins that the polished veneer had finally shattered. What remained was a man stripped of his titles and his pride, propelled by a madness she had never dared to imagine.
He wasn’t just coming for her. He was reclaiming her from the very edge of the world.
I have never wanted anything more, she thought to herself as her hands began to tremble.
“Oh, Ambrose?” she whispered, almost to herself in sheer disbelief. He skidded to a stop in front of her, his hands reaching out to catch her shoulders as if to anchor her to the earth. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here!” She shouted over the whipping wind.
“I am exactly where I belong,” he panted, his broad chest heaving up and down.
People began to stop and stare then. Porters paused with their loads, and travelers peered from their carriages at the spectacle of a Duke confronting a lowly woman such as herself in the mud of the docks.
“You have to go back,” she cried, tears welling. “The boys, the scandal. This is too public, too much!”
“I will do no such thing,” he rasped, his shoulders square as he looked down at her.
“Ambrose, please, I’m doing this for you! Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”
“Then stop, Imogen! Just stop,” he commanded, his voice dropping to a low, fierce register that silenced the immediate crowd. He took her face into his hands. “Listen to me. I have spent my life being the Duke. I have spent every waking momentworrying about the Welton name and the propriety of my house. And in one week without you, I realized that a name is nothing but breath and air… if you aren’t there to hear it.”
“Ambrose, the world will eat us alive!”
“To hell with the world!” he shouted, and for a moment, he wasn’t a peer of the realm, but a man stripped bare. Imogen could feel it in the marrow of her bones.
“Oh, Ambrose,” she said once more, tears prickling her eyes.
“I love you, Imogen. I love you with a desperation that frightens me. It’s a feeling I have never known,” he began. “The house is an Egyptian tomb without you, filled with finery and frippery but no life. You bring life to my world.”
“And you to mine,” she cried as the tears began to stream down her cheeks.
“The boys are broken.Iam broken. I cannot imagine a single day of the rest of my life where I don’t see your face across the breakfast table. Put us back together, Imogen.”
“It is not that simple, Ambrose. Much as I want it to be…”
He reached into his coat and pulled out a piece of parchment, pressing it into her trembling hands. “Read it. This is for you.”
Imogen opened the parchment and squinted at the script, her breath hitching as her eyes scanned the rows of text.
“Is this what I think it is?”
“Yes, it is.”
“A declaration of… legitimacy? Lady Presholm signed it? She recognized me as a Marden?” She looked up at him, stunned. “How? She hates me more than I can even articulate, for my entire life. How did you do this?”
“It doesn’t matter how it was done,” he said, his thumb brushing a tear from her cheek. “I would go to the ends of the Earth for you.”
“She will not stand for this. She will fight. You cannot imagine my despair when she shattered all my prospects!”
“I assure you that she is truly gone, Imogen. She will never trouble you again. You are no longer a woman of an uncertain reputation. You are a lady by blood, and you will be a Duchess by marriage.”
“A Duchess?” She asked, the words catching in her throat as she began to realize what he was proposing.
“I will protect you. I will protect the boys. No one will ever whisper a word against you again, or they will answer to me. You. Are. Mine.”
The crowd was silent now, caught in the gravity of the moment. The ship’s whistle let out a mournful blast, signaling imminent departure.
