“I am sorry you must stand between us,” he said. “Between your family and… this life with me.”
“You are not something I must endure,” Fiona replied firmly. “You are the life I chose.”
Something flickered in his eyes at that.
He reached for her hand, closing his fingers around it with quiet strength.
“Then we shall face it together,” he said.
She stepped closer, resting her free hand against his chest.
“What will you do?”
“I will write again,” he said after a moment. “More carefully this time. I will make it plain that you remain here of your own free will. That I intend to marry you, and that my intentions are entirely honourable.”
Fiona searched his face—the determination there, the quiet steadiness beneath the hurt.
“I do not regret coming here,” she said softly. “Not for a moment.”
His hand tightened around hers.
“Nor do I.”
For a long moment, they stood together in the entrance hall, the letter still folded between them like an unwelcome witness.
Outside, the last of the mist had begun to lift from the hills.
But Fiona could not shake the uneasy sense that the storm gathering around them had only just begun.
Chapter Fourteen
Christian did not come to dinner.
Fiona sat alone in the small breakfast room, pushing listlessly at a meal she could not taste while the candles burned low and the shadows stretched along the panelled walls. Mrs Blackley had offered to send a tray to the Duke’s study, but Christian had declined it with quiet thanks.
“He said he had letters to write,” the housekeeper had explained gently.
Fiona knew what that meant.
He was writing to her father.
The thought should have reassured her. It had been his own proposal, after all—to try again, to explain matters calmly and honourably. Yet the memory of her father’s letter lingered like a bitter taste. Words once written could not easily be unwritten, and she feared what further injury they might yet cause.
Still, she forced herself to remain where she was. Christian had asked only for a little time, and she would grant him that much.
She had just resigned herself to another lonely hour when a hesitant knock sounded at the door.
“Miss Hart?”
She looked up to see Thomas lingering in the doorway, his expression apologetic.
“What is it, Thomas?”
“It’s His Grace, miss. He—well—he stepped out a short while ago.”
“Stepped out?” Fiona set down her fork. “Where did he go?”
“Toward the cliffs, I believe. Mrs Blackley thought perhaps you should know.”
