J.
For one moment Rowan saw nothing but the shape of the familiar letters. She was in London, close enough to send this and to know. His heart pounded.
He lifted his head sharply. “Who brought this?”
The butler straightened. “It was left on the doorstep, Your Grace. No one was there by the time it was noticed.”
Rowan was already moving.
He reached the front steps in seconds, the morning air striking cold against his face as he scanned the street. Carriages passed. A flower-seller called from the corner. Two boys ran by too fast, laughing over some private contest. A lady in gray walked with a maid half a block away. Nothing. No figure lingering. No messenger. No trace.
“Damn it.”
He stood there only another moment before turning back inside, already thinking ahead, his chest tightening. She was near. Close enough to touch the edges of his life and retreat again.
When he reentered the hall, he saw a footman crossing from the rear passage and stopped him at once.
“You,” Rowan said, handing over the note. “Take this to every stationery shop in London if you must. Match the paper, the cut, the quality. Find where it came from.”
The young man stared at the folded page, then back at Rowan. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“And if anyone asks, the contents are none of their concern. No one reads it. No one repeats a word of it. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Go.”
The footman hurried off at once.
Rowan remained where he was for one long second, staring after him, Juliet’s apology still burning in his mind, Aaron’s small voice beneath it—I miss her—and beyond even that, sharper now than before, the knowledge that his wedding was drawing near…
While one part of his household remained suspended in a wound that refused to close.
Chapter Ten
“Do not cry, Papa,” Emmeline whispered, though her own throat had tightened so badly around the words that they scarcely sounded steady.
Lord Weston gave a short, uneven laugh beside her. “I am doing no such thing.”
He was, of course. She heard it in the slight roughness of his breathing and saw it in the shine he could not quite blink away when he turned to look at her. His arm was warm and trembling very faintly beneath her hand.
For one moment, Emmeline could not seem to think of the altar ahead of them, or the vows she was only steps away from speaking. She thought only of her father and the strange, almost painful mix of relief and grief moving through her at once.
The chapel was small.
Only a narrow aisle, polished wood, pale morning light falling through tall windows, and the few people required to witness what was about to happen.
Margaret sat near the front with her father, her hands clasped too tightly. Lord Calham lounged carelessly with Aaron sitting beside him in a dark little coat, his wooden horse absent for once, which somehow made his effort at dignity more touching.
The Duke stood waiting at the altar.
He didn’t look like the dazed, love-struck grooms of her girlhood stories. He looked grave. Severe. A man executing a strategy, his jaw set.
Then his eyes lifted.
The impact hit her low in the stomach with a sudden, heavy heat. The vast, vaulted church vanished, leaving only the heat of his gaze. Every line of him—the broad slope of his shoulders, the hard precision of his mouth—looked like a promise of something carnal.
She felt the sudden, frantic thud of her pulse at the base of her throat.
