Page 119 of Bound to the Heartless Duke
Lily didn’t feel it, though. Not truly. Not when her gaze was fixed ahead.
Especially when her focus was on the person they had been searching for.
There her brother was, thinking he could escape them. Thinking he could escape her husband.
He looked smaller somehow under the porch of a rundown inn. His coat was threadbare, and his shoulders were hunched with fatigue, or shame, or perhaps both.
Her face contorted with disgust as she realized he was arguing with a man twice his size. The man was blocking the inn’s doorway, his arms folded across his chest, and a scowl etched deep on his face.
Lily stepped down from the carriage before Magnus could offer a hand. She had been holding her breath the entire ride, every heartbeat filled with dread and longing. And now that she was here… now that she saw Nathan alive and mostly in one piece…
Her breath caught in her throat.
She had imagined this moment differently. She had thought she might scream at him or throw something, or fall apart entirely. But now, seeing the brother who had once taught her how to climb apple trees and dared her to race ponies across wet fields, the brother who had traded her for coin and hadn’t bothered to show up for her wedding…
All she felt was the weight of a thousand unsaid questions.
“Go back to wherever you came from,” the innkeeper barked, his voice cutting through the cold night. “No coin, no bed.”
Nathan flinched. “I just need a few hours. I’ll have the money tomorrow, I swear.”
The innkeeper grunted. “That’s what the last one said, and he still owes me two teeth.”
Magnus stepped forward, his strides slow and menacing, like a lion stalking its prey.
“Is this what you’ve been reduced to?” he asked coolly, his voice laced with contempt. “Begging for a bed like a street rat?”
Nathan’s head snapped toward him, and for a second, relief softened the lines of his face. But then he saw Lily beside him, and his eyes widened with something sharp and ugly.
“Brilliant,” he muttered. “Here comes the cavalry.”
“Do not mistake her presence for mercy,” Magnus warned, his tone steely.
“Mercy?” Nathan scoffed. “From you? That’s rich.”
The innkeeper was eyeing them both with growing suspicion, and Lily could feel the night devolving into chaos.
She took a cautious step forward.
“Nathan,” she said, her voice quiet. “I—” She broke off.
What do you say to the brother who betrayed you? Who sold you like livestock and disappeared when you needed him most?
“I was worried,” she whispered at last.
It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.
Nathan looked away.
“Touching,” Magnus muttered with disdain. “Shall we discuss what you did to earn her worry?”
“Oh, do go on,” Nathan spat. “Play the saint. Tell everyone how noble you were, riding to save the girl you bought.”
Magnus moved in a flash without warning. He grabbed Nathan’s collar and shoved him back, sending him crashing against the wall with a groan. Lily gasped, stepping forward on instinct, but stopped when she saw the rage on Magnus’s face.
“Nathan!” the innkeeper shouted. “I’ll not have a brawl outside my doors. Get gone, all of you, before I call someone with more arms than teeth.”
Nathan wiped dust from his face, but he didn’t retreat. Not yet.
