Page 11 of When her Duke Returns
“I am not,” he replied.
“They made a mistake.”
“They must have.”
Mary sighed and looked away, incredulous. “Why did you not write? Why, if you lived, did not seek to make the fact known?”
“I did, I swear it. I never stopped writing, not for a day: to your London house, to the country, to Francis, to my mother… And then, seemingly all at once, the replies stopped coming in. You were as unreachable to me as I appear to have been to you,” Alexander said. “When at last I returned yesterday and learned of your engagement to Antony, it was all I could to stop myself from riding down to kill the man.”
“And you did not think to consider my fate in this mad plan of yours?” she pressed, her voice rising to a shout.
“I thought of nothing but you, My Lady—of your face and of your heart.”
“But not of the farce you have engaged me in! To have ridden down without so much of a word and barged in as you did... You could have stayed your hand and made your presence known in a way that was not so likely to have me scandalized!” She shook her head. “You have not changed an ounce. Your face may be marked by war, but you are still as rakish as you have ever been.”
“And I suppose your Antony is the better man? Do not toy with me, Mary, and do not lie!”
“I will not speak of Lord Burkley to you.”
“Because there is nothing kind a lady of your standing could say, is that it? Then allow me to say it for you. He is beneath you and even more deeply beneath me. He is a charlatan. Worse than that: he is a coward. It is the way he has always been. That you should think so little of yourself that you have agreed to wed the man, tobedthe man, can only mean that time as wrought you just as depraved as me.”
Mary scoffed. “What I have undertaken in your time away, I have done only out of duty. You cannot imagine the agony of waiting four years, powerlessly, for your life to begin—a life not even of your choosing at that! Perhaps the war did not leave you unscathed, but at least it was a thing of your own doing. I have been waiting at the mercy of men like you for my entire life. Antony is no better or worse, for you are all the same, but at least he is gentle, and at least he wants me above all things.”
“If you thought so highly of him, if truly you were satisfied with your lot, you would not have sought me out under the cover of night, away from prying eyes. What was it you said when first I appeared?There is nothing to be said that we cannot say in front of all those here.So, what is it that you wish to say now that could not be said then? That you do love the man or that you still yearn for me? I can see it in your eyes, Mary. Our story has not yet reached its end, and you know it.”
Mary stood in silence for a moment, and Alexander could tell she was seething. It was the first display of strong emotion he had noted since first he laid eyes on her, and it stirred promise and yearning within him.
“Leave,” she said with a gentle shake of her head. “Leave and do not return. That is all I wished to say.”
ChapterFive
When at last the day dawned over the small tavern in Bridgemouth, the world turned muggy and grey.
Alexander lay in the small, creaking bed of his room on the top floor of the pub, tossing and turning as he had for much of the night. The rough cotton sheets of the bed had long since twisted around him or been thrown to the floor, and he felt the effects of his fatigue from head to toe.
Thinking back on the events of the previous night, Alexander could not defend many of his actions. He knew that he was not entirely to blame. After all, he had purely acted on the whims of other men and their desires to steal from him what was rightly his. He held the larger part of his regret for the way things had ended between himself and Mary.
He knew deep within him that he had not treated the Carlisle brothers with their due kindness either, but those feelings quickly subsided as he recalled the meekness of the Earl and their lauding over him.
He had known the three of them since they were boys, and it felt to him as though their flaws had only been exacerbated with time: Burkley was no longer weak but sycophantic, Francis had been consumed by his pride, and Harry… Well, Alexander had yet to take a stance on Harry,especiallyafter he received a note from the man, slipped to him by one of the Summerhead footmen as he was set to leave.
It read:Oakhampton Parish,BridgemouthChurch—Sunday morn.
Alexander knew the place. It was where their families had convened for weddings or parish services in their youth as all of them had been seated in Devonshire at the time. Why Harry had wanted to meet him there, and what could possibly have been lying in wait were questions too tempting to ignore.
He settled then on spending an extra day in the south to meet Harry the next day, catching on some much-needed sleep and sulking over the memory of his lost betrothed.
* * *
Alexander had been waiting under an overcast sky for nearly an hour before he summoned the courage to enter the church. A service was well underway. He had watched the worship scurry inside earlier, among whom had been some of the Carlisles. Thankfully, the door had been left ajar to let in the cool summer breeze of the day, and he had merely to slip inside.
He stood at the far back of the hall and took note of the small number of attendees. The Duke looked out for Mary and caught her sitting in a pew beside her mother and brother, Harry. He had come, then. Alexander breathed a sigh of relief.
Within minutes Harry grew restless in his seat and began turning his head. When at last he caught sight of Alexander, he whispered something to his mother and made to leave. A few of the flock turned to watch him, but he whisked Alexander from the church before either of them could cause a stir.
“You wearthatto church?” he asked Alexander with a smile once they were safely out of earshot. They settled in the churchyard, beneath a large chestnut tree.
Alexander scoffed. He had only packed a gallant for the week’s end and was currently wearing his riding gear. “I do apologize. My other dandy is at the tailor’s,” he joked and then crossed his arms behind his back. “Will you tell me why you called me here, or shall we trade blows until Mary stumbles upon us?”
