Page 6 of A Deal with her Forbidden Duke
Never mind.
Love was a dream she had long given up on. Her marriage to Lord Kinsfeld had solidified that for her.
With a heavy, lonely heart, Madeleine walked up to her chambers, avoiding the watchful eyes of her staff.
They whisper about my husband’s absence, too.
She had a moment to herself in her chambers before her lady’s maid came to prepare her for bed.
“Your gown was rather beautiful tonight, my lady,” the lady’s maid, Lucy, said as she helped Madeleine out of it.
Madeleine nodded, her hands clasping the post of the bed. “It was.”
Her responses were brief, had been brief ever since leaving the parlor. Her thoughts were away, fixed on the emptiness of Kinsfeld House, her husband’s absence being whispered about by thetonand servants alike. She had heard them upon her return.
Her chest tightened.
Where is my husband?
She did not miss the man, but she hated the humiliation he forced her to endure by not being present. She hated that he left her to explain his absences, to lie to her friends, to endure the embarrassing rumors that he might be entertaining mistresses.
“Your nightgown, my lady.” Lucy helped her into the nightgown, the loose fabric a relief from the tight dress. It did a little to ease the tension in her chest.
“I will retire with a glass of wine tonight,” Madeleine told Lucy, and her maid nodded.
“I shall see to it.”
Lucy left, and Madeleine sat on the edge of her bed, smoothing over her nightgown, looking around her chambers. The hot tears of humiliation burned behind her eyes.
A sudden knock on the door had her blinking them away.
“Enter,” she called out.
It was not Lucy returning, but her butler.
Rather than walking in as Lucy would have done, he stood respectfully outside the door. Madeleine stood, wishing she could just curl up in her bedsheets. Her mind was heavy; she did not wish to deal with anything else tonight.
“There is a visitor here to see you, Lady Kinsfeld. He is very insistent to be seen. He says it is important. I have let him wait in the parlor.”
Madeleine frowned.
Nobody should be visiting at such an hour, she thought, confused.
Then she caught herself on a thought, her breath shortening. What if it was bad news about her husband? Or worse, it could be about Tessa or Colin.
Her heart stopped.
What if it was from her brother, lost to the army?
Suddenly, she could not go down to the parlor fast enough. She struggled back into her gown—she would prefer Lucy’s help, but she’d learned to fend for herself over her lonely marriage to Donald.
She hurried down the stairs and entered the parlor below.
Except it was not a constable, or anybody she recognized.
No, the imposing figure she entered the parlor to see was dark and tall. He looked up at a portrait of the young Lord Kinsfeld, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.
From her position, she could only see the length of his dark brown hair, brushing his shoulders, unbound and wild, as if he had ridden hard to Kinsfeld House.
