Page 74 of A Lady of Means
This man wasn’t a villain, and neither was Devyn.Damn Devyn for dying, but surelyshewas the villain here.Becoming a duchess, that had been the aim of a grieving girl who wanted a pedestal high enough she couldn’t be brought down ever again.She was someone else now, wasn’t she?
The man kissing her was doing a thorough job of showing her affection, and it too felt wrong.The word rattled around inside her skull.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
But Moria had become comfortable with dissonance inside her head.Had it felt right, she would have felt more confusion.Instead, she stared down those words, and kissed the duke back, even as self-loathing crawled into her skin.
Her hands were in his hair, then, pulling his lips home to meet hers.
And his hands…they were everywhere.Both were consumed by raw need, to find some different but altogether similar comfort and absolution in the other.
A throat cleared behind them.
“Good god, how revolting,” Valentine spoke.
The Duke pulled back, his head dropping onto Moria’s shoulder.
“Valentine, you’re most welcome to return to the ballroom,” he turned to the other man, “If you do not like what you see.”
“I came to…escort the lady back inside.”
“As I’ve just proposed to the lady and she has accepted, you will do no such thing.”
“Your Grace, you’ve finally done it?Huzzah!”Tristan offered, but when Moria met his eyes, she let him see the disappointment for a moment.
Tristan gathered her in a hug.“I never doubted you for a moment,” he said against her cheek.A tear collided with Moria’s cheek, and she knew.She’d been right.
“Will you let go of my betrothed, please?”The Duke said, laughter in his voice.
“Sorry,” Tristan said, squeezing her shoulder one last time before pulling away.“The emotions of the night got the better of me.”
Moria swallowed.She felt so cold.A shiver traveled down her spine.The Duke draped an arm around her.They weren’t the right arms, they weren’t long enough or sturdy enough and she doubted he bore a bear, the image of a militia battalion, on his left forearm, or a sparrow inked on his hand.
He wouldn’t.Those arms belonged to a dead man.
She shivered again.
“Christ, let’s get you inside, dear.We should find your family and tell them the good news.”
When she re-entered the ball wearing the Duke’s jacket and his ring, she was at the center of a single beam of light when all she wanted was to cower in the darkness spreading inside of her.
ChapterThirty
All of politesociety uttered one word following the announcement of the betrothal of His Grace the Duke of A to Lady M, all for different reasons:Finally.
- Scandalous Lives of London scandal sheet
* * *
Once,when Moria was very small, she’d followed her brothers out to the lake to skate on the ice.
Jasper, ever the leader of the family, had tried to caution her about patches of thin ice.She hadn’t listened, she’d thought that she knew better.She’d been skating in a circle when the ice had cracked around her.Lawrence had been close enough, fast enough to get to her before she was submerged.But her clothes had been soaked through.
Had she also been skating around thin ice these past few months, ignoring the signs until, tonight, she’d been submerged?
The evening’s events were holding her under.
A hammer was striking an anvil in her head that she felt everywhere.Her lips and fingers and extremities trembled.Hands enveloped her, grasped her and carried her up flights of stairs, pushed her hair back from her face.A warm cloth was laid on her temple.Someone was speaking gently and softly to her as they undressed her from her gown and helped her bathe.The same voice was feminine and kind, dismissing the servants.
