Page 6 of Duke of Gold
Morgan snorted, lifting his glass to his lips. “I have no use for one.”
“Pity,” Colin sighed, leaning forward dramatically. “I had been looking forward to another free wedding breakfast banquet this season. Do you know how dreary a season is without at least one wedding to feast upon?”
Morgan couldn’t help it; his lips curved into a faint smile. “Perhaps ifyougot yourself a Marchioness, you could indulge in another feast.”
Colin grinned, raising his glass in mock salute. “Well played, Giltford. Touché. However, food I pay for wouldn’t taste half as good,” Colin went on , swirling his drink with exaggerated melancholy.
Morgan let out a low laugh, the sound unexpected even to himself. It rumbled deep in his chest, unfamiliar yet strangely welcome.
Colin’s brows shot up in mock astonishment. “A laugh? From the infamous Duke of Giltford? Stop the presses, we’ve a miracle on our hands!”
“Must you always be so dramatic?” Morgan replied, though his lips still held the faintest curve of amusement.
“Someone must balance your perpetual broodiness,” Colin quipped, leaning back in his chair with the practiced ease of a man who rarely took life too seriously.
Morgan shook his head, but the mirth lingered. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed this—the company, the banter, the moments of lightness. It had been so long since he allowed himself even a glimpse of it. Too long, perhaps.
Still, beneath the humor, the weight of his reality pressed at the edges of his mind. As Colin recounted the latest gossip and developments from society—most of which Morgan half-listened to—his thoughts drifted back to the fountain, to Lady Margaret, and to the witnesses who had stumbled upon them.
He took a slow sip of his drink, the amber liquid burning its way down. A disaster was rearing its head, and it was choking him.
“You’ll give yourself a megrim, Victoria, squinting at that book,” Morgan called down, his voice carrying amusement as he leaned against the sturdy trunk of the old oak tree.
Victoria did not glance up from her perch on the blanket beneath the tree, her nose nearly touching the page. “And you’ll ruin your dignity, Morgan Down, behaving like a ruffian in the branches.”
Morgan smirked and reached for an acorn hanging just within his grasp. “Is that so?” he drawled before tossing it lightly at her.
The acorn struck her shoulder, and Victoria gasped, snapping her book shut as she looked up with exaggerated outrage. “Morgan! You are positively insufferable!”
He chuckled, the low sound rumbling through the stillness of the afternoon. “Am I? And here I thought I was simply rescuing you from Wordsworth’s drivel.”
“Wordsworth is not drivel,” she countered with the air of a patient schoolmistress. “You are merely devoid of appreciation for fine poetry. Now, come down here and read it properly.”
“Why should I, when you seem so content in your lecturing?” he teased, swinging one leg over the branch with lazy grace.
“Because your disdain makes it tolerable,” she replied with a grin. “And you know it.”
Morgan sighed, shaking his head in mock exasperation. “You are impossible.”
“And you are intolerable,” she retorted, though her smile softened the words. “Come down, or I shall climb up there myself.”
“You would not dare.”
Her arched brow and pointed look dared him to contradict her further. With a reluctant sigh, Morgan began his descent, his hands and feet moving with practiced ease against the bark. “You’re fortunate I am such a devoted elder brother.”
“Oh, yes, endlessly devoted,” she said with mock gravity, closing her book as she watched him climb. “I am sure Father would agree.”
Morgan’s feet touched the ground, and he straightened, turning toward her with a retort poised on his tongue. But as his gaze fell, the words dissolved in his throat.
Victoria was gone.
The oak tree vanished into shadows, the warmth of the sunlight replaced by the cold, suffocating air of the library. Morgan’s eyes dropped, and his breath faltered. His arms now cradled Victoria’s lifeless form, her copper hair matted with blood, her green eyes forever dimmed.
“No,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “No, Victoria. Please...”
He fell to his knees, the weight of her slight frame pressing against him like an iron chain. Tears blurred his vision as he held her closer, his body shaking with the force of his grief. “I am sorry,” he rasped, his voice breaking. “I should have— I should have been there sooner. I should have?—”
The library blurred, its walls dissolving into darkness. Victoria’s form grew colder in his arms, and her voice echoed faintly in the void—soft and distant, yet cutting through his heart like a blade.
