Page 51 of His Mad Duchess
“Traitor,” Margaret muttered, half a laugh under her breath. She had meant to circle back towards the house, but the sun was warm on her sleeves, the path dry and welcoming, and Jenny was taking an age to return. A little further, she thought. Just to the far wall. Miss Fortune would come leaping out from behind the currant bushes any moment now.
But it was not the cat that leaped—it was the sky that turned. The clouds thickened suddenly, first a slow, sour yellow at the horizon, then an iron bruise overhead. The wind kicked up, teasing stray wisps of her hair loose under her bonnet. A low roll of thunder somewhere distant caused a halt in the birdsong overhead that made her lift her eyes just in time to see the blue flatten to a thin, gray shroud. Margaret turned to see the house, its chimneys half-swallowed by the quick-rolling mist, and she felt a prickle she could not name.
“Jenny?” Margaret called, turning back down the path, but there was no sign of her maid’s white cap and no flicker of Miss Fortune’s sleek tail. She walked faster, boots crunching the loose gravel that lined the path, her heart beginning its fretful dance.
A breeze caught her bonnet ribbons, tugging them sideways. Then the breeze stiffened and broke with a sudden, hard patter against her sleeves. Raindrops, fat and cold.
When the first real thunder cracked, she startled so hard her hat ribbon snagged on a low branch. Margaret tugged it free with fumbling fingers. Another crack split the sky, closer now, too close. Rain burst down in a sudden curtain, cold as spilled water down her collar.
“Oh, foolish…” She gathered her skirts and turned again, half-running down a path that no longer looked quite familiar in the thickening dusk. Where was the west gate? Where was Jenny? Had the silly girl stopped to gossip with the dairy maids or worse, lost her way hunting up that dratted writing case?
She turned on her heel, skirts dragging through the wet grass. Lightning pulsed behind the hedges, bright enough to burn her sight for a breath. Her shoes slipped on the slick flagstone as she stumbled toward the garden’s edge, skirts catching thorns. The sky answered with another shuddering boom that rattled down her spine.
A fresh gust drove the rain in a sheet across her shoulder. Margaret stumbled, the mud sucking at her half-boots. A hedge loomed where no hedge ought to be, the path splitting in two directions, neither of which she could swear she knew. The garden’s easy order, so comforting when the sun shone, seemed now a maze of brambles and wind-whipped shadows.
“Miss Fortune?” she called, half-hoping for the little beast’s bright eyes. Nothing but the drum of rain and a clap of thunder that made her flinch so hard her skirts tangled about her knees.
Not now, she told herself fiercely. Not here. Do not be the mad girl trembling at branches and clouds. But the darkness crowded in, the wind snatched at her bonnet, and another crack of thunder made her heart bolt in her chest.
Another roll of thunder, loud enough to squeeze a small sound from her throat. A shape loomed up on her left. It was an oldbrick shed, half-swallowed by ivy. Some forgotten garden store with its low door hanging ajar. Margaret ran for it without grace or dignity, skirts trailing wet and heavy behind her. She pushed inside just as the storm broke in earnest, rain hammering the tiled roof like a thousand drums.
She stood, panting in the gloom, the smell of damp earth and old straw filling her lungs. Garden tools leaned in solemn rows. A pile of dry sacks lined the sides of the walls. She pressed her back against the rough wall and squeezed her eyes shut against the wild thrum in her head. Somewhere out there, Jenny would be frantic. Sebastian?—
She pressed her palms together, forcing her breath to steady. Another crack split the night, closer, and the door rattled once in its rusted hinge.
She squeezed her eyes shut.Not a child, she told herself fiercely.You are not a child. You are a duchess. You are?—
“Margaret?” The door swung wide on the word.
A voice cut the storm, rough and half-laughed. “Well, Duchess. If you wished for my company, you needn’t have conjured a thunderstorm to trap me.”
Margaret’s eyes snapped open. He stood in the doorway, rainwater dripping from the brim of his hat, hair plastered to his brow in a way that made him look boyish, exasperated, and entirely too real.
“Sebastian,” she managed, her voice too thin to sound cross. “What are you doing here?”
He stepped in, nudging the door closed behind him with a boot. “Rescuing you, apparently. Jenny all but threatened to fling herself into the orchard if I didn’t come. She’s half convinced you’ve drowned in a puddle.”
“I didn’t mean to…” she muttered, fingers tightening around the edge of the sack. “I meant only to walk…Miss Fortune…”
“She’s safe with Jenny.”
Margaret let out a sound that might have been a laugh, might have been a sob, she could not tell. She pressed her sleeve to her cheek, brushing away cold droplets. “I did not mean… The storm came so quickly. I?—”
More thunder rumbled low and lingering. Margaret flinched before she could stop herself. He saw it. She knew he saw it. He shut the door behind him with a quiet click, as if that single barrier could shut out the sky.
He crossed the small space in two strides. The shed felt suddenly smaller, the air tighter for the heat he carried in with him; he was near enough that she caught the sharp scent of wet wool and the faint sweetness of his cologne beneath it. He crouched before her, boots squelching.
“Are you afraid?”
She let out a breath that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t cracked. “Of course not.”
The thunder cracked closer, sharp enough to shiver the boards at her back. She flinched so hard her bonnet slipped sideways.
He took her cold hands. “You are shivering.”
“I hate storms,” she blurted before she could think better. “I always have. Since I was small. The noise, it’s like the world cracking open.”
Sebastian’s gaze softened there, then gone again behind the practiced flicker of his sardonic brow. He shrugged off his coat, draping the damp wool over her shoulders despite her weak protest.
