Page 106 of The Duchess Trap
She didn’t know how yet, or when, but she would find a way to reach him again.
CHAPTER 29
“Will you be dining in the study again tonight, Your Grace?” The butler’s voice cut through the hallway as they entered the house.
Catherine paused, half a step behind Duncan. The echo of their carriage wheels still haunted the marble floors, the faint chill of the late afternoon clinging to her cloak. She turned her head slightly, just enough to see him.
Duncan didn’t even glance at her. “Yes,” he said simply. “Have a tray sent there.”
He handed the butler his gloves and walked past her, his strides purposeful, his shoulders tense. Not once did he meet her eyes.
Her throat tightened. “Duncan,” she called after him, but he didn’t slow.
The study door closed with a quiet, final click.
For a long moment, Catherine stood alone in the corridor, the silence pressing down until even the tick of the clock on the wall sounded too loud. The firelight from the sconces flickered against the polished wood, casting her reflection in brief, broken fragments.
She wanted to follow him right then. To demand why he’d gone cold again after everything they had survived, after the fire, after the tenderness that had begun to bloom like something fragile and alive between them. Helen’s words echoed in her mind.Men like him frighten easily when they begin to feel too much.
Catherine drew a slow breath. If she confronted him in anger, he would retreat further. She knew that much. But if she left him alone, the distance might grow into something she could no longer bridge.
She turned toward the staircase. For a moment, she considered going to her room, letting the night pass in silence. But the image of him alone in that dark study—the same man who had held her after the flames, whose heartbeat she had felt under her cheek—refused to leave her.
No. She wouldn’t let fear or pride keep her from him. Not again.
She went to his study. The door was slightly ajar. Candlelight flickered within, golden and dim. She could hear the scratch of a pen, the faint rustle of paper, and the steady sound of his breathing.
She knocked softly. “Duncan?”
A pause. Then, “Come in.”
She stepped inside. The room was the same as always—maps and ledgers spread across the wide mahogany desk, the faint scent of smoke and ink clinging to the air. But there was something colder about it tonight, something in the way he sat with his back straight, eyes fixed on the paper before him as though it alone held his sanity.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she said quietly.
“You didn’t.” His tone was too even.
Catherine hesitated. “Then may I sit?”
“If you wish.”
He didn’t look up as she crossed the room. She sat across from him, her skirts rustling softly against the chair, and studied his face. His jaw was tight, his hair slightly disheveled from running a hand through it too often. The candlelight carved harsh shadows beneath his eyes.
“Duncan,” she began, “I know you’re troubled.”
He said nothing.
“I’ve tried to give you some time, but it’s been days, and you’ve hardly spoken to me. When you do, it’s as if I’m a stranger again.”
Still, nothing. The pen kept moving across the page, controlled and relentless.
Her patience frayed. “Please look at me.”
He set the pen down, finally meeting her gaze. His eyes, usually so calm and calculating, burned tonight with something harder to name.
“What is it you want me to say, Catherine?”
“The truth,” she said. “Whatever it is that’s haunting you.”
