Abandoned by Her Fiancé, She Married a Feared Duke… Then Learned Why He Chose Her
Chapter 11
One year later, on a warm evening in late spring, the Duke of Ashworth stood in his garden, watching his wife walk among the roses.
She was pregnant with their first child. The news had come three months ago, and Alexander had wept — actually wept — for the first time in more than a decade. He had not known he could still feel so much. He had not known he could still be so alive.
Eleanor turned, catching his gaze. She smiled, and the sight of it still made his chest ache.
“You are staring,” she said.
“I am admiring.”
She walked toward him, her hand resting on her growing belly. “You have changed so much, Alexander.”
“I had a good teacher.”
She laughed softly. “I meant what I said, that first day in the library. You are not a statue carved from ice.”
“No.” He took her hand, lifting it to his lips. “I am a man who was afraid. And I found someone worth being brave for.”
Eleanor’s eyes glistened. She reached up to touch his face, her fingers tracing the lines that had once been so hard, so unyielding.
“Your sister would be proud of you,” she said.
Alexander’s throat tightened. “I like to think so.”
“She would be proud of the man you became. The husband. The father.” Eleanor smiled. “The man who learned to love again.”
He pulled her into his arms, holding her against the fading light of the sunset.
“I love you, Eleanor Blackwood,” he said. “More than I ever thought I could love anything.”
She nestled against his chest. “And I love you. The day you walked into my father’s drawing room, I thought my life was over. Instead, it was just beginning.”
The sun set over the Ashworth estate, painting the sky in shades of gold and rose. The roses swayed in the evening breeze. And in the garden of the house that had once been empty, the Duke of Ashworth held his wife and his future in his arms, finally at peace.
He had learned that love was not a weakness. It was the only thing worth fighting for.
And he would never let it go again.
THE END