Her Family Sold Her to Pay Their Debts—But She Returned the Ruthless Duke’s Gift Without Even Opening It. Before Breakfast the Next Morning, He Appeared at Her Door Demanding to Know Why, Unaware Their Next Words Would Ignite a Scandal Across London.

PART 6

Mr. Pembroke entered with another gentleman and stopped short when he saw Grace standing beside the Duke, with Thomas by the fire. His surprise lasted only an instant.

“Thank God Mr. Hail is safe.”

“How did you know where to find us?” Grace asked.

Pembroke removed his hat, his eyes sliding away from hers. “We were not searching for Mr. Hail, Miss Bennett. We were following you.”

The room went very still.

“Following me,” Grace repeated.

“When I learned Mr. Hail’s horse had returned alone and saw your carriage leave the Bennett house, I followed you. I knew that finding you with him, alone and after dark, would make the rumors appear true.”

Thomas’s face drained of color. “You wanted her caught.”

Pembroke said nothing.

Grace kept her voice level. “Then you admit you followed me to manufacture evidence for the rumors.”

“I admit nothing of the kind.”

Thomas reached into his coat and drew out the crumpled note that had lured him to the cottage. “Then perhaps you can explain this.”

He held it beside the ledger he had carried in from the carriage — the very ledger Pembroke had delivered to the committee that same morning, still bearing his corrections in the margins.

Grace took both and set them side by side near the fire. The same looping flourish curled beneath every capital T. The same particular slant, leaning hard to the right, as though the writer were always in too great a hurry to finish a sentence he did not wish to be caught writing.

“Your hand, Mr. Pembroke,” she said quietly.

He said nothing.

Thomas held up the broken wax from the note’s seal. A small crest, half-melted, but unmistakable. “You used your own seal. You forgot to bring plain wax.”

Pembroke’s composure cracked at last.

“Lady Wexford instructed me only to discourage Miss Bennett’s involvement with the family,” he said. “She feared scandal.”

“By manufacturing one?” Grace asked.

“I wrote the letters.” He snapped. “I intended only to lure him away long enough to deepen the scandal. I never expected him to be injured.”

Thomas stared at him. “You used me.”

Pembroke looked away.

The hurt on Thomas’s face was more visible than his confession had been. Grace crossed to him but did not speak for him.

Thomas pushed himself upright despite his ankle. “You thought I was foolish enough to manipulate.”

Pembroke said nothing.

“Answer me.”

Thomas’s voice shook but held.

“Yes,” Pembroke said.

Alexander moved then. Not in front of Thomas. Beside him.

“You will repeat that tomorrow,” he said. “Before Lady Wexford and every member of her committee.”

By afternoon the following day, Lady Wexford’s drawing room was crowded.

Pembroke’s confession did not make Grace innocent in everyone’s eyes. Society rarely surrendered a delicious suspicion merely because facts interfered. But Thomas spoke first. He explained the letters, the handwriting, the seal, the trap, and his own decision to ride out. No one interrupted him.

When he finished, Grace presented the letters herself.

Lady Wexford dismissed Pembroke from her service and admitted, with stiff reluctance, that her own warnings about Grace had encouraged his interference.

Then a woman near the mantel murmured, “Still, Miss Bennett’s intimacy with the family is rather extraordinary.”

Grace felt every gaze turn toward her.

Alexander stepped forward. She tensed, expecting the Duke’s authority to descend like a hammer.

Instead, he stopped beside her.

Not before her.

“Miss Bennett can answer for herself,” he said.

Grace looked at him. The choice was hers.

“Yes,” she said to the room. “My friendship with Thomas is extraordinary. If ordinary friendship requires a fortune, a title, or permission from people who mistake cruelty for discernment.”

No one laughed.

Grace continued. “I returned His Grace’s gift because kindness was not a service I had sold. I went after Thomas because he was missing. If either act resembles ambition, then ambition has acquired a very strange definition.”

Thomas smiled.

Someone began to applaud softly. The elderly gentleman who had defended Thomas at the luncheon. Another joined. Then another.

Grace did not look at Alexander until the room had begun breathing again.

When she did, his eyes were fixed on her with unmistakable pride.

That evening, after Thomas had gone upstairs, Grace stood in the Westbridge drawing room preparing to leave.

Alexander approached without gloves, without coat, without the armor of ceremony.

“At the cottage,” she said, “you were about to answer me.”

“I was.”

“Thomas is safe now.”

“Yes.”

“The scandal is ending.”

“Yes.”

She held his gaze. “So there is nothing left for you to protect.”

Alexander came closer. Stopping just beyond touching distance.

“That,” he said quietly, “is precisely the problem.”

Grace’s breath caught.

His hand opened at his side. “Because now I must decide whether what I feel for you began with Thomas, or whether Thomas merely gave me the good fortune to notice what I would otherwise have been too blind to see.”

Grace did not answer at once. The fire breathed softly behind Alexander, gilding one side of his face while the other remained in shadow.

“And have you decided?” she asked.

His eyes never left hers. “Yes.”

He stepped nearer. Stopped before the space between them disappeared.

“Thomas made me notice you. He did not make me admire you. He did not make me wait for your laughter in my library, or discover that silence is different when you are sharing it.”

Grace’s fingers tightened around her gloves.

“He certainly did not make me spend three miserable days wondering whether you would ever willingly enter my house again.”

A laugh escaped her, fragile with emotion. “Three days. Your suffering has been heroic.”

“I hoped you would appreciate its severity.”

His humor faded.

“Grace, I have spent most of my life believing love meant preventing harm. You taught me that sometimes it means trusting someone enough to let her choose the risk.”

His hand opened between them, palm upward. He did not take hers.

“I love you. Not because Thomas needs you. Not because I owe you gratitude. And not because I believe you need a duke.”

Grace stared at his waiting hand.

“That is fortunate. I have found dukes remarkably troublesome.”

“One in particular, I hope.”

She placed her fingers in his. Alexander closed his hand carefully, as though accepting something rather than claiming it.

“I love you, too,” she whispered. “Though I reserve the right to correct you.”

“I had assumed that was part of the marriage settlement.”

Her eyes widened. “Marriage.”

For the first time, the Duke of Westbridge looked uncertain. “Eventually, if you choose it. I am attempting not to arrange your life without consultation.”

Grace smiled. “Your reform continues.”