Her Stepmother Planned to Make All of London Laugh Her Into Ruin — But the Cruel Scheme Backfired When the Reclusive, Scarred Duke Fell Hopelessly in Love With Her

 PART 5

Alistair frowned, pushing his chair back.

“Stay here. If it is someone from your stepmother, they are here for me.”

“I do not hide, your grace.” Norah stood.

Alistair’s jaw tightened. He didn’t argue. A single sharp nod, and they walked to the entrance hall together.

Bates had just opened the door. On the top step, thoroughly miserable in the damp wind, stood Lord Harrington — Agatha’s cousin, thin and greedy, dressed far too young for his age, currently speckled in Rookwood’s infamous mud.

“Norah!” He struck a theatrical pose of relief. “Thank God. I am here to rescue you from this madness. Agatha is beside herself — the scandal. Get your cloak. I have a carriage waiting.”

He did not even glance at the Duke. He reached for Norah’s wrist.

Before his fingers could brush her sleeve, a large, scarred hand clamped down on his shoulder, the force of the grip buckling his knees slightly.

“Lord Harrington, I presume.” Alistair’s voice was a low, terrifying purr. “You are tracking mud onto my floors.”

Harrington spun, his face paling as he registered the full, imposing figure of the Duke of Westland — a head taller, twice as broad, with the eyes of a man who had killed Frenchmen for considerably less than a ruined carpet.

“Your grace.” He tried to puff out his chest. “I am here on behalf of Lady Agatha Hawthorne. This situation is untenable. You have held this poor girl hostage, ruining her virtue to spite her family.”

“Hostage.” Alistair released his shoulder, took a half step back, arms folding. “Miss Hawthorne. Are you a hostage?”

Norah stepped forward. She did not look at the mud on Harrington’s boots. She looked him dead in the eye.

“Tell Agatha,” she said, her voice ringing clear and cold through the hall, “that I am employed here. I am the estate manager of Rookwood. I am paid fifty pounds a quarter — exactly fifty more than she ever gave me. I am not leaving.”

Harrington gaped. “Estate manager — do not be absurd. Women do not manage estates. You are a spinster. You are a — a concubine.”

The word hung in the air, ugly and sharp.

Alistair did not shout. He did not blink. He merely uncrossed his arms.

“Bates.”

“Yes, your grace.” The butler materialized from the shadows.

“Lord Harrington is leaving. If he is not off my property in three minutes, release the hounds.”

Harrington’s eyes widened in sheer terror. He looked at Norah, then at the Duke’s scarred, merciless face. He said nothing more, turning on his heel and practically sprinting out the door. Bates shut it calmly, turning the heavy iron lock with a satisfying clack.

Silence returned to the hall. Norah stood very still, adrenaline ebbing, leaving her hollowed out. She had just formally, undeniably severed the only family tie she had ever known.

“He is a fool,” Alistair said gruffly.

“He is.” She stared at the closed door. “But he is right about one thing. I am a spinster, and society will only ever see me as a concubine now.”

Alistair stepped closer. He did not touch her. He offered no empty platitudes.

“Society,” he said, voice dropping to a gravel murmur, “is composed entirely of hypocrites who would drown their own mothers for a better seat at the opera. You are Norah Hawthorne. You untangled five years of embezzlement in three weeks. You stared down a duke in a rainstorm. Do not let a man in a green coat tell you what you are.”

Norah looked up at him. His pale amber eyes were fierce, locking onto hers with an intensity that caught the breath in her throat. For the first time, she did not see an employer.

She saw a shield.

“Back to the ledgers, Miss Hawthorne,” he said softly.

“Yes, your grace.”

Winter struck Yorkshire not with a gentle flurry, but with a brutal, damp assault. For Norah, it meant working nearer the hearth, a wool shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders. For Alistair, it meant a terrifying, silent agony.

She noticed the shift in early December, when the temperature dropped sharply overnight. He entered the study the next morning ashen-faced, his limp pronounced, leaning on the door frame before making it to his desk. He did not speak. He sat, opened a ledger, and stared at it blindly for three hours, tension radiating off him like smoke.

“Your grace,” she said softly, near noon.

“Do not.” His voice had a jagged edge. “Do not speak to me right now.”

She closed her mouth. It wasn’t anger directed at her. It was the fury of a trapped animal.

When Bates brought the afternoon tea, Alistair didn’t touch it. He tried to stand, perhaps for the fire, but his right leg buckled instantly. He caught himself on the desk with a suppressed, violent hiss of pain, knocking his inkwell to the floor — black ink shattering across the rug. He cursed, a vicious string of filth learned in the barracks of Spain, and sank back into his chair, gripping his thigh with white-knuckled intensity, head bowed.

Norah stood. She did not hesitate. She did not ring for Bates.

She walked to the hearth, took the iron tongs, and set a smooth, flat brick onto the glowing coals. Then she went to the sideboard, poured three fingers of cheap dark brandy, walked to his desk, stepped around the shattered inkwell, and set the glass beside his clenched fist.

“Drink.”

It was not a request.

Alistair looked up at her through the tangled mess of his hair. His amber eyes were clouded with pain, his jaw tight with humiliation. He hated being seen like this.

“Leave me alone, Norah.” It was the first time he had used her Christian name.

“No.” She crossed her arms. “You are useless to me in this state, and I have questions about the blacksmith’s quarterly bill. Drink the brandy.”

He glared. She stared back, entirely unfazed — a woman who had lived under Agatha’s roof was immune to men throwing tantrums. Slowly, his hand uncurled from his thigh. He threw back the brandy in one brutal swallow, coughing as it burned a path down his throat.

Norah pulled on the thick leather gloves by the wood box, retrieved the hot brick, wrapped it swiftly in flannel from the wood basket, and knelt beside his chair.

Alistair stiffened. “What are you doing?”

“I am treating you like a faulty ledger, your grace. I am fixing the problem.”

Without asking permission, she pressed the brick gently but firmly against the outside of his ruined knee. He sucked in a sharp breath — the dry, searing heat penetrating his trousers, meeting the bone-deep ache of the old musket wound. It didn’t cure it, but the heat forced the seizing muscles to relax. He slumped back, head hitting the leather rest, eyes closing. The fight drained out of him, leaving only exhaustion.

Norah stayed kneeling. She did not touch him beyond holding the brick in place. She did not offer pity — pity was corrosive, the thing that destroyed pride. She offered a quiet, solid presence.

“Shrapnel,” Alistair said suddenly, eyes still closed. “Vitoria. They dug out what they could, but the bone shattered. The dampness makes it feel like it is breaking all over again.”

“My father had gout,” Norah said quietly, looking at the ink stain spreading over the ruined rug. “He would scream if the bedsheets touched his foot. We used hot bricks. It tricks the nerves.”

“I am not screaming.”

“You were considering it.”

Alistair opened his eyes and looked down at her — kneeling on the floor, the hem of her gray dress soaking up spilled ink. She looked entirely ordinary. She looked entirely magnificent.

“You ruined your dress,” he said softly.

“It was an ugly dress. I have another.”

“You should have run back to London with Harrington,” he murmured, the painkilling brandy leaving him unguarded. “You are sitting in a freezing room, pressing hot rocks to a crippled man’s leg, ruining your clothes.”

She shifted the brick to keep the heat even, meeting his gaze. The cynical armor she wore so tightly cracked a fraction, revealing the bruised heart beneath.

“In London, I was a prop in a joke,” she said, voice fiercely quiet. “Here I am necessary. Do not insult me by telling me I should have chosen the former.”

Alistair held her gaze. The air in the study changed — the oppressive tension of his pain vanished, replaced by something else entirely, a sudden, sharp gravity pulling the space between them taut. He reached down slowly, calloused fingers bypassing the brick, resting against the side of her ink-stained cheek, thumb brushing her jaw. The touch was incredibly gentle, a stark contrast to the violence of his scars and his temper.

“No,” he said, voice a rough whisper. “You are not a joke, Norah. Not here.”

Her breath caught. She did not pull away. She leaned a millimeter into the warmth of his palm.