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 7

Norah stared at him. “You hate society. You swore never to marry.”

“I hate society,” he agreed. “But society respects a title. They can whisper about a concubine until they are hoarse, but they cannot ignore the Duchess of Westland. They will have to bow to you. They will have to step aside in the street. Agatha will have to call you your grace if she ever dares write to you again.”

He stepped forward. He did not drop to one knee — they both knew his leg would not allow it, and neither of them wanted the theatricality anyway. He simply took both of her ink-stained hands in his large, scarred ones.

“It is a transaction,” he said, though his thumb stroked the back of her knuckles with an aching tenderness. “I give you the absolute, ironclad protection of my name. I give you half of everything I own. I give you a home where you never have to stand unless you wish to. And what do I give you?” His voice softened, catching. “What do you give me, Norah — that is the better question. You give me a reason to sit by the fire. You fix my accounts. You keep the hounds off the furniture. And you stay. Just — stay.”

Norah’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She looked up at him, at the cynicism that had defined him for years fracturing completely, leaving behind something raw and quiet and true.

“Yes,” she said, before she’d fully decided to say anything at all. Then, steadier: “Yes, your grace. I will stay.”

They were married three weeks later — not in a grand London cathedral, but in the small, drafty stone church at the edge of the Rookwood estate. Norah did not wear white. She wore a gown of deep, rich forest-green velvet that Alistair had ordered directly from Paris. It was not the gown of a spinster. It was a gown that commanded a room.

There were no aristocratic guests. Bates stood as witness, weeping quietly into a pristine linen handkerchief. Mrs. Gable held Norah’s gloves. When the vicar pronounced them man and wife, Alistair did not offer a polite, chaste peck. He pulled Norah flush against his chest, right there in the freezing chapel, and kissed her with a desperate, crushing intensity that tasted of winter air and absolute possession. Norah kissed him back, arms wrapped around his neck, anchoring herself to the only solid thing in her world.

The news reached London three days later. It was not a scandal. It was an earthquake. The gossip columns did not know how to frame it — the ruined spinster had not been ruined at all. She had walked into the lion’s den, bypassed the debutantes and the scheming mothers, and walked out wearing one of the oldest ducal coronets in England.

Lady Agatha Hawthorne was reportedly bedridden with nerves for a month, though everyone in society noted she quietly moved to a much smaller house in Bath.

Spring finally came to Yorkshire. The frost thawed, turning the moors into a brilliant, vivid patchwork of green and purple heather. Norah sat at the large oak desk in the study — Alistair’s desk. He had moved to the smaller one in the corner, claiming she needed the space for her rapidly expanding filing system. She was reviewing the quarterly profits. Up twelve percent. Higgins’s mess entirely eradicated.

The study door opened. Alistair walked in, back from riding the boundary lines, boots muddy, hair windblown, the harsh lines of pain around his mouth softened remarkably over the past months. Hector trotted at his heels, collapsing near the hearth with a heavy sigh.

Alistair crossed to the desk, leaned his hip against the edge — ignoring the mud he was transferring to the wood — and looked down at his wife.

“Are you auditing me again, your grace?”

Norah looked up, a slow smile spreading across her face — a beautiful smile, entirely free of the defensive shadows that had once haunted her.

“Someone must.” She tapped her quill against the ledger. “You spent an exorbitant amount on the new kennels.”

“The hounds were cold.”

“The hounds have thicker coats than the sheep.”

Alistair laughed — a deep, resonant sound that filled the room. He reached out, plucked the quill from her fingers, tossed it onto the blotter, and caught her hand, pulling her up from the heavy leather chair.

“The numbers can wait,” he said, drawing her into his arms. The smell of cold air, horse, and leather clung to him.

“It is three o’clock in the afternoon,” Norah murmured, already leaning into his chest.

“I am a duke.” His arms wrapped tightly around her waist, his voice warm against her hair. “I can be irresponsible at three o’clock in the afternoon if I wish.”

Norah rested her head over his heart, listening to the steady, strong beat. She thought of the carriage ride in the rain, the threadbare cloak, the four shillings in her pocket. She thought of the joke her stepmother had staged, designed to destroy her.

It had been a cruel joke.

But as Alistair’s lips pressed into her forehead, warm and fiercely protective, Norah decided she quite liked how the jest had ended.

THE END