She Grabbed a Stranger to Escape Her Ex — Not knowing He’s a Duke!

Chapter 9

He came back the next week. And the week after that. And the week after that.

He never announced himself. He simply appeared at the gate on a Thursday afternoon, or a Saturday morning, or once on a Tuesday at dusk, and he always had a reason. A letter from Lily that he had been instructed to deliver in person. A book she had mentioned. A question about the drainage at Fen Ditton that he had been thinking about and could not resolve alone.

She never asked him to stay. She never asked him to leave.

The wall got finished. The orchard got cleared. The glass house was not rebuilt, but the sheep were gone, and the grass grew back, and in September she planted roses where the sheep had been.

He brought Lily in August. The girl ran through the orchard as though she had been coming there all her life, and Clara watched her from the kitchen window and did not cry. She waited until they had gone to cry, and then she did it in the pantry where nobody could see.

In October, the lease on Devonshire Place came up in conversation. Clara mentioned it only because she had written to Della and had not received an answer. The Duke listened, said nothing, and left the next morning for London. He came back three days later with a letter in Della’s hand.

The boy is settled at Cambridge. He will be a terrible land agent and I could not be prouder. I have taken a house in Brighton. There is a garden. I am growing things. I do not know why I did not do this sooner.

Clara read the letter three times. Then she looked at him.

“You did something.”

“I made an inquiry.”

“You went to London.”

“I went to London. I spoke to a man I know. He had a house in Brighton that needed a tenant. I mentioned Mrs. Rose’s name. He mentioned a reasonable rent. The whole thing took about forty minutes.”

“You did not tell me.”

“I did not want you to have to thank me.”

She folded the letter carefully and put it in her pocket.

“Thank you,” she said.

He looked at her. “I know.”

In November, a year to the day from the announcement in the papers, he came to Fen Ditton and found her in the kitchen. She was making bread. Her hands were in the dough.

“Miss Ashworth.”

“Your Grace.”

“I have been coming here for four months.”

“I know.”

“I have not once asked you anything.”

“No.”

“I am not going to ask you now.”

She wiped her hands on her apron and turned to face him.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I am going to tell you something,” he said. “And then I am going to leave. And you may do with it what you will.”

He took a breath.

“I have loved you since the card room. Not before. I did not know you before. But in the card room, when you could have said anything—when you could have lied, or begged, or tried to bargain—you told me the truth. The whole truth. The part that made you look bad. You sat in a dark room in an old gown and told me everything, because you said it would come apart on my niece if you did not.”

He stopped.

“I have been in love with you for eleven months. And I have not said it because I made you a promise. You are free. You are entirely free. And I will not be the man who takes that from you.”

He turned toward the door.

“There is bread in the oven,” Clara said.

He stopped.

“There is bread in the oven. And there is stew on the stove. And there is a chair at the table that has been empty for four months, and I have been wondering how long it would take you to sit in it.”

He stood very still.

“Clara.”

“I am not free,” she said. “I have never been free. I have been waiting, Your Grace. I have been waiting since the night you stood in a card room and told me that you had found yourself willing to destroy me, and that it horrified you. That was the moment. Not the gallery. Not the bargain. You showing me the worst thing you had found in yourself, and then handing me the better half of the deal anyway.”

She crossed the kitchen.

“There is a chair at my table. It has been there for four months. If you do not sit in it soon, I am going to have to write Lily a very long letter explaining why her uncle is a fool.”

He crossed the kitchen in three steps and kissed her.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was the kind of kiss a man gives when he has been waiting eleven months and has run out of reasons to wait. Clara’s back hit the edge of the table, and she laughed against his mouth, and he laughed too, and the bread burned in the oven and neither of them cared.

“I am not going to marry you,” she said against his shoulder.

“All right.”

“I am going to marry you. But I am not going to be kept.”

“Understood.”

“I am keeping the house. I am keeping the debt. I will pay you back every penny.”

“I know you will.”

“And I am not changing my name.”

“Clara—”

“I am not.”

“Clara, I do not care what name you use. I do not care where you live. I do not care about any of it. I only care that you are there when I come home. And that you are not there because you have to be.”

She looked at him.

“I am not there because I have to be,” she said.

“Then I am going to ask you properly. In the spring. In front of witnesses. With a ring that you can sell if you change your mind.”

“All right.”

“And I am going to ask you every day for the rest of my life, just in case you say yes again.”

She smiled. It was the first time he had seen her smile like that—wide and unguarded and young.

“Once will be enough,” she said.