She Refused to Curtsy to the Most Feared Duke in London—But Instead of Punishing Her, He Protected Her From the Ballroom’s Cruel Whispers. Months Later, Just as They Fell in Love, One Rumor Made Her Believe He Was a Terrible Man.

 PART 6

By the time James returned, folio in hand, face bright with a smile meant only for her, Emily had stepped two paces back, arms crossed tight over her chest, her expression locked into something cold and formal.

“It is growing late, your grace,” she said. “My mother will be expecting me.”

He flinched as though she had struck him. “Emily — what is wrong? One moment you are beside me, and the next you look at me as though I am a stranger.”

“If I must ask whether I am merely an amusement while another woman prepares for your ring,” she said, throat aching, “then I have already lost myself.”

“You have done nothing,” she went on, before he could answer. “You have simply reminded me of my place. And yours.”

“Do not call me that,” he said, raw frustration cracking through his discipline. “You know that is not what this is.”

“I know only what London knows.” She turned and walked swiftly toward the exit, leaving him standing alone in the shadow of the gallery, hands clenched at his sides, shattered by a wall he did not understand.

Her mother was waiting when she reached home, having heard from a neighbor’s maid that Emily had been seen stepping into a carriage outside the gallery with him.

“You are four-and-twenty,” her mother said, voice pitched sharp with panic. “The Duke of Westfall does not take a tradesman’s daughter to a private exhibition out of affection for watercolors. Nothing will come of it. Nothing.”

“Mother, please,” Lucy said softly. “Emily has only just returned.”

“Be silent, Lucy. Look at yourself — unmarried, no household of your own. Is that what you want for your sister?”

Lucy flinched, color draining from her cheeks, and said nothing more.

“The Duke is destined for Lady Annalise,” her mother pressed on. “The whole parish knows it is practically settled. He will play with you until the season ends, and when his wedding carriage rolls past, Casper will be gone too. Casper is sure. Casper is safe.”

Emily gave her nothing — no tears, no argument. Only silence, until her mother left, and Lucy stepped forward to lay a steady hand over her clenched fingers.

“You didn’t look at her once,” Lucy whispered. “You only use that voice when you are bleeding to death inside.”

A single overheard sentence, a proud man’s silence, and a frightened woman’s retreat had severed two people who had never deliberately lied to each other. But pride demanded his silence, and fear demanded Emily’s distance, and the lie took root regardless.

He called the next morning. The butler delivered the rehearsed excuse — unwell, not receiving. James left his card and returned the following day. This time Emily was standing behind the curtain of the upstairs morning room when his carriage stopped below. She watched him look up at the windows as though he could feel her there. Her hand rose to the curtain. Pride pulled it back.

On the third morning, rain began before breakfast. He came anyway. The butler refused him again, and James stood on the pavement in the gray drizzle for nearly an hour, hat in one hand, coat darkening at the shoulders. Lucy found Emily at the window.

“Go down,” she whispered.

Emily could not. The rumor about Annalise had lodged too deep. If she opened the door and discovered that James merely wanted to explain how gently he intended to discard her, she thought the humiliation might finish what the gossip had begun. So she watched him finally turn away, soaked through, and hated herself for the relief and grief that arrived together.

He returned on the fourth day with a sealed letter. Emily’s mother intercepted it before it reached the stairs and sent it back unopened. On the fifth, he came near dusk and waited beside the iron gate while carriages splashed dirty water across the road. On the sixth, there was no rain at all, yet Emily found herself listening for the knocker with the same sick attention. When it sounded, she fled into the garden rather than face the possibility of hope.

By the eighth day, the servants had stopped pretending his visits were ordinary. The housemaid quietly placed an extra cloth by the entrance to catch the water from his coat. The butler, who had begun the fortnight stiff with propriety, now looked actively miserable each time he was forced to repeat that Miss Douglas was not receiving. James never raised his voice. He never attempted to force his way inside. He simply asked, every time, whether Emily had personally said she wished him gone. Every time, the answer came from someone else.

For fourteen days, Emily drifted between her bed chamber and the damp garden paths, hollowed out, unable to accept Casper’s safe world and unable to stop recoiling from the thought of it. Some afternoons she saw James from the corner window. Some evenings she saw only the wet tracks his carriage had left along the street and knew he had come while she was hiding. The persistence should have reassured her. Instead it frightened her more. Men did not wait like that for women they intended to forget — but admitting that would mean admitting she might have been wrong.

Casper visited nearly every afternoon, watching her tired nods and untouched tea with mounting, uneasy vigilance. He saw the Westfall carriage often enough to understand that James had not lost interest. He also saw Emily become more restless after every visit, her composure fraying whenever wheels slowed outside.

One afternoon, while she stepped out for a fresh kettle, Casper lifted the cloth from her drawing pad and found, sketched in dark, feverish charcoal, the sharp jaw and commanding brow of the Duke of Westfall.

Something resentful tightened in his chest. He had known her since childhood. He believed she belonged in Hampshire, safe, not chased by a titled man from a ruthless world. More dangerously, he had begun to believe that wanting to protect her gave him the right to decide what protection meant.

“You are still letting him haunt you,” he said when she returned, voice smooth and protective. “A man like Westfall plays by rules you don’t understand. He will linger at your gate until the novelty fades, then take his highborn bride and leave you with a ruined name.”

Emily looked toward the rain-streaked window. “Then why does he keep coming?”

Casper had no answer that did not threaten everything he wanted.

On the fourteenth afternoon, another storm rolled over London. The knocker struck with thunderous force. James stood on the doorstep, water running from the brim of his hat, patience entirely burned away. He had come with no card, no letter, no polished excuse left. Before the flustered butler could speak, Casper stepped past him onto the threshold, jaw set, and delivered the lie that would sever them for eight weeks.

“You are wasting your time, your grace. Emily has accepted my hand. We are formally betrothed. She has asked me to ensure you never darken this door again.”

James went completely motionless. He searched Casper’s face for a single crack. There was none.

He gave no parting word. He climbed into his carriage and gave the order to drive on — to Venice, and out of England entirely.