She Ruined Herself by Kissing a Stranger to Save Him From a Society Trap — Never Knowing He Was England’s Richest Duke, Until He Appeared at Her Door the Next Morning and Said He Intended to Marry Her.

 PART 3

The maid, a terrified girl of sixteen, scurried down the hall. The front door opened. Deep voices murmured in the narrow entryway. Heavy footsteps approached the parlor.

The door swung open.

He seemed much larger in the daylight. In the claustrophobic confines of their shabby Bloomsbury parlor, the man from the ballroom looked like a leviathan poured into a charcoal gray morning coat. His cravat was tied with stark perfection. His boots gleamed like wet obsidian. Without the shadows of the alcove, the sharp, aristocratic lines of his face were violently clear.

He took off his hat. His dark hair was brushed back, save for one stubborn wave at the temple. Those gray eyes swept the room, taking in the faded wallpaper, the threadbare rug, the cold toast — before settling entirely on Lydia.

Margaret dropped into a deep, trembling curtsy. Lydia remained seated. Her brain had short-circuited.

“Miss Lydia Thorne,” the man said. It wasn’t a question. He knew exactly who she was. His voice was the same low baritone that had vibrated against her chest the night before. He didn’t look at Margaret. He walked forward, stopping just at the edge of the small dining table.

He didn’t carry flowers. He didn’t look apologetic. He looked like a general surveying a battlefield.

“I believe formal introductions were overlooked yesterday evening,” he said mildly.

“Who are you?” Lydia asked, her voice raspy.

Margaret let out a choked noise of horror from the corner. “Lydia, have you gone mad? This is His Grace — ”

“Alistair Montgomery,” the man supplied, his expression unreadable. “Duke of Westland.”

The air left Lydia’s lungs.

Westland. It wasn’t just a title. It was an empire. The Duke of Westland owned shipping fleets, coal mines in the north, half the estates in Cornwall, and a terrifying amount of political influence in the House of Lords. He was notoriously reclusive, brutally private, and arguably the wealthiest unmarried man in the British Empire.

Lydia stared at him. The man she had manhandled. The man she had scolded on the street. The man on whose lips she had bruised with her teeth.

“You,” Lydia breathed, the sheer absurdity of it washing over her. “You are Westland.”

“I am.” Alistair pulled out the chair next to her, scraping it across the floorboards, and sat down without being invited. He crossed his long legs, entirely dwarfing the fragile wooden chair.

“But last night,” Lydia stammered, abandoning all decorum, “you were standing there alone. The Rutledges were attempting to corner you.”

“Yes,” Alistair said smoothly. “A rather clumsy maneuver. I was waiting to see how far Lady Rutledge was willing to push her daughter before I summoned my men to remove them from my presence.”

Lydia blinked. The pieces of the puzzle shifted, rearranging themselves into a horrifying new picture.

“You weren’t trapped,” she whispered.

“I am rarely trapped, Miss Thorne.” The corner of his mouth twitched upward — a brief, dangerous flash of amusement. “I was observing. I find the desperation of the ton to be mildly educational. I had the situation entirely in hand.”

Lydia felt her face flood with heat. Humiliation burned the back of her throat. She hadn’t saved a helpless victim. She had thrown herself onto a grenade that was never going to explode. She had ruined herself to protect a wolf from a pair of particularly annoying gnats.

“I see,” Lydia said stiffly. She gripped the edge of the table, willing her hands not to shake. “Then I apologize for interrupting your education, Your Grace. It seems my intervention was entirely unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary?” Alistair agreed slowly, his gray eyes locked onto hers, heavy and intense. “But spectacular.”

Lydia froze.

“You ruined yourself,” Alistair continued, his voice dropping a fraction, “to save a man you believed to be a defenseless stranger. A man who offered you nothing. A man who, by all accounts, was about to be caught in his own stupidity.”

“I have a distaste for bullies,” Lydia muttered, looking away.

“So I gathered.” Alistair leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. He was close enough now that she could smell the cedarwood again. “But unfortunately, Miss Thorne, your noble, misguided rescue has created a complication.”

Lydia braced herself. “If you are here to offer me money to leave London, Your Grace, you can save your breath. I am ruined. I am aware of it. We will pack our things and move to the country by the end of the week.”

Margaret made another tiny, weeping sound in the background.

Alistair didn’t blink. “Leave London? I think not.”

He reached into the inner pocket of his coat. He didn’t pull out a purse of coins or a bank draft. He pulled out a folded piece of heavy parchment sealed with red wax. He tossed it onto the table between them.

“What is this?” Lydia asked, eyeing it like it was a snake.

“A special license,” Alistair said calmly. “Procured from the Archbishop this morning at an ungodly hour.”

Lydia looked from the parchment to his face. “The license for what?”

“For our wedding, Miss Thorne.” Alistair leaned back, watching her with predatory stillness. “You threw your reputation into the fire and branded me as your own in front of two hundred people. The gossip sheets this morning declare that the untouchable Duke of Westland has been carrying on a torrid secret affair with a spinster from Bloomsbury.”

Lydia’s jaw dropped. “That is absurd.”

“It is,” Alistair agreed. “But it is the narrative we now share. And I do not allow my name to be attached to public scandal without taking control of it. You claimed me, Miss Thorne.” His voice was soft, but it carried the weight of an anvil. “And now I am claiming you back.”

The red wax of the Archbishop’s seal looked remarkably like dried blood against the scarred wood of the table. Lydia stared at it. She did not touch it. The silence in the small parlor stretched until it felt brittle enough to snap. Margaret had stopped weeping in the corner and was now holding her breath, her eyes darting between the heavy parchment and the imposing man sitting across from her sister.

“You are insane,” Lydia said finally. Her voice was flat. The panic had burned out, leaving a cold, hard clarity in its wake.

Alistair Montgomery leaned back in the fragile wooden chair, which groaned ominously under his weight. He did not look insulted. He looked mildly bored.

“I assure you, my mental faculties are perfectly intact. I am simply a man who recognizes an efficient solution to a persistent problem.”

“I am not a solution. I am a ruined woman in a cheap dress.”

“You are exactly what I require,” Alistair countered, his gray eyes pinning her in place. “For five years, the mothers of Mayfair have treated me like a prized stag to be hunted down. They have thrown their daughters in my path, compromised my friends, bribed my servants, and attempted every snare conceivable. It is exhausting. It is thoroughly insulting.”