SHE WAS TOLD TO SIT QUIETLY AND LET HER SISTER SHINE — THE DUKE ONLY EVER LOOKED AT HER

Chapter 5

Evelyn’s blood turned to ice.

Lord Pembroke stepped onto the balcony, a sneer twisting his lips. He was a notorious rake with a cruel tongue and a reputation for preying on those who could not defend themselves. He had been one of Cordelia’s most persistent—and most distasteful—suitors, and he had made no secret of his contempt for the “shadow sister” who haunted the edges of every party.

“Harrington,” the Duke said, his voice dropping to a register so cold it seemed to freeze the air between them. “You are interrupting a private conversation.”

“Am I?” Harrington laughed, a nasty, grating sound. “It looks to me like you’re finally tiring of the A-list beauties and slumming it with the forgotten sister. Tell me, Duke, does she even know how to speak, or does she just squeak?”

A wave of humiliation, hot and sickening, washed over Evelyn. She felt herself shrink, the old familiar instinct to disappear taking over. This was her reality. She was the mouse, the joke. The last few weeks had been a dream, and this was the cruel awakening.

But then something happened.

The Duke moved. He placed himself slightly in front of her, a subtle but unmistakable protective shield. His posture did not change, but the atmosphere around him grew frigid. “Lord Harrington,” he said, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. “I will give you one opportunity to leave this balcony and forget you saw us.”

Harrington, emboldened by wine and his own arrogance, smirked. “And if I don’t? What will you do? Defend the honor of this wallflower?”

“No,” the Duke said softly, the word landing like a shard of ice. “I will simply purchase your father’s debt from the bank tomorrow morning—the full sum—and I will call it due by noon. I believe that should be sufficient to see you and your family enjoying a much simpler life in the country. Perhaps you can take up residence in a mouse hole.”

The color drained from Harrington’s face. He stared at the Duke, his jaw slack with shock and fear. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Without another word, he turned and practically fled from the balcony.

The silence he left behind was profound.

Evelyn was trembling, her hand pressed to her mouth. The sheer ruthless power of the Duke’s threat was terrifying, but it had been wielded in her defense. For her.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice losing its icy edge as he turned back to her.

“You did not have to do that,” she whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears.

“Yes,” he said, his tone absolute. “I did. No one speaks of you that way.”

He took a hesitant step closer. “What I was trying to say before we were so rudely interrupted,” he began, his voice rough with emotion, “is that my intentions are not frivolous. I am not playing some game. This is the most serious I have been in my entire life.”

He reached out, his gloved fingers gently touching her arm. The contact was electric, a spark that seemed to travel through every nerve in her body.

“There is a reason I sought you out,” he said. “It was not by chance.”

Evelyn’s mind reeled. “What reason?”

He took a deep breath, as if steadying himself for a blow. “We have met before. A long time ago. You would not remember it. You were just a girl, and I was a young man—not yet the Duke. It was at my family’s estate. Blackwood Manor.”

Evelyn stared at him, her memory a blank canvas. She had visited Blackwood Manor only once, when she was ten years old.

“My younger brother,” he continued, his voice growing thick with memory. “He had just passed away. I was lost, consumed by grief. I had hidden myself away in the gardens, and you found me.”

A faint, ghostly image surfaced in Evelyn’s mind. A sad young man with stormy gray eyes. A shared biscuit. She had forgotten it completely. A minor childhood incident, buried under years of being told to be quiet and stay out of the way.

“I never forgot you,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “I learned your name later. Evelyn March. For years, that name was a talisman for me. A reminder that quiet goodness exists in the world.”

He let go of her arm, taking a step back. He looked exposed, his carefully constructed armor stripped away, revealing the lonely man beneath. “I followed your life from afar. I knew you were presented. I knew you were overlooked. And I was a coward. I was trapped in my own duties, my own grief. I built my walls higher and told myself I had no right to disturb your life.”

“But I could not stay away any longer. Seeing you at the ball, so poised and graceful in your quiet corner, I realized I had been a fool. I have wasted years hiding. I do not want to hide anymore.”

He looked directly at her, his gray eyes pleading. “Evelyn, I am not a man who knows the right words. I am not charming or poetic. I am a guarded, difficult man with a past full of shadows. But I see you. I have always seen you.”

He swallowed hard. “I am asking—no, I am begging you—to give me the chance to spend the rest of my life seeing you. To sit with you in the quiet.”

He took her hand, his fingers warm and steady despite the tremor in his voice. “Miss Evelyn March, will you do me the profound honor of becoming my wife?”