SHE WAS TOLD TO SIT QUIETLY AND LET HER SISTER SHINE — THE DUKE ONLY EVER LOOKED AT HER
Chapter 7
The wedding was a quiet affair, held in the small chapel at Ravenswood Manor. Evelyn had insisted on a modest ceremony, and Alexander had agreed without argument. “I would marry you in a field with only the sheep as witnesses,” he had told her, his voice low and serious. “As long as you are mine at the end of it.”
She wore a gown of pale silver silk, her hair threaded with wildflowers from the Ravenswood gardens. He wore black, as always, but there was a softness in his gray eyes that she had never seen before, a vulnerability that he showed only to her.
When the priest pronounced them husband and wife, Alexander took her face in his hands and kissed her with a tenderness that made her knees weak. It was a kiss that promised a lifetime of quiet companionship, of shared books and long walks, of comfortable silences that spoke more than a thousand words.
The carriage ride to Blackwood Manor—his ancestral home, where they would spend their honeymoon—was spent in a silence that was not awkward but full. He held her hand, his thumb tracing small circles on her palm, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, watching the English countryside roll past.
“Are you happy?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
She turned to look at him. At this man who had seen her when everyone else had looked past her. At this man who had carried the memory of a childhood kindness for fifteen years, who had searched for her, who had waited for her.
“No,” she said, and his face flickered with alarm. She smiled, reaching up to touch his cheek. “I am not happy. I am something far beyond that. I am home.”
He closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, and she felt the last of his walls crumble. The great, formidable Duke of Ravenswood was hers. Completely, irrevocably hers.
Blackwood Manor was a vast, sprawling estate of gray stone and ancient ivy, set against a backdrop of rolling hills and dark forests. It should have been imposing, even intimidating, but to Evelyn, it felt like a sanctuary. The corridors were lined with portraits of stern-faced ancestors, but there were also cozy reading nooks tucked into unexpected corners, sunlit windowsills where she could sit and watch the deer graze in the morning mist.
Her first morning as the Duchess of Ravenswood, she woke to find Alexander propped on one elbow, watching her with an expression of such raw wonder that she felt her heart clench.
“What?” she asked, her voice still thick with sleep.
“I am trying to convince myself you are real,” he said simply. “I have dreamed of you for so many years that I am afraid I will wake up and find this was all a beautiful illusion.”
She reached out and touched his face, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. “I am real,” she whispered. “And I am not going anywhere.”
He leaned down and kissed her, slow and deep, and she felt the truth of her words settle into her bones. She was not going anywhere. She was exactly where she was meant to be.