The Duke Replaced His Brother at the Altar — And the Bride Said Yes to the Man She Secretly Loved

Chapter 4

I told myself the memory of that morning would fade.

It did not.

I tried everything sensible women were supposed to do when their thoughts strayed somewhere improper. I helped my mother oversee the household accounts. I rode with my father across the estate to inspect the winter stores. I even forced myself to sit through an hour of embroidery beside the drawing room window, though I had always despised the delicate, endless stitching that pricked my fingers and tested my patience.

Nothing worked. Not the work, not the riding, not the hours of pretending to be the woman everyone expected me to be.

Because every quiet moment betrayed me. At night, when the house finally slept, the memory returned with painful clarity. Sebastian kneeling beside me in the wheat. His steady hand lifting me from the ground. The way his voice had softened when he said, “May I walk with you?”

I turned in my bed, burying my face in the pillow. This was absurd. Dangerous. I was promised to Julian.

Julian, who had been part of my life for so long I could barely remember a time before him. Julian, who laughed easily, who never judged my wild habits, who called me Pepper and meant it as a term of endearment rather than mockery. Julian was kindness. Julian was safety.

But he was not the man whose presence now haunted my thoughts.

I rose from the bed and crossed to the window. The floorboards creaked beneath my bare feet. I pressed my palm against the cold glass, staring across the dark fields toward the window that had become my nightly compass. One window of the Harrington estate glowed faintly against the night. The Duke’s study. He was awake.

The realization made my breath catch. My fingers left a faint imprint on the glass.

I was not the only one who had not slept easily since that morning.

The next day, my mother swept into my room with an excitement that immediately made me suspicious.

“My darling,” Lady Whitmore said brightly, arranging herself on the edge of my bed. “I have wonderful news.”

I did not look up from the book I was pretending to read. “What sort of news?”

“I have invited the Harringtons to dinner tomorrow evening.”

The book nearly slipped from my hands. I caught it just in time. “The Harringtons?”

“Yes, of course.” She adjusted the curtains with cheerful energy, sending dust motes dancing in the afternoon light. “Julian, Lady Rosalind, and his grace. The wedding is only a month away. It seemed proper that both families dine together before the celebrations begin.”

My pulse quickened sharply. “That seems… sudden.”

“Not at all. And besides, the Duke rarely accepts invitations. It is quite an honor that he agreed.”

An honor. Or a torment.

The following evening arrived far too quickly. My maid Mary fastened the final pins into my hair and stepped back with admiration.

“You look beautiful, my lady.”

I stared at my reflection in the mirror. The woman looking back at me was elegant and composed in a deep emerald gown chosen by my mother. The color brought out the green in my eyes. My hair was pinned in an elaborate arrangement that must have taken an hour. She looked exactly like a bride should — contained, graceful, untroubled. The girl who rode through wheat fields in trousers was nowhere to be seen.

The Harringtons arrived promptly at seven. I heard their voices in the entrance hall before I saw them, and my pulse stumbled like a horse over uneven ground.

Lady Rosalind entered the drawing room first — warm, gracious, silver-haired. Julian followed, smiling with easy familiarity. He crossed the room and kissed my cheek without hesitation.

Then Sebastian stepped inside.

The room seemed to shift around him. The candles flickered. The air grew heavier.

Tall. Controlled. Impossibly composed. He wore a dark coat that fit his shoulders perfectly, and his cravat was tied with exacting precision. He carried his title like armor, and yet, when his eyes found mine across the room, the armor flickered. Just for a moment. Just enough for me to see.

Julian greeted me with cheerful affection. “You look radiant,” he said, kissing my cheek again. I smiled automatically.

But when Sebastian approached, the air between us tightened like a drawn bowstring.

“Lady Eleanor,” he said formally.

He lifted my hand and brushed his lips against it — the briefest contact. Yet something sparked instantly. A current ran from his fingers to mine, up my arm, into my chest. My breath caught.

“Your grace,” I managed.

Sebastian released my hand quickly, but I noticed the way his fingers closed tightly at his side. He had felt it too.

Dinner was unbearable.

I sat across from him at the long table while conversation flowed around us like a river I could not enter. My father debated politics with the Duke. Julian laughed easily at something my mother said. Wine was poured. Candles flickered. The silverware clinked against porcelain.

Yet I felt only the silent tension stretching across the table between Sebastian and me. Every time I looked up, his eyes were already there, waiting, watching, asking questions he could not voice aloud.

“Eleanor, dear,” my mother said suddenly. “You have hardly touched your food.”

All eyes turned toward me.

“I am quite well,” I replied softly. “Merely thinking.”

Julian laughed. “Probably planning her escape from the wedding ceremony.”

The room filled with light amusement. Everyone smiled. Everyone except Sebastian. His expression did not change, but something in his eyes darkened — a shadow passing over deep water.

After dinner, the men withdrew to the study for brandy. I remained behind with the ladies for as long as I could bear. Lady Rosalind spoke of her gardens. My mother discussed the wedding arrangements. I nodded at appropriate intervals and heard none of it.

Then I rose quietly.

“I believe I shall take some air.”

The night garden was cold and silent. Frost clung to the edges of the rose bushes. My breath clouded before me as I walked beneath the bare branches, pressing my hands together to steady myself. What was happening to me?

Footsteps sounded behind me on the gravel path.

I turned.

Sebastian stood a short distance away, his face half-lit by the moon. He had removed his coat. His shirtsleeves were white against the darkness.

“You could not remain inside either,” he said quietly.

I swallowed. “No.”

We stood there in the moonlit garden, separated by only a few feet and a thousand unspoken rules. The frost crunched beneath his boots as he took a step closer.

“Are you happy, Lady Eleanor?”

The question struck me like a blade between the ribs.

I opened my mouth, but the truth refused to become words. So I said nothing.

Sebastian watched my silence and understood. Something inside his expression broke — a crack in the armor he had worn for so long.

“I should not have asked,” he said roughly.

Then he stepped back and disappeared into the darkness, leaving me alone beneath the winter sky with a heart that no longer obeyed me.