Three sisters were sent to Aldridge Hall to win a duke’s fortune — one was prepared to charm him, one was the backup, and Nora only wanted to disappear. She hid behind a curtain to avoid being noticed, but the Duke found her first — and from that moment, he never looked at her sisters again.

PART 4

“A ledger?” Nora glanced at the columns.

“It’s a list of every tenant farmer on the Aldridge estate whose roof is currently leaking.” Nathaniel tapped the page. “Two hundred and forty families. Below that, the cost of slate. Below that, the cost of timber.” He flipped a page. “Here — the debt my father left when he died on a hunting trip two years ago. He was fond of racehorses and terrible at choosing them.”

Nora looked from the numbers to his face. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because last night you accused me of parading women around so I could point a finger at the widest hips. You think I’m enjoying this?” His voice was low, laced with bitter exhaustion. “I loathe it. I am twenty thousand pounds in debt. I have villages that will freeze this winter if I don’t fix their cottages. My solicitor tells me the only way to secure credit from the London banks is to prove stability — to marry, to produce an heir, to stop looking like a reckless bachelor who might break his neck and leave the estate in chaos.”

He closed the ledger with a sharp crack that echoed in the quiet room.

“I don’t need a porcelain doll who drops her fan.” His eyes held hers. “I don’t need a woman who recites French poetry. I need a partner. Someone who understands that this house is sinking into the mud, and who’s willing to grab a bucket and bail water with me.”

Nora’s breath caught. The raw honesty of it stripped away every defense she’d built. He wasn’t a god on a pedestal. He was a drowning man.

“Then you invited the wrong women,” she said softly. “The women out there don’t know how to bail water. They only know how to drown gracefully.”

He took a step closer. Woodsmoke and ink wrapped around her. “Not all of them.”

Panic, sharp and cold, spiked in her chest. She stepped back until her spine hit the desk. “No, your grace. You do not get to look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m an option.” Her voice trembled and she hated herself for it. “Rosalind needs you. My mother will be turned into the street by Christmas if she doesn’t marry well. I have nothing to bring you — no dowry, no connections. If you look at me, you sink my entire family.”

His jaw clenched, a muscle feathering near his ear. He looked as though he wanted to tear down every ridiculous rule caging them both. But he was a man trapped by his own ledgers, and she was a girl trapped by her mother’s debts.

Before he could speak, the heavy doors swung open.

“Your grace!” Lord Shelby’s booming voice shattered the quiet. “The ladies are gathering for the promenade to the lake. You promised to lead the party.”

Nathaniel held her gaze three agonizing seconds longer. Then he stepped back, the mask of the Duke sliding effortlessly into place over the tired man beneath. “Coming, Shelby.” A brief, formal bow. “Miss Montgomery. Enjoy the Greeks.”

He walked out, leaving the ledger on the desk and the scent of woodsmoke fading behind him.

Nora gripped the edge of the oak until her knuckles turned white, her heart hammering against her bruised ribs.

The sky had darkened from bruised purple to menacing charcoal by the time thirty women in impractical muslins and thin leather slippers marched down the gravel path toward the ornamental lake. Lady Edith walked at the rear with the dowagers, eyes fixed like sniper sights on the front of the column, where Nathaniel walked.

Rosalind had secured his right side. She looked breathtaking in peach muslin against the gloomy landscape, deploying every weapon in her arsenal — laughing, pointing at the swans, asking about the estate’s history in a melodious chime. Nathaniel was polite. He answered. He offered his arm on the uneven gravel.

But Nora, trailing twenty paces back among the younger daughters, could see the tension in his shoulders. He was enduring the walk.

“He likes her,” Celia whispered, linking arms with Nora. “Mother says he’s definitely leaning toward her.”

“He’s leaning away from the wind, Celia.” Nora pulled her shawl tighter.

They reached the lake, where a crumbling stone folly — a romanticized ruin built by Nathaniel’s grandfather — overlooked the water. The wind picked up, snapping skirts like frantic flags.

Then the sky broke.

It didn’t drizzle. It unleashed a torrential, freezing deluge. Chaos erupted — women shrieking, hands flying to elaborate bonnets, dowagers abandoning dignity to sprint for the manor house, velvet cloaks dragging in sudden mud.

“Rosalind, the folly!” Edith screamed over the wind.

The younger guests bolted for the ruined walls. Nora didn’t run. She stood frozen a second, watching a thousand pounds of silk and feathers meet its ruin in real time, before turning to follow Celia — and her thin slipper caught on a slick, mossy stone.

She pitched forward, landing hard on her hands and knees in the muck. Wet earth soaked instantly through her skirt, chilling her to the bone. She hissed, examining her scraped palms, coated in thick black mud.

“Get up.” The voice was rough, barking over the rain. Large hands gripped her under the arms, hauling her upright with effortless strength.

Nathaniel. Rain plastering his dark hair to his forehead, his immaculate coat already soaked.

“I can walk,” Nora gasped, trying to pull away. She was a disaster — mud-covered, hair plastered to her cheeks, a drowned rat.

“Don’t be an idiot.” He didn’t guide her toward the folly, where the others — including Rosalind — huddled watching with wide, shocked eyes.

He bypassed them entirely.

He took her by the hand, ignoring the mud on her fingers, and pulled her toward the thickest part of the treeline, where an ancient oak offered a natural umbrella against the downpour. The rain reduced to a heavy, echoing drip. Nora stood shivering, arms wrapped around her chest, the cold biting into damp skin.

Without a word, Nathaniel shrugged off his heavy tailored coat and draped it over her shoulders. The wool was warm from his body, smelling intensely of him.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, teeth chattering, looking back toward the folly. Thirty pairs of eyes burned through the rain, staring directly at them. Lady Edith looked one breath from an aneurysm.

“Done what?” He swiped wet hair from his eyes, indifferent to the cold.

“You bypassed Rosalind. You chose to pull me out of the mud.” Panic rose in her throat. “Do you realize what you’ve just done? You’ve humiliated her. You’ve humiliated my mother. I’ll pay for this when we return to the house.”

“I’m not marrying your sister, Nora.”

The words cut through the rain like a gunshot.