Dukes By the Dozen

Panic swelled inside her as the party guests spilled out onto the terrace, making it impossible to hide in the shadows. Someone would see her. Recognize her—

Oh, dear God, no! She shoved past him and ran, back inside the house and through the crush toward the front door, disappearing into the night.

CHAPTER 4

JOHN dug his heels into his horse’s sides and urged the gelding faster across the field. Two nights without sleep. Three days without a note of explanation. Three damnable days of wondering what Cora Bradley had been up to in leaving him those notes. In accepting the invitation to the masquerade. In letting him whisper such things to her that the mere thought of them had his blood boiling in a way that the act itself with other women had never done.

Christ.

She knew who he was. Had to have known all along—

No. She didn’t know. Just as he had no idea until he removed her mask that the exquisite creature who’d captured his imagination through all those letters and stolen kisses was the woman who’d become the bane of his existence.

Apparently, she still didn’t know, or the exasperating Miss Bradley would surely have been at his doorstep by now, demanding an explanation. At gunpoint.

If anyone deserved an explanation it was him. What the devil had she been doing on Monmouth land in the first place, then returning after dark, alone, when it wasn’t safe? He could have been anyone, for Christ’s sake. A criminal. A murderer.

“A damn duke,” he ground out through gritted teeth and lowered himself closer to his mount’s back to urge him on faster.

But all the horses in all the world would never be able to outrun the vexation that ate at him over learning her true identity. Or that even now he wanted nothing more than to carry her away and make love to her.

Unable to stop himself, he reined in the gelding and turned the horse toward the lane that cut through the edge of the woods and past their tree. He didn’t expect a letter after so many days, but his foolish heart wouldn’t give up hope.

He saw it as he neared, appearing on the tree as if through sheer will. He didn’t trust it not to be a mirage. Even as he unpinned it from the trunk, he worried it might be nothing more than a fancy of his imagination.

Then he paused. He’d read dozens of her letters since they’d started their exchange, but this time, the note had his given name written on the outside of the fold. Nothing would be the same between them again.

I wish I could explain why I left the ball the way I did—had it been only we two, I would have stayed and danced away the night with you. We could have watched the sun rise together over the fields at the break of a new day, with new hope, new possibilities…

He clenched his jaw. He’d selfishly wanted just that, and more. But she’d ended those possibilities when she fled. Even after all they’d shared, she refused to trust him once the masks fell away.

I went to the ball looking for a friend and was instead exposed to the enemy.

His heart stuttered. She meant Monmouth. Him.

Damnation, he wasn’t the enemy! If she’d only waited a few seconds more, only saw who he was behind the mask and let him explain—

She would have hated him.

His eyes burned as he read on.

That night was a mistake. Not you, John—you were wonderful, perfect, everything I could have imagined.

Except that he was Monmouth. The man who wanted to put her father’s mill out of business.

We should never have tried to meet, I know that now. Our world should have remained one of letters, where we were safe. So there will be no more notes from me. I hope you understand how much you and your letters meant to me and that I will always carry you in my heart.

Understand? She thought he was the devil himself. A mistake. The enemy. Everything except what he wanted, which was to be accepted as the man he was. He snapped out a curse at her, at himself, at the universe—

He didn’t want understanding. He wanted an explanation. He deserved one, and not in some letter but from her own lips.

He mounted his horse and urged it into a gallop toward the river. And the mill.