My Darling Duke

“I have only one question, then I shall take myself to the library, where I will drink and read while trying to pretend you have not foolishly given up on your only chance of happiness.”

Eugene sounded angry, and Alexander lowered his head and considered him through hooded eyes. “Ask your question and then leave me be!”

“Do you love her?”

More than I thought possible.

Yet he could not bear to say it aloud lest the loss became unbearable. “I like her,” he said gruffly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I hold her in considerable affection.”

“I like her,” Eugene snapped. “I do not stare at her like a hungry wolf desperate for a taste.”

Alexander tried to sit up farther to relieve the uncomfortable ache in his back. He dragged himself weakly toward the mound of pillows and cushions in the center of the overly large bed. With a savage curse, he tumbled back onto the bed, hating how he felt so weakened. It had taken so much to be self-sufficient, and to be reduced so piteously again filled him with a fury unlike any other he had known.

Yet there was no piercing sense of loss or pain at his misfortune.

Alexander could not afford to repeat the dark days of his past.

The echoing despair tried to creep up on him. He closed his eyes. Fought against it. Never that, he vowed. He would never be that man again. Even if it meant he had lost the use of his legs forever.

But there was an awful pain eating at his chest. All that was reserved for Katherine.

“I’ve answered you, Eugene; now leave me be.”

His cousin scowled. “It has been a couple of hours since you callously ordered her away from your life. The last time I checked, the carriage was being prepared for the four-day journey to London.”

Those words propelled Alexander from the bed with a strength he’d not thought he possessed. He grabbed his stick resting by the headboard and tried to stand, but his legs would not cooperate with his desperate intentions. A fire rippled along his back, and a hoarse groan escaped Alexander. Sweet mercy. Sweat popped along his forehead, and for a moment he wondered if the fever had returned.

He stepped forward and toppled. Eugene lunged, caught him, and assisted him into his wheeled chair.

“I must find her, Eugene.” What he would say, he had no notion. Alexander couldn’t explain the sensations sweeping through him, knowing only he must go to her. They could not part with such hurt between them. “I cannot let her leave with bitterness between us. We must remain friends at least.” That way he would still have a part of her always.

“What did you do to place such heartbreak in her eyes?”

Alexander turned the wheel of his chair toward the door. “She is a flame I will not out,” he said, unable to render any more explanation.

Eugene seemed to understand, for the man sighed after closing his eyes briefly. “You are very disheveled. Let me summon your valet and—”

“No. Take me to her.” Without waiting for his cousin’s assistance, he spun the wheel of his bath chair and pushed himself toward the door and out into the hallway. At the top of the stairs, he grabbed the railing and, with a grunt, hauled himself to his feet. He took one step, then another, and another before he crumpled.

His manservant was hurrying up the stairs, his face creased in worry. Once he reached him, Hoyt assisted him up and back in the chair. Then the man deftly maneuvered him down the broad staircase with thumps and grunts.

“Take me to Miss Danvers,” he ordered.

Hoyt’s face lit with approval, and Alexander did not have the care to inform him that he meddled and assumed wrong. The man pushed him with impressive speed down the large hallway toward the front door. The butler wrenched it open, and Alexander wheeled himself over the threshold, staring at the departing carriage that had nearly reached the end of the mile-long driveway.

“Should I summon another carriage for you to follow, Your Grace?” Hoyt asked, his tone hopeful and anxious.

Alexander made no reply, staring at the coach until it disappeared from view down the rough roads that would take her back to London. Probably once back in town, Katherine would find that she went on quite happily without him. Perhaps she would discover her feelings for him were not love but merely a passing fancy, an infatuation. Then the pain he’d seen in her eyes would lessen, and she would smile that winsome smile of hers again.

Yet such justifications did not dull the hunger and desperate love that had grown in his heart by the minute for Katherine Danvers.

I cannot let her go.

He closed his eyes in defeat, knowing he had even less to offer her now than he had a few weeks ago. Then, he could be on his feet for a few hours. Now…he glanced down at his bare toes, a silent snarl covering the edges of his lips.

“Take me to my room.” The moment of madness had passed, and rationality had returned.

Farewell, Miss Danvers.