Page 75 of A Bride for the Rakish Duke

“Very well.” Edwin bowed his head, but as he turned to leave, he added, “I do hope you can remedy this, William. I think she cares for you very much, and I think you care for her a great deal in return. It is a mess, I cannot deny it, but… those who adore one another have untangled themselves from far more gnarled knots than this.”

William opened his mouth, wondering if he ought to use Edwin as a more detailed messenger, explaining everything that needed to be said, but he could not do it. He wanted Lydia to be there, standing in front of him, when he told her the truth. So, instead, he just bobbed his head and continued to drink the tea, though it tasted like mud in his mouth.

Lydia awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in the beautiful four-poster bed that she knew was wasted on her. She had been trying and failing to fall asleep for several hours and had only just managed to drift off.

“Is someone there?” she whispered into the darkness of the bedchamber, for she was certain thatsomethinghad woken her up, but she did not know what. It had not been a nightmare, thankfully, but perhaps it was something worse.

Silence echoed back.

It is my mind playing tricks on me…

Shaking her head, she slowly lay back down and pulled the coverlets up to her chin, staring up at the gauzy fabric that acted as a canopy.

She jolted as a definite sound pierced the deathly quiet. A sharp tap against the windowpane, off to her right, behind heavy, velvet drapes.

“It is a tree branch,” she told herself sternly, her nerves jittering.

The noise came again, sending a shiver through her. On second thought, it did not sound like a tree branch hitting the glass, and she did not remember seeing a tree outside. It was more forceful than that, as if a bird was pecking the glass.

A pigeon, perchance?

Swallowing thickly, Lydia threw back the coverlets and tiptoed toward the window, nearly jumping out of her skin as another strike hit the pane. It took her a few moments to steady her breaths and urge her feet forward, and it took another moment for her to be able to muster the courage to yank back the drapes.

But there was nothing there, other than the moonlight and the starry sky and the shadow-drenched lawns that stretched toward a looming forest. Unnerving trees that in the daylight would undoubtedly be beautiful.

Puzzled, she turned her gaze downward and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp as she saw a figure standing below. Even in the darkness, he was unmistakable.

He raised a hand in greeting.

Of all the stubborn, infuriating idiots…

She cursed him under her breath as she reached for the casement window and, with no small effort, heaved it upward, so she could tell him just what she thought of him.

“Lady Ursula!” he called out, grinning despite everything. “I have sailed the seven seas trying to forget you, but you are my north star, my beacon, my fixed mark, forever guiding me to you—to home. I have tried in vain to stay away from you, but I can do it no longer. I must be near you again. I must reach my home, or else I shall be forever cast adrift, forever lost at sea without you.”

Lydia’s jaw dropped, for she had read that part so many times that it was ingrained in her memory. And he had not missed a single word nor gotten one wrong. Indeed, she was so astonished that it took her a few moments to remember that she was heartbroken and furious with the man standing below.

“Leave me be, Will,” she replied. “You cannot win me over with Captain Kildare anymore, for you have proven that you are nothing like him. He was devoted to Lady Ursula. He would have done anything for her. And most of all, he was loyal, and he lovedher with everything he possessed. You are a fool if you think you are anything like him.”

Will nodded slowly. “Then come down and speak withme,Lydia. Allow me to explain.”

“I need no explanation,” she shot back, terrified that she might start crying again. “I saw it all, heard it all. There is nothing I need from you now except an annulment.”

Will ran a hand through his hair, looking so unfairly handsome in the moonlight that she had to wonder if fate was playing cruel tricks on her again.

“At least allow me to apologize,” he urged. “Come down here and let me say that I am sorry without having to shout it. Although, if you do not come down, then I willhaveto shout it. I will bellow so loudly that it will wake everyone in the household.”

Panic seized Lydia. “Do not dare!”

“I shall.” Will heaved in a dramatic breath, and in a voice so booming that it startled a few doves from their roosts, he continued, “My darling wife, I?—”

“Very well!” Lydia hissed, her cheeks on fire at the thought of the household being awoken by her husband yelling into the night. “Come to the garden doors. I shall grant you enough time to apologize, nothing more.”

She pushed away from the window and hurried out of the room, grabbing the spare housecoat that had been hung up for her on the way. Pulling it on, she muttered and cursed under her breath, mortified by her husband’s behavior. It was bad enough that he had fathered a child with another woman and had intruded on Bruxton Hall in such a crude fashion, but to disturb people’s sleep was quite another thing.

Creeping along the landing and down the elegant staircase, she glanced this way and that, but the manor was silent, and it seemed that Will’s outburst had not disrupted anyone.

Still, by the time she reached the garden doors at the rear of the manor, she was fuming.

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