Page 45 of Marquess of Stone

“How generous of you, My Lord,” Nicholas remarked dryly though his eyes never left Marian’s face.

With visible reluctance, her parents withdrew to the hallway, positioning themselves where they could observe but not easily overhear.

“You abandoned me,” Marian said simply, once they were relatively alone, the accusation escaping before she could attempt to temper it with dignity. “When the scandal broke, you simply vanished.”

“Is that truly what you believe?” Nicholas took a step closer, now close enough that she could detect the faintest scent of his cologne mingled with the earthier notes of hard travel. “That I simply… abandoned you to your fate?”

“The facts speak for themselves, My Lord. What other conclusions did you think I would draw?” She gestured toward the list he still held. “Our arrangement had reached its conclusion, had it not? You helped me check off my little adventures and then —”

“Then I rode like a madman to gather evidence against Crowton,” Nicholas interrupted, his voice low and intense. “I have spent three days with barely any sleep, tracking down every single person who had ever fallen victim to his… manipulations. Every servant he had mistreated, every debt he had refused to honor…”

Marian stared at him, struggling to reconcile this revelation with the narrative she had constructed in his absence.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why go to such lengths for someone who was little more than a project to distract yourself with?”

Something flickered across his handsome face — vulnerability, perhaps, or a deeper emotion she dared not put into words. “Because I made you a promise.”

“Is that all this is to you? The settling of a debt?”

His hand reached for hers, hesitated, then closed the distance. His fingers were warm against her skin, and despite everything, she could not bring herself to pull away.

“No,” he said simply. “It is more than that.”

From the hallway, her father cleared his throat pointedly. “Five minutes remaining.”

Nicholas glanced toward the interruption with barely concealed frustration before returning his attention to Marian. “I do not have the time to say everything that needs to be said, so I must instead ask you to trust me, perhaps one last time.”

“Trust you?” The words felt foreign on her tongue, too fragile to hold the weight of everything that had transpired between them.

“Yes.” His thumb traced a gentle circle against her palm. “Enough to meet me tomorrow at noon in the park near the old oak tree.”

Marian knew she should refuse. This man had turned her orderly world upside down, had introduced her to feelings and experiences that had ultimately led to her current predicament.

And yet…

“Why should I?”

Nicholas unfolded her list with deliberate care, his eyes never leaving hers. At the bottom, beneath the last crossed out item, he had added something in his own elegant handwriting.

Marian leaned forward to read it, her heart stuttering as the words came into focus.

“Time is up.” Her father announced from the doorway, stepping back into the room with decisive authority. “Lord Stone, I believe you have had sufficient opportunity to —”

But Nicholas was already moving toward the door, pausing only to press the list into Marian’s trembling hands. “Tomorrow. Noon,” he murmured, just loud enough for her ears alone. “If you want to know the bare truth of it.”

As he bowed formally to her parents and took his leave. Marian unfolded the crumpled paper fully, her eyes fixed on the new addition at the bottom of her list.

The final item, written in Nicholas’s familiar hand, made her breath seize entirely:

7. Trust a Marquess with your heart.

“What did he say to you?” Jane demanded as she bobbed into the room, rushing to her sister’s side the moment Nicholas had departed. “Marian? You are as pale as a ghost!”

But Marian could not bring herself to answer. She could not tear her gaze from those six simple yet impossible words. Because beneath them, in smaller script, was a postscript that changed everything:

… and learn the reason I truly helped with your list.

CHAPTER 13

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