Page 40 of The Wrong Duke

“Lord Winstead?!” Lord Lindstone cried and was about to rush forth, only for another loud crack to erupt. This time, however, it was clearer where the noise had come from.

“The storm.” David pointed through the canopy where the dark clouds were swirling and crashing into one another. The moment he spoke, the rumble of thunder rocked the heavens and the forest about them. “It will be on us any minute.”

“I think it already is,” Evan noted.

“Lord Winstead...” Lord Lindstone looked through the trees. “Where has he gotten off to?”

“I suppose leaving them is out of the question?” Evan asked, half-jokingly.

“Of course, we’re not leaving them!” Lord Lindstone snapped. “They should be back any moment.”

“The hunter that Lord Basser is, I’m surprised he couldn’t feel the storm on him,” Evan said and winked at David who looked at him flatly. “And you, Lord Lindstone. It’s said that true hunters can read the weather patterns simply by the feel of the wind. I suppose you’re having an off day.”

He shouldn’t have poked the bear so readily. Not to mention obviously. But he was feeling more chastised than he ought to have, watching Lord Lindstone serve his daughter up on a platter to David the way he was while treating Evan with such clear disdain. Wasn’t it obvious that David wasn’t interested? Wasn’t it clear that his daughter clearly wasn’t either? Or most likely, did Lord Lindstone just not care?

As predicted, Lord Lindstone didn’t take kindly to Evan’s sarcasm. His pudgy face turned bright red, and his body shook, a tomato that was being squeezed to a point of explosion. Before he got the chance to unleash on the Duke, a cry called from behind them.

“We’re here! We’re here!” Lord Winstead stumbled through the forest, his son right behind him.

“And not a moment too soon,” David was quick to pick up. “We were just about to come looking for you. The storm...”

“We heard it. It’s going to be a terror!”

And indeed, it was. The five men were quick to make their way back through the forest and toward the manor. In a way, it was lucky that two members of the party were so out of shape and out of practice as they’d hardly made it a mile from the forest’s edges. It was just as they breached the tree line — the green pastures that surrounded the manor opening before them — that the clouds above finally surrendered to the lashes of lightning and the beatings of thunder and opened themselves upon the world.

It rained. Hard and heavy. Thick and wet. Strong winds gusted and bellowed and lashed. The sky shook and flashed bright white. The ground itself seemed to crumble beneath the party’s feet as they hurried for shelter. It was one of those storms where the men held one another by the arm as they fled, as if to let go might see them swept up, never to be found again.

And when they finally did make it inside the manor, throwing the front doors open and stumbling into the foyer as the wind and rain swept behind them, there was such a feeling of relief that even Evan couldn’t find it in himself to make a joke.

Unfortunately, the relief was short lived.

“Augustus!” Lady Lindstone cried from the top of the stairwell. “The storm —”

“Yes, we know,” he grumbled. Body soaked through, he removed his coat and dropped it to the ground in a wet heap. “We barely survived it.”

“No, the storm!” Lady Lindstone cried again as she hurried down the stairs. “It’s Amelia. She is... she is... she —”

“Out with it woman!”

Her face was drained of blood, and her eyes were set wide in a state of horror. “She left not twenty minutes ago. Told me she was going for a short walk to clear her head. But she hasn’t returned, Augustus! And she’s not on the grounds — the staff has checked!”

As one, the five members of the hunting party turned back to the open doors. Beyond, the tempest howled as if the end of the world had arrived, as if the seas had risen and swept across the continent, as if God was trying to drown mankind for their sins and this here was the beginning. Lightning struck and cracked Evan’s ears. Thunder rumbled and shook the manor to its foundations. The doors slammed and struck and rattled while the hinges moaned.

“She’s... she’s out in that?” Lord Lindstone said softly, as if he could not believe such a thing.

“Yes!”

“Good God...”

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

“Well done, Amelia. Well done.” She stood by the open doorway — there was no door to speak of, just some rusted hinges where a door had once hung — and watched the storm thrash and beat at the forest as if it had a personal vendetta against the woodland. “You’ve really done it this time. Bravo.”

Amelia knew that what she should have been feeling was gratitude. And relief. Blessed was what, for she had managed to find shelter in a storm that may very well have killed her if she hadn’t been so lucky. The odds that she had stumbled upon this cabin in the middle of the forest, just as the first signs of rain began to appear, were nothing short of a miracle and despite how annoyed she was at herself, there was a small part of her that couldn’t help but be grateful.

It was more embarrassment than anything that had Amelia feeling the way that she was. All she had wanted to do was go for a short walk and clear her head, getting her thoughts back in order because they’d been muddled all day, and she theorized that some fresh air was just what she needed. Free from the confines of the manor, away from the memories that it sparked, a good walk outside with nobody about to distract her, and she was certain that by the time she was done, she’d know why she was feeling the way she did and what she was going to do about it.

But then rain began to patter on her shoulders. Then lightning cracked through the sky, and the earth shook at her feet. Then she became a little flustered and realized that she’d walked a lot further through the forest than she had intended. And then... the storm began.

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