Page 45 of The Wrong Duke

“What was that?” Evan’s chest cracked.

“I said fine.” She snapped her head up and looked right at him, coldness embodying her stare. “You’re right, this was a foolish thing for us to do, and it’s better that it never happens again.”

“Go — good,” Evan stammered.

“In fact, I think it’s best if once we return that you leave — it would not do for you to be here for any longer. You know...” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Better to be safe than sorry. I’d hate for you to slip up again.”

That stung more than it should have. The hope that she would see reason and realize that he was trying to do the right thing was dashed in an instant. The reality that she was furious with him for not fighting, likely deciding here and now that he wasn’t worth a second thought, crashed upon him like a wave in a storm. Really, it just confirmed what he’d always suspected.

“In fact,” she continued coldly, “perhaps it is better if after that...” She hesitated, as if the words caught in her throat. “...we don’t see one another again.”

“I —” Evan opened his mouth to defend himself, to point out that this wasn’t what he wanted but what he must do. But before he got the chance, he heard a voice calling from the distance.

“Miss Baker! Miss Baker!”

He recognized the voice immediately as David’s. With the storm having passed, his friend had widened his search and was closing in on their hideout. If he wasn’t ridden with guilt, Evan would have stood and taken Miss Baker’s hand, guiding her from the cabin so that David might see that it was he who found her first. That he was the one who kept her safe during the storm.

Instead of that, fear seized him, and all he could think was what he might say when David found them alone like this. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what they had done.

As luck had it, Miss Baker saved them both from such a happenstance. But that just made things worse.

“You should wait here,” she said coldly as she pushed herself to her feet.

“What?” Evan half made to rise.

“I’ll go,” she said, turning her back on him and starting toward the door. “Lord Malnor shouldn’t see us together like this. If he asks, I spent the storm alone in this cabin, and thank heavens that he found me when he did.” She looked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

“Go — good idea,” Evan succumbed. And then, because he was feeling properly chastised, he added, “Think of how good it will look, your true love being the one to find you.”

She curled her lip and shook her head. And then, without another word, she turned back and stormed from the cabin. “Over here!” she cried out. “Thank God, you found me!”

Evan remained on the floor, listening as David cried for joy at the sight of Miss Baker. And he stayed right there, listening to their footsteps crunch through the forest until there was nothing but silence to consume him. Silence and his own sense of idiocy because the way he felt right now was entirely his own doing.

He had no reason to feel this way. Miss Baker clearly had feelings for him, that was obvious enough. And he had them for her. In the perfect world, he would admit them to her, tell her father that he wished for her hand, and be done with it. But that just wasn’t Evan. A lifetime spent mistrusting people. More walls erected around his emotions than Buckingham Palace. That nagging sensation that if things were too good to be true then they probably were.

Memories of his father flooded his mind, forcing him to stay glued to the floor of that cabin and let Miss Baker walk away before he had a chance to say how he felt. The love his father held for his stepmother. The way she used that love to take advantage of him. And how his father had refused to believe it, so damn in love that he couldn’t accept that it wasn’t returned the way he needed it to be. Inevitable pain was what came when you opened your heart like that. That’s all it could be.

As such, Evan had taken the easy route and given up before he could risk being hurt. But then again, if it was so easy, why did it still hurt? Now more than ever, he realized why he’d never bothered with romance and love and women. Whether one tried to do the right thing or not, the chances were that it would come crashing down on you anyway. Best to avoid such things and live a life of isolation.

And what better place to start than alone on the floor in the cabin in the middle of the forest. It was a situation that Evan was wholly used to by now.

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

“Knock knock.” It was her father, loitering by the open door, wearing the biggest smile she had ever seen. Bigger than she’d known him capable of.

“Father,” Amelia said simply. She sat on the end of her bed, staring aimlessly out the window, her mind a million miles away with no sign that it might return anytime soon. She’d been home for a little over an hour now, bathed and dressed for supper, waiting to be called while wanting nothing more than to be left alone for now and possibly the rest of her life.

“I think congratulations is in order,” her father beamed as he waltzed into the room. Just about danced! Why, he was so happy that had Amelia been in another place, emotionally speaking, she might have asked who this man was and what he had done with her father.

Instead of all that, she simply said, “And why is that?”

“Now, now, no need for modesty.” He reached the end of her bed, and for a brief moment, it looked as if he was going to sit down beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. Thankfully, he curbed that impulse. “What you did today, Amelia. Brilliant. Truly, a masterstroke if I do say so myself.”

Amelia frowned at her father as she had no idea what he was talking about. Clearly, this had nothing to do with the Duke, so what on earth was he so cheery for?

“The forest,” he prompted, raising his eyebrows at her. “The storm. Finding yourself trapped by it — I confess, I’d completely forgotten about the cabin that my father had built. But to sequester yourself there until the storm ended, knowing that Lord Malnor would be the one to find you. I suppose you must have mentioned it to him earlier.” He rubbed his chubby hands together in front of his face. “Brilliant, Amelia. Truly, I didn’t know that you had it in you.”

"I didn’t...” she said softly, although her father wasn’t listening.

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