Page 60 of Her Seven Nights with the Duke

I’ve missed you.

He cleared his throat. “I have been so worried about you. So worried that Lord Worlington would try to hurt you that it has hounded my every waking and sleeping moment. I haven’t been able to sleep for the past few days.”

He looked away from her. it was the first time he would reveal his feelings to anyone, the first time he’d truly felt something for anyone, and it hadn’t been so easy for him to admit.

“Your Grace, this may be the last time that we see each other,” Nora said, ignoring what had turned out to be a slight confession on his part. But it possibly meant nothing to her, considering how much he’d changed his mind and how he had been harsh with her.

“I am to be married soon and will no longer be able to see you,” she said, looking away from him.

Samuel’s heart pounded heavily in his chest. He hadn’t the faintest idea how he had expected things to go. However, things were turning out wrong. Despite knowing already that the Viscount wished to marry her off, hearing it from her lips and seeing the look of hopelessness that showed that her fight was over and that she believed she had lost was too much for him to bear.

“There is still one more night for us to spend together if we include the night spent at the inn,” he said calmly, although his emotions were like a raging sea.

Nora looked up at him with disbelief. “Don’t you get what I am trying to tell you, Your Grace? I do not have one more night to share with you. I am a prisoner until I am married, and even that is to happen sooner than I thought. It’s all over.”

Her words ended with a choked sob, her legs giving out as she used the table in his study to hold herself up. She breathed in deeply, her eyes filling with hurt and pain she’d tried so hard to keep from him in all the times that they were together.

They were two broken people, like she had said at the inn. Broken and hurt, disappointed by those who should’ve protected them. He was the only one she had left to protect him from what was beginning to seem like her fate.

Will I fail you too?

Samuel swallowed back his emotions. Now was the time to be logical and think up a way to help her. He reached behind her in her unguarded moment and snatched the letter from her hand.

“No… don’t read that!” she screamed, rushing towards him to get it from him.

Her mouth opened in shock, and her eyes widened as she lost her footing and stumbled into him, knocking him down, with her on top of him.

She gasped, trying to pull away from him as she once again tried to get back her letter. “You cannot read that. Not yet, at least. Not before I leave.”

Her voice was pleading, and yet Samuel paid her no mind, holding her to him with one hand and ripping the letter open with the other. His eyes scanned the letter, confirming what he already knew to be true. This was goodbye and regret at having not been able to tell him that she loved him. Wishing things had turned out differently between them.

“You were not supposed to see that until I left. I was planning to hide it in one of your drawers so you would find it someday, but not today,” she said, her voice defeated.

She pushed herself up with her hands on his chest, but he held her in place. “Why did you send me a note to meet you on the veranda?”

Nora looked at him quizzically. “I never sent you any note. This is the only one I planned to send you.”

She motioned to the letter in his hands just as they heard voices coming up in the direction of the study. She tried to stand up, her eyes wide with panic, but she was not quick enough, as the door opened to show a couple of the guests along with Lord Worlington walking into the room.

“Nora? We have been looking all over for you, and this is what you are up to?” he bellowed as she flinched.

Her mouth opened, and she got off Samuel, standing with so many eyes on her. They had been caught in a scandal.

“Get over here, girl,” Timothy said, taking her hand in his and dragging her out of the room.

“Don’t hurt her,” Samuel said, getting up off the floor to follow after them.

He did not care much for what the crowd thought. The only thing he cared about was getting to her before Lord Worlington could hurt her, considering all she had already been through under his tyranny.

“Samuel, stop right this instant,” his mother screamed, stopping in his path. Her eyes held her fury as she glared at him with so much anger than he had ever seen her display before.

“What is wrong with you? Your behavior is quite inappropriate. What is this I am hearing about a scandal?” she snapped, poking his chest. “You are an embarrassment. I can barely recognize you anymore.”

Samuel returned his mother’s glare, causing her to back down “I don’t care what you think, Mother, and I certainly do not care what members of the ton think of me. I only care about Nora, and right now you are in my way.”

He spoke loud enough to command the attention of those who were around him, and they stared at him in shock. He had meant it when he said he didn’t care what anyone thought. Not even his mother.

He walked past her, relieved when she did not run after him or try to stop him. All he wanted was to reach them before they disappeared.

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