Page 81 of Saved By the Rakish Duke

He pushed forward on the beaten path until it turned into a paved walkway. Duncan’s feet didn’t stop or summon the coach when he got to the gates. Rather, his feet carried him down the busy streets.

His walk had been aimless at first—his mind too aggravated to plan where he wanted to. But he still somehow found himself at the gates of Harlington’s estate.

“Blackmoore?” his friend muttered bewilderedly. “Good heavens, you’re as pale as a ghost!” He stuck out an arm to stabilize Duncan as he stumbled through the front door.

“Water,” Duncan managed to mumble. “Need water.”

Feeling his legs begin to give out from under him, Duncan threw an arm around Harlington’s shoulders, further deepening the other man’s concern.

Harlington repeated Duncan’s request much more forcefully, sending a servant to dash down the hallway.

Leaning against the nearest wall for additional support, Duncan placed a hand over his own pounding heart, its beat growing louder and louder.

“What’s going on, Blackmoore?” Harlington’s voice sounded strained with concern.

Duncan looked up at him, pushing through the difficulty he had breathing. “I wish I knew.”

* * *

Penelope opened a groggy eye to check the clock, which told her it was now a quarter to six.

As she reached up to rub the sleep out of her eyes, it suddenly dawned upon her that this was her first morning waking up as an engaged woman. Tilting her head slightly, her eyes landed on the bouquet of flowers that Lord Gloushire had proposed to her with, now happily resting in a vase.

Based on the way her friends had reacted whentheyhad gotten engaged, Penelope knew she should have been more elated—gleeful. But besides the sense of relief that she no longer had to worry about Uncle Winston, she felt what could only be described as a hollowness.

You should be more grateful, she chastised herself.In this case, Lord Gloushire is a savior—a very kindly one at that. Be happy.

Bearing this in mind, Penelope pulled herself out of bed and decided to do something she had never done before—she was going to send a love-sick note.

She had seen her friends do something similar before, spraying the notes with their perfume, pressing kisses to the paper before sending it on its merry way. But Penelope had never been compelled to do such a thing.

But sending a love-sick note to your fiancé the morning after your engagement felt like the right thing to do. So, she pulled her hair into a low chignon, settled into her favored chair at the breakfast table, and picked up her quill.

The trembling quill in her hand hovered just above the paper as Penelope racked her brain for what to write. She began by addressing the note to him, at least that was a start.

But she found herself stuck once more. After all, she couldn’t justthankhim for proposing, could she?

A thought barged into her mind and Penelope pushed away with all her might. But the longer she sat staring at the blank piece of paper before her, the more her resolve failed her.

By the end, she had surrendered to the notion and for the next few minutes, the only sounds to be heard were her own steady breathing and the scratching of her quill against the paper.

Suddenly, she found herself quickly running out of space on the paper as reflections about his eyes, his smile, and his touch filled the page. The trembling in her hand only grew more intense with every line she wrote until she was forcefully snapped out of her fervor when shealmostwrote “Your Grace” instead of “Lord Gloushire”.

She dropped the quill onto the table as though it had betrayed her when in truth, it was her own fault that the only way she could bring herself to compose the note was by thinking of His Grace.

The note turned out well in the end, but could she really send it to Lord Gloushire knowing its origin?

It’ll be better than not sending him anything at all,she reasoned, so she tied it up and asked a maid to send it off for her before preparing to go downstairs for breakfast.

“Good morning, Your Grace,” Penelope greeted the dowager duchess as she entered the breakfast room.

“Good morning, pet.” The older woman smiled. “Did you get any sleep last night or were you too excited?”

It took a moment for Penelope to fully comprehend the question.

“Surprisingly, I managed to sleep quite well, Your Grace,” she answered with a sheepish smile. “Perhaps the excitement was so overwhelming that it tired me out.”

“Even so, that is rather fortunate seeing that we have quite a lot of work ahead of us!” the dowager duchess exclaimed with a gentle squeeze to Penelope’s hands. “A few of the guests may be surprised to be receiving the invitation this late into the Season but it will be a simple matter to explain that it simply couldn’t be helped given the suddenness of the courtship and subsequent engagement.”

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