Page 47 of Bride of the Fae Duke

Nellie clambered up the last few feet, then stood on top of the dyke, squinting at the endless marshland stretching out before them. On either side of them, a few dozen yards away, mills turned their slow rounds in the summer breeze, pumping the water from the city. To the north, so distant that they were nothing but hazy grey outlines, the mountains of Faerie rose above the horizon.

She kept her gaze trained on the landscape. It was much, much easier than looking at the man standing by her side, close enough to reach out and touch her, yet keeping his hands pointedly to himself.

‘If you no longer want to stay around after this mess, I can’t say I wouldn’t understand,’ he flatly continued. ‘We … well, I’m sure we could arrange something.’

And there it was.

Mere hours after the truth had come to light, and he’d already drawn his conclusions – why keep her here, now that she was no longer a necessity, and likely more of a burden than even she realised?

‘It wouldn’t be that dangerous to stay, would it?’ she blurted, her voice higher than usual. ‘It seems unlikely more murderous cousins of yours will jump out of the woodwork anytime soon.’

‘He tried tostrangleyou.’ A crack of fury broke through the levelness. ‘If you never want to see that damned house again—’

‘I promised you an heir.’ Too quick. Too breathless. ‘Don’t want to leave that unfinished. So I’ll just stay around until … until …’

Until you have no more use for me. Until I have no reason left to stay.A few months. A few years, perhaps.

It would end, of course … but at least she’d have him for that time.

He sucked in an endless breath beside her. ‘I suppose … I mean, if you’re very sure …’

It was his reluctance that broke her, that cramped, half-hearted excuse for an agreement; she burst without warning, words gushing over her lips like water breaking free. ‘Bloody divines, Othrys, I’m so very sorry that you got stuck with me like this, and if you just want me to go, just tell me and I promise I’ll—’

She saw him whip around on the edge of her sight. ‘Wait, Eleanor? What—’

‘—just go and leave you alone,’ she barrelled on, unable to stop now that she’d started, ‘and then I can pretend to have died from the Issian pox in two years and you’ll be free to—’

‘Eleanor.’ His duke’s voice. ‘Where in the world did you get the idea that I’d want you to—’

‘You never wanted to marry me in the first place! You married mebecauseyou didn’t want to!’ Sweet divines – this was even crueller than quiet agreement, having to spell out the obvious to a man who really should know better than to play the fool to her. ‘And now it turns out that it never mattered a damn how much you didn’t want it! So is itthatodd for me to conclude—’

He cursed.

And then his hand wrapped around her jaw, warm and large and strong – too intimate a touch to resist as he turned her headtowards him with fingers that would not allow resistance. He was agonisingly close, suddenly. Shoulders tense, lips tight. The slits of his pupils had widened farther than she’d ever seen them before, dark chasms of an emotion she wouldn’t have been able to name if her life depended on it.

His hand shook ever so slightly against her face.

‘You’re the only good thing to have come from all of this, Eleanor.’ He bit out the words, an almost desperate hurry to speak them. ‘If I console myself withanything, it’s that at least I got to meet you thanks to—’

‘What?’ she stammered.

‘—this fucking mess.’ His fingers squeezed tighter, then let go; he stepped back in the grass, breathing heavily, making visible attempts to loosen his shoulders. ‘But don’t you dare let that stop you from doing what is best for you. I promised you freedom. So if you want to leave …’

She stared at him in the frantic silence, her heart pounding like the thumping printing presses.Wantingto leave?

Her?

But that … that wasn’t the point at all, was it?

‘Don’tyouwant me to go?’ She almost whispered it, the words no louder than the rustling breeze brushing through the marshland, the linden trees. ‘I thought …’

He briefly closed his eyes. ‘I’m not the one who nearly got killed, Eleanor. My wishes are hardly the relevant ones here.’

‘I can’t agree with that if I don’t even know what they are, can I?’ she managed. ‘So why don’t you just tell me, rather than operating on nothing but assumptions about my opinions?’

His jaw twitched.

Divines help her, he was so senselessly beautiful like this, mussed up and vulnerable, his storm cloud eyes clinging to hers with frenzied intensity … as if he’d blink and she’d be gone. As if he’d wilt and die for lack of her.

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