Page 105 of Duke It Out
We slip away through the trees and up the path that winds up behind the estate. The castle fades behind us, the music and voices blowing away on the breeze, swallowed by the riot of midsummer birdsong and the rush of the pines. Rory leads the way, glancing back every so often as though he’s half expecting me to have disappeared.
At the top of the rise the old stone folly waits – silent, half-crumbling, the pale stone warm in the half-light. He pushes the door open, and I step inside first, my breath catching at the glow of lanterns that are burning in the corners as if someone has made the place ready.
“This is beautiful.”
I turn to see Rory standing, one hand leaning on thedoorframe, looking at me like he wants to memorise this moment.
“How long has this place been here? I can’t believe I didn’t find it when I was exploring.”
“Oh, a couple of hundred years. It was built for my great-great-grandfather for his wife. She was a writer, too – a poet. This was her sanctuary.”
I look around, surprised. “I didn’t know any of that.”
“All in the archives, but I guess that’s another story. It turns out that once the words are written and the books are on the shelves, they just become part of the furniture.”
He steps toward me, the lantern light shadowing his face. “There’s a lot about this place that isn’t in the official records. Things worth preserving but not locking away.”
“This doesn’t feel like the end of a story,” I say meeting his gaze.
“It’s not.” He closes the distance between us. “It’s the beginning.”
His hands slide around my waist. My palms find the line of his jaw, feeling the tension beneath the skin, the back of his neck, the solid heat of his shoulders. His kiss is different this time – slower, his lips grazing mine for a moment so I pull in a breath. It feels like we have all the time in the world.
His mouth finds the curve of my shoulder and I say his name as I let my hands tangle in his dark hair. When we part, he gently tucks a lock of hair back behind my ear and lets his thumb trail down my cheek.
“Can you give me a chance to start over?”
“I thought I already did.” I flatten my hand against the wall of his chest, feeling his heart beating.
“With all of it.” He steps back, his hand still in mine, histhumb tracing a path down the inside of my wrist. “I’ve fucked up a million times over.”
I laugh. “Can I have that in writing?”
He grins and shakes his head. “Give it a few days and it’ll be an exclusive inThe Telegraph… just in case your friend Anna was still considering a scoop.”
I put a hand up. “Don’t call her a friend.” I’ve had my things shipped up from the flat, paid my debt, and cut all ties.
Turns out that she blew her chances in journalism with one too many embellishments of the truth and she got wind that something was up at Loch Morven, so her visit to me had an ulterior motive. Now she’s in high level reputation management, spinning lies for the billionaires she claimed to despise.
“Whatever she was,” his jaw tightens for a moment, “we got her shut down.”
His eyes are hard as he says it.
“That’s not the only reason why you’ve spoken to the press?”
He shakes his head. “I saw this place through your eyes. I’ve read your manuscript over and over and I realised that even someone as talented as you couldn’t make him sound better than he was.”
I smile. “I think that’s a compliment.”
“It is. But I realised that was his time. Who reads the diaries of my ancestors?” He shrugs. “Nobody. They’re consigned to a shelf, forgotten. What lives on is the work we do. That’s how I can make a difference, not by harking back to the past.”
He takes my face in his hands and cups it gently, looking at me for a long moment before he speaks.
“I want you with me to do it, Edie.”
I take a breath.
There was a time when I would have pulled away, told myself that I wasn’t enough. I think of Fenella’s catty comment at the ball and Anna’s little barbs. But I’m not standing here with a duke. I’m looking at the man, not the title. He could be a New York bartender, and I’d still want him, because I don’t love the castle – okay I do, I love the history and the magic and all of it – but I love the man who finally saw this place for what it could be and believed in it. And in me.
