Page 21 of Alone with the Beastly Duke
Am I imagining things now?
The woman had an extraordinary hold on Axel, and he concluded that if he was now seeing her face where she was not, he needed to get her out of his head and fast too.
My loneliness has definitely gotten to my head.
“Aaaargh A shout rent the air, and Axel groaned.
“Goddamn, these loud neighbors!” Axel muttered.
Between imagining he saw the cheeky woman due to his loneliness and now, his noisy neighbors, Axel decided that he needed to get out of London as soon as possible. The city was driving him crazy, and the earlier he left, the better, lest he lost his mind completely.
ChapterSeven
Whatever happiness Jasmine had gotten when she saw the apple tree had long since disappeared and was now replaced with worry and fear.
It was the night of the second day her parents and siblings had left her behind, and yet, no one had come for her. She was huddled up in the dark and cold library and had covered herself with as many blankets as she could get. Unfortunately, the blankets did not do much to keep the cold at bay as her body shivered and her teeth clattered from the chill weather.
Jasmine was beginning to doze off on the sofa in the library when she heard a strange sound. She sat up immediately and listened carefully. The noise came again, and she recognized it this time—feet plodding through the shrubs.
Jasmine gasped.Someone is here.
She was terrified to no end, and she had tons of questions.
Who is the intruder? What do they want? What would they do to me if they caught me?
The noise increased, and there was no mistaking it; someone was approaching the house, and from the sound of the shrubs they were stepping on, the person was approaching through the garden. Making sure to be as silent as possible, Jasmine moved to the hall where she could easily see the outdoors without exposing herself.
A shadow cast against a window on the other end of the hall, and Jasmine pressed herself against the dark wall so that they would not see her even if the intruder could see into the house.
More footsteps, and a window rattled in another part of the house.
Terrified out of her wit, Jasmine’s heart pounded in her chest. Jasmine slapped herself lightly on the cheeks to keep from freaking out.
I need to focus.And that was what she did. She quickly began to inspect the little that she knew about the intruder.
The intruder does not bother to be quiet.
This meant that the intruder was sure that no one was home, and they did not know that she was forgotten at home.
The intruder has been trying unsuccessfully to get some of the windows open.
This meant that the intruder was acting blindly, and they needed to know which windows were easier to open. From the little Jasmine knew about the intruder, she could tell that he was a stranger who did not know much about her Father’s estate.
Crack!A glass broke in the kitchen, and Jasmine jumped, startled. She did something at that moment that was incredibly foolish and also brave.
Jasmine crept to the kitchen and saw the intruder struggling to get in through the broken glass. With her hands shaking in fright, she got a bucket of water and poured it through the shattered glass.
“Aah!” the intruder shouted, and with the retreating footstep, she could tell that the intruder was abandoning the mission.
Jasmine sat on the floor in the kitchen as she slowly took deep breaths to calm her nerves. Before long, her hand stopped shaking, and her heart began to beat normally again.
As she sat on the floor, Jasmine wondered who that person was. The first person that came to her mind was the beastly man, and even though she wished that he was not the intruder, she knew she could not totally rule him off, especially since she knew nothing about him.
A lot of things pointed to him as the intruder. For one, he had a motive. Jasmine had stolen his money; perhaps, he was trying to get revenge or get his money back by breaking into her Father’s house.
If Jasmine’s suspicion that he had seen her earlier in the day was correct, then it was safe to say that he had come for revenge. She had seen him in the estate right next to her Father’s earlier in the day, so it would be easy for him to slip in through some secret passageway without anyone being the wiser. Jasmine was still trying to think of the next step when she heard the sound of glass breaking from another end of the house.
Jasmine bolted up immediately. The intruder shook the window frantically and with such strength that Jasmine knew it would be a miracle if the window did not give way.
