Page 87 of A Duke to Steal Her
“No, you were thinking very clearly. You were thinking like a man who’s convinced himself he doesn’t deserve happiness.” William plucked a blade of grass, twirling it between his fingers. “I asked you the other day, but tell me something—what do you think Lavinia would say if she could see you now?”
Ambrose considered the question, really considered it for the first time in years. When he tried to imagine Lavinia’s voice, her laugh, her gentle teasing when he took himself too seriously, the answer came with startling clarity.
“She’d tell me I’m being an idiot,” he said slowly.
“Elaborate.”
“She’d say…” Ambrose’s voice grew stronger as he let himself remember the sister he’d lost, not the broken woman Peirce had destroyed, but the laughing girl who’d challenged him to be better than their father. “She’d say that love is too precious to waste on pride. That holding onto anger only hurts you. She’d remind me of how she never asked me to sacrifice my happiness for her memory.”
“And would she be right?”
Ambrose felt something shift inside his chest, like a door opening after being locked for years. “Yes. God help me, yes.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
For the first time in days, Ambrose felt a spark of hope kindle in his chest. He’d been so focused on punishing Peirce that he’d nearly destroyed the one thing that mattered more than revenge.
He’d nearly lost Emily.
“I’m going to get my wife back,” he said firmly. “If she’ll have me.”
William grinned. “Now that sounds like the Ambrose I remember. Though you might want to bathe first. You smell like you’ve been living in a bottle.”
Ambrose laughed—actually laughed—for the first time in what felt like forever. “William?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For not giving up on me.”
“That’s what friends are for.” William stood, brushing grass from his coat. “Besides, someone has to keep you from making a complete hash of your life. It’s practically a full-time occupation.”
As they walked away from Lavinia’s grave together, Ambrose felt lighter than he had in years. He still had to face Emily, still hadto find the words to convince her that she was more important than his thirst for vengeance.
But for the first time since she’d left, he believed it might be possible.
He believed he might deserve a second chance.
When Ambrose returned home from the cemetery, he felt as though he was seeing his townhouse clearly for the first time in days.
The servants moved about their duties with worried glances, the curtains were drawn against the afternoon light, and the entire place felt like a mausoleum.
He climbed the stairs to his chambers, catching sight of himself in the hallway mirror. William had been right: he looked like a man who’d been living at the bottom of a bottle. His hair was disheveled, his jaw was dark with several days’ worth of stubble, and his clothes were wrinkled from sleeping in his study chair.
“Phillips,” he called to his valet. “Prepare a bath. And lay out my best morning coat.”
If Phillips was surprised by this sudden return to civilized behavior, he was too well-trained to show it.
Within the hour, Ambrose was clean-shaven, bathed, and dressed with his usual meticulous care. He looked every inch the Duke of Nightfell once again, rather than the broken man who’d been haunting these halls.
He was halfway to the door, determined to go to Emily and beg her forgiveness, when he stopped. His hand rested on the brass handle as William’s words echoed in his mind.
You’re so afraid of betraying Lavinia’s memory that you’re betraying your own happiness.
If he wanted Emily back—truly wanted to build a life with her—he needed to close the door on his past first. He needed to face Peirce one final time, not as an instrument of vengeance, but as a man choosing to move forward.
Only then could he go to Emily with clean hands and an open heart.
Ambrose found Lord Peirce at his townhouse in Bloomsbury. When Ambrose knocked, it took several minutes for anyone to answer the door.
