Page 99 of Duchess By Accident
“I needed to talk to you, to speak to you. Duchess Emberly told me I would find you in the garden.” He yelled back, his words almost drowned out by the storm.
“I do not want to see you.” She roared back, the wind whipping at her face. “Leave me alone.”
“You will catch your death if you stay in this.” Adrian gesticulated at the sheets of rain driving themselves down on them.
She continued to back away.He does not trust me, that is why he is here.“I would rather that than listen to a word you have to say.”
“Just come inside. This is ridiculous.” Adrian moved towards her.
His step broke the spell. “No.”
Natalie turned and ran from him. Her emotions gave her speed.He was here. He had let her leave.But perhaps he regrettedit.Her mind was a buzz of thoughts, each one clamouring to be heard above the others.
She heard him shout something after her, but she did not stop. She sprinted away from him, rain pelted her. She could not tell if it was tears or rain water that streamed down her face and she did not care.
There was another flash of lightning, and Natalie stumbled and fell. She was soaked through, pain lancing through her knee as she sat shivering. Her chest ached, her breath came in wracking heaves.
Adrian stood over her. His clothes were just as sodden as hers, his hair plastered to his face. His coat clung to him unmoved by the howling wind around them.
“Why will you not leave me alone?” Natalie tried to move away from him.
“How could I leave you alone when you ran into the middle of a storm? Have you taken leave of all your senses?” He yelled, even as he offered a hand to help her to her feet.
She ignored it, pushing herself to standing without his aid, her fingers slick with mud. “If you are here to drag me back to Blackwood so I do not reveal your secret… I will not go without a fight.”
“That is not why I am here.” He answered. “Please let us go inside, it is madness to stay out here.”
The wind was dying around them, but the rain still hammered them both. Natalie could scarcely feel her fingers or her toes, but she did not care.
“I would be mad if I went anywhere with you.” She hugged her arms around her, digging her fingers into her skin to stop herself from shaking.
Adrian shook his head throwing his hands up in frustration. “If you are determined to catch your death, so be it. I will catch mine with you.”
“Always with the melodrama!” She wiped the rivulets of rain from her face.
Adrian pointed at her with a finger. “I am not the one who ran from her spouse into a storm.”
“I am not the one who tried to pay his wife for a silence that never needed to be bought.” She closed the distance between them and prodded him hard in the chest. “I am not the one who accused me of being someone I am not.”
“I was a fool. I was not thinking clearly.” Adrian deflated, stepping away from her. “I know you would never betray me, I know that in my heart.”
Thunder boomed, less loud than before. Rain continued to pelt them but Natalie barely felt it.
She shook her head. “Words are all well and good, but your actions show me that you do not mean them. I will not be fooled again.”
“Damn it Natalie, you will be the death of me!” Adrian exclaimed. “I have spent the last eight years, building walls that you tore down the moment we met.”
His eyes met hers, wild as the storm had been moments before. Water trickled down his face and he shook his head as though trying to shake it off. Even in her anger, she felt a part of her trying to reach for him, to brush the hair out of his eyes.
“The moment you climbed through my window, you stole my heart. Even if I was too stupid to see it then.” Adrian ran a hand through his wet hair, spraying droplets behind him. “I told myself it was about Melody, but it was a lie.”
“What are you saying?” Natalie asked.
Her heart beat so hard that it felt as though it were trying to leap out of her chest.
“I love you, Natalie. Try as I might, I cannot help but love you. I should have told you all of the truth, should have told you in London but I was scared.” Adrian reached a hand towards her, dropped it and clenched his fist. “Melody is not mine. I love heras though she is, but that does not change things. She is my world, and I thought that if you knew the truth… I do not know what I thought, only that it terrified me.”
“I would never do anything to hurt her. And blood… There is more to being a father than blood. Melody is your child, in every way that matters. She is not mine, not by blood, but I will love her no less because of it.” Natalie clutched at her sodden dress.
