Page 71 of A Scandalous Kind of Duke

“And is all the desire now spent?”

A foolish and futile question: She knew he would not answer. And sure enough, he didn’t. He went to the door.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I fear this has been a mistake.”

Her heart cracked a little more. “You said you valued our friendship.”

He paused in the doorway. “Yes. I did. Very much.” He stepped back toward her. She sat up. He stepped away. “But as you are always the first to say, nothing ever stays. Not even this.”

CHAPTER19

Leo fled to his estate in Richmond, where he lingered several days. A private retreat, he had claimed before leaving London. Now, he made his lie true, and was grateful to avoid contact with the outside world.

There was only a skeleton staff, but he didn’t need much. He was happy enough to subsist on bread and cheese, to bathe in the lake, to wear whatever came to hand. No one would ever know about the night in Surrey. They would hear only of his days in Richmond, rowing and riding until his muscles screamed and his palms blistered and bled.

He tried to steer his thoughts away from Juno, but his thoughts proved as obedient as her cats: They went where they pleased, pounced on small things, and toyed with him mercilessly.

And when he laughed—like a madman, laughing alone at night—it was at his own folly. Had he truly believed that sleeping with Juno would dissolve his feelings for her? Behold the madness caused by thwarted lust: It burrowed into a man’s brain like a worm in an apple and made him believe all manner of foolish notions as if they were the wisest ideas in the world.

It was always going to end like this. He had examined their relationship like a cut-glass teardrop, turning it this way and that, exploring every facet. No matter how the light shone through it, he could not see how it could have ended any other way.

I can love you without wanting to marry you.

I do not aspire to be a duchess.

She could not have put it more plainly than that.

They had hurt each other. He had made mistakes. But the differences between them were stark. It simply wasn’t meant to be and that was all there was to it. Nothing had changed, in the end. No more options were available. He had decided to marry Susannah Macey, and that was what he would do.

So it was that, five days later, Leo rode along the mews behind his London house.

Ashen daylight pressed down on him like a headache. His horse shied away from the gate. He did not want to set foot inside that house.

Perhaps he wouldn’t. Perhaps he would hunt down Hadrian Bell, take him to some new club in London, get roaring drunk. Excellent idea. Except his face was unshaven, his clothes were dirty, Hadrian was out of town, and drinking had not solved any of his problems yet. But after days of seclusion, Leo needed company. He was exceedingly sick of himself.

An image arose: a parlor with shabby, mismatched furniture, and cats that shed on his clothes, and a warm, crooked smile that always, unfailingly, welcomed him in.

He shook off the image and forced his skittish horse through the gate.

Outside the stables, he swung out of the saddle, landed on the flagstones with tired legs, and scowled up at his house. How dare it look the same as always. But it would never change. The house and title endured; the men who claimed them came and went, irrelevant.

Sainted stitches. Hewasin a gloomy mood.

He turned as two grooms came running out of the stables. Their faces broke into such broad smiles, one might think he was their savior.

“Your Grace, you’ve returned, praise be,” one said, as the other took the reins.

“Thank you, Jones, Allan. It’s, ah, lovely to see you too.”

How odd. Leo liked to think he treated his staff decently, but he never imagined they actually missed him during his absences.

A moment later, the stable master came striding out to greet him too.

“Your Grace,” he said, his rough voice breathy with relief. “Your secretary said you were on a private retreat in Richmond and were not to be disturbed, and the butler wasn’t sure if he should write to you.”

“About what?”

Shrill laughter flew from an open window on an upper story of the house. The window revealed a man and woman laughing and kissing and disappearing from view.

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