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“Poor dear,” one of them said with a faint, pitying smile that somehow felt worse than scorn. “You are lucky indeed to have found a benefactor in the Duchess. How… providential.”

“Yes,” Gemma replied quietly, her smile fading as the words seemed to echo in her mind.

She needed air, needed to escape their cold, prying eyes and sharp tongues.

“If you will excuse me…”

She walked away, her steps quickening as she wove through the crowded ballroom, heart pounding as she finally slipped down a quiet corridor and opened the first door she could find.

After she had entered the room and shut the door behind her, she leaned against it and took a deep breath. The walls felt as if they were closing in and her past clawed at her with cruel insistence.

She looked around and realized that she was in a small library, its shelves lined with leather-bound books that slept in the long shadows cast upon them by the candlelight.

Gemma walked to the window, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as she looked out into the darkened garden, her thoughts whirling in a storm of memories and questions.

Then she sensed it. The familiar, magnetic presence behind her.

She didn’t need to turn around to know it was him.

The moment Frederick entered, she felt her body instinctively tense.

“Your Grace. Why are you here?” Her voice came out softer than she had intended, weary and vulnerable.

She heard the door’s latch click shut and his heavy footsteps drawing closer.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he replied, his tone clipped, almost accusing.

Gemma turned to face him and was startled by the force that emanated from his eyes.

“A small group of ladies asked one too many inquisitive questions about my past,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “I needed a few moments to myself.”

She could feel his unrelenting gaze searing into her. His eyes glimmered with pain and repressed jealousy.

“Is that all?” he asked, his words carrying a weight she didn’t understand.

He took a step closer, towering over her in the dim light.

“What do you mean?” She frowned, taken aback by the harsh, accusatory tone of his voice.

His jaw tightened. “You have been flirting with Lord Newfield all night.”

Gemma’s eyes widened. “Flirtingwith him?” she repeated, incredulous. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you truly think I could not see the way you looked at him?” he questioned, his words sharp and scathing. “The way you smiled and laughed at everything he said…?”

She took a step forward, her own frustration boiling over. “What onearthare you talking about, Your Grace? Why do you care if I smile or laugh?”

Her question seemed to stop him in his tracks, leaving him speechless, and his expression became momentarily confused. He opened his mouth as though he had intended to offer a sharp retort, but had instead thought better of it.

Her heart ached as she watched him struggle to communicate.

Then, with his voice in the lowest octave she had ever heard him speak, he whispered, “because you are mine. Andno onetouches what belongs to me.”

Before she could fully comprehend his words, Frederick’s arm circled her waist and he pulled her against him, his lips crashing down on hers with a hunger that caught her completely off guard.

Gemma gasped, her body stiffening and her senses reeling. As his lips moved over hers, and his fingers gripped her tightly, she felt herself begin to yield to the wild need that rose up inside of her. Without further thought, her hands instinctively reached up and wrapped themselves around his neck.

The world around them faded, her senses narrowing to nothing but the feel of his body against hers, and the rough desperation of his kiss. He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against hers, his breath warm and ragged.