Page 59 of A Lady of Means (Roses and Rakes #1)

Chapter Forty-Six

Devyn heard the clock toll. He thought maybe he’d drunk enough the night before that he’d slept past the wedding, but there it was.

One more hour and she’d belong to another man.

Legally.

But would her heart still bear his name?

He could smell her scent, like lemons and sugar in his room. Devyn jolted upright, looking around him. A bundle of letters sat atop his table.

D-

You’re all there is for me too.

But when I was a different girl, I said a lot of awful things. I wrote them down. (Some of them were true, though). Someone stole that book, and shared my words. Without it, I was forced to make a choice to protect my family from the shame of what I’d put on paper. And then you returned.

You gave me so many better words.

I don’t have enough good ones to give back to you.

But these in our letters, all the ones I gave to you whispered in the dark, they were true.

Those written in that book that so many people have read when I didn’t want them to, they were from a different girl.

You made me a better one. I’m changed for knowing you, for loving you.

Your Lady

Devyn finally reached the conclusion her brother had been leading him to with the book he’d asked his help in returning.

Devyn reached between his mattresses for the pink and black book he’d retrieved the evening before. He had time, he had to get to her. He rose from the bed, throwing on his clothes with a wince at the tightness in his hips and lower back from his still-recovering injuries.

Once dressed, he caught his reflection in the mirror, tying his cravat.

This ensemble was something she’d picked out for him once.

She probably knew the thread count and where the bloody silkworms who made the pants came from and he’d let her pick out all his damned clothes forever and wear them with a smile…

if she’d just stop her foolishness. Call off this blasphemous wedding.

He looked again to the bundle of her letters. Ink and paper were a paltry substitute for a woman, especially a woman as earth-shattering as Moria.

He had told Calum the night before that he couldn’t use the Burn Book to win her back; he’d told her how he felt, she still hadn’t chosen him.

But how was he meant to be inside her and hold her like they were the last two people on earth and then he was just supposed to let her be the property of another man forever? He read her letter back, then pocketed the parchment into his greatcoat pocket.

As he called for a carriage, Devyn decided he called bullshit.

Not over his dead body was he going to just give up. He had been dead before, but he wasn’t now. Or more accurately, he had never been.

God, maybe he was still drunk. Didn’t matter, he had a wedding to crash.