Page 14 of Bound By the Duke

Her lashes fluttered at the sensation, but she refused to look away. “Then explain it to me.”

His fingers tensed just slightly on her chin, but his expression didn’t change.

“I will say this once,” he murmured, his voice low and firm. “Do not bring up the matter of heirs again. Not now, not ever.”

Those words struck her. For a moment, she could do nothing but stare into his unreadable eyes, wondering what sorrow lived behind them.

But by the time she found her voice, he had already let her go. Without hesitation, he stepped back and turned around.

She stood there, watching as he increased the distance between them. She didn’t follow him. He didn’t look back.

When the door of his carriage closed, silence was all that was left, and the feel of his gloved fingers on her chin.

Aurelia stood there for a long while, even after the carriage had disappeared, with her hands trembling faintly at her sides.

Some things were confusing her, and she wasn’t sure which was the bigger issue—the mystery of the duke, or the strange flutter in her chest that she had felt when he touched her.

But she knew one thing for sure. None of those issues was going anywhere anytime soon.

CHAPTER 4

There was a reason the third-floor sitting room had been avoided by Lord Scovell that morning.

Because chaos lived there now.

It wasn’t polite chaos or the kind found at a tea party where someone forgot the lemon. It was the kind of ribbon-fighting, pillow-throwing, perfume-clouded chaos. The kind that came with three sisters, one best friend, a wedding taking place in nine days, and most importantly, the delicate nerves of a bride who had been trying very hard not to scream.

“Is it supposed to feel like this?” Aurelia asked no one in particular as she stared down at the samples of lace in a velvet box. “My lungs feel like they’re folding in on themselves.Can lungs do that?”

Celia jerked her head from behind a tower of hatboxes with a laugh. “Only if you have swallowed a corset—which I wouldn’t put past you.”

“I am not that hysterical.” Aurelia cleared her throat before turning to shoot her sister a look.

“Oh yes, very calm,” Nora chimed in immediately. “You’re practically a nun.”

“Why are there so many shades of white?” Aurelia groaned before holding up two swatches that looked exactly the same. “This one saysPearl Dust, and this one saysMoonlight Blush. What is the difference?”

“Pearl Dustis for innocent girls,” Hyacinth offered from where she sat on the arm of a chair like a fashionable cat. “Moonlight Blushis for the ones who know better.”

“Just pick moonlight.” Celia rolled her eyes with a soft chuckle. “Or pick whichever won’t cause you to have a nervous breakdown.”

Aurelia nodded before slumping into a nearby sofa, her hair loose, and her usually composed expression beginning to crack. The sun was barely up, and already she felt like she had run a battlefield with nothing but a hairpin.

She loved her sisters. SheadoredHyacinth. But weddings?

Weddings were nightmares in disguise, even though she had spent five years looking forward to it. The bustle, flowers, sparkles of new slippers… It was the kind of scene she had pictured for some young lady in one of her romance novels.

But not her. Never her.

“Is it strange,” Celia remarked, plucking petals off a pink rose, “that it’s all happening so fast? You barely know him.”

Hyacinth leaned back with enough mischief and curls. “You mean theDuke of Doom?”

Nora made a dramatic little noise. “He’s not doom. He’s actually dangerously gorgeous.That bone structure is a crime.”

“He’s also terrifying,” Celia added. “The stories I’ve heard.”

“There are always stories,” Aurelia interrupted lightly, then proceeded to smooth her skirt as though that would help to slow her heartbeat.