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CHAPTER 1

brOKEN WHEELS

“ Y our Grace?”

The butler peeked outside, his eyes struggling to pierce through the darkness. At first, he seemed annoyed and even scared of the late visitor, but then his eyes adjusted, and he could now discern who the tall, broad man standing before him was.

“Let me in, Alfred.”

The door swung open, and Stephen, the Duke of Colborne, confidently walked into the house, filling the hall with his frame. He was dripping on the polished floor, but there was nothing to be done about that.

Stephen had known traveling at night in this weather was foolish, but the urgency of the news left him no choice. And now, drenched to the bone, he was paying the price. A broken wheel had forced him to abandon his carriage and walk the remaining distance to Colborne House.

Had Colborne House stood in London, he might have found refuge—a hackney, a tavern, even a watchman’s torch to guide him. But here, where the city’s glow faded into proper darkness, there’d been nothing but rain-slicked roads.

The butler struggled to come to grips with his presence. He took his master’s wet coat and then remained almost speechless while the massive man removed his boots.

“Y-Your Grace, we were not expecting you.”

“That makes two of us, Alfred,” Stephen said coldly and made his way to the stairs.

“Y-Your Grace, your mother has?—”

“Do not wake up my mother,” Stephen cut him off. “It’s too late, and I do not want to worry her.”

“No. I mean, yes, Your Grace, but I must?—”

“Whatever it is can wait.” Stephen was losing his patience as the cold bit into his skin.

With sure strides, he ate the stairs up to his room, already loosening his tie and unfastening his soaked waistcoat.

“I just wanted?—”

“Alfred!”

Stephen wanted this night to end and had no patience for any small talk or trivial estate matters. All he wanted was to get out of his soaked clothes, get warm, and get a good night’s sleep.

“Your Grace.” Alfred seemed apprehensive of his sharp tone. “I just wanted to?—”

“Whatever it is, bother me with it in the morning,” Stephen added in a tone that left no room for argument.

Leaving the butler stunned in the hallway, Stephen entered his dark room and shut the door behind him to spare himself from his butler’s inquiries. The familiar room was illuminated just by the fireplace.

This was the room he grew up in—a warm blanket of nostalgia came over him. His family always spent more time in Colborne House than the countryside estate. And he hasn’t set foot in the place for more than a year.

After his father died, he left for the countryside. He needed time to process his death, his new station, and his new responsibilities. But now he was back. Not under the best of circumstances, but still… He missed it.

He stood looking into the fire as he adjusted to his old room. It felt both familiar and foreign. As if he belonged and somehow not fully. He had written to his mother, Dorothy, the only family staying in the house, and his sister, Annabelle, now the very pregnant Duchess of Heartwick. But setting foot here? It’d been a minute.

“Home, sweet home,” he muttered to himself.

He undid his cravat and unbuttoned his shirt and his breeches. He removed all the wet clothes off his ice-cold skin. He found it strangely odd that there was a fire burning in an unoccupied room in the middle of the night, but he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The truth was that he was not looking forward to sleeping in a cold room, so he welcomed the warmth seeping into his prickling skin.

Now, he needed something dry to wear and then sleep.

Stephen was sure that his old dressing room still contained lots of his clothes, so he would for sure find something suitable.

Luckily for him, the dressing room was just beyond the door on the far side of the room, so he made his way there. He opened the door and let the faint flickering firelight illuminate the smaller room.

He crossed the threshold, not waiting for his eyes to properly adjust to the darkness. That’s when his body collided with something. Something warm and soft. Something that let out a surprised whimper as it stumbled backward due to the impact.

Not something, but someone .

Stephen acted out of pure instinct, and his arm shot out, snaked around a waist, and pulled. In the darkness, he could not see, but he could feel .

A very naked, very feminine body was pressed against him, trapped by his arm, his hand resting on a curvy hip that filled his palm. It was wrong to focus on that sensation. Those hips were now flush against his, and that sent a jolt of awareness through his body.

His chest was met with the swell of a bosom, hot and heavy. The delicate peaks pressed against his skin through the faint sheen of raindrops still clinging to him, nothing else between them. His breath hitched, and for a moment, he was nothing but sensation.

His arm instinctively tightened around her, his fingers flexing over smooth, bare skin. And then, God help him, he felt everything. The slope of her back, the gentle curve of her waist beneath his fingertips, the shape of her, pressed along his entire length. The logical part of his brain shut down, his instincts took over, and his body reacted violently, hardening, tightening.

A sharp gasp filled the room, and a desperate inhale confirmed what his touch was painfully aware of. There was a woman in his room. A woman. A very naked woman.

The sound shot through him like lightning, igniting every nerve in his body. She felt this too. His naked body, the way her softness molded into his hard frame, how painfully aware he was of her skin. Her scent, an intoxicating orange blossom, invaded his nostrils.

The realization sent a fresh wave of heat through him. His muscles tensed, his hand frozen on the warm, supple curve it gripped. Because if he moved, if he shifted even an inch, he would have to acknowledge what exactly he was touching. Then, he would want—no, he would need— to conquer more.

Stephen fought that feral part of him that urged him to throw everything out of the window and just touch more, feel beyond, lean in, taste, lick, take, push. So easy, so close, so warm, so soft.

He was still coming to grips with the unreal situation he was in when, suddenly, blinding lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the whole room for just a few seconds. It was enough for Stephen. As the light fell on the face of the mystery woman, he immediately recognized her.

“Victoria?”

Victoria Crawford. His baby sister’s best friend.

Was he hallucinating? Was the impact of the crash bigger than he had thought? Did he suffer some head trauma that made him see people who had no business being in his room in the middle of the night? How else could he justify the fact that this woman was currently entangled in his embrace in the most compromising way?

“Victoria?” he repeated.

The repetition seemed comical, as if he was expecting a figment of his imagination to actually answer. But then again, how could this be an illusion when she felt so tangible in his arms, and touch, all warm flesh against his cold one?

Cold? Oh, he was anything but cold now, this sudden embrace filling him with more heat than he would feel even if he threw himself into the fireplace behind him.

But then again, his ears caught it. That gasp. It was so real, so panicked, that Stephen became certain that he was not hallucinating. No, this was Victoria, in the flesh. Only in her flesh. And he just called her by her name.

Of course, that is the problem. The lack of honorifics, not the fact that we are both naked.

“Victoria? What are you?—?”

“Get out!” Her voice was commanding but still low enough so as not to alarm the household.

Stephen was taken aback by how she had come to grips with their situation faster than him. The only proper response to the situation was to remove his hands, turn around, and get out. Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner?

Victoria stepped out of his embrace and practically pushed him back into the bedroom.

Stephen stumbled back into the room and found himself facing a closed door. He blinked a few times before he realized that the dressing room had no other exit. At some point, Victoria would have to step outside with the added advantage of having a whole wardrobe at her disposal to rectify her… nakedness.

While he was left with two options: one undignified and one miserable. He could either wrap himself with warm, dry bedding or wear his soaked clothes. Stephen thought that he could spare both of them further embarrassment and protect whatever shreds of dignity remained, so he put on his wet clothes.

He should be focusing on the way his clothes seemed to be made out of ice or the sheer absurdity of him being screamed out of his own dressing room. And yet his mind had chosen to focus on other things.

On the way she felt under his touch, the way her waist dipped, and the way her hips flared. How soft her skin was. How her large breasts pressed against his chest. How her gasps felt on his skin.

Do not even think of those things!

This was a disaster, and yet his body refused to acknowledge it as one.

The door creaked open, and Victoria emerged with deliberate poise yet obviously flustered. She was wrapped in a deep green dressing gown that hinted at curves he was now shamefully familiar with. Her hair was slightly damp, loose down one side—thoroughly indecent by Society’s standards, but perhaps the least shocking thing about the night.

His eyes landed on a water droplet trickling down her graceful neck, and he followed its slow descent, feeling suddenly thirsty.

No! Absolutely not .

He inhaled sharply, and that made her downcast eyes flick to his. He felt that sapphire look in his bones, but Victoria quickly looked away, slightly over his shoulder.

It was time he took control of this uncontrollable situation.

So, Stephen, now in his damp clothes and fraying dignity, crossed his arms and fixed her with a look that could have frozen the Thames.

“You’ll forgive my confusion, Miss Victoria,” he began coolly. “But last I checked, women do not typically reside in the Duke of Colborne’s dressing room.”

She arched an eyebrow. Gone was the shy, coy look.

“Perhaps not in the Duke’s dressing room, but certainly in the rooms that were given to them. And you didn’t knock.”

“It is my dressing room,” he argued, emphasizing each word as if he were explaining arithmetic to a child. “I am not exactly sure where you grew up, but I am certain you are aware of how rooms work.”

“And I am sure you know how correspondence works. If you had informed the household of your arrival, all of this would have been avoided. Instead, you barged in with all the grace of a stampeding bull. In fact, the bull might have paused to light a candle, at least.”

“I was not aware I had to ask for permission to enter my room. How is the fact that this is—and excuse me if I tire you with the repetition— my room irrelevant?”

Victoria was shaking with barely restrained fury.

“I was told that the rooms were unoccupied. Unless you possess the ability to haunt your residence, Your Grace , I had every right to think that I was in my private quarters.”

Stephen frowned. This was getting more ridiculous by the minute.

“And, pray tell, who granted you access to these rooms?”

“Your mother,” Victoria stated as if this was obvious and he was the daft one. “You did not presume I run around Mayfair, picking locks to sneak in, did you?”

“I am sure you did not.” Stephen was starting to get annoyed. “I was also informed that your brother inherited a perfectly suitable mansion.”

The way he emphasized ‘inherited’ did not go unnoticed by her, but she decided to let it slide. Still, she drew a deep breath, her chest heaving. And just like that, Stephen felt all the sensations he was fighting so hard to stifle and bury so deep slowly reemerge.

No!

“Does your brother know that you are currently in the quarters of a gentleman?”

“I am sure I wrote to him about my move almost a year ago.”

There was too much information in that single sentence that Stephen opened his mouth to say something but failed.

“I see that your brain is just as difficult to cooperate as your shirt,” Victoria drawled, eyeing his hastily adjusted shirt, which clung to his body.

Stephen felt her gaze as if she had actually touched him. His jaw clenched.

“My brother is attending to the family business in India. Your mother was kind enough to ask me to stay with her so neither of us had to be alone.”

Stephen blinked at the deluge of information that did more damage than the weather outside.

“I am your mother’s companion,” Victoria continued, annoyed. “She is not paying me, of course, so you could say it is more of a friendly arrangement that?—”

“I was never informed about this!” Stephen snapped.

“It may have been the knowledge of how illogically and irrationally you would have reacted. As you are now, screaming in the middle of the night. Unless the plan is to alert the whole household of our… situation.”

Stephen was too tired to deal with all of this right now. And she was annoyingly right yet again. Born into nobility or not, Victoria was still a lady of the ton . And the mere fact that they were in the same room, unchaperoned, would be enough to raise a scandal. Not adding all the other… elements into the equation.

“I think it’s best for us to discuss this once the sun is up,” he said as softly as his trembling body allowed.

“The best idea you had all night,” Victoria quipped.

She turned to leave, her dressing gown swaying gently around her ankles as she made her way to the door.

Stephen dropped onto the edge of the sofa before the warm fire, dragging his hands over his face, his fingers pressing into his temples to fight the oncoming headache—or perhaps to squeeze out the ghost of her warmth still clinging to his skin.

Her hand was on the door handle when she paused.

“Your Grace,” she said, her voice softer than before.

No trace of irritation, no cleverness. Just a quiet tremble wrapped in formality.

Stephen looked up. Her back was still turned to him. She hesitated, then slowly looked over her shoulder. Her eyes flicked to his, and for a moment, all the fire in her seemed to waver, the storm behind her gaze calming into something… unsure.

“Did you…” she began, but the words stuck in her throat. She swallowed. “Did you see anything?”

Stephen let out a long breath, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, pinching the bridge of his nose before straightening.

“Whatever do you mean, Miss Victoria?”

She shifted, her eyes falling to the floor for a moment before she looked back at him again. Braver now.

“Did you… see me?”

The question struck like a crack of thunder and threatened to shatter his resolve. She was still waiting for an answer.

“No, Miss Victoria,” he replied smoothly. “As you so delicately put it, I barged in here like a bull. I did not even light a candle.”

He watched her carefully as he spoke. Her gaze searched his face as if reading the truth to his words, his noble bearing, the honesty in his eyes, the control in his voice. She let out a soft breath, barely audible, and nodded. Without any more delay, she finally left the room.

With a maddened sigh, Stephen leaned back into the sofa, the leather groaning beneath him. He hadn’t lied. In truth, he hadn’t caught the faintest glimpse of her in the darkness, not even in that brief flash of lightning. But he had felt her, every inch of her.

And somehow, that was worse than anything his eyes might have seen. The memory lived in his skin now, seared into his hands, etched into his palm, where her waist had fit too perfectly. That kind of knowing was far more dangerous.