Page 20 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Nineteen

Sometime in the depths of the night, when the fire in the grate had died down to glowing coals, Gemma woke to the sensation of Hal’s large, capable hands in her hair. He cradled her head, stroking his fingers patiently through the tangled strands and combing it out into tendrils that spilled down her back.

She’d fallen asleep lying full length on top of him, her head on his shoulder and their legs twined together. Stacking her hands in the center of his muscled chest, she propped her chin on top and regarded him thoughtfully.

Hal gave her a smile, but most of his attention was on his careful detangling of her hair. The light scratch of his fingernails made Gemma want to purr. All her bones felt melted and soft, like butter left out of the root cellar overnight.

Between her legs, she was sensitive and maybe a little swollen, but not truly sore. She felt…well used. The thought made her smile with contentment.

There had been a moment, when Hal first turned and saw that she’d blatantly disregarded his attempt to keep things chaste and innocent between them. She had thought, for an instant, that he might send her away untouched.

But instead, he’d shown her what her body was capable of, the dizzying heights of delight two people could reach together.

The right two people.

Gemma watched his serious face in the waning light of the fire, noting the care he took not to tug painfully at her hair and the delicacy with which he unraveled a particularly stubborn knot, and her whole heart turned inside out. She buried her face in his chest, her feelings keen enough to cut.

She could not possibly marry the Earl of Stonehaven. As kind and understanding and wonderful as he might be—he wasn’t Hal.

Emotion welled up in Gemma’s throat; she thought it was mainly relief, perhaps tinged with a bit of guilt.

This choice affected more than just herself. Her mother and sister had no one else to care for their needs and plan for their futures.

But in the quiet certainty of her soul, Gemma knew she’d already made her choice—for good or ill.

Now all she had to do was tell everyone what she’d decided, and hope that Hal felt the same way she did. Filled with shimmering excitement and nerves, Gemma looked up at him, lips parted and ready to spill the truth of her heart to the man she loved…

But he was asleep. His hands were still tangled in her hair, his face peaceful. Gemma pressed her lips to his warm, smooth chest, right over his generous heart, and settled herself against him with a small smile.

The morning would be soon enough to tell him that she would rather have a life with him than the wealth of a hundred earls.

The next time she opened her eyes, it was to the gray light of dawn. The fire in the kitchen grate had died out, leaving nothing but cold ashes. The chilly gray clouds visible out the windows presaged another day of rain.

Trapped in the blanket, Gemma shivered and thrashed her way to sitting up. She frowned, looking around the empty kitchen. Where was Hal?

The chill of the early morning air struck her and she shivered, huddling into the blanket and feeling terribly vulnerable to be wearing absolutely nothing underneath it.

How could Hal have left her here, naked and alone, after the night they’d shared?

A folded piece of paper caught her eye, propped against the chair where her clothes hung from the day before, wrinkled but dry. For some reason, the sight of it tightened her stomach with dread.

With shaking fingers, Gemma reached out and picked it up.

Dear Gemma,

Marry your earl.

Be happy, Hal

Chilled to the core, Gemma dropped the note. In all the years she’d raced around London, scandalizing the matrons and debutantes and her priggish half-brother, she had never felt this…shamed.

Not since that first handsome, titled young gentleman at her first ball danced with her—then dropped her hand with horrified disdain when a friend leaned over to whisper Gemma’s scandalous background in his ear.

Well. She hadn’t cried then, and she wouldn’t cry now.

Not that she could, even if she tried. She blinked her hot, too-dry eyes and wondered dully if there was something wrong with her.

Hal certainly seemed to think so, if he could leave her side after the night they’d shared. If he could so easily shove her into the arms of another man.

Taking a deep breath, Gemma realized the blanket she’d clutched around her shoulders smelled of the mingled scents of their passions, earthy and darkly sensual.

With a curse, she cast it off and grabbed for her clothes, thanking heaven that she had fallen into the habit of leaving her corset laced so she could get into it without any help. She struggled a bit to tie all her tapes and button her sleeves, but she managed it.

Gemma felt slightly better once fully clad, but it still took a surprising amount of self-restraint not to pull the copper pots and pans down from their hooks on the wall and throw them about the room in a fit of vengeful rage. She had to remind herself it wasn’t Hal’s house; he was merely a caretaker.

She didn’t want to destroy the kitchen of some absent duke. She wanted to destroy Hal.

She wanted to marry Hal.

And he didn’t want her. Or, perhaps more likely, he’d already gotten exactly what he wanted and was done with her.

She’d given herself to a man who cared so little for her, he palmed her off on another man while she was still languid and sticky with the residue of their lovemaking.

Well. Call it what it was. Not “lovemaking.”

Fornication.

Fucking.

It occurred to her that she’d finally sunk to the level most of the Ton had always insisted she was destined to occupy.

She could only be grateful that no one knew what a fool she’d been.

Pulling numbness around herself like a cloak, Gemma somehow made her way out of the manor and out through the walled garden to the path.

She hurried down the track, grateful at last for the hated Wellington boots as she slipped and splashed through puddles and slicks of mud. Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance, but she managed to make it back to the inn before the storm.

She slipped upstairs to change, praying she wouldn’t encounter anyone, and for once, luck was with her. Gemma made it through the taproom and up the back staircase unobserved—only to run headlong into the Earl of Stonehaven in the upstairs hallway.

This day truly could not get any worse.

The earl blinked down at Gemma, clearly nonplussed. Gemma smiled tightly and bobbed the briefest curtsey of her life. Her gaze darted to the door of the room she and Lucy shared; so close, and yet, so far.

“Are you well, Lady Gemma?” he asked, as always, all gentlemanly solicitousness and care. It was monstrously unfair, but at that moment, she wanted to smack him.

Did she look well? No. She looked as though she’d been dragged backwards through a hedgerow and then thoroughly ravished. Which was essentially the case. What sort of man crinkled his noble brow in concern rather than demanding to know what she thought she was about?

A very nice one, who didn’t deserve to be saddled with the likes of Lady Gemma Lively, that was who. But after that note from Hal, what choice did she have left?

Marry your earl. Be happy.

Well. She could do one of those things.

Gemma lifted her chin and flatly ignored the crushed, crumpled state of her clothing—the same clothing she’d been wearing the last time he saw her, the day before—and the wildly improper tumble of hair about her shoulders.

“How lovely to run into you this morning, Lord Stonehaven.” She didn’t attempt a smile, fearing the effort would only result in a grimace, but she kept her voice light and easy. “I’ve been considering your gracious proposal, and I’ve come to a decision.”

His long, angular face lit up with hope. He really was rather handsome when he smiled, she noted in a detached way, and the thought struck her that if she said ‘yes,’ this was the face she would see across the breakfast table every morning for the rest of her life.

Lord Stonehaven took her hands. His long, bony fingers were very warm; or perhaps Gemma was simply cold. She felt as if she had a ball of ice in her stomach, sending the freeze all through her. Her teeth wanted to chatter. She wondered if her lips were turning blue.

“What have you decided?” he pressed gently. “I think we should rub along quite well together, you know. We could be happy together.”

Marry your earl. Be happy.

Her throat closed, and the frozen ball of ice in her stomach shattered into shards that stabbed at her, nearly doubling her over in pain.

She must have staggered a bit, because when she opened the eyes she hadn’t realized were closed, the earl was standing closer than propriety dictated. He had an arm about her, holding her steady, and before she could stop herself, Gemma had shrugged it off and stepped away.

Her skin felt tight and sensitive, as though unable to bear any touch other than that of the man she wanted.

She was going mad. Hysterical laughter bubbled up. It felt more like choking, but her eyes were still, as ever, dry and burning even as her chest cracked open.

She had to speak. Say something intelligible. Tell him she would gladly marry him!

But the words wouldn’t come. She stood in the hallway of the inn that was all she had of her father, and felt a wave of utter humiliation wash over her.

Not important enough for her father to consider in his will. Not proper enough for her half-brother to recognize. Not good enough for more than a tumble with Hal. Not brave enough to sacrifice herself for her mother and sister.

She’d worked so hard to be someone who didn’t care what others thought of her. She was despised by the upper echelons of the Ton, and that had been fine, because she’d chosen to be notorious over being a laughingstock.

She never thought she’d come to despise herself.

Lord Stonehaven stood by, a silent sentinel watching her with that intent observation that made her feel like a specimen under his magnifying glass.

Raw, exposed, nauseated by the extent of her self-loathing, Gemma could do nothing more than stand there and be studied.

Obviously having noticed that she didn’t want his touch, Stonehaven maintained his distance. He also seemed to become aware of the state of her for the first time, his eyes traveling the length of yesterday’s rumpled gown and back up again.

He’d pulled back emotionally, too, Gemma perceived, finally and perhaps belatedly erecting some barriers to protect himself from whatever was happening here. His gaze was more watchful now, some of the warmth of his concern and care snuffed out.

Gemma told herself she was glad of it. She didn’t deserve for a gentleman this kind to care anything for her.

“You are clearly in some distress, Lady Gemma. I venture to think perhaps you are not ready yet to render a decision about my proposal after all. I wonder if more time to think would help—and I am able to grant you that, happily, as I’ve an urgent need to consult with some colleagues in London at the Royal Geological Society about some of my findings here. Most interesting and unexpected. Sanderson is just packing up my things now, but I intend to return for the village May Day festivities next week. Perhaps you would do me the honor of an answer to my proposal at that time?”

Mutely, she nodded, wishing fervently that she had the inner fortitude to send him on his way for good and tell him he was well rid of her.

But the more sensible, pragmatic part of her brain was attempting to reassert itself, noting that this was an opportunity to delay, and perhaps come to terms with her situation, that she could not afford to pass up.

Right. Because in one week, she would certainly have overcome her feelings for Hal and learned to embrace the notion of a loveless marriage of convenience.

Reminding herself that she would have the comfort of the title of countess along with all the money and power she needed to throw her half-brother’s snobbery back in his face was…surprisingly uncomforting.

Tipping his hat, the earl prepared to take his leave. He hesitated for a moment, turning away and then turning back as though there were something more he wanted to say. But in the end, he merely nodded seriously and took his leave.

Once he was gone, Gemma allowed her shoulders to slump. She felt unbearably weary, stiff and sore in unexpected places. But the greatest ache was in the region of her heart.

Rubbing her chest, she fumbled with the doorknob to her bedchamber, wishing desperately for a long soak in a hot bath and already knowing she was too tired to haul the many buckets of water that would require. She would make do with a quick splash at the wash basin, she decided as she stepped into the room, only to find that it was already occupied by her mother and sister.

So much for a quiet entry into the inn. Now she would have to explain where she’d been last night to not only Lucy, but Henrietta as well. But they didn’t look accusing or disappointed or even curious.

Instead, Gemma paused on the threshold, arrested by the identical expressions of pitying dread on Lucy and Henrietta’s faces.

Damn it all. What now?

“Oh, Gemma. My darling girl.” Henrietta’s voice trembled.

“What has happened?” Gemma demanded.

“Now, it may not be what we think,” Henrietta began anxiously. Her elaborate cap bristled with no fewer than six rows of blond lace, framing her worried face.

“I beg your pardon, Mama, but it is exactly what we think.” Lucy’s expression went thundercloud dark. “I’m afraid it’s all too obvious what has happened.”

“Not to me!” Gemma protested. “Because neither of you has told me what it is.”

Henrietta wrung her hands. “Oh, dear. This is simply dreadful. Perhaps you’d better show her, Lucy.”

Show me what ? Gemma wanted to shriek at all this hemming and hawing. After the morning she’d had, she was in no temper for it. But she ground her back teeth and kept her frustration in. Whatever had occasioned these dramatics couldn’t be all that bad, not if both her mother and sister were standing before her, well and whole.

They’d already lost their father, their home, their friends, their standing in society, and their entire future. How bad could this really be?

Suddenly looking uncertain, Lucy clutched something to her chest as if to hide it, and Gemma realized she was holding a sheaf of papers. It looked like a broadsheet newspaper, along with some other things she couldn’t make out.

“The mail came yesterday, did it not?” Gemma said slowly, a strange feeling rolling through her midsection. “Any interesting news from Town?”

Henrietta and Lucy exchanged another agonized look before Lucy burst out, “Fine, all right. Here!”

She thrust the stack of papers at Gemma, who took them without being at all certain what she’d find.

She stared down at the broadsheet from several weeks ago, which was on the top of the pile, and folded back to the page that held the society columns—paragraphs detailing the movements and associations of the high and mighty of the Ton. The Marquess of H--- happily squired the beautiful widow Mrs. H--- Q--- to the opera Tuesday last, will the banns be read soon?

Lords B--- and P--- attended the spring meetings at Glorious Goodwood, and are home bearing tales of horse racing shenanigans hardly to be believed…

The devilish Duke of T--- has decamped from Town and the ladies (as well as the less than ladylike) have declared their hearts broken and bereft in his absence.

And there, at the bottom of the thinly veiled tidbit about the Duke of Thornecliff, who made frequent appearances in these pages, was a single line: The Duke of T--- is only recently returned from a journey to Bath, during which he stumbled upon the radiant Lady G--- L---, who is much missed from Town. Lady G---, it seems, is now the proprietress of Five Mile House, a Wiltshire coaching near the Bath Road.

Five Mile House appears to be quite the rarified establishment, playing host to not one, but two dukes. Although, for an oddity, the Duke of H--- seems to be serving drinks from behind the bar in the taproom!

What is even more odd is that Lady G--- does not seem to know who he is. So if you’d like to have a pint pulled by a peer of the realm, with the lively Lady G--- none the wiser, visit Five Mile House!

The sheaf of papers fluttered softly to the floor. Gemma’s fingers had gone stiff and cold, too numb to hold onto them. The heart that had cracked and cratered over the past few weeks finally shattered into dust that clogged her airways and stung her eyes.

Darkness pressed down on her, an oppressive cloud that dimmed her vision and staggered her balance. She might have actually swooned, had it not been for her mother and sister.

Henrietta and Lucy closed ranks, supporting her and holding her up and surrounding her with their steady arms.

“It cannot be true,” she heard herself rasp. “They can’t mean…that cannot be Hal they are speaking of.”

“That bastard,” Lucy cursed viciously.

“Lucy! Language!”

“Sorry, Mama! But he is!”

Gemma’s knees wobbled, and Henrietta said, “Oh my dear! You should sit down.”

Catching sight of the blue damask chair in the corner, where she had exposed herself to Hal and he had devoured her so hungrily, Gemma shied away and headed for the bed. Lucy helped her up to sit on the edge.

Her insides were crumbling. She tasted ash in the back of her mouth.

It had all been a fiction. From the very first moment. He had known who she was—known everything about her—and she had known nothing. Only the lies he chose to share.

Was anything he’d said to her true?

Yes, a small, silly part of her insisted. It could not be so, it simply could not be that she, who had always held a part of herself back from everyone in her life, had given herself entirely to a man whose true name she didn’t even know.

It was almost funny, and she heard herself laughing but it sounded wrong, like a coughing sob only her eyes were dry.

She could feel the concern coming off her mother and sister in waves, so she tried to get herself under control. They needed her to be strong. She couldn’t go to pieces.

“I vow, I will never even look at another gossip column,” Lucy said fiercely, her arm stealing around Gemma’s shoulders. “And if I ever see the Duke of Thornecliff again, he had better hope I don’t have a pistol.”

Bloody Thorne. Gemma wished she could be surprised that Thorne had clearly recognized Hal—the Duke of Havilocke—when he was here, and had chosen to spread rumors about it rather than tell Gemma directly.

It was exactly the sort of drama he loved to create, the puppet master setting things in motion and watching them all dance to his tune.

“None of this mess is of Thorne’s making,” Gemma said wearily. “Hal is the one who lied.”

“Everyone else lied too,” Lucy pointed out. “I can’t believe it of Bess, but she must have known.”

Another painful shock lanced through Gemma as the sheer enormity of Hal’s deception hit her. “Yes. She must.”

“Well, he is the duke.” Henrietta stroked Gemma’s hair. “He owns most everything in the county. People here depend upon him. They might be afraid to speak out.”

She spoke as one who had not always been a duchess, and Gemma knew she would be correct in most circumstances, but Gemma had seen the way Hal was with his people. They didn’t fear him; they loved him.

He did not demand their loyalty; he had earned it.

Maybe not everything about Hal was a lie. Maybe she knew him better than she thought.

And maybe she was grasping at straws, trying to find a way to make it not matter that Hal, her Hal, the barman who dug wells and thatched roofs in his spare time, was actually the Duke of Havilocke.

“I don’t know why no one saw fit to inform us,” Gemma said dully. “It doesn’t really signify. The earl has asked me to marry him. When he returns to Five Mile House, I shall accept, and we will begin our new lives.”

“Oh! That’s wonderful,” Henrietta said. She sounded less certain than Gemma would have liked.

“Yes, wonderful,” Lucy echoed, biting her lip.

A brittle silence settled over the room. Henrietta broke it. “You know, dear, you don’t have to marry Stonehaven if you don’t wish to.”

The words caught Gemma on the raw, breaking open old wounds and lashing over new ones. “I do have to marry him, Mama. Of course I do.”

“But what about love?” Henrietta turned damp blue eyes on Gemma, beseeching. “Your father was always most severe upon the topic—you are to marry only for love!”

“Love won’t take care of this family.”

“This family will be fine?—”

“Oh?” Gemma asked, provoked beyond what she could bear. “Who is going to take care of this family if I don’t? Will you rouse yourself from your grief long enough to notice that Lucy’s gowns are too small and entirely wrong for a girl her age? Will you come up with a way to fund a Season for her, with all that entails of lodgings, and a new wardrobe, and securing invitations to the best balls and assemblies? Will you look up from the devoted, besotted love you shared with Father to notice if that debut turns into an utter debacle, as mine did? No. It will be me. It’s always me.”

“Gemma, stop,” Lucy protested, pulling away. “You go too far.”

“No,” Henrietta said faintly, holding up a trembling white hand. “Your sister is right, Lucy. I haven’t been the most attentive mother. I do tend to get rather too caught up in my own feelings. I feel things so very deeply—but that is no excuse for the fact that I have not been there for you when you needed me. I lost my love, my partner, the companion of my heart—but you girls lost your father. You should have been able to count on your mother, and you could not. I’m sorry for that, Gemma. And I’m sorry you have felt so alone, even when you were younger, but you’re not alone now.”

Henrietta enfolded Gemma in a soft embrace that smelled of roses and face powder. Gemma breathed it in as Lucy came back to her side and threw her arms around the two of them.

“You’re not alone,” Lucy repeated fiercely. “I’ve tried to tell you, to show you, but you have to believe it. We love you. We are a family. We’re in this together.”

“Thank you,” Gemma could hardly force the words out of her tight throat. She rested her forehead on her mother’s shoulder. “That means so much to me. And I do believe it, Lucy, and I’m sorry, Mama, I should not have spoken so.”

“Do not apologize, dearest. You have every right to be upset. And you don’t have to be strong for us, you know. You can cry if you want to. I find it helps, sometimes.”

“No, no.” Gemma straightened, feeling wrung out like one of Bess’s dish cloths. “I never cry. I will be well. I will marry the earl, and we will be happy, and we will put all of this behind us.”

Just then, Gemma’s gaze fell upon the scattered papers littering the floor. A letter from Lucy’s friend, curiously inquiring about the most interesting bit of tittle tattle she’d heard in years, and it happened to concern Lucy’s own sister and the Duke of Havilocke.

More recent broadsheets, their tiny type too small for Gemma to make out. And there, one corner sticking out from under the letter…she knew that watermark. Gemma’s stomach heaved.

It was a caricature, the kind that hung in booksellers’ windows in the Strand. The kind that had nearly ruined her life when she was eighteen. The kind that Gemma never looked at, if she could avoid it.

Slipping off the bed, she plucked the drawing from the floor and looked at it.

The familiar, blowsy curves the satirists always used to depict her figure glared up at her from the page. It was a cunningly wicked likeness; she recognized herself at once, even if the drawn figure was wearing a gown cut so low in the decolletage that it would be more likely found strolling the docks than being worn by even the merriest widow of Gemma’s racy set.

The satirical print showed Gemma with a tray of drinks, tripping over the stuck out leg of a man with Thorne’s golden hair and wicked grin. In the drawing, Thorne’s arm was slung companionably over the wide shoulders of another man whose head was thrown back in open-mouthed merriment. Hal, she presumed, though the satirists hadn’t seen him recently enough to depict him faithfully. The background of the drawing showed a faceless throng of people pointing and laughing. At Gemma.

But it was the expression on her own caricature’s face that seized Gemma by the throat and would not let go.

Surprised. Bewildered. Dumbfounded to find herself crashing towards the floor with her comically large breasts about to spill out of her bodice. At the mercy of the jeering men and their laughter at her expense.

“They drew me as a fool,” she murmured.

In all the many cruel caricatures and sly satirical drawings she’d seen of herself, she’d always been depicted as a strumpet. A loose woman. No better than she should be. And as devastating as that had been to innocent, eighteen-year-old Gemma…this was worse.

After all, there was a certain shabby power in being the object of men’s lustful fantasies. She knew they didn’t respect her, but at least they wanted her. But this? Being the butt of their jokes? Being their fool?

Gemma had never been so humiliated in her life.

From the ashes of her heart, a tiny flame of anger flickered to life. With every breath, it grew and grew until it was big enough to consume everything else inside her.

She welcomed it, letting it burn away the weakness of hurt and betrayal, leaving only a good, strong, cleansing rage.

“Help me get changed,” she requested of Lucy, who looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment. Gemma’s steady tone appeared to steady her, though, and she scurried into motion about the room, gathering up clean garments and bringing them over to lay out on the bed.

“What are you going to do?” Henrietta asked anxiously.

“What I should have done long ago,” Gemma said, shucking out of her stiff, wrinkled gown and going to the washstand to freshen up. “I’m going to tell the Duke of Havilocke to go to the devil.”

* * *

Hal braced himself against the current and got his fingertips under the stone, the cold waters of Westcote Brook swirling and eddying past him, turning the rocks he was harvesting into slippery, treacherous weights.

This was one of those jobs Hal tended to put off indefinitely. Harvesting rocks to repair the crumbling structure holding up Westcote Bridge was grueling, strenuous work under the best of conditions.

The morning after the most transcendent night of Hal’s life, followed by the most heartbreaking decision he’d ever make, hardly counted as the best of conditions. It didn’t help that the grim gray sky billowed with heavy-looking clouds, threatening another torrential rain.

At least the weather matched his mood.

Bess had taken one look at his wrecked, guilty face that morning and poured him a cup of coffee. She had too many preparations to make for the May Day Festival to get embroiled in his nonsense, she’d told him as she tied on her apron. But without knowing the particulars, her best advice was to go and apologize for whatever he’d done. Grovel, if need be.

“I can’t do that,” Hal had said. “I don’t trust myself.”

Bess had sighed. “You’ve made a right mess of things, haven’t you?”

“It got…complicated,” Hal tried, aware of how weak that defense was. “But I still believe I did the right thing in the end.”

“You told her the truth?”

“No. I let her go.”

Bess had become very grave, her honey-brown eyes filled with nothing but affection for Hal. Yet their clear gaze made Hal hunch his shoulders and stare down at his own hands where they were fisted on his thighs.

“It’s interesting to see you like this,” Bess observed. “I don’t recall ever seeing you in such a state over a woman. What do you suppose that means?”

“It means that Gemma is extraordinary. In every way.” Hal firmed his jaw and met his oldest friend’s stare. “She deserves the life she wants. She’s worked hard for it. I won’t be the one who stands in her way.”

“I don’t hold much with the concept of ‘deserving,’” Bess said thoughtfully, gathering her bowls and spoons for the morning’s work. “It’s a nonsense notion. It’s not the way our world works. What do any of us truly deserve? And would we be thankful if we got it? I think a better thing to hope for is grace—the will to love one another because love is needed, not because it is deserved. Do you love her, Hal?”

Hal’s chest had ached with an actual pain he feared would never ease. He hadn’t thought it in so many words, hadn’t allowed himself to put a name to this restless yearning that was only quieted by her presence, by her touch or the sound of her voice or the sight of her smile.

Calling it by its name only made it hurt worse. But Hal was sick of lies. So he told the truth.

“Yes. I love her.”

“Does she know?”

Panic had seized Hal by the throat at the question. “She can never know. I can’t give her the life she wants. What can I give her? A decrepit estate that is the last of my family’s holdings, saved from debt by selling off all the rest of the lands and houses. A life of toil in service to the tenants and farmers my family has exploited for generations.”

“That’s not all you have to give, Hal.” Bess shook her head. “Honestly, I despair of you. I can see you believe you’ve acted for the best, that you have acted out of love, and I suppose I can’t argue with that. But you might consider whether Gemma has the right to decide for herself if what you can offer is enough for her.”

“I know it isn’t. She has been clear from the start about what she wanted, and this place, this village…me. We are not what she wants. Telling her the truth about who I am, even telling her how I feel—it would only hurt her. She was always going to leave.”

For the first time in Hal’s memory, Bess had looked disappointed in him. “Are you truly doing this to protect Gemma? Or are you protecting yourself?”

Hal had taken his leave soon after, shaken, but still certain that he’d done the right thing. Of course Bess wanted him to tell Gemma the truth; she was a romantic, underneath her sensible, pragmatic exterior, and she would like to see love triumph over all.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

What would happen was that Hal would take up the mantle his elder brother had loved to toss about and become the Last of the Montroses. Because if he couldn’t have Gemma, he’d rather be alone.

He heaved the rock he’d managed to pick up a little harder than necessary, sending it smashing into the side of the riverbank and scattering the stones already piled there. Cursing and ignoring his scraped fingers, aching with cold, he turned back to grapple with another slippery river rock.

A splash behind him made Hal straighten and turn around.

It was Gemma. Clean and lovely, her hair pulled partway back, leaving most of it to wave about her shoulders. She was wearing a dress he hadn’t seen before, some kind of filmy pink fabric that floated around her legs as though she were standing on a cloud. Hal’s mouth went dry, his heart pounding, until he caught a glimpse of her face.

She was livid. Absolutely incandescent with anger. He didn’t have time to wonder why before she picked up the hem of her skirt, showing those damned galoshes on her feet, and slip-slid her way down the riverbank. And she didn’t stop there.

Without a moment’s hesitation for her pretty dress, she splashed into the brook, the swirling waters soaking her to the waist and barely slowing her down. She stomped right up to him, lifted her hand, and slapped him full across the mouth.

The shock of it more than the force she’d used snapped his head to the side.

Over the ringing in his ears, he heard her shriek, “How dare you make love to me and then turn out to be a duke?!”

Damnation.

She knew.

Hal didn’t pause to ask who told her, and he didn’t wait to be hit, again either. When she swung wildly at him, he caught her arm and used it to pull her in close.

“Gemma. Gemma! Let me explain?—”

But she wouldn’t listen, or maybe couldn’t hear him over the rushing of the brook and the rushing of the fury in her veins. She struggled so violently in his grasp, she nearly sent them both tumbling into the stream.

Against every instinct, Hal let her go and she instantly backed away from him. She almost lost her balance but managed to catch herself at the last moment.

“There’s nothing you can say. You’ve lied to me every day, every minute , since we first met. You’ve made me into the thing I swore I never would be again: a laughingstock! I never want to see or speak to you again. I don’t care if you are a duke, you’re nothing but a—a scoundrel! ” Her voice raised in volume, frustration shaking through the words. “And I can’t even cry about it!!”

With this incomprehensible parting shot, she turned on the heel of her rubber boot and stomped back toward the riverbank, her sodden skirts floating behind her and swirling around her legs.

Hal let her go. Again.

But this time, he wasn’t quite so certain he’d done the right thing.