Page 40 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)

Thirty-Six

“ I am not going,” May said. She planted her heels on the carriage step and refused to budge. “I will be sick, or embarrassing, or both, and then you will regret it.”

“You will do neither,” said April, tugging the lapel of May’s coat into a less funereal configuration.

“You are going to smile and be charming and not think about anything except how delightful this bonnet is.” She brandished the item tied with an absurd amount of blue ribbon. “Or I will eat it. Bow and all.”

“Let her eat it,” said June from inside the carriage. “Then we’ll see what the baby thinks of her taste in hats.”

April rolled her eyes and physically hoisted May into the vehicle. “You have not left the house in two days, and you are beginning to smell like damp muslin. We are going shopping. This is not a negotiation.”

May slumped into the seat, folded her arms, and stared straight ahead. “I think it is very premature to be shopping for a baby who has not yet been born.”

June snorted. “Besides,” said April, “if we wait until the birth, you know Mother will monopolize the entire process. She will send an army of seamstresses and bully the staff, and set up a pop-up christening three weeks in advance.”

May opened her mouth, then realized April was, for once, completely correct. “You are a monster,” May conceded.

“That is why I am the favorite,” April replied.

The driver snapped the reins, and the carriage lurched forward. May kept her eyes on the window and attempted to count the houses as they blurred past, but her vision was still pink and swollen from the previous night, and all the shapes ran together like watercolor.

April did not allow the silence to linger. “Are you going to tell us what happened, or will we be forced to guess?”

“There is nothing to tell.” May pressed a hand to her nose, willing away another sneeze.

June reached over and patted her knee. “He is an idiot, darling. That is the first and only rule of men. They are idiots, and you cannot reason them into intelligence.”

“He is not an idiot,” May muttered.

April exchanged a look with June over May’s head. “He is more of an idiot than Theo, and that is a feat.”

“Thank you,” May said, “for the robust defense of my marriage.”

April leaned in, softening her voice. “You don’t have to be strong all the time, May. I wish you would let yourself be weak now and then. It is exhausting, watching you hold up the ceiling for everyone else.”

“I am not strong,” May said. “I am the exact opposite.”

“You are both,” said June. “But also, if you do not tell us, I am going to guess that he has run off with the pastry girl and you have taken a vow of vengeance.”

May blinked. “Penelope? She is sixteen, and anyway, she is in love with the baker’s apprentice.”

“I think that is rather quaint,” said June.

May laughed, which she had not meant to do, and the sound was so unfamiliar that all three sisters startled.

April grinned. “There she is. I knew you were not dead inside.”

May snatched the ribboned parcel and whacked April on the arm with it. “You are the worst person in England.”

The carriage drew up to the curb with a theatrical rattle. A footman opened the door, and May started to clamber out, only to realize, mid-step, that they were not at any shop she recognized.

She turned to her sisters. “Where are we?”

April blinked innocently. “Mayfair, of course.”

“Is there a haberdashery here?” May asked. “This is residential. That is a house.” She pointed at the edifice directly ahead—four stories of honeyed stone, its windows wreathed in late-blooming clematis, the brass knocker on the door catching the sun.

“It is a very exclusive haberdashery,” said June, slipping her arm through May’s and leading her toward the steps.

May dug in her heels, but April came around and blocked her retreat. “I am not going inside a stranger’s house,” May said. “I have done enough trespassing for one lifetime.”

June rolled her eyes. “It’s not a stranger’s house. It’s yours.”

May froze. “What?”

April pressed the parcel into her hands. “It belongs to Logan. He bought it last month. We are here to see the renovations. And to buy you a lemon tart, because there is a very good baker just around the corner, and I am famished.”

May stared at the door. “He bought a house.”

June patted her on the back. “He bought a house, May. He is not that much of an idiot.”

The footman, either in on the scheme or possessed of supernatural timing, opened the door before May could protest further.

The inside was not what she expected. Not at all.

The entryway was flooded with light. There was no oppressive chandelier, no funereal gloom.

Instead, a skylight arched overhead, pouring sunshine onto a checkered marble floor.

The walls were lined with bookshelves, already half-filled, and a green velvet chaise waited by the window, flanked by a pair of squat tables that looked perfect for the dumping of hats, parcels, and babies.

A low, happy fire smoldered in the parlor to the left.

The space beyond was wide open, with clusters of mismatched chairs and a battered piano standing at attention in the corner.

There were more flowers inside, white ones this time, set in glass jars along every available surface.

The scent was mild and sweet, not cloying, and it reminded May of her own childhood home—her mother’s kitchen, or the garden after a rainstorm.

It was not a palace. It was not a fortress.

It was a home.

She stood in the entryway, trying to make sense of it. “This is not possible,” she said.

June nudged her forward. “Anything is possible if you have enough money and no taste.”

April drifted off toward the nearest sofa and flopped onto it, arranging her skirts with a flourish. “I am going to live here,” she declared. “I will have a room on every floor and make Logan serve me breakfast in bed.”

May blinked back the beginnings of another round of tears. “You are not helping,” she said, but her voice was soft.

June squeezed her arm. “You do not have to go upstairs if you do not want to.”

“I want to,” May said. She let herself be led up the wide, shallow staircase, counting the paintings that dotted the walls—a different one at every landing, most of them landscapes or ships or small, impossible animals. At the first landing, she stopped, unable to move any further.

A window overlooked the back garden. It was a rectangle of wild green and color, the paths winding but clean, the flowerbeds edged with neat box hedges. The whole effect was one of controlled chaos, every line soft and unexpected, but the result was unmistakably beautiful.

She touched her fingers to the glass.

“Do you like it?” asked a voice behind her.

She turned, and there he was.

Logan. Standing at the top of the stairs, hands behind his back, his face drawn and thin. He looked worse than when she’d left him—a shadow of the man she’d married. But the eyes were the same. Dark, and impossible, and hungry.

“I do,” she said, unable to keep the ache out of her voice. “Why are you here?”

He walked down the stairs, each step measured. “I live here,” he said. “Or I intend to.”

“You never told me,” May said. “You signed the papers and never even told me.”

He stopped three steps above her, so they were nearly the same height. “I wanted to surprise you.”

She laughed, a brittle sound. “You did.”

He was silent for a moment. “Will you walk with me?” he asked. “Just in the garden. I won’t keep you long.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “If I must.”

He smiled—barely—and offered his arm. She did not take it, but she followed him down the stairs, out the side door, and into the garden.

They walked in silence at first, the only sounds the crunch of gravel and the distant, insistent chatter of birds.

May watched his shoulders, the way he squared them even when he was uncertain, and remembered the first time she had seen him in the park.

He had seemed so untouchable then, so certain of himself and the world around him.

Now he looked as if he had lost all the boundaries that kept him together.

He stopped at a bench and gestured for her to sit. She did, folding her hands in her lap.

He sat beside her, careful not to touch.

Neither spoke for what felt like a small eternity.

Finally, Logan said, “I owe you an explanation.”

She stared straight ahead. “You owe me nothing.”

He shook his head. “I do. I should have told you sooner, but I did not know how.”

She waited.

He took a deep breath. “My father was not a good man. He was not the worst—there were worse—but he was… hard. I thought if I could be harder, I could survive him. I thought if I felt nothing, I could not be hurt.”

She listened, her hands knotting together. She had never heard him speak this way.

“He blamed me for my mother’s death,” Logan said. “She died giving birth to me. He never forgave me for that. Not once. Not even in the smallest way.”

May’s heart gave a violent lurch.

“He made me promise, when I was very young, that I would be the last. That no one would ever die for my sake again. That I would never… make the same mistake.”

May stared at the flower beds, the shapes blurring together. “That is not your fault,” she whispered.

“I know it isn’t,” he said. “But it feels like it, all the same. Every time I want something or need someone, I remember what it cost. And I pull back, because that is safer than hurting anyone else.”

He looked at her, and for once, did not look away.

“I thought I could keep you at a distance,” he said.

“I thought if I were careful, I would never become like him. But I am not careful. Not with you. I think about you all the time, May. I wake up and want to tell you things, to hear your voice, to know what you are thinking. You have ruined me for being alone.”

May’s lips parted. She wanted to speak, but nothing came out.

He pressed on. “When I saw you with the baby, I thought—this is what I have been missing. This is what I want. I want a house full of laughter, and light, and you. And when you left, it felt as if the whole world had vanished. Like I was the only person left in it.”

May set her hand on the bench to steady herself. “Then why did you say you were glad? When I thought I might be—” She broke off, unable to finish.

He turned to her, his voice rough. “Because I was terrified. Because for one second, I thought you would leave, and I realized I could not survive it. Not again.”

She shook her head. “You said you did not want a child. That your line ended with you.”

“That was the promise of a foolish boy,” he said, “not the wish of a man who has fallen in love for the first time.”

He reached out, but stopped just short of touching her.

“I love you,” he said. “I think I always have. I was just too stupid to say it.”

May’s vision blurred, and this time she did not try to stop the tears.

He did not reach for her, but sat perfectly still, waiting.

“I cannot believe you,” she said, but her voice trembled. “I want to, but I cannot.”

He nodded, as if he’d expected this.

She looked at the garden, the world coming back into focus. “What if you change your mind? What if you decide you are like him, after all?”

He shook his head. “I have already decided not to be like him. If I must become someone else entirely, I would rather it be the man who fills this house with laughter and too many children and too many books. And you.”

She looked at him, and the face she saw was both strange and entirely familiar. Vulnerable, and open, and—for once—not hiding anything.

“I am angry at you,” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I am furious. I want to throw you in the duck pond.”

“I deserve it,” he said.

“I want to believe you,” she said, “but you have been so dreadful.”

He looked at her, hope flickering to life in his eyes. “Will you give me another chance to be better?”

She sniffed. “You have already bought the house. It would be wasteful not to at least have a look at the rest of it.”

He smiled, tentative. “We can start there, if you like.”

She nodded. “I would like.”

He stood, offered his hand, and this time, she took it.

They walked back toward the house, side by side. At the threshold, she stopped and looked up at him.

“I am still angry,” she said.

“Good,” he replied. “It will keep me honest.”

She smiled, and the feeling that washed through her was so fierce and light she thought she might float off the ground.

From inside the house, someone shouted, “They are holding hands! I told you they would hold hands!”

It was June, of course, at the top of the stairs, waving a silk handkerchief like a flag of truce. April was beside her, beaming, and even the Duke of Stone appeared in the doorway, arms crossed, observing the spectacle as if it were the main event at the races.

There was a moment of stunned silence as Logan drew May closer and kissed her—right there, in full view of the house and the street and every single flower in the garden.

“Scandal!” June shrieked, and the laughter that followed was so loud that Rydal, somewhere upstairs, began to wail in sympathy.

May pulled away, red-cheeked, and glared at her sisters. “You are the worst,” she said.

April blew her a kiss. “You are welcome.”

Logan leaned down, whispered in May’s ear. “You will not be angry once you see the inside of this house!”