Page 13 of Duke of no Return (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #23)
CHAPTER 13
T he air had shifted—crisp with an edge of unrest. Johnathan had said they were within a half day’s ride of Gretna Green. Twelve days of evasion, fatigue, and heartache had brought them here. Frances blinked hard against the sting of wind, her chest tightening as the mist rolled down the hills like a curtain lifting on the final act. Her fingers trembled around the reins, the truth of how far they’d come sinking in with every breath of crisp morning air.
Close enough to taste it—the blacksmith’s cottage, the rough-hewn table, the iron ring that might serve as her wedding band.
Johnathan had said that morning, his voice low with wonder. “We are almost there.”
Frances had smiled and laced her fingers with his.
But just as the finish line came into view, Cranford emerged like a storm cloud on a clear horizon.
It happened just before dusk.
The road they traveled twisted through a wooded glen, shaded and narrow. The trees rose tall and close on either side, casting long shadows that darkened the path and muffled sound.
Frances had turned in the saddle to say something when she heard it.
Hoofbeats. Rapid. Heavy.
Johnathan reacted instantly.
He wheeled his horse around and shouted, “Ride!”
They did not make it far.
A group of riders emerged from the trees ahead, cutting off the path. Two more thundered in from behind.
Trapped.
Johnathan drew his pistol.
Frances drew her breath.
The man at the front raised a gloved hand. “No need for blood,” he said. “His lordship only wants the lady.”
Frances stiffened. “I will not go with him.”
A new voice answered. Cold. Familiar.
“You do not have a choice.”
Daniel Wraxall, Viscount Cranford, stepped from behind his men.
He was immaculate, as always—dark riding coat, gloves, boots polished to a mirror shine. But his eyes were wrong. Harder. Wilder. Like the porcelain mask of civility had finally cracked.
He loomed over her like a shadow made flesh, but Frances noticed the stiffness in the men who accompanied him. They did not meet her eyes. One even flinched when Cranford barked a command.
Something in him had cracked since the church. Not broken—no, he was too cruel for that—but strained.
“You think a public scandal will not touch you?” she asked. “You think the whispers have not already started?”
He sneered. “Whispers are wind. But they forget—I weather storms.”
Yet Frances saw the tightness around his eyes. He was no longer untouchable. Only desperate.
Johnathan edged his horse in front of hers. “If you want her,” he said, “you will have to come through me.”
Cranford sneered. “How noble. How tragically predictable.”
He dismounted with a slow, deliberate grace. “I did not come to fight, Hargate. I came to offer a deal.”
Frances’s heart pounded. “What kind of deal?”
Cranford looked at her. “You come with me now, peacefully. And your… companion here walks away. No injury. No ruin. He keeps his reputation. Even his little club of rogues.”
Johnathan laughed—short, bitter. “You think I care about any of that?”
Cranford turned to him. “I think you care about her.”
Frances sucked in a breath.
His gaze slid to Frances. “Your father gave his blessing, signed betrothal papers. You belong to me. And I dare say the duke might even face charges should you refuse me. His title can only shield him so much.”
The world tilted beneath her.
“No,” she whispered.
“Your father thinks you have been compromised,” Cranford said. “And he is eager to protect what remains of your name. He is very… convincing.”
Johnathan’s grip on the reins turned white-knuckled.
Frances caught only fragments—a sharp word here, the scrape of leather there—sounds that blurred as if carried from underwater. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out everything but the rush of panic.
This was all her fault. She should have married Johnathan the moment they entered Scotland. She had to protect him now. They were outnumbered and ill prepared to fight off Cranford and his men.
Her pulse thundered as her breath came shallow and quick. Her fingers clenched around the reins, knuckles white, her mind grasping at thoughts that scattered like leaves in a gale.
Her father. Her father had signed papers that would condemn Johnathan.
And Cranford—cold, calculating Cranford—stood before her with the gall to pretend mercy.
She looked at Johnathan, willing him to see the love in her eyes. Praying he would understand her decision.
He neither spoke nor moved.
He just stared at her. Not pleading. Not angry.
But waiting.
He would not make the choice for her.
She slid from her horse. Stepped forward slowly, her boots crunching on gravel.
Cranford’s men did not move.
She stopped a few feet from him and looked up.
“I will go,” she said.
Johnathan made a sound behind her. Raw. Almost a curse.
She did not look back.
“I will go with you,” she said again, louder. “But only if you swear—on your name and title—that Johnathan goes free. No harm will come to him.”
Cranford smirked. “So dramatic.”
“Swear it,” she said.
He studied her. Then nodded. “You have my vow.”
She nodded once.
Turned.
Met Johnathan’s eyes.
They said everything she could not say aloud.
I love you.
I am sorry.
Trust me.
Then she walked toward her horse, mounting it with hands that did not shake, eyes that did not break, and rode toward Cranford.
Johnathan did not stop her.
He just watched her go.
Watched her make the sacrifice.
Watched her disappear down the road in the arms of the man she feared most—because it was the only way to save the man she loved.
The hoofbeats faded long after the dust had settled.
Johnathan stood motionless in the middle of the road, his throat tight, as if her name had lodged there, too raw to speak aloud. The cold wind curled around him, whispering where her voice had been, tearing through the places she had filled with warmth.
He barely felt William ride up behind him.
“They did not hurt her,” his friend said quietly.
Johnathan turned slowly.
“Do not,” he said.
William dismounted. “I did not know they would treat her like this. I thought?—”
“You thought you knew better than me,” Johnathan snapped. “You thought I could not be trusted to make my own decisions.”
William flinched. “I wanted to protect you, damn it.”
“You betrayed me,” Johnathan said. “And now she is gone.”
“I beg your pardon,” William said. “If there were anything?—”
“There is.”
Johnathan’s voice was like steel now, cold and shaped by fury.
“I am going after her.”
William’s eyes widened. “You cannot. You agreed?—”
“I did not agree to anything,” Johnathan said sharply. “She did. She gave herself up to save me. Do you think I can live with that? Knowing she is in that bastard’s hands?”
“He will be watching for you.”
“Let him.”
“What if he marries her before you can rescue her?”
“She will refuse,” Johnathan said with conviction.
William stepped forward. “You will be walking into a trap.”
Johnathan’s mouth twisted. “Then I will spring it.”
He turned toward the woods, where his horse waited, still saddled, still ready.
William hesitated. “You will not pull it off on your own.”
Johnathan looked back. “Let him lock her behind a hundred doors. I will break every one.”
Then, to his surprise, William said, “I will come with you.”
Johnathan stared.
“For Frances,” William said. “And for you.”
A long moment passed between them. Not forgiveness. Not absolution. But something.
A beginning.
Johnathan nodded once.
“Then let us get her back.”
They galloped into the night, chasing a trail that had barely cooled. William had learned Cranford’s camp was set in a manor house just north of the border, a hunting lodge used by landed families who cared more for control than sport.
Johnathan remembered it. The place had hosted a gathering once when they were boys—half-drunk lords playing at war in the woods, blind to the violence they imitated.
Now, it would be a cage.
He imagined Frances locked behind its thick oak doors, her spirit compressed into silence, the brightness in her eyes dulled like candlelight suffocated by glass. The thought ignited something inside him—a fury that had nothing to do with duels or scandal, and everything to do with love.
Not the kind sung about in drawing rooms or written into sonnets.
The kind that burned.
That demanded.
That refused to let her be lost.