Page 16 of Duke of no Return (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #23)
CHAPTER 16
T he moon hung low over the hills, full and golden as a coin tossed into fate’s waiting hand.
They had been married a full day.
And yet it still felt unreal.
Not the kind of unreality born from disbelief—but from wonder. As though the girl who once stared at ballroom chandeliers and dreamed of something more had finally slipped into the dream itself and found it tangible. Honest. Imperfect but hers.
Frances leaned against the wooden rail of the small inn’s balcony, her dressing gown wrapped tight against the night breeze. Below, the village was quiet. Far beyond, the border road stretched away into darkness.
Soon, they would return to London.
Return to consequences.
But for now?
They were still hidden. Still safe from censure.
Behind her, the door creaked softly. She did not turn. She knew it was him.
She felt his presence before he spoke. The warmth of it.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said, voice low and raspy from rest.
“I was,” she replied. “But the moon was too beautiful to ignore.”
Johnathan stepped up behind her, draping his arms around her shoulders without a word. His hand brushed her arm. Gentle. Intentional.
She leaned back against him, eyes drifting shut.
“I keep thinking I will wake up,” she said after a moment.
“You are not dreaming.”
She exhaled. “And therein lays the fear.”
He wrapped his arms around her, chin resting on her shoulder. “What scares you more? That this is real, or that it might be taken from you?”
She did not answer immediately.
“I am used to having things decided for me,” she said at last. “This—us—was the first choice I made for myself. I am terrified that the world will punish us for it.”
Johnathan’s fingers traced slow circles along her wrist. “They might try.”
“But you will remain at my side?”
He did not hesitate. “Every time.”
They stood in silence for a long while. The wind rustling the treetops, the distant call of a night bird rising and falling like a lullaby.
Frances turned at last to look at him.
Johnathan was shirtless beneath his robe, the bandage at his shoulder freshly changed, his hair mussed by sleep and wind. He looked tired. Human. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with scandal or status.
“I do not want to go back,” she whispered. “Not yet.”
“We do not have to.”
She blinked. “We do not?”
“We can stay,” he said. “Another day. A week or year, if you like. Let the gossips whisper in our wake and chase the stories we have left behind.”
She laughed softly, pressing a hand to his chest. “But we must return, eventually.”
“Yes,” he said. “But when we do, it shall be on our terms. Not theirs.”
She tilted her head. “And what sort of terms shall we set?”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew something small. Delicate.
Frances blinked, confused—until he unfolded his fingers.
A ring.
Not the plain band from Gretna, hastily purchased in a forge still smelling of soot.
This was a new ring. Thoughtful. Intricate.
A single sapphire set in a gold band, shaped like a half-moon curling around the gem. Elegant. Bold.
Her breath caught.
“I know we are already married,” he said, his voice rough with sincerity. “But this is the part that should have been yours from the beginning.”
She looked up at him.
“I want you to have a proposal,” he said. “A real one. Not out of desperation, or flight, or survival. But out of love.”
Her breath caught, and she blinked rapidly, her fingers curling slightly against her side. “You do not have to?—”
“I want to.” He dropped to one knee, the full moon casting silver light across the floorboards.
“Frances… my fierce, impossible, brilliant wife. Will you do me the honor of saying yes again?”
A rush of warmth filled her chest, so fierce and unexpected it stole her voice.
“Yes,” she said, voice trembling. “Time and again, I will always choose you.”
He slipped the ring onto her finger.
And when he rose to kiss her, the world did not blur or spin.
It simply stilled.
And everything felt right.
The next morning broke slow and golden, light filtering in through the gauzy curtains of their room. There was no rush to rise, no breathless urgency pressing at her heels.
Frances opened her eyes to the sight of Johnathan beside her, his face still softened by sleep. He looked younger like this—less the notorious rogue and more the boy she used to know, the one who had once dared her to steal strawberries from her aunt’s garden and sworn to protect her from all imaginary beasts hiding in the dark.
She reached out and traced the edge of his jaw.
His eyes opened the moment she touched him.
“I was dreaming about you,” he murmured.
“I hope it was a pleasant dream,” she said.
He smiled, that crooked, utterly devastating smile that made her heart stutter even now. “It still feels as though I must earn the privilege of touching you.”
She leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to his mouth. “You have already earned it. And then some.”
He pulled her into her arms, one hand slipping between her legs as his mouth claimed hers.
They did not leave the bed for hours.
When they did, it was only because their stomachs reminded them they had neglected basic needs in favor of more urgent ones.
The inn’s common room was quiet—only an elderly couple near the hearth and a young woman scrubbing a table in the corner. The innkeeper greeted them with a knowing smile and two mugs of tea.
Johnathan insisted on making Frances sit near the hearth while he fetched breakfast from the sideboard.
“You should not be attending me,” she protested.
“Too late,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “I have made it my life’s mission.”
She watched him as he crossed the room—tall and confident despite the slight favoring of his wounded arm. Her heart tugged as she saw the way the scullery maid stared after him, slack-jawed, clearly caught in the wake of his charm.
Frances suppressed a smirk.
Yes. He was hers.
When he returned with a plate of warm oatcakes, smoked ham, and boiled eggs, he sat across from her and offered a mock bow.
“Your Grace,” he said.
The title sent a ripple through her—new, untested—and she straightened instinctively, breath catching as though the name had weight upon her shoulders she had only just begun to feel. But not unwanted.
“Duke of Mine,” she returned.
He laughed, low and affectionate.
They ate slowly, trading glances and quiet remarks about the inn’s peculiar decor, about William and Maximilian—who had joined them yesterday, but apparently left at first light, slipping a note under the door that read we trust you not to do anything idiotic. But if you do, do not get blood on your wife—and about what came next for them.
“We will need to return to London eventually,” she said between bites. “Face the consequences. I do not wish to delay.”
“I am not worried about the scandal,” Johnathan replied. “They can call me a rogue. I am one.”
Frances reached across the table and took his hand. “And what am I?”
He looked at her. “You are the storm that broke me and the shelter that saved me.”
Something unspoken coiled inside her.
He squeezed her fingers. “We are the Duke and Duchess of Hargate. A title that can be traced back to the Norman conquerors. They will forgive us.”
After breakfast, they walked through the village arm in arm, passing flower carts and wool merchants, families bustling about with baskets, and little children chasing dogs through the square.
Life here moved slowly.
Unbothered by dukes and elopements and English scandals.
Frances let her shoulders drop, a slow breath easing past her lips as the tension uncoiled from her spine.
She tilted her head back and watched the clouds drift past. “Maybe we could live here.”
Johnathan raised a brow. “Become reclusive Highland romantics?”
“Keep goats,” she smiled.
“I am allergic.”
“Then cows.”
He laughed. “You hate cows.”
“I detest cows,” she said, grinning. “But for you, I would suffer.”
They paused near a stone wall overlooking the hills beyond. The wind tousled her hair, and Johnathan reached to tuck a strand behind her ear.
“I could give it all up,” he said. “The estate. The title. I would walk away from it, Frances. Let a land steward manage it all.”
She turned to him, stunned by the conviction in his voice.
“I have already found everything I need.”
She cupped his cheek, the pads of her fingers brushing the faintest stubble. “You do not need to give up who you are for me.”
“I think,” he said softly, “you have made me want to become someone better.”
They kissed then—slow and sweet, with no fire behind it, just warmth. Familiarity. Belonging.
And when they finally returned to the inn that evening, hand in hand, the stars already beginning to blink into view overhead, Frances looked up at the sky and thought:
This is what home feels like.
They spent their last night in Scotland wrapped around one another like a vow.
Not rushed. Not desperate. Just steady and slow, the rhythm of bodies that no longer feared the dark because they had already survived it.
In the morning, the light came earlier than she wanted.
Frances lay still for a long time, her head on Johnathan’s chest, listening to the even rise and fall of his breath. Outside, a cart rattled past. A rooster crowed. The world had moved on.
She smiled faintly. She had not.
Not quite.
When she rose, she did so quietly, padding to the window with the blanket wrapped around her. The sky was pale with dawn. The hills of Scotland stretched outward, mist rising like breath across their slopes.
A gentle ache bloomed in her chest, as if her ribs strained to contain the quiet enormity of what she felt—not sorrow, but reverence that shimmered like sunlight behind her eyes.
She had never thought she would find herself in a place like this: not the country, but the moment. The aftermath of everything she had fought for. No father barking orders. No viscount lurking with cold threats behind polished smiles. Just her, and the choices she had made.
It was a kind of freedom that did not feel like rebellion anymore.
It felt like truth.
She turned as Johnathan stirred.
He looked up at her with sleep-heavy eyes and a soft smile. “Are you watching for invaders?”
“Just time,” she said. “It always seems to catch us, eventually.”
He sat up, wincing slightly at the stretch of his shoulder. “Then let us not allow it to catch us standing still.”
They packed together—comfortable now, familiar. She folded his shirts with far more precision than her own. He laced her bodice while pressing a kiss to her neck. They moved like people who had learned how to be together as one.
Just before they left, Frances paused at the door.
“I am not afraid anymore,” she said.
Johnathan turned back to her. “No?”
She shook her head. “Not of my father. Not of scandal. Not even of Cranford.”
He stepped forward, brushing a kiss over her brow. “Then what are you afraid of?”
She hesitated. “That I will forget who I am when we go back. That the world will try to turn me into Lady Frances Rowley again, and I will let it.”
Johnathan took her hands in his.
“You will not,” he said. “Because now you know who you really are.”
Her eyes stung. “And who is that?”
He smiled. “You are my wife. My partner. The woman who turned a scoundrel into a man worth fighting for. You are not going back to a cage, Frances. You are returning with the keys in your hand. You are my treasured duchess.”
She laughed then, her shoulders dropping as she exhaled a breath she had not realized she was holding, the tension slipping from her limbs like dusk melting into night.
“You always know what to say.”
“I have had practice,” he said dryly. “Years of pretending to be charming. It finally paid off.”
They left the inn just as the sun climbed over the hills, casting long golden rays across the cobbled street.
As the carriage drove south, the border slipping quietly behind them, Frances looked ahead—not to London’s salons or scandal sheets, but to the life they would build. A life forged in fire and choices. One they had made together.
She no longer feared what waited in the drawing rooms or the Dowager’s glares or even the newspapers. She had weathered worse.
And now she had someone to weather it with.
They were returning as husband and wife.
As equals.
As a future that no longer asked permission.