Page 2 of Duke of no Return (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #23)

CHAPTER 2

A hollow knock echoed through the cavernous halls of Hargate Manor, reverberating like a warning bell. Beyond the closed doors, the world slept, but within these walls, Johnathan Seton lingered, solitude pressing in on him. The room carried the scent of ash and aged brandy—a quiet testament to yet another sleepless night spent in self-imposed exile. The knock shattered that stillness. Dragging Johnathan Seton, Duke of Hargate, from the comfort of his armchair and the fading warmth of his brandy. He blinked blearily at the dying embers in the hearth, the clock on the mantel chiming softly. Half-past midnight.

Another knock, firmer this time.

He sighed and rose, running a hand through his tousled hair. Midnight visitors rarely brought anything but trouble, and for Johnathan, that trouble often came wearing perfume and secrets. Years of missteps and misjudgments had taught him as much. They reminded him of hastily scrawled letters shoved into his hand before duels, of tears shed in abandoned ballrooms, of past lovers spitting fury or pleading for second chances. By now, he knew trouble well—like a scar that never fully faded, always waiting in the dark.

The corridor beyond the drawing room stretched before him, its length cloaked in a hush that felt almost reverent. The only sound was the soft tap of his footsteps against the floor. The portraits lining the walls—grim visages of Setons long passed—seemed to glower down at him, their eyes sharp with silent judgment. The air was heavy, scented faintly of wax and dust, and the deeper he moved into the corridor, the more oppressive it became, as though the house itself resented being disturbed. Johnathan squared his shoulders against the sensation, but even he could not shake the sense that he was walking toward something inevitable.

The butler, rigid with disbelief, hovered near the entryway. "Your Grace," he murmured, "there is a young lady at the door."

"A lady? At this hour?" Johnathan’s brow arched as he reached for the handle himself.

The door groaned open.

He hesitated, hand on the door. Who would come to Hargate at this hour? A creditor? A challenge? A ghost from the past? The weight of old regrets pressed down on him, sudden and sharp. And then?—

He turned his gaze to the door.

There, cloaked in shadows and moonlight, stood Lady Frances Rowley.

He froze.

So did she.

The silence stretched between them like a thread pulled taut, humming with things left unsaid. Johnathan's mind raced, fragments of the past flashing in sharp succession—the echo of her laughter when they had tumbled through summer grass, the way she had looked at him the last time they danced, the day he had walked away from it all. Guilt and longing warred in his chest, knotted so tightly he feared if he moved, he might unravel entirely.

The sight of her—cheeks flushed with cold and defiance, eyes wide and shining with a mixture of desperation and determination—took the breath from his lungs.

"Frances?" he breathed, the name catching in his throat. His hand slipped from the doorframe, fingers twitching as though uncertain whether to reach for her or retreat.

"Johnathan," she said. Her voice shook, but she forced the words out. "Please. I need your help." She stepped forward, just slightly, as if unsure whether she would be welcomed or turned away. Her gaze held his, unwavering despite the tears threatening at the edges, a silent plea woven into every breath.

Johnathan, without a word, guided Frances through the dimly lit halls, his eyes betraying a flicker of surprise that he quickly masked with stoicism. The drawing room awaited her, steeped in memories and firelight. As she stepped across the threshold, the soft click of her boots against the hardwood echoed too loudly in her ears. Her gaze swept the room—the carved walnut furniture, the oriental rug, the grand fireplace framed in marble—all unchanged, yet somehow alien. She felt the weight of familiarity and the ache of distance in equal measure.

The fire was stoked by a footman who vanished as silently as he had come, and a decanter of sherry was placed within arm’s reach on a side table. The hearth hissed as the logs caught, warmth blooming slowly through the shadows against the walls that made her feel both seen and vulnerable. She did not sit. Could not. Her fingers dug into the edges of her cloak, knuckles white. There was no going back now. Frances met Johnathan’s gaze, the tremble in her hands betrayed her attempt at control. Her gaze briefly flicked to the corner of the room where a worn chessboard lay beneath a velvet cloth. They had once sat there for hours, challenging each other, trading jests and secrets between moves. That memory rushed in unbidden, tightening her throat. She pressed her lips together and forced her gaze away. She had come with purpose, and she would not falter now.

Johnathan leaned against the fireplace, his arms crossed. His gaze lingered on her with a complicated blend of caution and yearning. Shirt open at the collar, hair mussed, he looked every bit the devil-may-care duke the scandal sheets painted him to be. Yet his gaze, when fixed on her, held no mockery—only calculation. And something far more dangerous: restraint.

"Do you intend to explain," he asked at last, voice low, arching a brow as he reached for his glass and swirled the amber liquid with casual defiance, "or shall I stand here admiring your dramatic entrance until dawn?"

Frances swallowed hard. "My father has signed a marriage contract."

He held her gaze, but said nothing.

"To Viscount Cranford."

His expression did not change, but his jaw twitched.

The space between them pulsed with tension, sharp and unrelenting.

"You remember what they say about him," she continued. Her voice was steady, but her fists clenched at her sides.

"I remember," Johnathan said coldly, his voice laced with disdain. A flicker of old rage sparked in his eyes. He could still see Cranford at the club, smug and smirking, recounting with casual cruelty how women ought to be kept in line. "A snake hiding behind a silk cravat."

Frances took a step forward, her gaze burning into his. "I will not marry him, Johnathan. I will not."

She held his gaze.

"You once swore that if I ever needed you, you would come—under the willow tree behind my family’s orchard. You held my hand and promised me no one would ever hurt me."

His brows drew together. "That was a child’s promise."

"So was your oath to duel Henry Montclaire over a stolen pastry, and yet you did."

He barked a quiet laugh. "And got my arse handed to me."

Frances crossed her arms. "This is not a jest."

"Do you think I am unaware of that?" His voice turned sharp. "Do you know what it would mean for me to take you in? What we would have to do? What your father would do?"

"I know exactly what is at stake. And I am asking anyway."

She held his gaze with unflinching defiance, and in that moment he remembered the girl who had stood beside him on the cliffs of Dover, daring the wind to sweep her away. He had loved that spark in her. It burned now, hotter than ever.

"Frances..."

"You owe me nothing," she said, softer now. "But I am asking you to be the man I once knew. The one who believed a woman had the right to choose her future."

He looked away. The fire crackled.

"You should marry," he said finally. "Find someone who will protect you."

"Like Cranford?" Her voice cracked. "Is that what you want for me? Safety in the arms of a man who might ruin me behind closed doors?"

He flinched.

"You do not understand what you are asking. Not really. Not the weight of it. Not what it would cost—for you, for me. There was a girl once, a baron’s daughter, who came to me begging for help just as you have now. I gave her shelter, thinking I could protect her. A week later, her reputation was in tatters, her father disowned her, and she was shipped off to France to live out her days with an obscure aunt. And me? I was branded a seducer, a corruptor of innocence. I did not care about the name then, but I care now. Because it will not just be you they ruin, Frances. They will come for your name, your family, everything you hold dear—and I may not be enough to shield you from it."

"Because you will not marry me?”

He turned on her then, frustration etched into every line of his face. "Because it does not matter! Because it is too late for me to play the hero, Frances. I have done things that cannot be undone. I have no reputation left to salvage—and if I take you in, you will not either."

Her chin lifted. "Perhaps I no longer care."

"You should,” he said unflinching.

"Why? Because it is easier to tell yourself that letting me walk into Cranford’s arms is for my own good?" Her voice rose. "Or because you are afraid of what it means if you help me?"

"You do not know me anymore." His voice dropped, rough with the weight of unspoken years. He turned away from her, clenching the back of a nearby chair until his knuckles whitened. The blazing logs crackled behind him, loud in the silence that followed.

"Then tell me who you are, Johnathan! Because I still see the boy who climbed trees with me. The boy who hated injustice and swore he would never become his father."

His expression flickered. "Do not," he said, warning in his voice.

She stepped closer. "I do not believe that man is gone. Not completely."

He met her eyes, and something shifted. For a heartbeat, they were children again. Before duty. Before betrayal. Before pain.

Then he stepped back. His breath caught, a strangled sound escaping before he swallowed it down. "I cannot."

The words hit her with stunning finality.

She nodded, though her throat burned. “Very well."

She turned to go.

"Frances—"

"No," she said, without looking back. "I will find my own way.”

He stood frozen as the door shut behind her, her footsteps echoing down the hall.

She was gone.

And yet the scent of roses lingered.

He poured another glass of brandy, the motion habitual now, and drank with the desperation of a man trying to drown more than just his thoughts. The third glass of brandy went down rough, its burn less punishing than the emptiness that filled the room in Frances's absence. The fire snapped and spat, throwing restless shadows across the drawing room's richly paneled walls. The empty space she had occupied faced him like a silent accusation. Her shawl, forgotten in her haste, hung over the arm of the chair, and its presence felt more intimate than a kiss. The scent of her perfume still lingered—roses and rainwater—intertwined with the smoke and aged oak, ghosting the air with memories he dared not name. The sherry bottle on the side table glinted, half-drained, a mirror of his own depletion. Shadows curled along the baseboards, and the echo of her voice seemed trapped between them. The room, once merely somber, now seemed haunted.

Her words echoed. Each one another blow. But it was one in particular that landed with the sharpest edge—"Perhaps I no longer care." It had tumbled from her lips not with bitterness, but with exhausted conviction, a quiet surrender that struck him deeper than any accusation. That she could speak those words—Frances, who once believed in choice, in freedom, in hope—meant he had failed her more thoroughly than he had realized. It was not anger in her eyes he could not forget. It was that brief, harrowing flash of hopelessness.

“I will not marry him.”

“I no longer care.”

“I still see the boy…”

Johnathan slammed the glass on the table and stalked toward the window, throwing it open. Cold air hit his skin, but it did nothing to cool his thoughts.

He told himself it was right—an act of sacrifice, not cowardice. She deserved better. Not the broken pieces of the man he had become. He stared at the flames snapping with restless energy, and for a moment, he felt that same fire clawing at his insides. Involving himself in her life again would do more harm than good, he repeated like a mantra, but the words rang hollow in his mind, lingering in the shadows.

That look in her eyes—raw, pleading, furious—had nearly unraveled him.

He had failed her once. When she had needed him most—when her brother died and she had reached for someone to steady her—he had disappeared into London’s shadows, drowning his grief in wine and women instead of offering her comfort. He had left her to mourn alone, and the guilt of that choice had haunted him ever since.

And now… he had done it again.

His gut twisted. Shame warred with something darker. Something possessive. The idea of her in Cranford’s arms made bile rise in his throat.

He had tried to forget her. He had tried to drown every memory of her in brandy and scandal. But she had never left him. She had lodged herself in the corridors of his memory, a ghost he could neither banish nor forget.

She was his. Not by society’s laws or the church’s blessing, but in every unspoken truth of his heart. She had lived in the creases of his mind, in the sound of wind against stone, in the silent spaces where regret made its home. And he had let her go.

Again.

He swore under his breath and paced the room. His boots scuffed against the rug as he passed the fireplace again and again, his stride uneven. On the mantel sat an old silver frame—once containing a sketch of her they'd done together, long forgotten, the paper yellowed at the edges. He picked it up now, thumb grazing the corner, but he could not bring himself to look. With a growl, he set it down too forcefully, the frame tilting askew. Then his gaze flicked to the writing desk in the corner, where a half-written letter to William Atteberry lay forgotten. He crossed the room, snatched the paper, and tore it clean down the center. A useless letter. A useless excuse. The room seemed to pulse with ghosts of the past and frustration, every object a relic of who he had once been—and might never be again.

Memories returned unbidden: the summer she bested him at archery; the winter she pressed a kiss to his cheek on a dare; the way she had cried into his shoulder the day her brother died. He had loved her even then, though neither of them knew it.

He did not deserve her.

But perhaps deserving her was no longer the point.

If he let her marry Cranford, he would never forgive himself. In his mind’s eye, he saw her—Frances—in some cold manor house with shuttered windows, her smile dulled by duty, her vibrant laughter stifled beneath the weight of obedience. Cranford’s hand on her arm, possessive and controlling. Her gaze, hollow. A ghost of the woman she was meant to be. The image struck him like a blow to the chest, breath-stealing and savage. That future—silent, lifeless, cruel—was a vision he could not abide. Not if he had breath left in his body to change it. More than that, he would never look at himself in the mirror again.

The clock struck one. He turned, grabbing his coat from the chair. The halls were empty as he strode out the door, his footsteps echoing like thunder.

He did not know how he would save her.

But he would.

Even if it meant burning every bridge he had left. Even if it cost him what little reputation remained, the loyalty of the Wayward Dukes, or the last remnants of peace he had carved out for himself. She was worth it. She had always been worth it.