Page 23 of Duke of Pride (Sinful Dukes #4)

CHAPTER 23

Trigonometry

I f Stephen thought he was in Hell before, after Victoria left his house in the middle of the night, he was now learning the true meaning of the word. At least before, he had that stupid, lingering hope that he could see her around, visiting his mother, attending his sister’s balls—somewhere in the social scene. Sure, he could watch her from afar, perhaps exchange small talk, but she would still be there.

But now?

“Prussia… Two years? Maybe more. Maybe forever.”

The words carved through him like a dull blade, slow and brutal. He was startled by the sound of broken glass. Through his haze, he looked down and saw the empty, shattered decanter of brandy on the floor.

When did he drink the whole thing again?

He stumbled to the door, ready to shout the only command he had been giving his butler over the past few days. Brandy . But when he opened the door, he found Frederick.

“I swear to God, Stephen,” his brother-in-law hissed as he pushed him back into the study, “if I have to leave Annabelle’s side to come and see you in this state, I will drown you myself in a barrel of the most expensive brandy.”

Stephen laughed. “Bring me that barrel now and watch me,” he slurred.

“Look at you!”

Stephen threw his head back and looked around. He had some whiskey in here for some special occasion, right? Didn’t get more special than him wishing for death.

“Stephen!”

Frederick was losing what little patience he had left. Before Stephen could take another staggering step toward his liquor cabinet, his brother-in-law seized him by the collar and dragged him out of the study.

“What the devil—?” Stephen spluttered.

He struggled against Frederick’s iron grip, but he was too drunk to fight.

“You want to drown yourself?” Frederick growled, dragging him out into the garden. “Then let’s do it properly.”

He led him to where a big stone trough stood full of rainwater.

Frederick didn’t hesitate. With a grunt, he shoved Stephen forward. His body fell into the trough, cold swallowing him whole.

Stephen gasped as water submerged his head, shock punching through his alcohol-fueled haze. He surfaced with a choked curse, his wet clothes clinging to him, cutting through the numbness.

“Much better,” Frederick said simply.

Then, he dragged Stephen back to his study and ordered blankets, dry clothes, and lots of tea before he started a fire.

Stephen stood on the carpet, dripping, shivering, and eyeing his brother-in-law murderously.

“What was that?” he bit out.

“Necessity.”

Minutes later, he was in dry clothes, nursing a pathetic cup of tea, staring into the fire bleakly.

“Now, listen,” Frederick said as he straightened his cuffs. “Tomorrow, I will come pick you up, and we will go to Walden Towers.”

At that name, Stephen stiffened and looked at him. “Walden Towers?”

“Yes,” Frederick uttered coldly. “You will bring some flowers, the engagement ring that has been in the possession of every Duke of Colborne, you will go down on your knees— both of them—and you will beg Victoria to marry you.”

Stephen laughed bitterly.

“It is not a laughing matter,” Frederick growled. “Then, I can be with my wife, who might be giving birth even as we speak, while I am here taking care of you as if you were a baby.”

“That simple?” Stephen said with malice.

“Pretty much. Any woman who managed to get the impeccable Duke of Colborne in this pathetic state must be worth it. I trust you can grovel hard enough.”

Stephen stared back into the fire. Victoria was worth it and so much more. That was why she was leaving. Why would she be the wife of the coldest man alive, who spoke of duty in his marriage proposal to the woman he loved?

He could already see it. The way her laughter would fade year by year. The way her eyes, once bright with passion and dreams, would dim under his rigid rules. Just like his father snuffed the light out of his mother’s eyes.

“So, sleep, get sober, and tomorrow?—”

“She is leaving for Prussia to study. Tomorrow.”

Frederick froze, then went to the liquor cabinet, took out the whiskey, and poured a few drops into their tea.

“She will be happy, following her dreams. I will only make her miserable,” Stephen sighed, his eyes still fixed on the flames.

“She seemed pretty miserable at the ball if you ask me.”

“That was because of me, too.”

Frederick didn’t ask him to clarify, realizing the insinuation.

“All I am asking, you thick-headed fool, is whether you told her how you feel.”

Silence.

“Thought so. Basically, you are ready to let the love of your life go in fear of humiliating yourself. Perhaps you don’t love her as much as you think, and you just enjoy dramatic gothic poets too much.”

Stephen fixed his brother-in-law with a look that would have killed a lesser man on the spot.

“All I am saying is, just dare. Bare yourself to her.”

“What if she says no?”

“What if she says yes?”

* * *

Stephen felt like a fool. Hiding away at the docks like a spy, lurking behind crates and piles of rope. His eyes were fixed on the ship scheduled to leave for Hamburg. The ship that would take her away. She would show up any minute. He was so nervous, not sure what he would do even if he saw her.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of an approaching carriage. It stopped before the ship.

His fingers were clenched around the book he had brought with him. For her. If he would ever step out of the shadows.

Maxwell got off the carriage and extended his hand. Stephen’s entire world narrowed to those stairs. Victoria stepped out, dressed in a traveling gown of deep blue, and his soul felt the warmth of the sun for the first time in days.

Stephen studied her face. She looked tired and pale, but she smiled at her brother, determined.

Stephen’s chest tightened. She was really leaving. This was what she wanted, what she dreamed of, and he had no right to take it away from her. He was ready to step back, leave, and go back to his hollow life.

But then, as Maxwell talked to the servant who would serve as a chaperone and a member of the crew, Victoria looked away, to the docks, as if searching, as if she was expecting something. Her eyes swept over his hiding spot.

She looked so lost and pitiful, sad and desolate. She turned back toward the ship, her expression crumbling for just an instant before she schooled it back into calm resignation.

And at that moment, Stephen knew.

This wasn’t the face of a woman chasing a dream. This was the face of a woman running. From him, from them, from the pain they’d caused each other.

“What if she says yes?”

Victoria took a step toward the gangway. Stephen took a step out of the shadows. And another, one more. Soon, he was running toward her.

“Victoria!”

She didn’t turn around at first. She froze mid-step, her hands clasping the rope to steady her. The first one to react was her brother, who turned around and looked at him as if he could not comprehend what he was seeing.

“Bloody hell!” Maxwell’s shout echoed across the docks. “Colborne.”

“I would like to talk to Victoria,” Stephen said firmly.

The world stopped. Victoria turned around, a slow movement that sent Stephen’s heart slamming against his ribs. Her eyes, those devastating eyes he’d drowned in a thousand times, locked onto his.

“Just a word, Victoria. Please.”

“Excuse me, Colborne,” Maxwell interjected. “What?—?”

“Please, Maxwell,” Stephen said, openly begging. “Allow me to talk to Victoria. Please .”

Maxwell’s gaze darted between his desperate expression and Victoria’s frozen form, and he sighed.

“Five minutes.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice to a growl only Stephen could hear. “And if you make her cry, I’ll throw you in the goddamn harbor myself.”

“If I do, I will throw myself in.”

Maxwell exhaled and stepped toward the carriage.

Stephen offered his hand to help Victoria off the gangway. This was the one gesture that mattered most in his entire life. All his life hinged on this moment, waiting for her to give him her hand, to give him a chance.

“Please, Victoria. Just… Please.”

A heartbeat. Then, Victoria uncurled her hand from the rope and offered it to him.

Stephen’s soul filled with hope. They stood across from each other. Suddenly, he felt like a schoolboy.

“I brought you this as a parting gift.” He offered her the book.

Victoria looked at the book. A Treatise on Plane Trigonometry .

She gasped. It was the book she had been holding that night, that first night in the library, when they had crossed the line that brought them here.

“Thank you,” she said softly, taking the book.

“And I came to return this,” Stephen added as he took out the hairpin from his pocket.

Victoria looked from the small, insignificant thing to him.

The carriage . No, not the carriage, though that was so cherished and intimate. But the day they spent together in London, as if they had always belonged together.

“You… you kept it.”

“Every day.”

Victoria swallowed and blinked to chase away ready tears. She gave him a weak, sweet smile. “Keep it.”

“No.”

Victoria was startled by his refusal. He cradled her face and made her look up at him.

“I want to be the one to pin it in your curls every day, for the rest of my life.”

For one breathtaking moment, her entire face lit up. Her lips parted, and her eyes widened with something perilously close to joy. Stephen smiled, ready to hold her so close, finally. Forever.

But his actions had cut deep. He had hurt so much that he saw the light dim, her joy restrained by pure survival instinct.

“I have told you before, Stephen. You don’t have to uphold your duty. I have no need for it.”

“Perhaps, but I need you.”

Victoria shook her head, but the motion was weak, less refusal than disbelief.

“You once told me that marriage was about duty. You can’t be?—”

“I was a top-tier fool.”

Victoria searched his face.

“Victoria, I wish I could go back to that thicket, smack myself upside the head, and then get down on my knees and tell you everything I felt. Everything I still feel. Everything I will always feel.”

Victoria opened her mouth to speak, but he stepped closer and took her hand in his own. And kissed it not in the formal way of the ton, but in a “If I don’t touch you now, I will die” desperation.

“I love you, Victoria,” he croaked, his eyes holding hers.

Her jaw slackened, and her grip on his hand tightened. He nodded and held her hand in both of his now.

“I love your fire and passion, I love your light that dispersed the darkness in my life. I love your smile and your pout and the way you frown when I say something stupid.”

“Which is too often,” she scoffed.

They chuckled, but Stephen was not done. The dam inside him had broken, and he had no intention of holding back.

“I love that—though I do not deserve it—you keep looking at me as if I am better. I am better because of you. I will be better for you. I love your sharp intellect, even if it scares me to think how much smarter you are than I am.”

“Confirmed,” she said shakily.

He came closer, his voice dropping. “I love your lips, how they mold against mine.”

Victoria blushed.

“I love how you make me lose control just by looking at me, how your body feels against mine.”

She gave him a scorching look that defied rules and propriety.

He smiled at her and cupped her face in both hands.

“This is not duty, Victoria,” he said with pain in his eyes this time. “You were never a duty.”

Tears were ready to flow.

“Please don’t cry, or else I am obliged to throw myself in the water.”

She laughed, but one tear slid down her cheek. He wiped it away.

“I guess this one doesn’t count,” he said, his own voice shaking. “I want you . Your laughter in my mornings, your arguments at my dinner table, and all your lilac tablecloths and dangerous mallet swinging.”

She was shaking from both laughter and ready tears now.

“Victoria, my Victoria,” he choked out. “Stay. Be my wife. Let me spend forever proving that I’m worthy of you.”

They looked at each other so deeply, so intimately, that the world stopped to matter. There was only them. Her free hand went to his chest to feel his beating heart. She took one step closer, modesty be damned.

“I love you, too, Stephen,” she confessed.

He exhaled and closed his eyes in relief, his chest heaving with laughter and tension.

“I love you exactly the way you are. Because of who you are. I love?—”

He didn’t let her finish. He kissed her right there on the docks, in full view of sailors, merchants, and her brother. Not the chaste peck Society would allow, but something wild and feral.

One hand cradled her face, while the other went around her waist to pull her closer. Victoria made a small, startled sound against his lips, but then her gloved hand slid up his neck.

He broke the kiss but didn’t release her, afraid he might lose what his heart desired most in the world.

“I wasn’t done,” she joked.

“Marry me.”

A cough interrupted them. Maxwell.

“When I warned you not to make her cry, I didn’t mean that.”

Stephen still didn’t let go of Victoria. This was outrageously improper, scandalous , but he didn’t care. His gaze remained locked on Victoria, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheek where a flush still burned.

“Marry me,” he repeated, his voice rough.

Victoria arched an eyebrow, her fingers still curled into the fabric of his coat. “You’re rather impatient for a man who took so long to get here.”

A low, breathless laugh escaped him.

“I’ve waited a lifetime for you. I refuse to wait another second.”

“For God’s sake,” Maxwell groaned.

“Yes, you insufferable fool!”

Victoria’s laughter was music to his ears. Stephen pulled her in his arms once more for a deep, searing kiss. He barely registered Maxwell’s growl of protest or the whistles from dockworkers as Victoria’s lips melted against his. Her hands, still gloved but no longer restrained by propriety, slid up to tangle in his hair.

When they parted, both were breathless. Stephen kept his forehead pressed to hers, their noses brushing.

“Lord Prevost would have a stroke,” Victoria joked.

“I owe the man a gift for pointing me to your scandalous ways,” Stephen countered.

They laughed in each other’s arms.