Page 18 of The Duke that I Lost

“So you didn’t actually fight at all?” The second the question flew out of her mouth she wished she could take it back. By the look on his face, it was obviously a sore spot for him.

“No,” he said at last, his voice low, flat. “We had only just made camp outside Brussels—training finished, farewells behind me, and then, I was ordered home.”

The self-derision roughened his accent. “Waterloo was won without me. Or lost, depending on which of my parents you ask.” His grin came thin and brittle. “You wished to know me better, princesse ? Then know this—my greatest failure.”

He looked away, his gaze fixed on nothing. “One of them, anyway.”

“But leaving the front was not a failure. You had no choice.” He shrugged, dismissing her protests and simply stared into the flames which had begun to eagerly lick at the log he’d placed on top.

“I know you think men move about with all the freedom in the world,” he said, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond her. “But some of us are bound as tightly as you—by duty, by mistakes. Responsibilities that close off the life we might have chosen instead.”

She felt like he was trying to tell her something more, something he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say. But he’d fallen silent once again, hiding behind that barrier he’d erected before. In that moment, he wasn’t the easily amused gentleman who’d joked about so many other aspects of their journey.

She stared at his sharp profile, made more mysterious by the shadows and highlights dancing across his lean cheeks and jaw, thinking that he didn’t strike her as a common soldier. He seemed more like a major, or a general, even.

But he also seemed… so very hopeless.

Which didn’t really make sense. He had family. A sister. He had friends.

When she reached out a hand and tentatively touched his arm, she felt his muscles tense. It seemed that neither of them were breathing now, and yet somehow her heart raced wildly.

“You told me,” she began quietly, “that I already knew what kind of man you were. That I didn’t need to know all the little details to truly know you.”

He turned his head, watching her now with a curious stillness.

“Well,” she went on, encouraged by the look in his eyes, “I think… doing what’s right, being responsible…

that’s part of who you are. And still, somehow, I feel your laughter.

Like there’s music always playing somewhere inside you.

It’s—” She hesitated, wincing at how it might sound. “There’s a kind of magic in that.”

The moment stretched, and suddenly she felt very foolish.

“Magic, eh?” A smile curved across his mouth—warm, not mocking. “I think perhaps it’s you who brings the magic, Ambrosia .”

She dropped her gaze to where her hand rested on his jacket. “You must think me silly. Presumptuous. As if I could possibly understand your life…”

And she did feel that way—like a girl from nowhere, pretending she had a right to dream big. What would the glittering world of London make of her? Of her hope, her lack of sophistication, her ideas?

“Not silly. Not presumptuous,” he said, and the low, certain weight of his voice pulled her gaze back to his. “You are… not at all what I expected.”

“What do you mean?” The words barely made it out, her breath catching.

“You could be angry. Bitter. Closed off. But instead you’ve chosen to see good in the world. You still hope . After everything…” He stopped, his eyes never leaving hers. “You are a very brave woman, Ambrosia.”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head, plucking up one of the thinner twigs from beside the fire and twirling it between her fingers.

“I’m not. I’m afraid of everything. I can’t even walk through a taproom on my own.

” Snap! The twig was in two pieces, one in each hand.

She chucked them into the fire, not quite sure why she felt like crying all of a sudden.

“How am I going to survive London? I don’t know anyone.

I don’t know the rules. I’ll say the wrong things, dress the wrong way?—”

“You won’t.”

“I’ll be alone,” she said, her voice cracking, “with only Mr. Dog to talk to. They’ll think I’m ridiculous. An unsophisticated nobody with wild ideas and no connections?—”

It was him who reached for her this time. “Never,” he said.

Then, slowly, gently, he touched just above her heart.

“Your courage isn’t loud, princesse . But it’s there. You’re making the journey. Moving forward. That’s where the magic is. Right here.”

The very air between them seemed to thicken, weighted with something unspoken. Did he feel it too? It was as though every restless yearning she had ever harbored, every long-starved desire, had gathered itself and fixed upon this one man.

She felt an unworldly pull to be closer to him, to part her lips…

“I promised I wouldn’t kiss you.” His gaze flicked to her lips and then back up to her eyes. “You said that if I did, you couldn’t travel alone with me. That we would have to part.”

Had she said that? In this particular moment, none of those concerns seemed to matter. “I…I?—”

A large pop from the fire broke the spell she’d fallen under.

Both of them turned back to stare into the flames.

“Are you hungry?” Without waiting for an answer, he pushed himself to stand. “Stay here.”

Ambrosia stared at her hands after he disappeared. They were shaking, along with most of her insides. A flush had spread through her entire body and her brain was focused on only one thing.

He had wanted to kiss her. Hadn’t he?

Perhaps even more problematic… She wanted him to.

What would it feel like?

She’d taken a husband, buried that same husband years later, but still, at the age of six and twenty, she’d… never been kissed before.

Perhaps such a dalliance was exactly what she needed. One kiss: one kiss from a charming and kind gentleman. Something to store away in her memories for the rest of her life so that she’d know she’d not missed out on everything good that life had to offer.

The sound of his returning footsteps sent her heart racing again. She couldn’t look at him, fearful he’d take one look at her and know exactly what she was thinking.

Despite their short acquaintance, he possessed an uncanny knack for reading her thoughts.

Crouching down beside her again, he set a basket between them and opened it to reveal bread, cheese, jams. It was a delicious assortment of all the foods she’d considered forbidden until she’d met this man.

“Don’t worry, I brought food for your son as well.” He removed a bowl and flicked a glance toward Mr. Dog, now sprawled on his back, eyes open, legs spread wide and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

She smiled at his designation for her new pet, but then it slid away.

“Harrison wanted a son.” She spoke the words without thinking.

When she’d failed to provide him with one, he said it was a punishment. She’d never asked who was being punished, or what for.

What would her deceased husband think if he saw her now, with a strange man? What would he think if he knew she would be happy to designate a dog for her child? For some odd reason, the thought made her laugh.

After a curious glance, Mr. Beckman went to work breaking up some meat and bread and placing it into the bowl. He drew out a canister and poured some white liquid onto the food.

“I imagine Mr. Dog needs a little help softening it up,” he said.

This man was enchanting her yet again. Not by being suave or doling out compliments, but in the fact that he paid attention to not just her, but to others. The fact that he cared that the dog could eat.

Even when his own horse was missing.

When she glanced over at him, though, he was frowning, and his jaw seemed to be clenched.

“Did he ever hit you?” He ground the question out, almost reluctantly.

She ought to ignore the question; these were details a woman kept to herself, things she hadn’t even told Mrs. Tuttle.

When she didn’t answer right away, Mr. Beckman closed his eyes as if pained and then scrubbed one hand down his face. He might have been imagining worse than it had been.

“Not—It wasn’t like whatever you’re thinking. My husband, he…” She couldn’t say that he never laid a hand on her. “I…” never gave him a reason to? But that wasn’t quite true either. “I learned it was better to… cooperate.”

Back in the earlier days of their marriage, Harrison had had… greater expectations of her, as his wife.

He would come to her in the night. Would tell her to be still.

But there had always been pain, and when she’d experienced the acute discomfort, she couldn’t help but try to pull away, to close herself so that he couldn’t get to her.

“He gave up after a year, and after that, aside from…” controlling her every move. “Well, he stopped visiting my chamber.” For which she’d been eternally grateful.

But she could not deny that he’d struck her. There had been occasions when he’d found fault with something she’d said or done, and felt it his duty to dole out her punishment.

This was, of course, not something she felt she should mention.

On the ground, drool and bubbles were frothing out of Mr. Dog’s mouth as he searched around his bowl, gumming the pieces of food he managed to get ahold of.

“Oh, look!” Ambrosia announced brightly, happy to discuss anything else. “He’s eaten over half of it. He must like his food quite a bit better this way.”

“The blighter never kissed you?” Mr. Beckman persisted.

Ambrosia winced. It didn’t make her angry, though, that Mr. Beckman would not let go of the painful subject. Ironically, she almost felt as though, by telling him, she was letting some of it go.

It was her past and there was nothing she could do to change it.

Her husband had taken her body, but he had not, after all, stolen her first kiss.

The thought made her smile.

“He did not.”

Mr. Beckman poured some wine into a cup and handed it across to her. She refused to worry about where it would settle on her figure, and instead thoroughly enjoyed it. The wine, the cheese, the meats, the sweets… all of it. But especially the company.