Page 38 of The Duke that I Lost

D ash dropped a single red rose onto the fresh mound of dirt and stepped back. A headstone would come months from now, once the masons had shaped a monument worthy of a duchess. Such practical matters—such mundane matters—always took time.

Time.

The last two years had been both unbearably slow and far too swift.

Slow in the long days of watching her fight for every breath, seeing the faint tremor in her hands whenever she tried to lift so much as a teacup.

Slow in the nights broken by the sound of her coughing in the adjacent chamber—deep, racking fits that left her pale and exhausted in the morning light.

And yet, too swift in the way she had diminished before his eyes, her frame thinning, her voice growing fainter, as if the world were gently, inexorably drawing her away.

Hannah had been barely twenty when she died. And yet, perhaps for the first time, she was at peace. The pain she had carried for most of her life could finally cease.

No one had expected her to live much longer than she had, though she had found some measure of joy at Dasborough Park before the end.

She and Beatrice had become close in their own way—though close was a relative term.

His sister was everything Hannah was not: vibrant, willful, with an ever-present taste for rebellion.

Yet even Beatrice’s wildness had been gentled in Hannah’s company, as if the frail duchess’s quiet presence called for a softer sort of loyalty.

But Hannah had never truly been his wife. What they’d shared had been a kind of guardianship rather than a marriage, a daily tending of her comfort rather than a union of hearts.

He had not, as Grimm had suggested on his wedding day, ever taken a mistress. Although he and Hannah had shared no romantic feelings for each other, it still hadn’t felt right to for some reason.

It was as though his own life had stopped two years ago, when he had left the woman he loved?—

Dash cut the thought short before it could take shape, before it could conjure what he had forbidden himself to remember. Some memories were too dangerous to touch.

A hand clapped hard onto his shoulder. “It’s done, old man. You’ve paid your dues, seen your sentence through. You’re free, my friend. Question is—what the hell are you going to do with yourself now?”

Hawk, of course, had stayed long after the service ended.

But Dash wasn’t sure how to answer his friend’s question.

He was free to do as he pleased now.

Or was he?

There’d be the obligatory year in mourning. Another year alone. And if he set foot in London, there’d be no avoiding…

Her.

Dash kept his gaze on the headstone. “I don’t know,” he said finally.

Whereas Longstaffe, Grimm, and Black only knew that Dash had felt some responsibility for Ambrosia Bloomington and ensured she’d never be in want, Hawk knew more.

Over the course of one wretched night—too much brandy, too little sense—Dash had told him everything.

He had spoken of the auburn-haired widow he had met at the worst possible moment of his life. How he had felt for her. How he had left her.

The memory of that morning two years past lodged in his gut like a blade. He had hurt her—of that he was certain—but he had told himself it was the kinder wound. If she hated him, she might find happiness elsewhere.

Hannah’s future had been a question no physician could answer. Weeks, months, years—there’d been no knowing how long she might hold on. And the thought of Ambrosia waiting for him, of him waiting for her… it would have been cruel. For all of them.

So he had settled on the only acceptable solution: better she despise him than be bound to a life of uncertainty.

And thus he had done the one thing he had sworn never to do—left her without so much as a goodbye.

“She is still in London, by the by,” Hawk remarked, his tone far too casual to be anything but deliberate. “Unmarried, too. Do not tell me it never plagues your thoughts—that you might go to her. That you might do both of you a favor by speaking the truth.”

An icy gust swept across the field, scattering brittle leaves through the Dasborough graveyard.

Dash’s gaze drifted to the next row of stones—his parents’ resting place, his mother buried beside his father less than a year ago.

Two years, and everything had changed. He felt decades older than the man who had traveled with Ambrosia on their unforgettable journey.

“If you dawdle much longer,” Hawk went on, his voice rich with provocation, “you’ll have missed your shot.

She will not sit about indefinitely, waiting upon your convenience.

And it is not merely the usual crop of fortune-hunting bachelors sniffing at her heels—why, even Grimm has been seen in her company.

You know well enough what that signifies. ”

Dash’s jaw locked. His fingers curled reflexively, itching to close around the Earl of Grimstead’s smug throat.

“And let us not forget the obvious,” Hawk continued, all wide-eyed innocence.

“She is beautiful, intelligent, charming… and possessed of an income of her own. Men will queue for such a prize. One day she will say yes to one of them. Tell me, my friend—do you mean to spend the remainder of your days wondering what might have been?”

Dash cut him a sideways look, a scowl pulling at his mouth.

Not a day had passed he hadn’t thought of her. Not a night without her face invading his dreams, her voice, her scent… the taste of her on his tongue, the sweet ache of her warmth surrounding him.

Two years.

He’d never meant to make love to her. God knew he’d wanted to—ached for it from the moment they’d met—but he’d sworn to himself, from the second she’d agreed to share her carriage, that he wouldn’t cross that line.

He’d renewed that vow a dozen times over as he came to know her, respect her, need her.

And then, in the end, he’d broken every promise—first the one to himself, then the one he’d made to her.

Dash pulled off his hat and raked a hand through his hair. The wind had picked up, the scent of the sea heavy on the air. A storm was moving in, and even his greatcoat was no match for the biting ocean gusts that cut through to the bone.

“If she no longer hates me,” he muttered, “It means she’s forgotten.”

It would mean, perhaps, that she never loved me.

Hawk let out a short, humorless laugh. “Women don’t forget that sort of thing, my friend.

Not the good… and sure as hell not the bad.

But it’s your life. If you want to rot here at Dasborough Park, be my guest. Just don’t expect me to watch you drink yourself into the man you were those few years after Harrowgate. ”

Dash didn’t want to talk about Harrowgate.

“You’re returning to London soon?”

Hawk had responsibilities that he had to take care of there. Family. Duties. Friends… a life.

“Next week,” he answered.

They walked on in silence, boots crunching over the frost-hardened path, each man lost in his own thoughts.

The road from Dasborough Park to London was long, unpredictable. Weather, horses, road conditions—it could take close to a fortnight. He’d made it in less than a week before, when the reason had been urgent enough.

Lately, the urge had been clawing at him to just— go . One too many dreams of his princesse had turned curiosity into something far more dangerous.

What if she could forgive him? What if she still loved him? He doubted it—God, he doubted it—but could he live with himself if he didn’t try?

Dash let out a slow breath, watching it bloom white in the chill.

To go to Ambrosia Bloomington now, after two long years away from each other, after leaving her in the worst possible way… it would be the height of selfishness.

And yet…

He hadn’t permitted himself to be selfish in a very long time.

* * *

“How was it?” Beatrice looked up at Dash as he entered the drawing room that had been their mother’s favorite. Although she was dressed in black from head to toe, she’d not attended the funeral. Women weren’t expected to, and Dash hadn’t tried to convince her otherwise.

He knew his sister would mourn Hannah. She didn’t need the ceremony to remind her.

Dash shrugged. “It was… sad.”

Beatrice nodded, her gaze distant. “It still doesn’t seem real. She was just… so young.”

“Yes.”

“There were days,” Beatrice said quietly, “when it felt like she wasn’t entirely here… as if some part of her already belonged to Heaven.” She shook her head, a faint crease between her brows. “Is that a terrible thing to say?”

“If it’s what you feel, it isn’t wrong, Bea.”

And Dash understood. Hannah had seemed to live half in this world and half in the next, a gentle, untouchable presence they all knew they would lose too soon.

Even if he hadn’t already been in love with Ambrosia, even if his heart hadn’t belonged wholly to another, he doubted he could have reached her.

Dash leaned against the mantel, the familiar weight of the room pressing over him as his gaze settled on his sister.

Her copper-brown hair was pinned in a knot at the back of her head, her eyes the same gray-blue as his own.

Once, those eyes had sparkled with innocence, alive with the excitement of a girl with the world at her feet.

But she had long since abandoned the whirl of London society—no more balls, no more Seasons.

Whenever he pressed her, she brushed him off, claiming to disdain the institution of marriage, of having no desire to parade herself about town.

Instead, she kept to Dasborough Park, running wild across the countryside with her bow and quiver, as if arrows might shield her from the world.

He loved Beatrice with all his heart, though he could not always understand her. And today, as he studied her face, he saw no spark at all—only eyes shadowed by another loss in this house and cheeks drained of color.

“And Lord Beresford?” she asked at length. “He truly was absent from his daughter’s funeral? I had hoped—foolishly, perhaps—that he might relent.”