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Page 43 of The Duke’s Untouched Bride (Regency Second Chances #3)

“ I must insist that we proceed with the arrangements immediately.”

Iris clutched Evie tighter against her chest. The baby’s warm weight was the only thing anchoring her to sanity as Holt’s voice drifted up from the entrance hall below.

She’d been making her way downstairs when the solicitor’s arrival had stopped her cold, sending her retreating to the shadows of the upper landing where she could observe without being seen.

“The child’s new guardians are most eager to welcome her home,” Holt continued. His tone carrying the false cordiality of a man conducting distasteful but necessary business. “I’ve brought the proper documents for transfer of custody.”

Iris pressed her back against the wall. Her heart thudded so loudly she was certain everyone in the house could hear it. This was happening. Actually happening. Despite her desperate hope that some miracle might happen, Holt had come to collect Evie as promised.

“Where is the Duchess?” Peters’s voice carried up the stairs, carefully neutral despite what must be tremendous distress. “Surely, she should be present for such proceedings.”

“The Duchess’s presence isn’t required. The child’s legal status is quite clear.”

Evie stirred in her arms, making soft sounds of contentment that tore at Iris’s heart. How could she explain to this innocent baby that the world was about to change again? That the people who’d loved her, sung to her, and protected her were powerless to prevent another abandonment?

“I’m here.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

She descended the stairs slowly. Each step felt like walking toward her own execution.

Holt stood in the center of the entrance hall. His black coat made him look like death itself. Beside him waited a stern-faced woman who had to be a nursemaid. Her arms were already positioned to receive a child.

“Your Grace.” Holt’s bow was perfunctory and professional. “I trust you’ve had time to prepare the child for travel. The journey to Dover will take several hours.”

“She’s not ready.” Iris’s voice came out steadier than she felt. “She’s barely six months old. Such a journey will be traumatic.”

“Children adapt quickly at that age. Marie Martel is eager to begin the bonding process.”

Bonding process. As if love could be scheduled like a business meeting. As if the months of care Iris had provided meant nothing compared to the abstract claim of blood relation.

“I need more time.”

“Time serves no purpose except to make the inevitable separation more difficult.” Holt gestured to his companion. “Mrs. Abbott has extensive experience with infant travel. The child will be properly cared for.”

Iris looked at Mrs. Abbott’s cold features and saw nothing resembling maternal warmth. This woman would treat Evie like cargo to be transported, not a precious child who deserved gentle handling and familiar comfort.

“Please,” she whispered, hating the desperation in her voice. “Just a few more days. To help her adjust, to explain…”

“The matter is settled, Your Grace. I have my orders.”

Orders from whom? The mysterious cousin in France, or someone closer to home with reasons to want Nicholas’s daughter removed from England?

Footsteps thundered outside, followed by the sound of the front door bursting open. Iris spun toward the commotion, hope flaring in her chest at the possibility of rescue.

“Nobody move! Bow Street Runners!”

Uniformed men flooded the entrance hall. Their presence transformed the elegant space into something resembling a battlefield. Holt went rigid with shock. His professional composure cracked as the men surrounded him.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “I’m conducting legitimate business!”

“Are you, indeed?” The lead constable, a grizzled man with shrewd eyes, stepped forward. “Mr. Holt, you’re under arrest for conspiracy, fraud, and involvement in threatening the welfare of a child.”

“This is preposterous! I demand to see your warrant!”

“Right here.” The constable produced the document with satisfaction. “Signed by Magistrate Henley himself after some very interesting testimony was provided by the Duke of Richmond regarding your recent activities.”

Iris watched in amazement as the constables efficiently restrained Holt and his companion while their protests fell on deaf ears.

How had this happened? Who had intervened on their behalf?

“Your Grace.” The lead constable approached her and executed a low bow. “You and the child are perfectly safe now. This man will face justice for his crimes.”

“What crimes?” Though even as she asked, Iris suspected she knew the answer.

“Conspiracy to defraud, for starters. Those documents he presented, claiming French relatives? Complete fabrications. The real crime involves threats made against the child’s welfare by his employer.”

Before Iris could ask more questions, another commotion erupted as Owen burst through the front door. His clothes were disheveled, his knuckles bloodied, and his expression showed such fierce determination that it took her breath away.

“Iris!” His eyes found her immediately as he hurriedly scanned both her and Evie for signs of harm. “Are you hurt? Did they touch her?”

“We’re fine.” But her voice broke on the words. Relief and residual terror combined to shatter her composure. “Owen, what’s happening? How did the Bow Street Runners…”

“Felix sent them. After we discovered who was behind Holt’s convenient appearance.” His gaze flicked to where the solicitor was being led away in restraints. “Jasper confessed everything. The forged documents, the threats, Nicholas’s murder—all of it.”

Nicholas’s murder.

The confirmed suspicions she’d barely dared to voice. “He killed his own brother?”

“For the title, for family pride, for a dozen selfish reasons that meant more to him than human life.” Owen’s voice carried a rage so cold that it made her shiver. “But he’s finished now. He’ll never threaten our family again.”

Our family.

The show of possession made something tight in her chest ease slightly. Whatever had driven Owen to such desperate measures, whatever had changed his mind about their situation, he was here now. Fighting for them.

“Your Grace?” The lead constable interrupted their reunion. “We’ll need statements from both of you, but that can wait until tomorrow.”

After the constables departed, the house settled into an almost oppressive quiet. Peters efficiently restored order to the entrance hall while Iris remained frozen on the stairs, afraid to believe that the crisis had truly passed.

“It’s over,” Owen said quietly, moving to stand below her. “They can’t take her. No one can take her.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because I won’t let them. Because I’ll fight anyone who tries, with everything I have.” His voice grew rough with emotion. “Because I was a fool to ever consider letting her go.”

Iris studied his face, noting the exhaustion and guilt written in every line. This was the man who’d offered to give her replacement children just yesterday and had spoken of faking Evie’s death to avoid complications. What had changed?

“Come upstairs,” she said finally. “We need to talk.”

She led him to the nursery, the room that had become the heart of their unlikely family. Evie had fallen asleep during the chaos below. Her small face was peaceful despite the upheaval surrounding her.

Iris settled into the rocking chair with the baby still in her arms. She was unwilling to let go, even though the immediate danger had passed.

Owen remained standing with his hands clenched at his sides as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

“I owe you an apology,” he began.

“You owe me an explanation.”

“That too.” He moved to kneel beside her chair, bringing himself to her eye level. “When I spoke of giving her up, of returning to what we were, I was terrified.”

“Of what?”

“Of us becoming my parents.” The admission came out raw, painful. “They started with love, you know. Passionate, desperate love that consumed everything in its path. But over time, it rotted. Turned into resentment and cruelty and the kind of poison that destroys everyone it touches.”

Iris watched his face, seeing the boy who’d grown up surrounded by that toxicity. “We’re not your parents.”

“I know that now. The Dowager Duchess helped me see it, along with a few other uncomfortable truths about the man I was becoming.” He reached out tentatively.

His fingers brushed Evie’s tiny hand. “I was so afraid of hurting you that I hurt you anyway. So determined to avoid my father’s mistakes that I made them anyway. ”

“You called caring for her temporary. Said she meant nothing.”

“I lied. To you, to myself, to anyone who would listen.” His voice cracked slightly. “Because admitting how much she means to me, how much you both mean to me, felt like signing up for inevitable heartbreak.”

“And now?”

“Now I understand that heartbreak is guaranteed if I keep pushing away the people I love.” He looked up at her, his gray eyes bright with unshed tears.

“You’re not a convenience, Iris. Not an obligation or a duty or anything else I tried telling myself.

You’re everything. Both of you. Everything I never knew I wanted.

Everything I was too afraid to ask for.”

The words she’d longed to hear for so many months were finally spoken aloud. But they came wrapped in the memory of yesterday’s cruelty, the casual way he’d dismissed everything they’d built together.

“You hurt me,” she whispered. “When you spoke of faking her death, of giving me other children as if they could replace her… it felt like you were erasing everything we’d become.”

“I know. God, I know.” He moved closer, close enough that she could see the anguish in his expression. “I’ve been hurting you since our wedding day. Leaving you alone, keeping secrets, treating you like a stranger when you deserved so much better.”

“I felt unwanted. For over a year, I felt like something you tolerated rather than chose.”

“You’re the only thing I’ve ever truly wanted.” The words came out fierce and absolute. “The only person who’s ever made me want to be better than I am. I just didn’t know how to tell you that without risking everything.”

“So, you risked nothing instead.”

“Yes. And nearly lost what mattered most because of it.” He reached up to touch her face gently. His thumb brushed away tears she hadn’t realized were falling. “I love you, Iris. I love you both more than life itself. And I’ll spend the rest of my days proving that, if you’ll let me.”

The declaration hung between them, precious and fragile and absolutely true.

Iris studied his face, seeing the man she’d fallen in love with despite all his walls and fears.

This was the man who sang lullabies in the dark, worried when Evie fussed, and looked at both of them like they held his entire world in their hands.

“I’m tired of feeling unwanted,” she whispered.

“Then let me want you. Let me show you every day how precious you are, how grateful I am that you stayed when I gave you every reason to leave.” His voice broke. “Let me be the husband and father you both deserve, even if I’m still learning how.”

Iris felt the last of her resistance crumble. This was what she’d dreamed of during those long, lonely months. Not just his presence, but his heart offered freely rather than grudgingly.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He rose carefully, mindful of the sleeping baby, and gathered both in his arms. The embrace was gentle, reverent, and full of promises and new beginnings.

“I love you, too,” Iris whispered against his shoulder. “I’ve loved you for months, even when I thought you could never love me back.”

“Always,” he murmured while pressing soft kisses to her hair. “From now on, always.”

He drew back just enough to kiss her properly. It was just a soft brush of lips that spoke of tenderness rather than passion. Then, he bent to press an even gentler kiss to Evie’s forehead. The gesture was so natural that it might have been a daily ritual.

“Our daughter,” he said quietly.

The possessive warmth in his voice made Iris’s heart soar.

“Our family.”

“Our everything.”

As they stood together in the nursery where their love had quietly grown, Iris finally believed they’d found their way home. Not to a place, but to each other. To the family they’d chosen and fought for and would protect with everything they had.

Iris nestled Evie into her cradle and Owen looked down at their daughter sleeping peacefully, then met his wife’s eyes with an intensity that made her breath catch.

Without a word, he scooped Iris into his arms, careful not to disturb the baby, and carried her out of the nursery.

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