Page 15 of The Scottish Duke's Deal

Kitty leaned forward, ever the peacemaker. “Norman, you cannot blame Eleanor. Gifford?—”

“Lord Gifford,” Eleanor interrupted, voice sharp, “is the only reason any of this happened. He followed me. He pressured me to accept his hand in marriage. He grabbed me. His Grace, he pulled me back. If he hadn’t, I would have gone over.”

That made Norman finally look at her. Not as the Duke of Wharton but as her brother. His brows knit, a flicker of real fear in his eyes.

He exhaled, long and slow, and leaned back against the velvet-lined seat. “I should never have let that man near you. I knew there was something off about him. I knew it. If I had been there…”

“But you weren’t,” Eleanor said gently. “And His Grace was. He may be rough, but he wasn’t cruel. He could have let me fall. Saved himself the trouble. But he didn’t.”

Norman said nothing. The silence that followed was not quite accusing, not quite comfortable.

She hesitated.

“He may be rough,” she went on, “uncivilized even—but not cruel. He could have let me fall. He didn’t. He—” her voice caught slightly. “He pulled me back.”

Norman didn’t reply. The silence between them stretched.

And somewhere beneath the tight lace of her corset and the residual flush in her cheeks, Eleanor felt the weight of her own words. Hehadsaved her. Whatever else he was, whatever sharp words they’d exchanged… the truth was plain.

She owed him her life.

And suddenly, the way she’d spoken to him before—brisk, defensive, biting—gnawed at her. Because he deserved her gratitude.

The carriage wheels creaked beneath them. Outside, gulls cried overhead, circling the docks like ghosts of the sea. The salt air had followed them inland, clinging to their clothes and hair.

Kitty adjusted the lace at her cuff. “None of the passengers were our acquaintances. No one from Town. No baronesses or marchionesses with nothing better to do than gossip at tea. We can still carry on normally. No one of consequence saw.”

“No,” Norman said, too firmly. “That’s not how it works. Eleanor is a duke’s sister. One whisper, one half-true story in the wrong drawing room, and it won’t matter who saw what. She’ll be condemned. And Lord Gifford, no doubt, will shape the story to suit himself.”

Eleanor turned toward the window. The sea was still in sight, pale and glittering, painted gold at the edges where the sun met the horizon. So lovely. So misleading.

“Then what do you suggest?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

“I suggest,” Norman said, straightening, “that we leave this behind us. Completely. We find a match for you. Fast.”

Kitty blinked. “You mean a betrothal?”

“I mean a marriage.”

Eleanor stared at her hands. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding onto herself—her composure, her dignity, the last threads of a life that had felt so perfectly mapped just days ago.

“To whom?” she asked, numb.

“We’ll sort that out,” Norman said. “Someone with a title. Discreet. Respectable.”

“Someone blind and deaf, preferably,” Eleanor muttered.

Kitty squeezed her knee. “Don’t joke.”

“I’m not.”

Because her thoughts were still tangled withhim. With the Duke who had caught her like she weighed nothing, who had stared down a scandal as though it bored him and then walked away like it hadn’t cost him a thing.

Ramsay Brooking, Duke of Stormglen. A Highland brute in title and temperament. Improper. Abnormal. Not like anyone she’d ever met.

He hadn’t bowed. Hadn’t apologized. Hadn’t looked at her like a lady to be pitied. And that voice—so deep it still echoed somewhere behind her ribs—had practicallydaredher to keep up.

Her heart gave a thud.