Page 98 of The Scottish Duke's Deal

That was when the knock came.

Ramsay froze.

Eleanor blinked. “Was that?—?”

Another knock. Firmer this time.

He growled something obscene beneath his breath and crossed to the door.

Belson stood there, composed as always, as if he hadn’t just interrupted a moment of near-sacred intensity.

“I’m sorry to intrude, Your Grace,” he said, handing over a sealed letter. “But this arrived by hand. The messenger insisted it was urgent. Said it concerns… Inverness.”

Ramsay stared at the envelope.

The seal was unmarked. The script unfamiliar.

“Thank you,” he said. His voice didn’t sound like his own.

Belson bowed and disappeared. Ramsay stepped back inside.

Eleanor was still at the edge of the bed, gown half-fallen from the chair behind her, cheeks flushed, hair a little wild.

“Everything all right?” she asked gently.

He didn’t answer. Not yet.

He broke the seal and unfolded the letter. The paper crumpled slightly in his fist as he read it.

Does your duchess know what you did? Does she know you’re a murderer? That you took his life and never paid for it? You’ve fooled her for now, but you’ll lose her when she learns the truth. And I’ll make sure she will.

There was no signature. No date. Just a smear of ink at the bottom, like the writer had pressed the pen too hard.

Ramsay’s lungs locked. For a moment, the room spun. Then everything went still.

I have to deal with him before he reaches Eleanor…

He folded the letter slowly. He wasn’t cold often, but now, something in him rose to the surface like a beast through ice.

Eleanor was watching him, her eyes burning.

She stood, wrapping her arms loosely around her middle. “What did it say?”

He looked at her.

Really looked.

Not just the surface of her—though that alone was enough to undo him. Not just the curve of her mouth, still swollen from his kiss, or the dip of her collarbone where the lamplight kissed her skin. Not just her eyes, wide and questioning, or the way her hair had begun to fall from its pins, soft and untamed and utterly beautiful.

He looked past all of it. Past the gown slipping off her shoulders, past the breath she hadn’t yet released. Past the moment they’d just shared—the heat of it, the promise of more.

He saw her standing there. Open. Unafraid. Trusting him with something he wasn’t sure he deserved. And that was the part that broke him.

Because he wanted her. So badly it ached. He wanted to take that step forward, close the distance between them, and sink into the one place he’d ever felt steady. He wanted to kiss her until the world went quiet, undress her like a prayer, feel her body move with his like she belonged to him.

He wanted to crawl inside this life—this impossible, fragile, beautiful thing they’d built—and never leave it.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let her see what was coming. Couldn’t drag her through the blood and ruin of his past when he’d only just begun to feel clean again. Not when she still looked at him like he was something worth keeping.