Page 31 of Yours Truly, the Duke
CHAPTER 9
WEEPING WILLOW—FORSAKEN
—MRS. JAMIESON
All that it hoped,
My heart believed;
And when most trusting,
Was most deceived.
Wyatt felt as if a thoroughbred’s hooves pounded in his chest.
He immediately let go of Priscilla as an inexplicable desire to rush to Fredericka, pull her into his arms, and hug her close sparked through him. He was damn glad to see her.
But… the emotion he saw in her eyes for a fleeting moment stopped him from doing what felt so natural. Was it betrayal reflected in their depths? How could it be? He was only dancing. Yet his whole body tensed as if he were being pricked with needles.
On one side of Fredericka stood Bella and Charles. Elise was hugging her aunt’s skirts on the other. Fear struck him. His mind raced with the possibility something terrible had happened to bring them to London.
“Fredericka, what are you doing here?” He strode toward her, covering the distance between them as fast as he could.
“Obviously, making a mistake,” she answered in a terse tone as Wyatt cleared the threshold of the drawing room and stopped in front of her.
That was an odd thing for her to say.
He glanced down at the children. Bella lifted her smiling, angelic face toward him, clearly glad to see him. Charles looked at him with what appeared to be wide-eyed confusion, and Elise turned her head away from him and locked her arms tighter around Fredericka’s waist.
No one was bleeding. None of them looked harmed, sick, or in pain, but something must have happened to bring Fredericka to his door in the middle of the night.
Swallowing past a tight throat, he gave his attention back to Fredericka. His heart started beating even faster. Her eyes were swirling with questions. He had quite a few himself.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” Burns hurried to say. “When she said she was Her Grace, I asked that she wait in the entry until I—”
“Not now, Burns,” Wyatt said quickly, holding up his hand to halt his butler. “You did fine.”
“But it appears I have not.” Fredericka’s words were icy and her eyes fierce. “It didn’t cross my mind that you might be having a party this evening.”
Wyatt tried not to let his thoughts get ahead of her explanation, but he couldn’t keep his chest from tightening in fear again. “Did you come here straight from Paddleton? Tonight?”
“Yes,” she responded coolly as her flush deepened. “We arrived just now.”
Wyatt’s jaw clenched at the thought of her traveling the lonely, dangerous roads at night. “You shouldn’t have come!” he exclaimed.
Fredericka gasped. So did the bewildered elderly governess standing beside her.
Theirs weren’t the only gasps. An ocean wave of them roared behind him. He looked back. The music had stopped, the chatter had quieted, and it seemed as if everyone in the drawing room had crowded closer to listen.
Suddenly Wyatt realized how unacceptable“You shouldn’t have come!”sounded.
“That’s quite clear,” Fredericka said in a miffed tone as her spine stiffened. “To me and everyone else.”
Hellfire!She was taking his words the wrong way.
“Hurst, Rick, keep the partying going,” he said in a raspy voice. “Burns, close the doors.”
