Page 10 of My Duke, The Stranger
That was when it all came back to her.
She had fallen asleep on the rickety stool. She was bent over, her arms folded on the bed, her head resting on her arms. And lying awake, looking at her with that same smile on his face—one thatwas found in his eyes as if she was the center of all things—was the duke.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“I… what…” She stammered stupidly as memories from the previous evening came crashing back. “So are you.”
“Only for a moment.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I thought about waking you, but you looked so peaceful.”
She eyed the hand as if it were a snake that had bitten her. Then she followed the hand up the duke’s body and rested on his face. The smile. The sparkle in his dark eyes. The way he continued to gaze upon her like the morning sun.
Oh no…
“Isolde!” Marianne cried again.
“Did you see?” Thomas came in next, and he could not have looked more excited. “Did you see? Did you see?”
“Of course I saw!” Marianne said. “And heard.”
Isolde continued to stare numbly at the duke and his hand. He looked remarkably better than he had the previous night. The sweat on his brow was gone. The color in his cheeks hadreturned. He looked like a man reborn, and one who had but a single thing on his mind… her.
“What… what do you remember?” she asked carefully.
“Enough,” he said. “What matters most.”
Her stomach dropped. Her lies… the deceit and the deception… By the looks of things, the duke’s memory had not returned fully, apart from what they had spoken about the previous night. And so it was that a reckoning fell upon Isolde with such decisive fury that she thought she might be sick.
“Isolde!” Marianne screamed.
She shook her head and turned to find her sister and brother gaping. “What? Where is Father? Why are you…” In the distance, she heard those horse hooves that had woken her, as well as shouting. “What is going on?”
“That is what we are saying!” Marianne cried. “There is a carriage coming! And horses! A dozen men at least!”
Isolde’s stomach somehow dropped even further, and oh, how she wished that she might follow it. If the floor opened wide and swallowed her whole, she would consider that a mercy.
“A carriage?” The duke frowned. “Is this normal?”
“Wa—wait here,” she stammered as she gently peeled her hand free. “I will see to it.”
“Whatever you say,” the duke said to her. “I trust you, Isolde.”
Isolde thought she might be sick. The room turned as she stood, she stumbled across the room, and she wondered if she looked even worse than the duke had last evening when he had been brought into her home.
“You two…” She took her brother and sister by the hands. “Leave the duke to rest.” They protested a little, but allowed themselves to be led from the room, likely because they were desperate to see who had come to visit.
There could be no doubt who it was. The storm last evening had stopped Isolde from sending word to the manor so that they might know what had happened to their duke, but word had reached them nonetheless. The duke was here; they wanted him back, and no doubt they would be curious to learn ofwhyhe was being kept from them… as well as what had happened during those hours.
“I need both of you to say nothing,” she explained to her brother and sister as she led them from the house and outside. “I cannot stress this point enough.”
“What would we even say?” Marianne said.
“Exactly,” Isolde told her. “Nothing.”
The scene was just as Marianne had described. Twelve horses were lined up across the road, each a dazzling shade of white, and each with a finely dressed rider who wore a most serious expression. It was as if they were just waiting for the command to unleash untold amounts of destruction upon those who had kidnapped their duke.
In front of those twelve horses was parked a single carriage. It was ridiculously decadent in design, painted in gold, with literal jewels encrusted into the frame, doors, and even at the center of each wheel. Isolde’s jaw dropped open when she saw it…
“Who is Father speaking to?” Marianne asked in a whisper.
