Page 52 of Stolen By the Heartless Duke

Jane arrived only a step behind him. Her heart hammered. Every instinct screamed that she could not let him enter.

This room belongs to Colin.

And when her brother came back, he would want it just as he left it.

Not merely because it was his office, but because it contained the life he had built from the maps he pored over late into the evening, to the correspondence he answered, and to the estate ledgers he treated with meticulous care.

It was where her brother became the Earl of Wynten each morning.

Zachary rested one hand upon the brass handle.

“Colin will return,” Jane told him.

His fingers tightened around the handle. “So you keep insisting.”

“He will. You’d do best to remember that, Uncle.”

Without another word, he opened the door. Jane followed immediately. The familiar scent of paper, polished wood, and leather wrapped around her the moment she stepped inside.

Morning sunlight spilled through the tall windows overlooking the south lawn, illuminating the broad mahogany desk Colin had inherited from their father.

Nothing had moved. His spectacles still rested atop an open ledger. A pen remained beside an unfinished letter.

Jane’s chest tightened painfully. It looked as though he had simply stepped out for a moment. As though he might return at any instant, apologize for the interruption, and sit back down to finish his work.

Zachary slowly surveyed the room. “Hm.”

His fingertips skimmed across the edge of a bookshelf. “A respectable office.”

He sighed theatrically. “My dear niece, the world does not stop because your idiot brother managed to involve himself in criminal affairs.”

The words struck like a slap. Jane’s vision narrowed. “Watch how you speak about him.”

Zachary arched a brow. “Or what?”

Jane knew that she should hold her tongue. This man held the fate of her mother in his hands if Colin did not return, but she couldn’t. “He has done nothing to deserve your contempt.” Jane took a step closer. “My brother is an honorable man.”

“So honorable armed men carried him away in front of half the ton? Respectable gentlemen are rarely taken by masked criminals.”

Jane refused to look away. “And I know respectable gentlemen do not rejoice when their own nephew vanishes.”

Silence stretched between them.

Outside, somewhere in the gardens, birds continued singing as though nothing in the world had changed. Inside the study, the air seemed to tighten.

Zachary looked slowly around the room once more. “Your brother left quite a collection.”

Jane glanced toward the shelves lined with estate books. “He will use them again.”

“If he returns.”

Jane knew that her uncle was baiting her and yet she still said, “When.”

He smiled without warmth. “You cling desperately to certainty.”

“I have faith.” Jane needed him to leave.

“In a fool.”