How to Catch a Duke in Ten Days by Violet Hamers
Chapter Ten
Hermione felt frozen to the spot with her hand in the air. She had only heard the very end of the Duke’s conversation with his mother and the insult that came with it.
He thinks so little of me.
She fixed her eyes on his face in the candlelit hallway, watching him close his eyes, clearly astonished to find her there, having heard him. A brief memory flashed before her eyes. She was standing outside the church with the bouquet dropped to the floor and Phoebe hurrying to pick up the flowers.
“He is not coming!” her father had ranted and raved at her. “What did you do to cause this? He thinks so little of you that he would treat you, treat our family like this. He does not care for you at all.”
“Lady Hermione?” the Duke said, opening his eyes again. “What you heard, I–”
“Do not explain, Your Grace. I crave no such explanation,” she said hurriedly, stepping back from the library. She had come to read the same book that was clutched under his arm. Now, she wished to be as far away from him as possible. She backed away, aware that he continued to stare at her, then she turned, breaking the connection entirely.
“Lady Hermione?” he called after her.
“Oh, Antony, how could you be so cruel?” The Dowager Duchess’ voice followed her through the corridor.
As the pairs’ words grew muffled the more distance Hermione put between them, she found herself walking quicker and quicker. She moved through the corridor, heading back to the drawing room door through which she had left her family. In the open doorway, she could see Phoebe playing the piano in the far corner of the room, talking animatedly to Officer Stenham who was turning the pages of the sheet music for her. Their father and aunt were bent together, whispering conspiratorially.
She couldn’t face them now. If they knew what she had just heard, they would condemn her once again for failing to obtain a gentleman’s good opinion. She couldn’t bear to hear anybody else’s distain of her. She’d heard it enough recently. She backed away from the drawing room, only her feet didn’t head toward the stairs, to her surprise, she headed for the front door instead. She crept out the door, being careful to close it softly behind her before she walked down the main driveway, heading toward the cliff edge.
It didn’t matter that darkness had fallen for the moon and stars were bright tonight. The closer she got to the cliff edge, the more clearly she could see it, with the sheer drop stretching out beneath her down to the tide, with the waves crossing against the rocks. She stared at those waves, trying to lose her sadness in admiring their beauty, but it did no good.
She lifted a hand to clutch the locket around her throat as the full memory came back to her. She was standing outside of the church when one of the pageboys had hurried out to meet them, explaining that the groom was nowhere to be found. Forty-five minutes had passed before they were all forced to accept that he was not coming. She had been left at the altar with no words of explanation, nothing at all. He had merely abandoned her there, leaving her a ruined reputation and a church full of people ready to spread the gossip.
She was unwanted, unloved, and discarded, just like the bouquet she had discarded so easily. She hung her head as she looked down at the waves beneath her, thinking on what she had heard the Duke say.
“Lady Hermione could leave this house tomorrow, and I’d think no more of her than I would the next wave that crashes onto the shores of Lyme Regis Bay.”
It seemed no gentleman thought anything of her, not even the Duke she had been attempting to charm and had kissed.
* * *
Antony had gone straight to the drawing room, only to find Lady Hermione was not there.
“Have you seen Lady Hermione?” he asked her father, watching as the Earl of Branigan looked up from his conversation with Mrs. Atkins. The Earl smiled a little.
“You wish to see her, Your Grace?” he looked quite happy at the idea.
“Yes, have you seen her?” Antony asked, trying not to think too much of the reasons why the Earl was smiling so.
“She said she was going to read for a bit,” Lady Phoebe said as she paused in her playing at the piano. Antony looked down at the book in his hand, realizing just why she had been outside of the library in the first place. “Perhaps she has gone to the library?”
“Perhaps so,” he said, trying not to reveal what had happened. He turned back to see his mother standing in the doorway.
“But, Antony–” she spoke quietly, so that the others couldn’t hear them as they returned to their conversation, but he interrupted her, pleading with her to let him speak first.
“Do not tell anyone what has happened. I will find Lady Hermione and make my apologies to her,” he explained, watching as his mother nodded, without a trace of a smile in her features. Sighing at the pain he had managed to cause both his mother and Lady Hermione with just one sentence, he left the room, being careful to close the door behind him.
He first hurried up the staircase, taking a candle with him as he headed to her room. He knew it would hardly be proper to visit Lady Hermione in her chambers, alone, but desperate times called for desperate measures indeed. Yet, repeated knocks on her chamber door showed it was empty inside. He hurried back downstairs when he saw the butler standing by the window beside the front door, staring through the glass.
“Mr. Harris? Is something wrong?” Antony asked, hurrying to his side.
“Oh, Your Grace,” the butler jumped and bowed quickly, “I may be imagining it, but I could have sworn I saw a figure walking out by the cliff.”
Antony snapped his gaze out of the window, searching for this figure. “There!” the butler said abruptly, pointing out of the glass. In the moonlight, Antony could see the figure move, wearing a dress.
It has to be her.
“I’ll see who it is,” Antony did not reveal his suspicions to the butler. He placed the candle down nearby and hurried outside.
The evening air was cold and bristled against his skin, urging him to turn the collar of his tailcoat up against it. He approached the figure on the cliff edge slowly at first, not wishing to disturb her. The closer he got to her, the more he could make out her features. He could see the blonde hair, almost silver in the moonlight, fastened in curls that cascaded down the back of her head. The dress was familiar too, with the pale blue material gathered at the waist. The side of her face was just visible to him, revealing her expression.
She was sad indeed. Her lips were pursed together, and her eyes were darting across the ocean below. Whatever was on her mind, there was such great sadness in those features that it had to be about more than just what he had said. There is something else to this. Something I do not know.
Seeing that sadness after all the smirks and smiles he had caused in her made his chest ache. It felt wrong to see Lady Hermione so sad. That’s when she took a step forward, closer to the cliff edge. With horror, his mind jumped to the possibility of what she could be doing.
“No!” he called out, running the last distance toward her.
She whipped her head around, facing him. “What is wrong?” she asked.
“Please tell me you were not doing what I think you were doing!” He did not take any chances with it. He grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the cliff edge, so that she was tumbling toward him, then he looped his other arm around her waist and lifted her clean off her feet. Once her body was pressed to his, he walked her away from the cliff edge, further from the drop, watching as her eyes stared back in wonder at him, now level with his height.
“What on earth has gotten into you?” she cried. “Put me down, Your Grace!” she ordered, wriggling in his grasp, but he was not going to let go yet. He continued walking her away, still holding onto her.
“Tell me you were not seriously going to jump off that cliff,” he begged with her, amazed by the sheer pain that was in his chest at such a thought.
“Of course, I wasn’t,” she said, pushing against his chest in her effort to be free of him. He had both arms wrapped around her waist, holding her to him.
“You weren’t?” he asked, stopping his walk. She gave up trying to wriggle and just held her hands flat against his chest. Any other time, he would be thrilled at the close proximity they were in, but this was a different matter.
“No,” she said with feeling. “I was merely looking at the sea.”
“At this time of night?” he asked in disbelief.
“I had no wish to be inside the house anymore,” she hurried to explain. “I just… needed some air.” He could tell in her features that she was being honest with him. “You panicked?”
“Truly, I did,” he said, settling her back down on her feet though he didn’t release his hold. “For a minute, I thought you were…”
“No, Your Grace,” she said softly. “I may be sad, but I assure you, I would never do such a thing as that.”
He analyzed her face, watching as her eyes settled somewhere on his chest as if trying her best to avoid his gaze. In the moonlight, he caught a good look at them. They were green and shimmering in the silvery light. In those eyes were unshed tears.
“You are crying,” he observed, keeping his voice gentle. “Good Lord,” his voice turned husky, “I did not mean to offend you so. I cannot believe I made you cry.”
“No, Your Grace, you misunderstand,” she said, blinking a few times as though trying to stop those tears from falling. “Your words have upset me; I would not be so great a fool as to deny that…” he winced at her words “…however, they are not the reason I am crying.”
“Then… what is?” he asked. She turned her gaze down even more, clearly avoiding looking at him at all. She bit her lip, just as one of those tears escaped her eyes and tracked down her cheek.
He couldn’t stop himself. It was as though his body had a mind of its own as he lifted a hand and cupped her cheek, brushing away the tear with the pad of his thumb. “What has upset you so?”
“It does not matter.” She was attempting to smile as she stopped any more tears from falling. One of her hands lifted from his chest and went to clutch a locket around her throat. His eyes drifted down to it. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware that he hadn’t seen her without that locket yet.
“This…” He released her cheek and pointed down at the locket in her grasp. “It means something to you, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Is it the reason you are crying?”
“I beg you, Your Grace,” she said, lifting her eyes to his at last. “You and I barely know each other. Allow me to keep my secrets.”
He found himself nodding, unable to deny her that. “Of course, but I can see it means something to you, even if you wish to deny it,” he said softly. “Let me apologize to you now.”
“Apologize?” she asked.
“For what you heard me say. I can hardly say I meant what I said.”
“I think you did, Your Grace,” she said, shrugging with the movement. “Why should you think of me? We barely know each other.”
“Debatable, but let me apologize for hurting you, nevertheless. Forgive me?” he asked, waiting with bated breath for her answer. She said nothing for a minute, but as the wind bristled up the valley making her shiver in his arms, he saw her smile slightly.
“Well, I suppose I will have to forgive you. Few others would run so to a cliff edge even if they really thought I was jumping from it.”
“I would do it again,” he pointed out, drawing another small smile from her.
“You can release me now,” she said, lifting her hand off his chest. Reluctantly, he lifted his arms from her, holding them out wide to show he had done as she asked.
“In spite of being here for such a short amount of time, I seem to be doing whatever you ask of me,” he pointed out with a wry smile, watching as she smiled too at his words.
“Then may I ask one more thing of you?” she said, stepping away and walking around him. “May I have a little longer to be alone with my own thoughts, Your Grace? Leave me in peace out here to look at the waves.”
“No, I cannot do that,” he said, following her toward the cliff edge. Something in her words had sparked something in him, a need to get her back to the house at once.
“Why not– ah!” she yelped as he took hold of her waist another time and lifted her into the air. “This is beginning to become a habit. One I do not enjoy.”
“You’re smiling though,” he said, flirting with her as she turned her head and tried to hide the smile.
“Put me down, Your Grace. I wish to look at the sea.”
“This is an order I will be ignoring. What kind of host would I be if I let my guest stare at the ocean in the middle of the night when she would be much more comfortable indoors?” he asked, carrying her toward the house with their chests still pressed together.
“You’d be a host that abides by his guest’s wishes.”
“Hmm, not tonight. I’ll be a host that protects them,” he said succinctly. “We have cliff falls around here, you know. I’m relieved you had no intention to jump after all, but do you think I’d leave you out here? What if you were to happen to fall when you were standing at the top?”
She looked up at him, startled with her eyes wide in the moonlight.
“Exactly,” he said. “I will not risk your life so.”
“You do not need to carry me back to the house,” she pointed out, frowning at him. She tried to wriggle free again.
“Consider it ensuring you will not escape back to the cliffs,” he said, smiling at her, listening as she let out a growl of frustration.
“This is not proper!”
“Preservation of life matters more than propriety.”
As they arrived at the door of the house, he tried to hold her up in one arm as he reached for the handle, but the lack of hold on her gave her more opportunity to escape. She wriggled out of his arms, down to the ground. For a minute, he thought she was going to go back to the cliff. He blocked off her path with his body. Yet, she hadn’t been going that way at all; she had been turning to the door. The combination of their bodyweights flying the same direction brought them to a clatter against the wall, with her back to it and him pressed to her.
“Your Grace,” she whispered as their faces were brought close to one another, both panting. “This is hardly any more proper than before.”
“I suppose not,” he agreed.
Beside them, the door handle twisted. Both of their gazes flitted toward it, just as the door opened.
