A Gilded Duchess by Allyson Jeleyne

Author:Allyson Jeleyne [Jeleyne, Allyson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allyson Jeleyne
Published: 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

She was a flash of yellow muslin blinding him to reason. A slice of straw hat cutting to the quick of his heart. Her arrival at Keswick Lodge devastated him, and Ross felt like weeping.

He had never been hated before, yet now he realized that he’d broken her heart to the point of bitterness. She would never again be vulnerable with him, never be bold. Never be sweet, soft, and sated in his arms.

Perhaps it wasn’t only Miss Horst’s heart that ached…

Ross retreated while she conversed with his sister and Miss Vane. The ladies discussed art, and although Miss Horst was no collector, she was the only person present who’d visited the Louvre, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and the Galleria dell'Accademia to name a few. She held her own beside Althea, who’d been educated by a series of French and German governesses. No doubt, Miss Horst had been equally ‘finished’, for she shone brightly despite the shabbiness of his sitting room.

Thankfully, she refused Mabel’s offer of luncheon. He wasn’t certain that he could sit across the table from the one woman in all the world who made him want more than he deserved. He felt dangerously close to falling in love with her.

If he opened his heart—if he dreamed of life beyond the castle grounds—Ross knew he would never be satisfied with the narrow path he must walk. Romance was not for him. Love and passion existed beyond his reach, for he’d withered up, contracted, and drawn into himself like a strip of burned flesh. He could not reach for her, no matter how hard he strived to hold her.

Pushing her away was his only relief.

The walls of Keswick Castle were his refuge, and though he loved the place, there were moments when Ross resented it as well. He was trapped here, doomed to wander the grounds like a specter, restless and detached from the living world. Cursed to watch the seasons pass, the flowers bloom, and the frost kill.

He couldn’t shackle Miss Horst with his burden. She was too vibrant, too dynamic, and altogether too extraordinary to live a mediocre life with him deep in the English countryside. There would be no society for her, no fashionable promenades, and precious few entertainments. She deserved to flourish, and Ross felt that—even though Miss Horst could become a duchess—marrying him would only ever hold her back.

How could he make her see how wrong they would be together when she was too bloody-minded to open her eyes to the truth?

Ross escorted her from the sitting room. He opened the front door of the cottage and followed her out into the clearing.

His flock of hens pecked the earth while the proud, solitary, red-combed cockerel guarded them from predators. The chickens paid no mind to the young couple who tramped across the grass.

Miss Horst spun to face him. Her cheeks flamed with red-hot humiliation, and her blue eyes flashed in anger. She swiped at the tears that threatened those fair, fringed lashes that rested like a swan’s wing against her pale skin.

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