Emmeline drew in a breath and reached for the door before the driver could open it, stepping down carefully, the gravel shifting beneath her slippers as she lifted her skirts slightly?—
“Where the hell have you been?” The voice struck her before she could fully steady herself. It was low and irritated, nothing like what she had expected.
Emmeline looked up, and everything in her stilled.
The man before her was…striking.
He stood tall, broader than any man she had seen before, his presence filling the space with a force that made something tighten low in her stomach. His dark hair was slightly disordered, his gray eyes fixed on her with an intensity that felt almost physical.
She simply looked at him, at a loss for words.
Her pulse quickened as her gaze moved over him before she could stop it, taking in the sharp line of his jaw, the rough edge of his beard, the way his coat strained slightly across his shoulders.
Her gaze shifted past him.
This wasn’t the chapel she had been meant to arrive at. This was not her wedding.
And the man before her was not the one she was meant to marry.
Chapter Two
“Juliet?” The name left Rowan immediately, but it died as he took her in.
The height did not match, nor the shape of her shoulders, nor the way she held herself so straight and composed. Juliet had never stood with such control. Juliet moved, fidgeted, filled silence with something soft and uncertain.
This woman did none of that.
Then she lifted her veil, and his breath caught before he could stop it.
This was not his sister.
And beneath that realization, another came immediately.
She is beautiful.
The realization struck his chest harder than it should have, entirely ill-timed. There was no softness in her beauty, nothing fragile or uncertain about it. Her features were gentle, but her gaze was steady, her honey-brown eyes meeting his without flinching, even as confusion tightened her expression.
Rowan dragged his attention away from her face with effort, forcing his focus back where it belonged.
“What is the meaning of this?” he said, his voice cutting through the space.
The men behind her shifted immediately.
“We found Lady Juliet, Your Grace,” one of them said, stepping forward, his tone too eager, too relieved. “She was traveling on a nearby road, and we assumed?—”
“You assumed,” Rowan repeated.
The man faltered.
Beside him, the woman straightened further, her brow furrowing.
“Lady Juliet?” she huffed. “I am not Lady Juliet.”
“Did it occur to any of you,” Rowan continued, turning his head slowly toward his men, “to ask the lady a single question before dragging her all the way here?”
The men glanced at each other, their composure cracking.
“We—she—she was alone, Your Grace, and the timing?—”
