Page 11 of How Not to Marry a Duke

"I will inform you immediately, Your Grace."

He made himself turn away. Made himself walk to the door. Made himself step through it and close it behind him, though every instinct screamed that he should stay, should refuse to leave, should⁠—

The door clicked shut.

Frederick stood in the corridor, his arms aching, his shirt soaked with sweat, his mind replaying the sound of her scream, the feel of her fingers digging into his waistcoat, the way she had said his name like it mattered.

Frederick.

Not "Your Grace." Not the formal address she had used at every ball, every dinner, every carefully polite exchange for the past nine years.

Frederick.

As though she knew him. As though, even through the haze of pain and shock, some part of her remembered a stable and a summer afternoon and a kiss that had ruined him for anyone else.

Frederick stood in the corridor, his arms aching, his shirt soaked with sweat.

He would need to send word to Edward. The King's wayward sister-in-law was now under his roof, injured and unconscious, and would require someone from the family to collect her once she was well enough to travel.

He flexed his hands. Opened them. Closed them again.

The tremor in his fingers was merely exertion. The tightness in his chest was merely the aftermath of carrying a body a mile and a half over rough terrain. He had seen injuries like hers on the battlefield—compound fractures that had lamed strong men, shattered bones that had ended military careers. Any gentleman would be shaken by such a sight. Any decent man would feel the echo of it in his blood.

It had nothing to do with her specifically.

He told himself this as he straightened his waistcoat—torn, he noticed, where her fingers had clutched the fabric. He told himself this as he turned from her door and walked toward the stairs. He told himself this as he descended to face his mother and his fiancée and explain why the Duke of Edington had arrived at breakfast covered in mud and sweat with an unconscious woman in his arms.

Two thousand eight hundred and forty-seven steps.

He had not meant to count them. But some part of his mind had tracked every one.

Chapter Four

The Breakfast Announcement

The breakfast room at Carthedge Hall had been designed for pleasant morning conversations. Tall windows admitted the sun. The sideboard groaned with covered dishes. The table was set with the family's second-best china—too formal for intimacy, too casual for state occasions. Perfectly calibrated for an engagement party.

Frederick had always hated this room.

He stood in the doorway, aware that he had bathed and changed but had not slept, aware that his hands still ached from carrying a woman a mile and a half over rough terrain, aware that three pairs of eyes had turned to examine him with varying degrees of expectation.

His mother sat at the head of the table, as she had done since his father's death. The Dowager Duchess of Edington was sixty-three years old, possessed of excellent posture and a gaze that could wither houseplants at twenty paces. She was examining him now as though he were a servant who had arrived late with the morning post.

"Frederick." Her tone conveyed that she had expected him an hour ago. "How good of you to join us."

"Mother." He bent to kiss her cheek, a ritual neither of them enjoyed but both understood as necessary. "I apologise for my tardiness. There has been an incident."

Lady Penelope looked up from her plate, her fork poised midway to her mouth. She was, as always, immaculately presented—her dark hair arranged in soft curls, her morning dress a becoming shade of lavender, her face composed in polite interest. Frederick tried to feel anything at the sight of her. Affection, perhaps. Anticipation.

He felt tired.

"An incident?" Penelope's voice was pleasant, modulated. She would make an excellent duchess. Everyone said so. "I hope nothing serious, Your Grace."

"A riding accident on the Ashbourne road." Frederick moved to the sideboard, more for the excuse to turn away than from any desire for food. "I discovered a woman thrown from her horse. Lady Florinda Ashbourne—the Queen's sister. Her leg is badly broken."

The silence that followed was precisely three seconds long. Frederick counted them without meaning to.

"Good heavens." The Dowager's voice carried the particular flatness she reserved for unexpected inconveniences. "And where is the woman now?"