Page 62 of How Not to Marry a Duke

Florinda's breath stopped.

A hand. Bloody, torn, pressed flat against the windowpane.

A face.

Frederick.

The letter fell from her nerveless fingers.

* * *

She was staring at him as though he were a ghost.

Frederick clung to the windowsill, rain streaming down his face, blood dripping from his hands onto the ancient stones. His coat was torn. His hair was plastered to his skull. He could feel a dozen wounds where the thorns had found him, and he did not care—could not care—because she was there, rising from the settee, her golden hair unbound and tumbling past her waist, her grey eyes wide with what looked terrifyingly like hope.

And on the floor at her feet—a letter. His letter. The pages he had poured his heart into, never meaning to send.

She had been reading it. Reading him.

"The window," he managed. His voice came out a rasp—he had not spoken in hours, had not drunk since morning, had not done anything but ride and climb and pray. "Open the window."

She moved. Crossed the room in three strides, her hands fumbling with the latch. The window swung open, and the rain blew in, and Frederick tumbled through the opening onto the dusty floor of the tower room, landing in a heap of wet wool and bleeding hands and desperate, desperate relief.

* * *

"You climbed the tower."

Florinda stood over him, her hands pressed to her mouth, watching him push himself upright on the dusty floor. Rain was pouring through the open window, soaking the floorboards, soaking her bare feet. She could not bring herself to close it. Could not bring herself to move.

"I did." Frederick rose to his knees, then to his feet. He swayed, caught himself on the windowsill. Blood was dripping from both his hands, leaving dark spots on the floor between them.

"In the rain."

"I noticed."

"You could have called up." Her voice was climbing toward hysteria, and she could not stop it. "Asked me to lower... a rope. A sheet. Anything."

"Your hair." He was staring at her—at her hair, unbound and tangled, falling past her waist in a golden cascade that caught what little light remained in the room. "Glorious as it is, it would not have reached. I checked."

She laughed. It came out broken, half-sob, wholly uncontrolled. "You cannot be here. The ball is in three days. You are engaged⁠—"

"I am not."

"—to Penelope, and whatever you feel for me, whatever you wrote in those letters⁠—"

"Florinda." He stepped toward her, and she stepped back, and they stood frozen, two feet apart, the rain hammering against the tower stones. "I am not engaged. The contract is void. Penelope was already married—three years ago, to a dancing master named Thomas Harrison. Her father forged an annulment. I have proof. I rode through the rain and climbed a wall of thorns to tell you." He raised his bloodied hands, palms up, an offering. "I am free."

The word landed between them like a stone in still water.

"I do not understand." Florinda's voice emerged as barely a breath. "Free?"

"Free." He took another step toward her. She did not retreat this time. "The betrothal contract required that Penelope be unmarried. She was not. The entire document is void. I owe Lord Ashworth nothing. I owe Penelope nothing but sympathy for the prison her father built around her." His voice dropped. "I owe you everything."

"You cannot—" Her voice broke. "I cannot survive another hope, Frederick. If you are lying—if this is a dream—if I wake and find myself still in this tower with nothing but your letters and my foolish, ruined heart⁠—"

He raised his hands. The wounds were deep—she could see torn flesh, blood welling fresh from a dozen cuts. "Does this look like a man who is lying?"

* * *