Page 99 of Courting the Wrong Duke

Some called her name.

Others laughed.

Still others wept.

She understood none of them.

Then, through the confusion, one voice found her.

“Rosalind.”

William.

She turned toward the sound and saw him standing upon the opposite bank, his figure softened by drifting mist, one hand already reaching toward her.

Relief swept through her so suddenly that it almost hurt.

He smiled and stepped into the river.

The water welcomed him without resistance, curling quietly around his boots as he made his way toward her.

She reached for him in return. “William.”

He kept walking.

Yet somehow the farther he came, the farther away he seemed. The river widened between them without warning, stretching until the opposite bank became little more than a shadow. The current deepened, whispering secrets she could almost understand before carrying them away again.

She tried to move toward him.

Instead, the water released her.

Without knowing how, she found herself drifting backward, her feet carrying her over soft grass where moments before there had been only the river. She did not remember leaving the water.

She only knew William was still trying to reach her.

“Rosalind.”

Her father's voice.

It came from somewhere behind her.

She tried to turn, but her body refused.

Again his voice called, gentle and familiar, yet impossibly distant, as though it had crossed an entire ocean before reaching her ears.

“Papa?”

The word disappeared into the wind.

She walked toward him without seeing him, guided only by the sound of his voice until the air itself began to change. The scent came first, sweet and clean, followed by soft white petals drifting lazily around her.

Lilies.

Thousands of them.

They rose before her in a wall of white so vast she could not see where it ended. Their blossoms swayed without breeze, brushing lightly against her arms as though inviting her farther in. Their fragrance surrounded her until breathing felt almost like drowning.

Her father's voice grew fainter.