Page 43 of The Feared Duke’s Found Family

Fanny let out a bitter, breathy laugh that vanished into the chilly air. “Like a steward whom he hired to oversee a difficult tenant crop. He granted them breakfast at his table, but only after I fought him for it as if I were negotiating a treaty. And when I asked him to let you and Anastasia visit… he closed the door in my face. He called my family a disruption.”

Blanche’s jaw set into a firm, regal line, her dark eyes flashing with cold anger. “He forgets himself. He married an earl’s daughter, ruined reputation or not, and he owes you the dignity of your station.”

“He doesn’t care about my station,” Fanny whispered, setting the teacup on the stone bench before her hands could shake enough to spill it. “He cares about control. He thinks if he lets anyone in, if he lets me in, the whole structure will collapse. Blanche, I thought… I thought if I were just patient enough, if I showed him I was sensible and kind, he would trust me. But he doesn’t. Neither do the children. I am a ghost walking through his halls, occupying space he grudgingly surrendered.”

Blanche turned, reaching out to grasp Fanny’s hands in hers, her grip tight and fierce. “Look at me, Frances.”

Fanny turned her eyes to her sister, feeling the hot prickle of tears she refused to let fall.

“You were born to be a mother,” Blanche said, her tone unyielding, brimming with an absolute faith that made Fanny’s chest ache. “I have watched you with Anastasia since the day she was born. You have a heart large enough to shelter those poor, motherless infants, and you have the spine to stand up to the cold arrogance of that man. Do not wait for his permission to be the mistress of Hilgrove Manor.”

“He will not yield,” Fanny said softly.

“Then make him yield,” Blanche demanded, her voice cutting through the garden air. “Set your own rules in that nursery. Walk through those halls as if you own them, because by right of law and church, you do. Lysander Hilgrove built a fort out of grief and pride, Fanny. He expects you to sit outside the gates and beg for entry. Don’t beg. Take your place at that table, hold those children close whether he approves or not, and let him see what a real home looks like. Eventually, his pride will starve, and he will have no choice but to see you.”

Across the garden, Anastasia dropped her hoop and turned, waving wildly at Fanny with a wide, bright smile before darting toward the hedge.

Fanny watched her, feeling the cold numbness in her chest slowly give way to a tight, fierce resolve. She pulled her hands free from Blanche’s grip and smoothed her dark skirts, the silk rustling softly in the quiet garden. She did not have his trust, nor did she have his heart. But as she looked at her sister, Fanny knew she was done waiting for Lysander to hand her the keys to his world.

The heavy library doors shut behind him, but the silence of the room offered no sanctuary.

Lysander stood in the center of the dark study, his breathing ragged, staring blindly at the cold hearth. Every instinct screamed at the night’s emptiness. His hands, still carrying the ghost of her heat, trembled before he forced them into tight, rigid fists. The scent of lavender and warm skin clung to the coarse linen of his shirt, suffocating him in his own house.

He could not remain within these walls tonight.

Every floorboard, every ticking clock, every draft whistling through the stone corridors seemed to echo the broken sound of her gasping his name that night. If he stayed under the same roof, listening for the rustle of her skirts or the unlatching of her door down the hall, his iron restraint would shatter completely. He was a danger to the very order he had sworn to uphold.

He needed air. He needed distance, cold wind, and something harsh enough to burn the madness out of his skull.

Without calling for a valet, Lysander stripped off his disordered nightshirt, pulled on a fresh linen shirt, and dragged a dark riding coat over his shoulders. He bypassed the main entrance, slipping out through the side terrace doors into the biting night chill.

At the stables, the night groom scrambled out of the tack room, blinking sleep from his eyes, but Lysander waved him off before the man could speak. He saddled his great black stallion with swift, ruthless efficiency, pulling the girth tight with hard, unyielding jerks.

Minutes later, the iron-shod hooves were thundering against the packed earth of the carriage drive.

Lysander rode hard, driving the beast through the damp midnight mist until Hilgrove Manor’s dark silhouette vanished behind the tree line. The cold wind whipped violently against his face, stinging his cheeks and numbing his knuckles, but the physical exertion did nothing to cool the fever roaring in his veins. Mile after mile melted away beneath the stallion’s rhythmic gallop, the road carrying him away from the country’s quiet and toward the distant, hazy glow of London’s edge.

By the time he pulled up before the discreet, gaslit facade of his private gentleman’s club in St. James’s, the dawn was still hours away, and his mount was slick with sweat. He tossed the reins to the waiting stable boy, strode past the bowing doorman without a word, and headed straight for the dim, secluded shadows of the private card room on the upper floor.

The liquid burned a harsh, welcome trail down Lysander’s throat, but it did nothing to erase the phantom sensation of Fanny’s skin beneath his calloused fingers.

Across the low mahogany table in the private club’s card room, Horace, Earl of Chancy, lounged against the red leather upholstery, an amused gleam in his blue eyes. He twirled a crystal tumbler between his palms, watching the Duke of Hilgrove pour himself a third measure of whiskey.

“If you grip that decanter any tighter, Lysander, you will shatter the crystal and ruin an exceptionally fine vintage,” Horace remarked smoothly. He took a slow sip, tilting his head. “I have not seen you this thoroughly murderous since our days at Eton. What has happened at Hilgrove Manor? Has the sky fallen, or did a parlor maid leave a curtain unstraightened?”

Lysander set the decanter down with a dull, heavy thud that rattled the silver tray. He did not touch his glass right away. His broad shoulders stayed coiled tight beneath his tailored black coat, his dark hair shadowed by the dim lamplight in the corner alcove.

“She has completely dismantled the order of my house,” Lysander said, his low baritone grating like iron wheels on gravel.

Horace raised an eyebrow, clearly delighted. “Lady Fanny? In what manner? Has she redecorated the grand saloon in vulgar chintz?”

“She has brought a reptile onto my estate,” Lysander muttered, rubbing his knuckles hard across the bridge of his nose.

Horace blinked, pausing with his glass halfway to his lips. “I beg your pardon?”

“A tortoise,” Lysander said, the word tasting sour on his tongue. “Peter found it in the tall grass. A wild, mud-stained creature. Naturally, I instructed the footman to return it to the south meadows where it belongs.”

“A reasonable, ducal command,” Horace agreed, nodding solemnly, though a dangerous twitch of humor pulled at the corner of his mouth. “And then?”