Page 77 of If the Duke Demands

“I know why I came here, why I gave myself to you. I wanted to be withyou, Sebastian. Because I like being with you, and no other reason. And somewhere between the kisses and the teasing, amid all your warnings…I fell in love with you,” she said quietly, her hands clenched at her sides. “You knew who I was. There was no masquerade mask this time. So you need to ask yourself—if I’m so wrong for you, why didyougive yourself tome?”

Then she was gone.

He followed her into the hall, but the door to the back servants’ stairs was wide open. There was no point in chasing after her. She would be gone before he could get to the ground floor to stop her, by now down the stairs and out through the back garden, running back to Audley House as fast as she could. And what would he have said to her anyway that could have softened the pain he’d caused her?

Muttering a string of curses at himself, at his brothers, at her—at everything that led them into this impossible situation—he stormed back into his rooms. He let the anger come, let it fill up the empty hole gaping in his chest where his heart had been, because he knew how to manage anger. What he didn’t know how to handle was love.

He stopped and stared around him, struck by how different the room was now than it had been only minutes before, when they were still happy and she’d been safe in his arms. Her absence filled the space now, only reinforcing how silent and empty the house was without her in it. Worse, because nothing about the room showed she’d ever been here, that she’d ever admitted to loving him. Even her night rail was gone. The only remaining traces of her were the lingering scent of rosewater and her blasted book.

Snapping out a biting curse, he snatched up the book from the floor and tossed it onto the chair. It fell open, and a flattened piece of red paper slipped out from between the pages. His heart stopped as he recognized it. The papier-mâché rose he’d given her at Vauxhall.

He stared at it, unable to breathe beneath the icy pain that squeezed his chest like a fist and threatened to strangle away the tiny bit of life still buried deep inside him.

The aggravating, pestering, trouble-causing gel loved him and wanted to spend a lifetime making him happy, while he wanted nothing more than to let her.

And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

***

“Where’s Miranda?” Sebastian demanded as he stalked into the drawing room at Audley House that afternoon and found his sister, Josephine, standing at the window. There was nothing more to be said between Miranda and him, but he wanted to see her to make certain her reputation was still safe. At least that was the lie he told himself. The truth was that he missed her already and wanted to make certain she was all right, hating himself for the pain he’d caused her.

He placed a kiss on his sister’s cheek as she turned away from the window and greeted him.

“That seems to be the question of the day,” she mumbled, preoccupied.

“What do you mean?” His heart skipped with panic. It wasn’t possible that news of what happened between them could have gotten here before him. Unless Miranda herself…Good God.His mind filled with all kinds of terrible possibilities. “Where is she?” He glanced around the room. “And where is Mother?”

“Mama is with Thomas in the carriage.” She reached up to play nervously with the gold pendant hanging around her neck, soft worry creasing her brow. “They’ve gone after Miranda.”

And then his heart stopped completely. “Gone after?” he repeated, his blood turning to ice with worry. “Where?”

She shook her head, and as if sensing his unease, she placed a reassuring hand on his arm. “Miranda wasn’t in her room this morning when the maid went in to start the fire. Mama and I thought that perhaps she’d gotten up early and gone for a walk in the park.”

He kept his face carefully stoic despite the hard worry twisting in his gut. No, she hadn’t gone to the park. At dawn, she’d still been tucked into his bed.

But that didn’t explain where she’d gone after she’d fled Park Place or where she was now. Fresh dread swept through him. “You said Chesney and Mother went after her.”

Josie nodded with a concerned frown. “At some point, she came home, packed a bag, and left again. For Islingham.” She picked up a note from the tea table and handed it to him. “She left this on her bed. She claims her season was a mistake and that she’s needed back in the village.”

He didn’t have to read the note to feel the stab of guilt into his gut that he’d not only ruined her season and taken her innocence but, now, also driven her away. Already he felt the loss of her like a gaping wound he suspected might never heal.

“Mother insisted that she and Thomas go after her,” Josie explained. “She hoped they might be able to catch the mail coach and bring her back.”

“They won’t catch her,” he corrected grimly. As determined as she was when she fled Park Place, as distressed and angry in equal measure, they’d have to chase her all the way to Lincolnshire before they found her.

With a bewildered shake of her head, Josie bit her lip. “I don’t understand. She was having such a lovely season. She even had suitors calling on her. Mr. Downing, especially.”

Sebastian avoided his sister’s eyes. No, not Downing. He’d made certain to chase the man away himself the morning after the opera when Downing arrived at Park Place to ask formal permission to court her with the intention of offering marriage. He’d behaved like a jealous nodcock, making certain the man begged off from their Vauxhall outing at the last minute. Had he known unconsciously even then that he wanted Miranda for himself?

“I thought they were becoming serious,” Josie mumbled, her fingers once again worrying at her pendant. “I was certain that he would offer for her and that she would accept.”

“What made you think that?” He feigned disinterest as he glanced at the note, hiding his growing concern for Miranda. She would be fine on the road by herself, he held no worries about that. In the past few weeks, he’d seen her change from the flighty girl who arrived in London and never looked before leaping to a woman who found the boldness to seize what she wanted, and he’d come to learn that she was far more than capable of taking care of herself. But he worried for her heart now. If he’d permanently extinguished the light in her, he’d never be able to forgive himself.

“Well, he kissed her,” Josie answered, “and a bit more, apparently.”

His eyes snapped up to hers. “Whatdid you say?” Jealousy burned through him at the thought of Downing touching her. Atanyman touching her but him. “When?”

“The night you all went to Vauxhall.” Not noticing the way he suddenly tensed, Josie took the note from him and placed it back on the table. “She came home all flustered and mussed, and she admitted that he kissed her.”