Page 60 of How Not to Marry a Duke

Twenty-nine letters. She knew he loved her. But knowing was not the same as having.

The landscape grew familiar—hedgerows he had passed on afternoon rides, fields he had surveyed from the boundaries of Carthedge land, the distant spire of the village church where generations of his family lay buried.

And then, rising from the evening mist like a promise—Ashbourne House.

* * *

The butler who answered the door at Ashbourne House took one look at Frederick—soaked, muddy, wild-eyed—and his face arranged itself into the particular blankness of a servant preparing to deliver unwelcome news.

"Your Grace." A pause. "I am afraid the family is not receiving callers at present."

"I must see Miss Ashbourne. It is urgent."

"Miss Ashbourne has retired to her rooms, Your Grace. She has not been... that is to say, she has not been receiving visitors for some days now."

Frederick opened his mouth to insist—to demand—but before he could speak, Lady Raventhorn appeared in the hallway behind the butler, her face pale and drawn.

"Your Grace." Her voice held no warmth. "You ought not be here."

"Lady Raventhorn, I must speak with Florinda. The engagement—the contract—everything has changed⁠—"

"It is nearly dark, Your Grace. You are soaked through and clearly not in your right mind. Whatever you have come to say can wait until morning, when you may call at a proper hour like a civilised gentleman." Her eyes were hard, protective—the eyes of a woman who had watched her stepdaughter lock herself in a tower for a week. "Florinda has suffered enough on your account. I shall not permit you to make it worse."

"Lady Raventhorn⁠—"

"Good evening, Your Grace."

The door closed in his face.

* * *

Frederick stood on the front steps of Ashbourne House as the rain hammered down, and felt the world narrow to a single, unbearable point.

She was inside. Somewhere beyond those walls, beyond those closed doors and drawn curtains, Florinda was waiting—and she did not know. Did not know the contract was void. Did not know he was free. Did not know he had come to tell her that everything had changed, that the impossible had become possible, that he could finally—finally⁠—

He could not leave. Could not mount his horse and ride back to Carthedge and wait until morning like a civilised gentleman. Not when she was here, not when he had ridden through the rain with her name beating in his blood like a drum.

He stepped off the front steps and walked around the side of the house, the rain streaming down his face, his boots squelching in the sodden grass. He did not know what he was looking for. A window she might answer. A door left unlocked. Some way—any way—to reach her.

And then he saw the tower.

* * *

It rose from the eastern corner of the house, grey stone against grey sky, its windows facing toward Carthedge land.

And in the topmost window—a light.

Frederick stopped. The rain ran into his eyes, blurring his vision, but he blinked it away and stared upward. A single candle, flickering against the darkness. And beside it—a figure. Golden hair catching the flame's glow. A pale face bent over something in her hands.

A letter.

She was reading a letter.

His letter.

The realisation struck him like a blow. Twenty-nine letters he had written and never sent—but one had found its way to her. The one his valet had discovered. The one that had gone missing from his desk. She had it. She was reading it. And she was alone in that tower, believing him lost to her, not knowing that he was standing in the rain below with freedom burning in his chest.

He looked at the tower. At the wild roses climbing its walls, their thorns dark against the pale stone. At the window, thirty feet above, where the woman he loved sat reading words he had never meant for her to see.