Page 61 of How Not to Marry a Duke

The door was locked. Lady Raventhorn would not let him in.

But the window was not locked.

Frederick crossed to the base of the tower. The roses were thick here, their branches woven together like a wall, like a barrier meant to keep the world out. The thorns caught at his coat, his hands, his face as he tested the first hold.

Good.

Let them cut him. Let them draw blood. He had spent eighteen months standing on the other side of doors that honour demanded he not walk through. He had spent eighteen months wanting what he could not have, counting what he dared not touch, writing letters he dared not send.

He was done with doors.

He began to climb.

* * *

The thorns were vicious.

They tore at his hands as he hauled himself upward, opening wounds that wept red against the white petals still clinging to the autumn roses. The rain made the branches slick, treacherous; twice his foot slipped, and he hung by his bleeding hands whilst the wind howled and Lady Raventhorn cried out from below.

He did not stop. Did not look down. Kept climbing, hand over hand, his eyes fixed on the dark window above.

Fourteen gold threads, he thought, reaching for the next branch. Seven freckles across her nose.

A thorn caught his cheek. He barely felt it.

Nine years. His shoulder screamed as he pulled himself higher. Twenty-nine letters.

The window was closer now. He could see the dark glass, the stone sill, the faint outline of a figure within. She was there. She was there, and she did not know he was climbing toward her through a wall of thorns, bleeding from both hands, mad with hope and desperate with love.

Nine years, he thought, reaching for the final branch. Nine years since she knocked me flat on my back in that stable.

He hauled himself up to the windowsill. Blood dripped from his hands onto the stone, staining the grey with red. Inside, he could see the outline of a dusty settee, a figure curled upon it, golden hair spilling across the cushions like sunlight in the dark room.

He raised his bleeding hand.

He knocked on the glass.

Chapter Eighteen

The Tower

Florinda read the letter by candlelight, as she had every evening since it had arrived.

The paper was soft now from handling, the creases worn thin where she had folded and unfolded it a hundred times. She knew the words by heart—had memorised them within hours of first reading—but still she traced each line with her fingertip, as though touching the ink might bring her closer to the hand that had written it.

Dearest, Darling Florinda. I have no right to write those words, but I feel I might die if I do not.

The tower room was cold, lit only by the single candle and the grey twilight filtering through rain-streaked windows. Her body ached from days of lying on the narrow settee. Her eyes burned from weeping and not sleeping. But every evening, as darkness fell, she lit the candle and read his words again—torturing herself with proof of what she could not have.

I miss the weight of you in my arms. I miss the lavender in your hair. I miss the fourteen stairs, morning and evening, that were the only moments I allowed myself to want.

Outside, the rain hammered against the windows. Inside, Florinda sat curled on the settee with a letter from a man who was marrying someone else in three days, and wondered how long a heart could break before it simply stopped.

A sound.

She looked up from the letter, frowning. A scraping noise, like branches against glass—but harder, more deliberate. The wild roses often scratched at the tower windows in wind, but this was different. This had rhythm. Purpose.

A shadow moved against the grey sky beyond the window.