Page 144 of Of Iron and Moonlight

“You are generous, Lady Deanna,” Duncan replied with a polite smile. Her grey eyes lingered on him in a way he had no patience for tonight. He excused himself with a vague promise to return later and stepped away before she could protest.

As he resumed searching, his thoughts slipped to the afternoon he had proposed to Kora. He had found her in a pear tree, content with words on a page and a breeze from the bay. Instantly, he turned into a side corridor and stepped out into the palace gardens, where music and chatter dulled behind stone. If Kora had grown weary of spectacle, if she had needed air after the churn of pageantry and expectation, this was where she would have gone.

A hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve.

He was pulled into the shadow of a tree.

Soft lips met his.

Amber perfume, touched with smoke, unfurled in the dark.

Duncan went very still.

He set his hands on Seraphine’s shoulders and eased her back. Gentle, but firm enough to leave no room for misinterpretation.

Anger twisted her features first. Then something more wounded beneath it, disbelief hardening into understanding. “You love her,” Seraphine whispered. She blinked once, then again, as though each thought stung afresh. “You actually love her.”

Duncan offered no softening lie.

Seraphine’s breath hitched. “All the nights I gave you,” she hissed. “All the ways I comforted you while you clawed your way back from grief. And I thought…” Her dark eyes narrowed. “But no. It is her. A girl not yet twenty, and you’re undone.”

Duncan remembered those nights. He did not yearn for them. “If you’ll excuse me, Lady Seraphine,” he said quietly, already stepping past her.

He had barely crossed the threshold of the ballroom when the herald’s voice rang.

“Koraleise derWhitte, Duchess of Lemierre.”

Duncan turned.

There, at the head of the grand stair, she stood.

Chapter 68

Duncan

Kora looked like a figure drawn from a half-remembered myth. Her gown, a deep jade, caught the chandelier light in silver glints like a forest in morning dew. Raven hair had been coiled with care, threaded with green gems that echoed the fire in her eyes and the stone at her throat.

A warm flush colored her cheeks as she surveyed the hall, though she did not bend beneath its scrutiny. She began her descent, and when she saw him, her face brightened with joy.

Duncan mounted several steps to meet her, already reaching for her hand. He took it with a breath that tumbled through him. The long nights, the distance, the battles—all of it had led him to this one still point, like an anchor slipping into its rightful place.

“My love,” Duncan murmured, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. She answered with one of her own. “I cannot tell you how much I have missed you.”

“And I you,” Kora whispered, smiling as though the expression had nowhere else to go.

They were swarmed by eager nobles, superficial pleasantries, and carefully veiled curiosity. Kora met each with flawless courtesy. She neither encouraged nor recoiled. She simply held her ground, and the court adjusted around her without quite knowing it had done so.

And Duncan found he simply enjoyed existing beside her.

“Would you like to leave this noise?” he murmured once the orchestra changed its melody and conversation drifted into dancing. He had made his appearance. He cared for none of the rest.

“Please,” she said at once, relief softening her features.

They maintained decorum only until they reached the quieter corridors of the palace. Then Duncan caught her hand and they broke into a light run, laughter escaping them in breathless bursts better suited to children than rulers. Stewards flattened themselves into alcoves to clear their path. Guards blinked in confusion before bowing too late as they passed.

He pulled her inside the ducal apartments reserved for Lemierre and shut the door. The latch fell with a soft click. A small sound. It rang through him like a bell.

For a delicate heartbeat, they looked at one another, sharing a quiet untouched by war councils, endless processions of obligation, or the turmoil coiled through the empire. A stillness shaped by gratitude for how close they had come to losing this moment only weeks before.