Perfume masks desperation, but never quite kills the stench. When His Grace stepped into the rotting Hastings estate, he smelled of polished leather and damp wool. Everyone watched him covet the radiant sister. No one noticed his eyes lingering on the quiet one, picking mud from her bruised fingernails.
Floorboards groaned under the weight of Lady Margaret’s frantic pacing, a sound Maeve had long associated with impending nausea. The parlor smelled of beeswax, lemon oil, and the sharp metallic tang of anxiety. Maeve knelt by the hearth, her knees aching against the unforgiving stone, using a rusted iron poker to shift the meager coals.
She was supposed to be making the fire look larger than it was, a futile task. One could not conjure heat from ash. Across the room, Arabella stood perfectly still. To move was to risk wrinkling the pale blue silk of her gown, a garment that had cost the last of the winter wheat. Arabella looked like a confection, spun sugar and rosewater.
Her blonde hair arranged in an intricate crown of braids that dug into her scalp. Maeve knew about the hairpins. She had spent an hour driving them in, listening to her sister’s stifled winces. “He [snorts] is late.” Lady Margaret snapped, tugging at the lace at her throat. The lace was yellowing.
Everything in the Hastings house was yellowing, sagging, or giving way to rot. “Dukes are not late. They are delayed by matters of state.” Maeve wiped a streak of soot from her cheek with the back of her hand, feeling the coarse drag over her own calloused skin. “Or a broken carriage wheel, Mother. The road past the old mill is mostly craters now.
” “Do not speak of craters today, Maeve.” Her mother hissed, rounding on her. Lady Margaret’s eyes darted over Maeve’s dark, unadorned wool dress. It was a utilitarian garment the color of wet bark, meant to hide stains. And for heaven’s sake, keep to the shadows. If his grace sees you looking like a scullery maid, he will assume we are destitute. They were destitute.
The butcher had stopped their credit 3 weeks ago, but saying it aloud was a sin in this house. Maeve did not argue. She pushed herself up, her joints popping in the quiet room, and retreated to the corner near the heavy velvet drapes. The velvet was bald in patches like a sickly dog. She liked the shadows. They demanded nothing of her.
She didn’t have to hold her stomach in, or tilt her chin to catch the light. She could just exist a spectator to the absurd, theatrical production her family mounted whenever a wealthy bachelor crossed county lines. Hooves clattered on the gravel drive, sharp and rhythmic. Arabella’s breath hitched, her knuckles turned white where she gripped the back of a chair.
Maeve felt a sudden, sharp pang of pity. Arabella didn’t want to do. She wanted the vicar’s son, a boy with ink-stained fingers and a stutter. But the vicar’s son couldn’t pay the back taxes, and Abner Freeman could buy the entire village with the change in his waistcoat. The heavy oak front door shuddered open. The cavernous entryway echoed with the heavy thud of boots, and the low murmur of men’s voices.
A draft of damp autumn air swept into the parlor, cutting through the meager warmth of the coals. Maeve shivered, crossing her arms over her chest. Then, he walked in. He He did not glide. He did not sweep into the room with the grace of a storybook lord. Abner Freeman walked like a man who found his own body heavy. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a dark riding coat that smelled strongly of wet wool, horse sweat, and expensive spice tobacco.
His dark hair was windblown, refusing to lie flat against his forehead. He possessed a face carved with harsh angles, a strong jaw shadowed by a day’s growth of beard, and eyes the color of bruised flint. He looked exhausted. “Your Grace,” Lady Margaret breathed, dipping into a curtsy so deep Maeve half expected her mother’s knees to give out.
Arabella followed suit, a flawless dip of silk and obedience. Abner inclined his head. “Lady Hastings, Lady Arabella, forgive my attire. The roads were less than forgiving.” His voice was a deep baritone, rough around the edges like stone grinding against stone. It wasn’t a pleasant voice, but it commanded the space entirely.
“Think nothing of it, Your Grace.” Lady Margaret gushed, practically vibrating with nervous energy. “We are simply honored. Arabella has been looking forward to your visit all week.” Arabella offered a polite, practiced smile. “It is a pleasure to welcome you to our home, Your Grace.” Abner’s flinty gaze swept over Arabella.
He took in the pale blue silk, the perfectly coiffed hair, the delicate flush on her cheeks, the Maeve watched his expression. There was no spark of desire. There was only a weary acknowledgement of her beauty, the way one might look at a well-bred mare at an auction. It was a transaction. He needed a duchess with a pristine reputation. They needed his vaults.
His eyes drifted past Arabella, scanning the rest of the dim parlor. Maeve held her breath, pressing her spine against the wall, but the shadows betrayed her. Abner’s gaze stopped. He stared directly into the dark corner. Maeve stared back. She knew she looked a fright, soot on her cheek, hair escaping its severe knot, hands rough and red from hauling firewood.
She expected him to look away to dismiss her as a servant. Instead, a subtle shift occurred in his posture. His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. He tilted his head, his brow furrowing. It wasn’t a look of attraction. It was curiosity, a sharp dissecting curiosity. “And who?” Abner asked, his voice cutting through Lady Margaret’s continued prattling, “is keeping the wall upright?” The silence that followed was suffocating.
Lady Margaret froze, her smile turning brittle. Arabella blinked, looking over her shoulder. Maeve stepped out of the shadows. There was no point in hiding now. She didn’t curtsy. She didn’t possess the fabric for it. Nor the inclination. She simply stood her ground. Her heavy boots planted firmly on the threadbare carpet. “This is my eldest daughter, Maeve.
” Lady Margaret said, her voice tight, strained. “She prefers the country life. She was just seeing to the fires.” “Maeve?” Abner repeated. He tasted the syllable, his eyes dragging down to her soot-stained hands, and back up to her face. “Your Grace.” Maeve said. Her voice lacked the musical lilt her mother spent years cultivating in Arabella.
It was flat, dry, and distinctly unimpressed. She rubbed her thumb against her index finger, feeling a fresh blister forming. “Welcome to the rot.” Lady Margaret made a sound like a strangled goose. Arabella shut her eyes in mortification. Abner Freeman didn’t blink. Slowly, the corner of his mouth twitched upward, a minuscule break in his severe expression.
“Honesty.” he murmured, pulling off his leather riding gloves finger by finger. “How terrifying.” Dinner was an exercise in slow, agonizing torture. The dining room was a cavern of peeling wallpaper and drafty windows. Lady Margaret had ordered the table set with the family’s remaining good porcelain.
Maeve knew intimately that every plate had a chip or a crack. She had spent 20 minutes rotating them so the flaws faced the centerpieces. The centerpiece itself was a desperate arrangement of dying autumn foliage smelling faintly of mold. Abner sat at the head of the table looking massive and entirely out of place in the fragile decaying chair.
Arabella sat to his right radiant in the candlelight though Maeve could see the slight tremor in her sister’s hands whenever she reached for her water glass. Lady Margaret sat opposite him firing a relentless barrage of compliments and inquiries about his estates in Derbyshire. Maeve sat at the far end freezing.
The soup course had been a watery broth that tasted aggressively of salt and disappointment. Now came the mutton. It was gray, stringy, and accompanied by boiled carrots that had lost all structural integrity. Maeve sawed at her meat with a dull silver knife. The rhythmic squeak of metal against porcelain set her teeth on edge.
She chewed mechanically swallowing the dry mass with a grimace. “And Arabella’s French is quite exquisite.” Lady Margaret was saying her voice echoing in the large room. “She read Molière just last week, didn’t you darling?” “Yes, Mother.” Arabella murmured staring at her plate. Abner set his knife down. He hadn’t touched his carrots.
“I find French literature overly dramatic.” He said taking a slow sip of the cheap chalky wine. He didn’t even wince at the taste. Maeve had to give him credit for that. “I prefer history. Accounts of wars, famine, the collapse of empires. Things grounded in reality. Oh, how fascinating. Lady Margaret chirped, completely missing his tone.
Arabella loves history, too. Maeve let out a short, harsh sound. It wasn’t quite a laugh, more a burst of air through her nose. It was entirely unladylike. Three heads snapped toward her. Under the table, Arabella kicked her shin. Maeve ignored the sharp pain, keeping her eyes fixed on her gray mutton. Did you wish to add something, Lady Maeve? Abner asked.
The heavy silence in the room amplified his rough voice. Maeve looked up. His flinty eyes were locked onto hers again, waiting. He looked bored by the mother, indifferent to the sister, but oddly focused on the outcast. It irritated her. She didn’t want his attention. His attention was dangerous. Arabella thinks history is the study of old men in silly hats arguing over borders.
Maeve said, her tone conversational. Maeve! Lady Margaret hissed, her face flushing a dangerous shade of puce. It’s true. Maeve continued, leaning back in her chair. The wood creaked ominously under her weight. She prefers poetry. Specifically, the kind where everyone dies of a broken heart rather than dysentery. Arabella’s face turned bright red, but she didn’t deny it.
She bit her lower lip, looking at her lap. Abner leaned his elbows on the table, a stark violation of dining etiquette. He tented his fingers, resting his chin on them. And what do you think history is, Lady Maeve? A ledger. Maeve said immediately. She didn’t have to think about it. A long, depressing ledger of who owned the land, who worked the land, and who starved when the winter was too long.
The candelabra flickered, casting long, dancing shadows across Abner’s face. He didn’t smile this time, but the intense focus in his eyes deepened. It was a heavy, suffocating gaze, pulling the air from her lungs. “A cynical view,” he noted. “A realistic one,” she countered. She pointed her fork at the window, where the wind was rattling the loose panes.
“The roof in the west wing collapsed last week because history dictated my great-grandfather gamble away the repair funds in a game of whist.” “Maeve Hastings, you will excuse yourself this instant,” Lady Margaret commanded, her voice trembling with fury. “Your Grace, I apologize. She has always possessed a wretched temper and a tragic lack of decorum.
” Maeve didn’t wait to be told twice. She dropped her napkin onto her plate. It soaked up the greasy gravy, turning brown. She pushed her chair back, the legs scraping loudly against the floorboards. “My apologies, Your Grace.” She muttered the words, tasting like ash in her mouth. As she turned to walk away, she glanced back one last time.
Abner was watching her go. He hadn’t looked at Arabella once since the mutton was served. The realization didn’t bring Maeve triumph. It brought a cold, creeping dread. Survival in this house depended on Arabella securing this marriage. If Maeve ruined it with her loud mouth, the butcher wouldn’t be the only one turning them away.
The library was the coldest room in the house. It smelled of mildew, dry paper, and the sharp tang of mice. The shelves were half empty. Lady Margaret had sold the leather-bound first editions years ago to pay for Arabella’s coming out gowns in London. What remained were heavy volumes of agricultural law and sermons. Maeve knelt on the hearth rug, breathing out plumes of white vapor.
The fire had died down to glowing embers. Beside her lay a splintered wooden crate that used to hold winter apples. She gripped a heavy iron hand ax, her knuckles white, and brought it down hard on a thick slat of wood. Crack. The sound echoed off the high ceiling. Wood flew, a sharp piece grazing her cheek. She didn’t care.
The physical exertion was the only thing keeping the fury in her chest from boiling over. She hated her mother’s desperation. She hated Arabella’s silent martyrdom. Most of all, she hated Abner Freeman for walking into their home and acting as the catalyst for all of it. Crack. She brought the ax down again, breathing heavily through her nose.
The smell of raw pine filled the air, briefly overpowering the mildew. You’re going to lose a finger swinging with that much venom. Maeve froze, the ax suspended in the air. Abner stood in the doorway. He had abandoned his riding coat. He wore only a white shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and dark trousers. Without the bulky coat, he looked leaner, harsher.
He leaned against the doorframe, watching her with that same unnerving intensity. Maeve lowered the ax slowly. She didn’t stand. She stayed on her knees among the splinters and dirt. “Hey, have you come to inspect the rest of the rot, your graces? Or did my mother send you to ensure I haven’t hanged myself in shame?” Abner pushed off the doorframe and walked into the room.
His heavy boots thumped loudly on the uneven floor. He stopped a few feet from her, looking down at the pile of shattered wood. “Your mother is currently forcing your sister to play the pianoforte,” he said, his voice flat. Arabella’s talented, but her fingers are stiff from the cold. It sounds like a funeral march. Maeve bristled. “Do not mock her.
She plays beautifully when she isn’t terrified of disappointing an audience. I wasn’t mocking her. I was stating a fact. Abner crouched down, bringing himself to her eye level. Close up, she could see the fine lines of exhaustion around his eyes. He smelled of that spice tobacco again and something uniquely him, a warm, clean scent like sun-baked stone.
Oh, your sister is exquisite. She is polite, obedient, and has a pedigree that satisfies my advisers. Maeve gripped the handle of the axe tighter. The wood was rough against her palm. Then go marry her and leave us be. I likely will, he said. The blunt admission felt like a physical blow. It is what is expected.
Then what are you doing in the freezing library with the wretched daughter? She spat, her anger masking the sudden terrifying lurch of her heart. Abner reached out. Maeve flinched backward, but he didn’t touch her face. He picked up the piece of pine that had grazed her cheek.
He turned it over in his large, calloused hands. Hands that didn’t look like they belonged to a duke. They looked like hands that had worked, fought, or dug in the dirt. Because, Abner said softly, dropping the wood into the embers, exquisite things tire me. Perfection is a glass cage. You can’t lean against it without shattering it. He looked back at her.
You, however, you are furious. You smell of smoke and cheap soap. You have dirt under your nails and you treat me with the hostility I haven’t encountered since boarding school. Maeve swallowed hard. Her throat was painfully dry. I am not a puzzle for you to solve out of boredom, your grace. I don’t think you’re a puzzle, he countered, shifting his weight.
His knee brushed against the heavy wool of her skirt. The contact sent a shockwave up her leg entirely unwelcome. I think you’re an open wound, and I have spent my entire life surrounded by people pretending they aren’t bleeding. I am not bleeding. Your family is starving. He stated entirely devoid of pity. It was just a fact laid bare between them.
Your roof is collapsing. You are chopping your own firewood while your sister wears silk bought with blood money. You are bleeding, Maeve. You’re just angry about it. Maeve’s vision blurred. The raw truth of it spoken aloud without the usual societal gloss shattered her defenses. She hated him for seeing it.
She hated him for saying it. She stood up abruptly, nearly knocking him backward. He caught his balance easily standing up with her. The library was too small. He was too large. “Get out.” She breathed, her voice shaking. “Go back to the parlor. Let my mother sell you Arabella. Buy the estate, fix the roof, and never speak to me again.
” Abner stepped closer. The space between them evaporated. Maeve had to tilt her head back to look at him. His chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm that contrasted sharply with her own erratic breathing. He didn’t touch her. He just looked at her. His gaze dropping to her mouth before snapping back to her eyes. The air in the freezing library suddenly felt heavy, thick with static.
“I will fix the roof.” He said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “I will pay the debts. But I think, Maeve, we both know I’m going to find it very difficult to never speak to you again.” He turned and walked away, the sound of his boots echoing long after he had disappeared into the dark hallway, leaving Maeve trembling violently among the splinters.
The cold finally seeping into her bones. Morning arrived without apology, dragging a harsh white frost across the dying lawns. The Hastings estate woke to the violent, frantic energy of a a that had just been thrown a lifeline. Abner Freeman had departed before dawn, leaving behind a heavily sealed envelope on the foyer table.
It smelled aggressively of melted pine resin and expensive parchment. Lady Margaret had torn into it with the ravenous desperation of a starving dog finding bone marrow. Maeve stood on the landing, her hands resting on the warped oak banister, watching her mother read the contents. The silence in the stairwell was thick, heavy with years of accumulated dust and silent prayers.
“He is sending his solicitor,” Lady Margaret whispered, the paper trembling in her hands. She looked up, her eyes wide and wet with unspilled tears. The skin around her mouth, usually pinched tight with anxiety, had gone slack. “By Tuesday to draw up the settlements, Arabella. Oh, Arabella.” Arabella stood at the bottom of the stairs, clutching the collar of her faded morning wrapper.
She did not smile. Her knuckles were white. “Yes, Mother.” “We are saved,” Lady Margaret breathed, pressing the letter to her chest. She closed her eyes, swaying slightly on her feet. The butcher, the roof, the taxes, he will cover it all. He asks only for a short engagement, a month.” Maeve turned away. She walked down the long, drafty corridor toward her own room, her boots muffling against the threadbare runners.
Her stomach churned a sour, acidic roll that tasted faintly of bile. They were saved. The ledger was balanced. Abner’s words from the library echoed in the hollow space behind her ribs. “I will fix the roof. I will pay the debts.” He had kept his word. He had also walked out without looking at her again.
The following weeks evaporated into a chaotic blur of velvet silk and the sharp, metallic smell of hot irons. The solicitor, a man named Mr. Higgins, who smelled of peppermint and stale perspiration, arrived with heavy ledger books and a bottomless purse. Suddenly, the Hastings house was swarming. Local tradesmen who had spat at their feet a month ago now bowed so deeply their noses scraped the floorboards.
Carpenters hammered in the west wing, the rhythmic thudding vibrating through the floor joists from dawn until dusk. Seamstresses took over the parlor dropping pins into the carpets and leaving scraps of imported French lace draped over the peeling furniture. Maeve avoided the parlor. The scent of raw silk and lavender water gave her a migraine.
Instead, she spent her days outside hauling brush, clearing the overgrown paths, and punishing her own body with manual labor until her muscles screamed and her mind went blissfully blank. It was late on a Thursday night when the facade finally cracked. The house was quiet. The fires had burned down to smoking lumps of coal.
Maeve was in the kitchen sitting on a three-legged stool scrubbing dirt from a pile of root vegetables with a stiff bristled brush. The water in the wooden bucket was freezing, turning her hands raw and pink. Soft uneven footsteps padded across the stone flags. Maeve looked up. On Arabella stood in the doorway.
She was wearing a nightgown of fine bleached cotton, a gift from the Duke’s estate. In the dim light of the single tallow candle, Arabella looked entirely translucent, a ghost haunting her own life. “You should be asleep,” Maeve said turning her attention back to a stubborn clump of mud on a potato. “Mother has Madame Rousseau coming at 8:00 tomorrow to fit the bodice.
” Arabella didn’t answer. She drifted into the kitchen, her bare feet making no sound, and stopped beside the large wooden work table. She reached out, running a pale, flawless finger along the deeply scarred wood. “Arthur Lewis is leaving,” Arabella said. Her voice was flat, devoid of its usual musical inflection.
Maeve stopped scrubbing. The brush hovered over the water. Arthur Lewis, the vicar’s son, the boy with the ink-stained cuffs who used to leave pressed violets on the stone wall for Arabella to find. “Leaving?” Maeve asked carefully. “For the continent.” Arabella murmured, staring at her own hand. “A missionary post.
He leaves on Monday.” The silence stretched between them, filled only by the drip of water from Maeve’s brush back into the bucket. “I cannot breathe, Maeve.” Arabella whispered. It wasn’t a dramatic declaration. It wasn’t poetry. It was a terrifying, grounded statement of biological fact. Arabella dragged her gaze up from the table. Her eyes were bloodshot.
The skin beneath them bruised with exhaustion. “Then, don’t marry him.” Maeve said, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. They were dangerous words, treasonous words. Arabella let out a short, broken sound. It might have been a laugh. “And do what? Watch Mother hang herself in the barn when the bailiffs come? Watch you break your back chopping wood until your hands are permanently crippled?” She gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles stark white.
“I am the currency. This is what I was raised for. I am paying the toll.” “It’s a life sentence, Bella.” “I know.” Arabella’s voice cracked. A single tear escaped, cutting a track down her pale cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. “He is not a cruel man, His Grace. He is polite. He is generous. He looks at me and sees exactly what he purchased.
Because exquisite things tire him. Maeve thought of the memory of Abner’s rough voice sliding into her brain like a cold knife. Perfection is a glass cage. Arabella turned away wrapping her arms around her own waist. I just wanted to say it aloud. Once. Before I have to pretend for the rest of my life. She walked out of the kitchen her bare feet retreating into the dark.
Maeve sat alone with the freezing water and the dirt. She squeezed the scrubbing brush until the wooden handle bit painfully into her palm staring blindly at the wall. The anger which had been a dull manageable ache for weeks suddenly flared into a roaring inferno. She hated Abner Freeman. She hated him for having the power to buy them.
She hated him for letting her sister drown in silk. But mostly she hated herself for the ugly twisting knot of jealousy buried deep in her gut wishing it was her bleeding on the altar instead. The night before the wedding the sky broke open. A fierce autumn storm battered the estate driving heavy sheets of water against the newly repaired windows of the west wing.
The wind howled through the chimneys a low mournful sound that set the dogs barking in the stables. Inside the house was suffocatingly warm. Lady Margaret had insisted on hosting a small intimate dinner for the local gentry to celebrate the impending nuptials. The dining room once a cavern of peeling wallpaper was now lined with fresh beeswax candles and heavy velvet drapes.
The table groaned under the weight of roasted meats jellied fruits and imported wines. Maeve sat near the foot of the table wearing a dress of dark green velvet. It was a beautiful gown heavy and rich paid for by Freeman coin. It felt like a straitjacket. At the head of the table sat Abner. He had arrived an hour before dinner, stepping out of a lacquered carriage looking immaculate in formal evening wear.
Yet, up close the exhaustion clinging to him had not dissipated. If anything, it had deepened. The harsh angles of his face seemed sharper, his flinty eyes darker. He had spent the entire evening making polite hollow conversation with the local magistrate, barely glancing at Arabella, who sat rigidly to his right, smiling until her jaw trembled.
Maeve shoved a piece of roasted duck around her porcelain plate. The rich smell of gravy and sage made her throat close up. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t sit here and watch this grotesque pantomime for another hour. She dropped her heavy silver fork. The clatter was loud enough to draw a few reprimanding glances. Maeve didn’t care.
She pushed her chair back, muttering a vague excuse about the heat, and practically fled the room. She didn’t stop in the hallway. She kept walking, pushing open the heavy rear doors that led to the kitchen gardens. The storm hit her instantly. The wind whipped her hair out of its pins, stinging her face with freezing droplets.
The air smelled of crushed herbs, wet earth, and ozone. She stepped off the stone patio, her expensive velvet slippers sinking immediately into the thick freezing mud. She didn’t retreat. She waded further into the darkness, letting the violent weather wash away the stench of roasted meat and polite lies.
She stopped by the old stone wall, gripping the rough wet rock, and dragged in huge greedy breaths of the storm. You are ruining a very expensive pair of shoes. The voice cut through the howling wind, deep and grating. Maeve spun around. Abner stood a few feet away. He hadn’t bothered to fetch an overcoat. The rain was already soaking through his tailored black jacket, plastering his white shirt to his chest.
It His hair was plastered to his forehead, and water ran down the hard line of his jaw. “What are you doing out here?” Maeve yelled over the wind, her heart hammering violently against her ribs. “Looking for you,” he shouted back, stepping closer. The mud sucked loudly at his polished boots. “Go back inside, your grace.
Your bride is waiting.” Abner didn’t stop until he was standing less than a foot away. The heat radiating off his large body warred with the freezing rain. “She is not my bride.” Maeve wiped a mix of rain and wet hair from her eyes, glaring up at him. “The banns have been read. The dress is fitted.
Do not play semantics with me now, you bastard. You bought her.” “I didn’t buy her,” he roared, the sheer volume of his voice startling her. He reached into the inner breast pocket of his ruined jacket and pulled out a thick fold of heavy parchment. He thrust it toward her chest. “Look at it.” Maeve shrank back from the paper. “What is that?” “The deed to the estate.
The receipts for your father’s gambling debts. The mortgages.” Abner’s breathing was heavy, ragged. Water dripped from his eyelashes. “Oh, I bought the debt, Maeve. All of it. The bank transferred it to me this morning. I own the paper.” Maeve stared at him, the rain soaking through her velvet gown, freezing her skin. She didn’t understand.
“And tomorrow you marry Arabella to seal it.” “No.” Abner dropped his arm. The parchment grew soggy in his grip. “Tomorrow I give the deed to Arabella as a wedding gift. Free and clear.” Maeve’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. The wind whipped around them, tearing at her skirts. She loves the vicar’s boy.
Abner said, his voice dropping slightly, forcing Maeve to lean in to hear him over the storm. Lewis. I spoke to him in the village 2 days ago. He told me he was leaving. I told him he was a coward, and that if he didn’t take a carriage to the church tomorrow morning to collect the woman he loved, I would have him conscripted.
The world tilted on its axis. The ground beneath Maeve’s feet felt unsteady. You You are giving her the estate and letting her run off with Arthur. Yes. Why? The word was a desperate, breathless demand. Abner stared down at her. His eyes, usually so guarded and cold, were wide open, raw, and completely exposed. Because I cannot stomach the thought of spending the next 40 years looking at a woman who flinches when I enter a room.
Because I refuse to build a legacy on a foundation of miserable duty. He stepped closer, closing the final gap between them. He didn’t reach for her, but his presence was a physical weight pressing down on her. And, he continued, his voice rougher than coarse grit, because if I have to marry a Hastings, I refuse to marry the wrong one.
Maeve’s breath hitched. The air vanished from her lungs. She stared up at his wet, harsh face. I am not a consolation prize. You are a nightmare, he corrected bluntly. You are ill-tempered, cynical, and you look at me like you want to slit my throat. You smell of wood smoke and defiance. You make me furious. He finally reached out his large, cold hands, gripping her shoulders, hauling her slightly upward.
And you are the only real thing I have touched in 10 years. Maeve trembled, but not from the cold. The rage that had sustained her for weeks, fractured, breaking apart to reveal the terrifying fragile truth beneath. She didn’t want the polite Duke. She wanted this messy angry man standing in the mud. “My mother will have an aneurysm.
” She warned, her voice shaking. “Let her.” “It will be a scandal. You are jilting the beauty for the beast.” “The society papers can rot in hell.” Abner’s grip tightened. His thumbs dragged roughly across her collarbones, the friction burning through the wet velvet. “Tell me to go back inside, Maeve. Tell me you want me to marry the glass cage, and I will walk away.
” Maeve looked at the house. The warm yellow light spilling from the dining room windows looked fake, a painted backdrop on a stage. She looked back at Abner. His chest heaved. He was terrified, she realized. The great Duke of Darbyshire standing in the mud, waiting for a girl with the dirt under her nails to ruin him.
She didn’t offer a polite smile. She didn’t say a poetic word. Maeve reached up, grabbing the lapels of his ruined coat, and yanked him down. When his mouth crashed against hers, it was not gentle. It was a collision of teeth, wet skin, and desperate heat. It tasted of rain and the stale wine he had been drinking, bitter and harsh, and completely intoxicating.
Abner let out a low groan, his arms wrapping around her waist, lifting her entirely off her feet. The mud sucked at her shoes as she left the ground, but she didn’t care. She buried her hands in his wet hair, kissing him back with all the violent suppressed fury she possessed. There was no grace in it. There was no perfection.
It was an awkward bruising grapple in the dark, surrounded by the rotting leaves and the driving storm. When they finally broke apart, both gasping for air, Abner rested his forehead against hers. He was shivering, or she was. It was impossible to tell where she ended and he began. The roof in the west wing still leaks, Maeve muttered against his mouth, her chest heaving.
Abner let out a rough barking laugh. It was a beautiful sound, jagged and real. I’ll fetch a bucket, he whispered, setting her back down into the dirt, holding her tightly as the storm raged on around them, neither of them caring about the cold at all. The tension is real, the stakes are high, and the Duke is looking in the wrong direction.
If you felt every splinter, smelled the beeswax, and want to know how Maeve navigates the crushing weight of her family’s survival, drop a like. Share this story with fellow historical drama lovers, and make sure to subscribe. Let me know in the comments, would you sacrifice your happiness for your family’s survival?
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
