Billionaire Flawed 1(257)

Afterwards, they walked the grounds of the Castle hand in hand. It was good to feel his bare hand against her bare hand, skin on skin, and not have to worry about scandal or retribution of any kind. They were man and wife now; it was the most natural thing in the world for man and wife to walk hand in hand together. They walked into the woods and far away from the Castle until they came to an enclosed copse of trees where they could sit and pretend that the greater world did not exist. Sitting on an upturned log, Elizabeth truly felt as though they were the last people alive.

“This is only the start,” Harold said. “My lady, we will have a beautiful life together. I believe that a man and wife can never fully know each other, but I promise to do my best to know you as well as I know myself. I want us to become one, my lady.”

“Where do you think we will be in five years, my love?” Elizabeth wondered.



#



The Hawk family is no longer spoken of with such vindictiveness. The marriage between the Duke of Summerset and I put an end to that. Soon after our marriage, the Duke paid off the our family’s debts in full, and invited Father and Mother to come and live in the Castle (in their own wing, of course). This allowed us to check Father’s gambling before it started. He has not gambled in five years, and he grumbles less, too.

The Duke and I are as one; or, rather, the Duke and our two children our as four. He was everything I wished him to be on that day long ago in the woods, where I rested my head on his shoulder and talked of the future, and he laughed and said he would give us everything. The King has even visited us once or twice, and Charlotte practically begs me to come to some social function or other.

But I am content to lay awake at night in the Duke’s arms, breathing heavy from our love-making and looking to the future which still looks so bright.

Perhaps, Ms. Diary, this proves something. Perhaps this proves that one does not have to conform to cunning and meanness to get along in the world. Perhaps this proves that one need not have a heart of ice. Take the Duke, for example. He used to be cold, but now he has thawed and grows warmer every day.

Perhaps ice often hides the warmest hearts.



THE END





The Duke of Hearts – A Regency Romance

I would like to dispel the myth that I, Sarah Archer, the daughter of what is usually referred to as a “minor family”, am in any way inferior to my peers. This is commonly muttered amongst lords when they see how I interact with the “common folk”. That I do not spit in their direction is considered a slight against the most privileged of society. That I, in fact, do not flinch at the idea of sharing the same air space is positively scandalous. Perhaps this is why at the age of twenty-three I was not yet married.

I first saw Francis Seymour in London in 1806 To say I was immediately captivated and intrigued and astonished and beguiled by him would, of course, be unseemly; and yet it is the truth. It was not a planned meeting, and, indeed, no words were exchanged between us, I being in town for a meeting with friends, and he being in town for reasons unknown to me.

We passed mere inches of each other on a thoroughfare not far from Westminster. He carried himself differently to the Dukes I had seen before. His arms were by his sides, like a fighting man, and his steps were not ladylike in the slightest, but heavy and probably “uncouth”. He wore dress far beneath his economic powers, with only the slightest frill and flare adorning his jacket and breeches and boots.

As soon as we passed, I asked my maidservant who the man was, and, she being a surprisingly well-informed source of information of that kind, she told me that he was Francis Seymour, and had recently come into his Dukedom in Somerset. I admit my heart was beating fearfully quickly; I thought it may break out of my bodice. There, I have said two unrespectable things in the space of a few words! This will cause quite a stir if it is even found, I am sure. Perhaps I will arrange for it to be published after my death, but that is morbid and a concern for another time.

Being thus informed about this man, to whom I felt a pull altogether astounding and perplexing to me, I decided without hesitation that I must see him again. This impulsive and unflinching behavior has, on several occasions, caused men to refer to me as “no kind of woman at all”. Several courtships have met swift ends because of it. Hoping that this mysterious man would not be the same, I set in course motions for my arrival at Berry Pomeroy Castle, under the guise of a social visit to coincide with the fayre.

“Are you sure you want to go all that way for a fayre, daughter?” Father asked, in that timid and slightly reproachful way of his.

“Father, I am positively suffocating. My sisters are all off having children or visiting abroad – they are all, in short, engaged in some kind of adventure – and I believe I am entitled to a little adventure of my own. You need not worry. I will keep the breech-wearing and pipe-smoking to a minimum.”