I Broke Into The Duke’s Study To Save My Brother — Then He Locked The Door

Part 1

Cold brass bit into my palm as I turned the handle of the Duke’s study.

The mechanism offered a stiff, grinding resistance before giving way with a muted click that sounded deafening in the empty corridor.

I held my breath, pressing my shoulder against the heavy mahogany wood.

It yielded slowly, groaning on old hinges.

The air inside hit me immediately, a dense, unmoving atmosphere smelling of beeswax, stale pipe tobacco, and the sharp metallic tang of cold fireplace ash.

It was a masculine room, utterly devoid of the forced cheerfulness found in the rest of the estate.

Rain lashed against the tall mullion windows, distorting the manicured lawns outside into smeary streaks of gray and bruised green.

I slipped inside in my wet leather boots, sinking soundlessly into the thick Persian rug.

My dark wool skirt, heavy with rainwater at the hem, clung uncomfortably to my ankles.

I hadn’t bothered with a maid or a proper coat.

Desperation didn’t afford the luxury of proper attire.

I paused a few paces into the room, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

The curtains were half-drawn, casting long, sharp-edged shadows across the floorboards.

I took a shallow breath.

The silence in the room was absolute, save for the frantic, erratic thumping of my own pulse at the base of my throat.

I needed the letters.

If Tyler’s foolish, ink-stained confessions found their way to the magistrate by morning, my family would not merely be disgraced.

We would be ruined, our estate auctioned off, our name stripped to the bone.

My gaze locked onto the massive oak desk anchoring the center of the room.

It was not the neat, curated workspace of a gentleman of leisure.

It was a chaotic landscape of commerce and control.

Stacks of vellum ledgers leaned precariously against brass inkwells.

Unrolled maps of the northern collieries were weighed down by crystal tumblers and discarded half-burnt cigars.

I moved toward it, my corset laced too tightly that morning in my hurried panic, digging mercilessly into my ribs.

I ignored the pinch, rounding the desk and running a trembling hand over the top drawer.

Locked.

Of course it was locked.

I bit the inside of my cheek, tasting copper.

“You are dripping mud onto a rug that is older than your bloodline, Miss Miller.”

The voice came from the far corner of the room near the unlit hearth.

It wasn’t a shout.

It was a low, gravelly rasp, utterly devoid of surprise.

I flinched as if struck.

My elbow knocked against a stack of papers, sending a few fluttering to the floor.

I spun around, my wet skirts twisting heavily around my legs.

Brian, Duke of Blackwood, sat swallowed in the shadows of a high-backed leather wingchair.

He had been so perfectly still, I hadn’t registered him against the dark wainscoting.

He wasn’t dressed for receiving callers.

He wore no jacket, only a wrinkled linen shirt unbuttoned at the collar and a dark waistcoat.

His boots were propped carelessly on the edge of a small side table.

He didn’t stand.

He simply watched me, a glass of amber liquid dangling loosely from his right hand.

The weak gray light from the window caught the sharp, unforgiving lines of his jaw and the exhaustion bruised into the skin beneath his eyes.

My throat seized.

The meticulously rehearsed lies I had prepared evaporated.

“I was told you were in London.”

“Evidently.”

He took a slow sip from his glass.

The clinking of the crystal against his teeth was the only sound in the room.

“And taking advantage of my supposed absence, you decided to bypass the butler, the footman, and the basic tenets of common decency to forage through my private correspondence.”

He swung his legs off the table.

The thud of his boots against the floorboards was heavy.

He stood up.

He was a violently tall man, broad-shouldered and possessing a physical density that always made the air in a room feel suddenly thinner.

I took a step back, my spine colliding hard with the edge of the desk.

The instinct to flee screamed in my ears, but my legs felt leaden.

I watched him walk toward me.

He moved with a slow, deliberate grace, like a man wading through deep water.

He didn’t look angry.

That was the most terrifying part.

If he had yelled, if he had summoned the guards, I could have fought back.

I knew how to handle anger, but the detached, analytical coldness in his pale eyes made my stomach bottom out.

He didn’t stop at the desk.

He walked past me, so close I could smell the bitter scent of wet wool and the harsh bite of straight whiskey on his breath.

I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for him to seize my arm to throw me out into the corridor.

Instead, he walked past me, straight to the heavy mahogany door I had just pushed open.

I opened my eyes, turning my head just in time to see him press his palm flat against the wood, pushing it completely shut.

The latch caught with a soft thud.

Then Brian reached into his waistcoat pocket, retrieved a long iron key, and slid it into the lock.

Then, with a sickening click, he locked the heavy mahogany door behind me.