My Suitor Abandoned Me in a Storm — So a Duke Carried Me to Gretna Green

Part 1

The first drops of rain struck my face like cold accusations.

I stood perfectly still beneath the inadequate shelter of the abandoned bandstand in Hyde Park.

My muslin gown was already soaked through to my chemise.

I watched Lord Thomas Blackwood’s carriage disappear into the gray curtain of the storm.

He did not so much as glance back.

Mere moments ago, he had been discussing our potential future together.

He had spoken with all the enthusiasm of someone selecting cuts of meat at the butcher.

Six months.

Six months of enduring his condescending lectures about how a woman must comport herself in polite society.

Six months of pretending not to notice when his eyes wandered to younger, prettier, wealthier girls at every social gathering.

Six months of listening to him critique my modest wardrobe and my quiet demeanor.

Six months of my mother’s hopeful questions each morning about whether Lord Blackwood had finally made his intentions clear.

This was how it ended.

He muttered something about an urgent matter requiring his immediate attention.

He climbed into his dry, comfortable carriage without offering me a seat.

I stood there like a fool.

I was already drenched.

I was already the object of whispers and pointed fingers from the fashionable crowd that had been promenading through the park only minutes before the storm broke.

The sky turned the color of bruised plums with shocking swiftness.

It was the kind of summer tempest that arrived without warning.

It sent the ton scattering to their equipages like insects fleeing light.

I watched them go with detached observation.

I cataloged my own humiliation for future reference.

I noted Lady Harrington’s poorly concealed smirk as her footman handed her into her barouche.

I marked the way Mrs. Hartwell whispered behind her fan to her daughter while looking directly at me.

I stored away the sound of masculine laughter from a group of young bucks who found something amusing in the sight of a gently bred woman standing alone in the rain.

I would not cry.

I knew that with absolute certainty.

Tears were a luxury I could no longer afford.

Not after five years of holding together what remained of my family’s dignity with nothing but stubborn pride and careful economies.

Not after watching my father drink and gamble away our fortune and good name before dying.

Not after being left with an invalid mother and a crumbling townhouse in an unfashionable part of London.

Not after clawing my way back to the fringes of respectability through sheer force of will.

Lord Thomas Blackwood had merely used me as a placeholder while he angled for someone better.

The rain intensified into a proper downpour.

I heard the crack of thunder roll across the park.

I saw the Serpentine lake whipped into choppy little waves by the sudden wind.

I watched the willow trees bend and sway like dancers performing some frantic ballet.

I noted how the few remaining parasols turned inside out and had to be abandoned by their holders.

I observed the steam rising from the sun-warmed pathways as the cold rain struck them.

Through it all I remained motionless.

Movement would require a decision.

I was not yet ready to face the practical realities of my situation.

I had three miles to walk home in a soaking wet dress.

My only good walking dress was ruined beyond repair.

My kid leather half-boots were certainly destroyed by the water already pooling around my feet.

Worst of all was the explanation I would have to offer my mother.

Dear hopeful mama believed Lord Blackwood was our salvation.

She had already begun planning the modest wedding breakfast we could afford.

She would be waiting by the window right now watching for my return with good news.

A voice drifted from beneath the shelter of a nearby oak.

Someone remarked that after my father’s scandal, this public abandonment would ensure I never recovered my reputation.

Another voice responded with vicious satisfaction that Thomas was always too good for me anyway.

They said he had been seen just yesterday driving in the park with an heiress fresh from the schoolroom.

The words should have stung.

I found myself oddly numb to them.

The cold rain had frozen not just my skin, but my capacity for further hurt.

I looked down at the bedraggled roses in my hand.

They were dying in my grasp.

My last hope for a respectable future died in the rain-soaked reality of my abandonment.

I finally moved.

I took one step forward as if preparing to begin the long walk home.

My sodden skirts were heavy as chainmail around my legs.

My teeth began to chatter from the cold that had seeped into my very bones.

Then I heard the thunder of hoofbeats.

They approached at a speed that seemed reckless given the slick pathways and driving rain.

I turned just in time to see a massive black stallion bearing down upon me.

The rider’s dark greatcoat billowed behind him like the wings of some avenging angel.

The few remaining gawkers scattered.

Arthur, the Duke of Westford, brought his mount to a halt mere feet from where I stood.

He dismounted in one fluid motion.

He strode toward me with a purposeful intent that brooked no argument or delay.

I opened my mouth to speak.

No words emerged.

He was already removing his greatcoat.

The fine wool was still warm from his body.

He draped it around my shoulders with an efficiency that spoke of a man accustomed to making decisions and expecting them to be obeyed.

My stuttered protest about propriety was lost to the wind.

He bent and lifted me as though I weighed no more than a child.

I found myself pressed against a chest that was solid as oak.

He was surprisingly warm despite the rain that had soaked through his coat to the shirt beneath.

He placed me atop his stallion with decisive efficiency.

He swung up behind me in one powerful motion.

His arms came around me to grasp the reins.

He created a cage of warmth and strength and masculine presence that my body responded to even as my mind struggled to process what was happening.

He leaned close to my ear.

His voice was clipped and precise despite the thunder.

He told me my reputation was now destroyed.

He said within hours I would be blamed rather than pitied by the very people who just witnessed my humiliation.

He laid out my two choices with chilling pragmatism.

I could return home to face ruin.

Or I could marry him tonight and face society as his duchess.

I stared at the reins in his gloved hands.

The sheer impossibility of his suggestion struck me.

We had never even been properly introduced.

He was the Iron Duke.

He had rejected every marriage-minded mama in London for a decade.

Now he was offering to carry me off to Scotland for an irregular marriage as though discussing the weather.

He spurred the horse forward.

The powerful muscles of the stallion bunched beneath us.

We began moving through the rain at a pace that sent spray flying from the puddled pathways.

I had thirty seconds to decide whether to throw myself from a moving horse into the mud, or ride into the storm with a stranger.