“Was it your plan all along? Is that why he’s here?”
The implication struck like ice water.
“No.”
His grip tightened.
“You arrive unchaperoned. You remain under my roof. You let yourself be seen.”
Each word was measured. Controlled.
“If your brother came here thinking?—”
“He wasn’t supposed to know!” she burst out. “I didn’t tell him.” The only person who knew she was here was Penelope… but she’d promised to keep quiet.
The duke’s eyes searched her face, ruthless.
“It won’t work,” he said at last, releasing her abruptly. “I meant what I told you before.”
That he would never marry.
The sound of raised voices and boots scuffing in the corridor confirmed Wallace’s warning.
And then Charles filled the doorway.
At thirty-one, her brother was broad-shouldered, sharp-featured, and every inch the Duke of Kenbrooks. Authority clung to him as naturally as breath.
Her stomach dropped. Perhaps she ought to have thought this through a little more… Because she had, in fact, spent multiple nights under a gentleman’s roof without a chaperone.
And if Charles demanded marriage—and Julian refused?—
Her brother would demand satisfaction. On the field of honor.
Charles strode into the room, fury contained but unmistakable, his gaze sweeping over them both in one brutal pass.
Rosamund’s flushed face. The broken plaster in the wall.
And then—most damning of all—her bodice, torn and… pathetic.
His eyes flicked to it once, and that, apparently, was more than enough. Understanding hardened his face in an instant—what he believed had happened. The very last thing Rosamund would ever want her brother to see.
Something inside him snapped.
“Take your hands off her.”
The command cracked throughthe room.
Julian’s grip fell away at once. He stepped back without protest, though his jaw tensed and something dangerous flickered behind his eye.
Charles advanced anyway.
He did not look at her. His fury, for the moment, was reserved entirely for Julian.
With clenched teeth, voice tight, he pointed toward the door. “Go.”
Only then did his gaze cut to her. “Out to my carriage.”
No-no-no-no no!This wasn’t happening!