PART 2 — HE RODE THROUGH THE STORM FOR HER… “I AM NOT LETTING YOU DISAPPEAR WITHOUT THE TRUTH”

London expected the Duke of Ravenshire to recover from his disappointment within a week.

After all, Alexander Ashford had never been a man accustomed to rejection. He possessed an ancient title, a considerable fortune, and the kind of charm that had opened nearly every door he had ever approached.

The city had already begun placing wagers.

Some believed Lady Charlotte Whitmore had accepted an offer from another gentleman. Others insisted she had simply grown frightened of the Duke’s reputation.

A few suggested that Alexander would soon find another woman to occupy his attention.

They were all wrong.

For nearly an hour after learning of Charlotte’s departure, Alexander remained inside his carriage with the curtains drawn.

He did not curse.

He did not demand that his servants find someone to blame.

He sat with the folded dance card in his hand, staring at the name he had written himself.

He had pursued women before.

He had enjoyed their company, admired their beauty, and occasionally mistaken excitement for affection. When those relationships ended, he had felt relief rather than regret.

But Charlotte’s absence was different.

It was like discovering that a familiar staircase had lost its final step in the dark. Everything remained where it belonged, yet he could no longer move through his life without feeling the danger beneath him.

At last, he pulled the carriage curtain aside.

“Take me home.”

When he arrived at Ravenshire House, he went directly to his study and summoned his oldest servant, Mr. Harrison, who had known him since childhood.

“Have my traveling coach prepared. I need provisions for Derbyshire.”

Harrison blinked.

“Derbyshire, Your Grace? What about the Westmere negotiations?”

“They can wait.”

“With respect, sir, the estate’s solicitors have been waiting three weeks for your decision.”

Alexander reached for a sheet of paper.

“Then they may wait another three.”

Harrison hesitated.

“May I ask whether this journey concerns Lady Charlotte?”

Alexander looked up.

“It concerns a woman who left without telling me why.”

“Perhaps she wishes to be left alone.”

The words were spoken carefully, but they struck their mark.

Alexander set down his pen.

“If that is what she wants, I will respect it. But I will not spend the rest of my life inventing reasons for her departure when I have never been given the chance to hear the truth.”

He paused.

“I am not going to drag her back to London, Harrison. I am going to ask her why she believed she had to run.”

The older servant studied him for a moment, then bowed.

“Very good, Your Grace.”

Three hours later, the traveling coach was racing north along the Great North Road.

By evening, the sky had darkened to the color of bruised steel. Rain struck the windows in heavy sheets, and thunder rolled over the open countryside.

At a coaching inn, the proprietor hurried out to meet the Duke.

“The road ahead is flooding, Your Grace. There are low stretches where the water can cover the entire track. No sensible traveler would attempt it tonight.”

Alexander placed a gold sovereign in the man’s hand.

“Then I shall have to be unusually fortunate.”

“Money will not help you if the road disappears beneath your horses.”

“Give my driver the strongest team you have. I shall pay double if we reach Matlock before morning.”

The innkeeper looked at the darkening sky.

“On your own head, Your Grace.”

The coach continued into the storm.

Inside, Alexander sat with one hand pressed against the folded dance card in his pocket.

For the first time, he allowed himself to consider the question he had been avoiding.

What was he doing?

He possessed estates older than most of the villages he passed. He had responsibilities, tenants, and negotiations that could affect hundreds of people. Yet he was traveling through a violent storm because a woman had decided not to marry him.

A sensible man would have returned to London.

A proud man would have considered her departure an insult.

But Alexander could not stop thinking about Charlotte.

It was not merely her beauty, though she possessed a quiet elegance that had drawn his attention from their first meeting.

It was her mind.

She questioned things other people accepted without thought. She could be sharp without being cruel, reserved without being cold, and stubborn without needing to prove herself right.

Most importantly, she never seemed impressed by his title.

She had looked at him as though he were simply a man.

He had spent years being admired.

He had never realized how lonely admiration could be until Charlotte offered him something different.

Near midnight, the storm became dangerous.

The coach lurched violently as one wheel struck a section of road washed away by floodwater. Alexander was thrown against the door. Outside, the horses screamed and struggled against their harnesses.

The driver managed to bring the remaining team to a halt.

Alexander forced open the door and stepped into the rain.

One horse had fallen. The front wheel of the coach was buried to its axle in black mud, and water rushed across the road where the embankment had collapsed.

“We cannot go any farther tonight, Your Grace!” the driver shouted over the wind.

“How far to Matlock?”

“Five miles, perhaps. But the road is hardly fit for a horse, let alone a coach.”

Alexander looked toward the darkness.

“Unhitch the gray.”

The driver stared at him.

“You cannot mean to ride alone in this weather.”

“I do.”

“Sir, it is madness.”

“Then you may tell everyone in London that I have finally lost my reason.”

Alexander was already tightening the saddle on his stallion, Atlas.

He pulled on his riding gloves and fastened his coat against the wind. Rain soaked through his collar before he had even mounted.

He had never considered himself a romantic man.

Yet here he was, riding into a storm that seemed determined to swallow the road, chasing a woman who might close the door in his face.

He found that he could not make himself regret it.

Atlas fought the wind as they descended into the valley. Lightning illuminated hedgerows, flooded fields, and the bare branches of trees bending beneath the rain.

Alexander leaned low over the stallion’s neck, guiding him carefully along the narrow track.

His fingers remained pressed against the dance card inside his coat.

It was absurd to keep it.

It was only a small piece of paper, marked with a name and a memory of one dance.

Yet it was the last thing Charlotte had left behind that belonged to the evening before she disappeared.

He could still remember her hand in his.

The startled look in her eyes when he told her that intelligence and sincerity were rare.

The way she had nodded when he asked to visit her the following afternoon.

She had been afraid.

He could see that now.

But afraid of what?

Of him?

Of love?

Or of something he had never been allowed to understand?

The rain grew heavier. Atlas slipped once on the muddy road, and Alexander caught the reins before the horse could lose his footing.

For a moment, the Duke thought of turning back.

Then he saw a faint light in the distance.

A single illuminated window stood high on a hillside beyond the village, shining through the storm like a candle in a darkened church.

He pulled the reins gently.

“Easy, old boy.”

Atlas slowed.

Alexander looked toward the distant light.

He did not know whether Charlotte was behind that window. He did not know whether she would speak to him, forgive him, or order him away.

He knew only that he could not leave without giving her the choice she had never given him.

To tell him the truth.

To tell him to leave.

Or to tell him that she had run because she felt something for him that frightened her more than loneliness ever could.

He urged Atlas forward.

When the horse finally reached the narrow lane leading toward the house, Alexander saw a figure standing beneath the porch roof.

A woman in a dark traveling cloak.

Charlotte.

She had heard the horse and stepped outside, perhaps expecting a neighbor returning late.

When she recognized the rider, all color vanished from her face.

“Alexander?”

He dismounted, rain streaming from his hair and coat.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Charlotte hurried down the steps.

“You cannot be here! The roads are flooded. You could have been killed!”

“I am aware of that.”

“Have you lost your senses?”

“Possibly.”

She stared at him, unable to understand why he would risk his life for a woman who had abandoned him without a word.

“Why would you do such a thing?”

Alexander took one step closer, then stopped when he saw her instinctively retreat.

He would not touch her unless she wanted him to.

“I came because you disappeared before I could ask you a single honest question.”

“You should have stayed in London.”

“I tried.”

“And?”

“And I discovered that returning to my ordinary life without hearing your answer was more difficult than riding through this storm.”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“You do not understand.”

“Then help me understand.”

She shook her head.

“You must go.”

“Tell me that you truly want me gone, Charlotte, and I will leave.”

She opened her mouth.

No words came.

Alexander looked at her for a long moment, rain dripping from his lashes.

Then he spoke, his voice low but unwavering.

“I will not force you to love me. I will not demand that you marry me. But I am not letting you disappear without the truth.”

The wind swept between them.

Charlotte pressed one trembling hand against her heart.

“You should hate me.”

“I have spent the entire journey trying to discover how.”

“And have you?”

“No.”

His answer was immediate.

“Not even once.”

For the first time since she had fled London, Charlotte looked at him without hiding behind anger or indifference.

And Alexander understood that the storm outside was not the only thing standing between them.

There was a secret in her heart, one powerful enough to make her abandon everything she had ever known.

He had come through the rain to find her.

Now he had to discover what she was so terrified of telling him.

Because the truth, he suspected, would change both their lives forever.