Ten Days with a Duke: 12 Dukes of Christmas #11 Page 13

  This time, the flutter was not in her heart, but deep in the pit of her stomach, where all bad things lurked and churned.

  “What is it?” Her voice was flat, but didn’t shake. Neither did her hands or legs.

  He was still here, she still hadn’t agreed to marry him... How bad could it be?

  “First,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it, and I know an apology isn’t enough.”

  All right, yes. Her hands might be shaking.

  “Did what?” she asked. She hoped he wouldn’t answer.

  “I didn’t come up here to marry you.”

  “I know.” This was safe enough ground. “My father wanted to heal the breach between the families, and your father probably wanted our farm in your hands so that we would technically have nothing.”

  “That would be a breach of good faith,” Elijah agreed. “No doubt it was my father’s contingency plan, if we accidentally ended up married.”

  She blinked. “You didn’t come up here to marry me?”

  “I was sent to humiliate you and your father. To reenact the aftermath of our first kiss on an even grander scale. My father expected you to obey yours and agree to the betrothal.” Elijah took a deep breath. “I was to wait until the next day, when you told the happy news to your friends, and had the announcement printed in the papers. Until ideally you and your father were standing before the altar in front of witnesses... and then jilt you publicly, saying...” He coughed into his fist. “I won’t repeat it.”

  She recoiled in horror.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said quickly.

  “You were going to do it.” Her blood had drained, leaving her as faint and unsteady as if he had accomplished his goal. He’d been close. She would have accepted a third proposal, and walked right into his trap. “That’s why you came. That was the plan all along.”

  He never wanted the farm or her.

  She was just a Harper Horse.

  A foolish, forgettable beast.

  Olive covered her mouth with her hand.

  He reached over the fence. “Don’t—”

  She slapped his hand away. “You have no right to tell me what to do. I knew better than to trust you. I should never have trusted you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I told him I wouldn’t do it, and I didn’t do it.”

  “When did you have this miraculous attack of conscience?” she demanded, her voice scratchy. “Did you wake up this morning and decide today was the day to stop being a scoundrel? Did you send the marquess a quick note saying, ‘Guess you’ll have to be a knave all on your own?’”

  He winced. “Father... is at Marlowe Castle.”

  “Today was the day you tired of being the villain,” she choked out in disbelief. “All of the days up to now...” He’d been pretending. Stringing her along. Plotting a theatrical jilt designed for maximum mortification. “And your father has been waiting just along the road for a bird’s-eye view.”

  Elijah’s eyes were haunted. “I never wanted to cause you pain.”

  She laughed harshly. “You didn’t think this would hurt?”

  “Very well, I deserved that. I didn’t want to harm you, and I knew it would. But I wasn’t doing it to cause you pain. My father promised me—”

  “I don’t care if he promised you the Throne,” she burst out. “I don’t forgive you. I never will.”

  And she would never forgive herself for her role in the charade.

  He hadn’t stolen a kiss. She had given it to him with permission. He hadn’t compromised her against her will. She had all but demanded they be lovers, and been positively smug when he’d agreed.

  She was the perfect mark. She’d wanted to believe in a courtship so badly, she’d ignored that it was coming from him.

  Every moment was a lie designed to hurt her.

  And it did.

  “Congratulations.” She backed away, her words like gravel in her throat. “You did manage to humiliate me. It wasn’t the public embarrassment you and your father hoped for, but it will have to suffice. Goodbye, Elijah. Our arrangement is over.”

  Chapter 15

  Eli pressed up against the log fence. “Olive—”

  But it was too late.

  She hauled herself onto the closest horse. With a press of her heels, she and Charley shot off toward the woods and were gone.

  Wonderful.

  That conversation had gone exactly as terribly as Eli had imagined.

  The last time he’d caused Olive to run away, he had slunk home in fear of his father. Eli was no longer afraid of the marquess, nor was he willing to let his second chance with Olive slip through his fingers.

  He was going to have to chase after her.

  Gritting his teeth, he vaulted the log fence and took a step toward Rudolph, the sweetest of the horses.

  Duke also took a step toward Rudolph.

  Ears flat against his head, Rudolph danced sideways out of Duke’s reach, and darted away.

  Very well. Eli took a step toward Mr. Edward. He hadn’t appreciated galloping with the gelding during their last encounter, but with Rudolph no longer a possibility—

  Duke retracted his lips and pawed his front leg aggressively toward Mr. Edward.

  Eli had never seen a horse disappear so quickly.

  Duke turned toward Eli.

  Eli patted his pockets. No carrots. He’d come straight from the castle.

  “Believe me,” he said. “I don’t like this any more than you do. But the longer I wait, the less likely I’ll be able to catch up to her. And if I don’t talk to her now, she’ll toss all of my future letters into the fire and never allow me over her threshold again.”

  Duke did not appear particularly swayed by this speech. He had gone from eyeing Eli suspiciously to ignoring him completely, and now stood stock still, his gaze off to the horizon.

  Eli inched closer.

  Duke didn’t move.

  Eli checked the saddle. Snug. He checked the stirrups. Low. In theory, a gifted horseman could launch himself into the stallion’s tall saddle with a single, smooth, one-bounce leap.

  Also in theory, Duke would obliterate Eli if he tried.

  There was nothing smooth about the panic rippling along Eli’s limb as he considered his options. He knew exactly what it felt like to crack his rib against a log fence just like this one. He knew exactly what it felt like to have the iron imprint of a horseshoe slam into his leg or his arm and hear the sickening crack of his bones breaking.

  He knew exactly what it felt like to lose Olive because he hadn’t chased after her when he’d had the chance.

  “Love is worth it,” he muttered.

  He took a deep breath, grabbed the reins, and swung himself up and into Duke’s saddle.

  Eli’s muscles froze in shock.

  He’d accomplished it. He was in the saddle. And hadn’t yet been thrown.

  In fact... Duke’s nose had lowered to the ground, as if sniffing for any stray carrot pieces that might have fallen from loose pockets during the mount.

  Eli adjusted his seat and dug in his heels tentatively.

  Duke chewed a mouthful of phleum pratense.

  Eli held the reins tighter and spurred his boots into the stallion decisively.

  Duke took another bite of grass.

  “To Olive,” Eli said desperately. “Please. Before Olive—”

  His head jerked backward as Duke sprang forward, leaping the tall fence easily and nearly unseating his rider in the process.

  Eli hung on tight as the stallion thundered down the worn path, leaving the stables to disappear in a cloud of dirt behind them.

  It might be too late to win Olive back, but she deserved to know that everything else had been true. The passion they’d shared was real.

  So was his love.

  If it didn’t matter, and Eli lost her just like he’d lost everything else he’d ever cared about all in one day—his home, his research project, his dreams for the future—w
ell, at least he was finally making his own choices.

  Even if he ended up with nothing, this time he was willing to fight for love.

  He held on tight as Duke swerved off the riding path and into the woods. Up ahead was the pavilion.

  And just arriving herself... Olive.

  Her mouth fell open when she saw him.

  “One more thing,” he called out over the wild thundering of his heart. “I forgot to mention that I love you.”

  She stared at him wordlessly.

  Duke sauntered up almost close enough for Eli to reach out and touch her.

  “You don’t just have my heart, Olive Harper. You are my heart. I love you so much, it’s too big to fit in my chest. It bursts from me in soppy smiles and giddy moonstruck looks. My love for you is a vanda ampullacea, perennial and ever-blooming. I would ride a thousand stallions to reach your side. Every scar would be worth it, if it brought me one step closer to you.”

  Her eyes were wide and shimmering.

  “Then why did you do it?” she asked quietly.

  All he could give her was the truth.

  “Father wanted revenge. I wanted no part. But in exchange for my role, he agreed to help me save lives. Women like my mother. I thought it was the right choice. That helping many people outweighed hurting one person.” His chest ached. “It was the wrong choice. I was wrong. I could never purposefully wound you. And I don’t deserve your forgiveness, even though I desperately want it.”

  Nor did he deserve her love, even though he desperately yearned for that, too.

  “Why tell me any of it?” she said. “I already told you I wasn’t going to accept the betrothal. You could’ve returned home with me none the wiser, never to see each other again.”

  “I do want to see you again,” he said simply. “I want you to be the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see every night. I don’t care about the betrothal, Olive. If the only way to be together is on your terms, then I accept them, whatever they are. I would rather have a little piece of you than nothing at all.“

  Her brows lifted. “You’d settle for crumbs?”

  “I’d think of them as carrot bits.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “Your father must love this plan.”

  “He hates it,” Eli admitted. “He said he’d disown me if I chose you over him.”

  She frowned. “He’s cruel enough to do it. What did you say?”

  “Simple.” He gestured down at the stallion. “I chose you.”

  Chapter 16

  Olive gripped the reins tighter. “So now you do need my farm.”

  “I do not want the farm,” Elijah said with feeling. “I don’t even want to be on this horse.”

  That was true enough. When Duke had come flying around the corner, Elijah had looked positively terrified. He was still stiff and white-knuckled, his face a clammy shade of pale gray.

  She couldn’t believe he’d come after her, knowing what it had cost him to try.

  “Get off the horse.” She slid down from Charley, and held up her hand for Duke’s reins. “We’ll talk on solid ground.”

  “Thank you.”

  Elijah leapt down from Duke on unsteady legs, staggering like a sailor new to the sea, before visibly drawing himself upright, forcing his shoulders back and his limbs to steady.

  She wondered how many times he’d been forced to practice that maneuver in a futile attempt to avoid the wrath of his father.

  “When you hurt me the first time,” she said slowly, “it wasn’t premeditated. You were as surprised as I was to be caught in that kiss, and you reacted out of fear for your own safety.”

  “That’s... exactly what I did.” His cheeks flushed. “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “This time,” she continued, “you knew what you were doing, and how much it would hurt.”

  He did not deny the charges.

  “But when you had the chance, you didn’t take it.” She let out a slow breath. “I was less gallant.”

  His brow furrowed. “None of this is your fault.”

  “I didn’t create this situation and neither did you,” she agreed. “But where you stood up to your father by not going along with his machinations, I stood up to mine by making manipulations of my own.”

  As much as she might like to divide the world into villains and victims, with him on one side and her on the other, Olive did not have the high horse.

  “I had no intention of honestly considering your suit for ten minutes, much less ten days,” she reminded him. “Mine was also a revenge plot designed to humiliate you. I was just more honest about my intention to reject you.”

  “What were you supposed to do?” Elijah asked. “I arrived with a marriage license in my pocket, and your father was all set to hand over everything you’d worked to build. The farm would belong to your worst enemy, and so would you, as well.”

  “Not my worst enemy,” she admitted. “We were the puppets in this scenario, and our fathers the ones pulling the strings.”

  “Not just this scenario,” Elijah said. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to untangle myself from his strings.”

  She could only imagine.

  “Don’t let him have power over you any longer.”

  “He doesn’t.” Elijah gave a crooked smile. “There’s nothing left to take away. Except you.”

  “He cannot,” she said softly. “Your father has no power over me, either.”

  Although she was still hurt and angry, Olive recognized that Elijah had been in his own impossible situation.

  He’d likely felt the same maddening powerlessness as she had when her father had been poised to give away her life’s work and greatest passion as though the farm were a toy he had tired of playing with.

  All because he had his own aims and was willing to manipulate his own daughter to achieve them.

  Not that Papa had ever had a chance to end the rivalry. No amount of manipulation would make a man like Lord Milbotham give up his lifelong grudge.

  It was up to Olive if she was ready to give up hers.

  “Your father is despicable,” she told Elijah. “I cannot blame my father for feuding with him all these years.”

  Elijah nodded. “I’ve just entered into a bigger, better feud with him myself. So far it’s lovely.”

  “But life’s too short,” Olive continued. “Our families have spent decades hating each other, and we cannot name one good thing this feud gave us.”

  “I can,” he said immediately. “It gave me ten days with you.”

  “No.” She took a tiny step closer. “We got that when we stopped feuding and decided to be friends.”

  “Is it that easy?” His eyes were hopeful. “We can just do whatever we decide to do?”

  “I think so,” she said. “I hope so.”

  He reached for her hands.

  She let him take them.

  “Then I decide to love you,” he said. “Now and forever. My offer of marriage will stay open for as long as I breathe. If your counteroffer to be clandestine lovers is the only choice, then I accept it. And if you want me far away, then I’ll go. And I’ll love you always and forever, from the other side of the world.”

  Her lungs could barely let in new air from the racket her heart was making.

  “You’re getting ahead of yourself,” she said. “We had an arrangement. If you managed to get Duke to allow you to ride him, I was to give your suit honest consideration.”

  He’d fulfilled the terms of a challenge designed to make him fail—in more ways than Olive had realized.

  She’d accidentally placed him into his worst nightmare. Tortured him with the prospect of confronting her most infamously irascible stallion. She’d forced Elijah to face his biggest, most primal fears, at risk of life and limb.

  He hadn’t attempted it for his father.

  He’d done it for her.

  “You won,” she said softly. “You did it. I have no idea how—”

 
; “It was the carrots,” he mumbled. “And possibly the extremely slow start.”

  “That is it,” she said in surprise. “That’s exactly what you did. You were nice to him. You let him come to know you. You didn’t pressure him. You let him take as much time as he needed, and then you let him make his own choice.”

  “The clothes might have helped,” Elijah added. “This is a very nice waistcoat.”

  “Duke cares as much about fashion as I do,” Olive said dryly.

  But she did recognize the value of something flashy. She let go of his hand and reached into her jacket pocket to pull out the medallion he had brought her.

  “I won, too,” she said softly. “Not just that race all those years ago. I won a second chance with you.”

  Elijah’s gaze snapped to hers. “What does winning mean for us?”

  It meant ownership of a farm did not determine Olive’s worth as a person.

  It meant instead of dedicating her life to chasing her horses’ best interests, Olive should consider her own best interests, too.

  It meant a partnership didn’t make her less whole, but rather part of something even bigger than herself.

  Olive slid the medallion into Elijah’s pocket. She didn’t need to hold on to the past any longer.

  “It means I love you,” she said. “It means I forgive you. It means you’re human and I’m human and this probably isn’t the last fight we’ll ever have, but at the end of the day we’ll find ourselves in each other’s arms because the most important thing will always be each other.”

  “When you say you love me,” he said slowly, “are you agreeing to the ‘from opposite ends of the earth scenario,’ or...”

  She arched a brow. “Are you still carrying around that marriage license?”

  “I am indeed.” He patted his lapel. “I say, Miss Harper, what are you doing on Sunday? Care to pay a visit to the closest chapel and take a few vows?”

  “That sounds lovely, Mr. Weston. I’ll mark a note on my calendar. In fact...” She burst out laughing. “Papa was right after all. A Sunday wedding gives us plenty of time to announce our scandalously short betrothal at the Duke of Nottingvale’s Twelfth Night gala.”