Richard reached up, grabbing her wrist with his bandaged hand, holding on to her as if she were the only solid thing in a collapsing world. He turned his face into her palm, closing his eyes. He hadn't run. He had stayed. He had fought. And he knew with terrifying, absolute clarity that he could never let this woman leave his house.
Morning light, harsh and unforgiving, pierced the gaps in the nursery curtains. Richard woke with a sharp gasp, his neck screaming in protest. He was slumped in a wooden chair beside the bed. Harriet was curled into a small, breathing ball of blankets; her skin was cool, her breathing steady.
Richard rubbed his face, his bandaged palms throbbing with a dull, distant ache. He looked around. Clara and Abigail were asleep on a chaise lounge, tangled together like a litter of exhausted puppies.
Josephine was nowhere to be seen.
A sudden, sharp spike of adrenaline pierced through his exhaustion. He stood, his joints popping in the quiet room. He walked out into the corridor. The house was waking up: maids were lighting fires, the faint, comforting smell of woodsmoke drifting up the stairs.
He found Bates on the second-floor landing, carrying a heavy silver tray of tea. "Where is Miss Miller?" Richard rasped.
Bates paused. The butler's expression was unreadable, but his eyes held a flicker of profound sorrow. "In her quarters, Your Grace. She requested a carriage be brought around to the servants' entrance in an hour."
Richard didn't wait to hear the rest. He took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the burning ache in his thighs and the protesting muscles in his back. He reached the governess's quarters at the end of the east wing and threw the door open without knocking.
Josephine stood beside a narrow, unmade cot. She was wearing her hideous, sensible navy traveling dress. Her battered leather satchel sat open on the mattress. She was folding a faded linen chemise with mechanical, jerky movements. She didn't jump when the heavy door slammed against the wall; she just stopped folding.
"You are not leaving," Richard said. His voice was not a polite request; it was a raw order ripped straight from the bottom of his chest.
"My contract states I may terminate my employment with 24 hours' notice," Josephine replied. She didn't look at him. She placed the folded chemise into the satchel, smoothing down the edges. "Given the circumstances, I am waiving my final week's pay in exchange for immediate departure."
Richard crossed the small room in three long strides. He grabbed the leather satchel and threw it onto the floorboards.
Josephine finally looked up. Her gray eyes were completely shuttered, a heavy iron vault locked tight against the world. "Do not do this, Richard."
"Do what?" he demanded, closing the distance between them until he could smell the faint trace of willow bark and fever sweat still clinging to her skin. "Stop you from running away because you accidentally showed a shred of human vulnerability?"
"Because I crossed a line!" Josephine shouted, her composure violently shattering. She shoved hard against his chest. He didn't budge. "I am a governess! You are a duke! Last night, in the panic, the lines blurred. Today, the sun is up. The ton will return. Your aunt will return. I will not stay here and watch you slowly remember that I am not suitable for your parlor, let alone your life!"
"To hell with the ton!" Richard snarled. He grabbed her wrists—not to restrain her, but to anchor himself. "To hell with my aunt, and to hell with polite society! They didn't stand in the mud with my daughters! They didn't hold my hand while my child was burning alive! You did!"
Josephine tried to pull away, a frantic, trapped energy radiating from her entire frame. "You are acting on adrenaline and gratitude! It will fade, and when it does, I will just be the loud woman with mud on her hem who doesn't know how to hold a teacup properly!"
"I don't care about teacups," Richard said, his voice dropping to a harsh, desperate whisper. He released her wrists and cupped her face, his bandaged hands rough against her sharp jawline. "I care that before you walked into this house, I was dead. I was walking, speaking, and signing ledgers, but I was a ghost. You blew the doors off the hinges. You gave my daughters their minds back. You gave me my life back."
Josephine's breath hitched. A single tear broke free, tracking a clean line through the exhaustion on her pale cheek. "Richard, I don't know how to be a duchess. I only know how to fight."
"Good," Richard murmured, resting his forehead against hers. "Because I need a fighter. I need a warden. I need a woman who will threaten my relatives and build irrigation trenches in my rose garden."
He didn't wait for her to argue. He kissed her.
It wasn't a polite, aristocratic press of lips. It was desperate, messy, and fiercely grounded. He poured two years of grief, relief, and terrifying, raw hope into it.
Josephine stiffened for a fraction of a second before her hands flew up, twisting violently into the collar of his rumpled linen shirt. She kissed him back with the exact same fierce, unapologetic force she applied to everything else in her life.
When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathing heavily, the silence of the room replaced by the frantic beating of two hearts finally beating in time.
"So," Richard said, his voice rough, his thumb brushing away another stray tear from her cheek. "Are you going to unpack that satchel, or do I have to have Bates burn it?"
Josephine looked down at the discarded bag on the floor, then back up at him. A slow, genuine smile tugged at the corner of her wide mouth.
"If you burn my satchel, Your Grace," she warned softly, "I will deduct the cost from your estate ledger."
Richard laughed. It was a rusty, unfamiliar sound that bounced off the walls of the small room, warm and entirely alive. He pulled her back into his arms, burying his face in her dark hair.
Ashborne Manor would never be quiet again. There would be explosions, mud, and endless arguments over structural engineering. But as Richard held the woman who had stolen his sanity and saved his soul, he knew one thing with absolute certainty: he wouldn't trade the chaos for the world.
Chaos finally conquered the Duke of Ashborne, and it wore sensible boots. Josephine Miller arrived to wrangle three unruly girls and ended up dismantling a grieving man's walls entirely. Sometimes love isn't found in quiet drawing rooms; it's built in muddy trenches and forged in the desperate hours of the night.