“I’ll Marry the First Man Who Enters,” She Joked — Then the Duke Walked In
Chapter 15
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He let out a ragged breath and began to move again—slower this time, finding a rhythm that was heavy and steady. The pain receded, replaced by a strange, building heat. It was not romantic; it was raw, honest, and profoundly intimate. They were two people who had spent their lives holding up crumbling structures, finally allowing the walls to fall.When it was over, Augustus collapsed beside her, his broad chest heaving. The firelight flickered across his sweaty skin. Bella pulled the heavy quilt over them both. Her body ached, but the cold, hollow emptiness that had lived in her chest for years was gone.Augustus lay silently, staring at the canopy. Minutes ticked by."I thought," he said finally, his voice rough with exhaustion, "that you would close your eyes and endure it like a punishment."Bella turned her head to look at his profile. "I am done enduring things, Augustus. From now on, I participate."He turned his head to meet her gaze. The flat, dead earth of his eyes had shifted: there was a spark there now—something fiercely protective, something dangerously close to awe. He reached under the quilt, finding her hand. He didn't interlace their fingers; he just wrapped his massive, calloused hand completely around hers, holding it tightly."Tomorrow," Augustus said quietly into the dark room, "I will show you the ledgers for the shipping company."Bella smiled, her eyes drifting shut. "I will find your errors by noon.""I have no doubt you will, Duchess."They fell asleep like that, holding on to each other in the dark—the contract fulfilled, the real work finally beginning.Winter arrived on the Yorkshire moors with the blunt force of a swinging anvil. Frost choked the windows of Highridge Manor, sealing the heavy stones in a layer of jagged ice.Inside the study, a massive fire roared, casting a fierce, warm glow over the oak desk. Bella sat in Augustus's heavy leather chair, an ink-stained ledger spread open across her swollen belly: she was seven months pregnant; the child was an active, violent presence, kicking against her ribs with the same brutal energy its father applied to a collapsed tunnel. She dipped her pen, meticulously crossing out a bloated expenditure from the London townhouse accounts.A bell began to ring. It was not the polite chime of the front door, nor the muffled clatter of the kitchen bells: it was a deep, resonant, terrifying clang that vibrated through the floorboards.The colliery alarm.Bella snapped the pen in half; ink splattered across her knuckles. She stood up, her chair crashing backward onto the rug. She didn't wait for Miller or the maids: she grabbed Augustus's heavy wool coat from the hall stand, threw it over her shoulders, and walked out the front doors into the freezing, biting wind."Harness the carriage!" she screamed toward the stables, her voice tearing through the howling gale. "Now!"The ride down the craggy hill was a blur of violent jolts. Bella gripped the leather hand strap, her knuckles white, her jaw locked. The sky above the valley was wrong: instead of the usual steady stream of black coal exhaust, thick plumes of gray dust and yellow sulfur choked the horizon. Panic tasted like copper.