Norah didn't scream. She didn't faint. She waded straight into the mud. The cold rain plastered her hair to her face instantly. Her ruined boots sank deep into the clay. She walked directly to the second horse, the wheelhorse that was feeding the panic to the leader. She grabbed the heavy leather harness near the collar.
"Hold steady!" she yelled over the wind. She didn't use a soothing, delicate voice. She used the sharp, commanding bark of a woman who had grown up wrangling dogs and drunken stable boys before her aunt forced her into service. She slapped the horse's muscular neck hard. "Stand! Stand still, you massive idiot!"
The horse snorted, shocked by the sudden violent authority. It stopped thrashing. With the wheelhorse stilled, Henry managed to drag the leader's head down, forcing it to plant its hooves. The terrible rocking momentum of the carriage ceased.
Panting, Henry wiped a hand across his face, smearing mud across his cheekbone. He looked at Norah. She was a disaster. Her black morning dress was coated in thick red clay up to her knees. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the harness. Rain streamed down her pale face.
She looked back at him. "Are you going to stare at me, Henry, or are you going to help Thomas unhitch the team before the axle snaps entirely?"
Henry blinked. A slow, incredulous grin spread across his face, entirely changing the architecture of his features. It made him look reckless. It made him look young. "Yes, Your Grace," he said.
They spent the next hour in the freezing rain. Henry and Thomas unhitched the horses and used a massive fallen branch as a lever to pry the wheel out of the sinkhole. Norah did not go back inside the carriage. She stood in the mud, holding the bridles of two massive draft horses, murmuring to them in the dark to keep them calm.
When they finally dragged the carriage back onto solid road, they were soaked to the bone and shivering uncontrollably. They climbed back into the dark cab. Thomas cracked the whip, and the carriage lurched slowly forward.
Norah sat on the velvet bench. She was freezing. Her teeth were chattering so hard her jaw ached. She crossed her arms, trying to generate a fraction of warmth.
A heavy, wet wool coat was thrown over her shoulders. She looked up. Henry had taken off his overcoat. He moved across the carriage, abandoning his side, and sat directly next to her. The carriage was not small. There was no need for him to sit that close.
"You will freeze," Norah said, her voice shaking.
"I run hot," Henry replied bluntly.
He didn't ask permission. He reached over, grabbed her freezing, mud-caked hands, and folded them between his own large, calloused palms. He wasn't trying to be romantic. It was a purely practical attempt to transfer body heat.
Norah stiffened. The intimacy of it, the sheer physical reality of sitting hip-to-hip with a duke in the dark, his hands wrapped around hers, was entirely overwhelming.
"You ruined another dress," he noted softly, his thumb brushing over the dried clay on her knuckles. "I seem to make a habit of it around you. I will buy you a hundred dresses, Norah."
"I don't want a hundred dresses," she said fiercely, pulling her hands back slightly. "I don't want silk, and I don't want a maid to brush my hair, and I don't want to host tea parties for women who would sell their own children for a better title."
Henry let her hands go, but he didn't move away. He leaned his head back against the carriage wall, looking at her in the dim light. "What do you want, then?" he asked.
Norah stared at him. She thought about it. She realized for the first time in her entire life, someone was asking her what she wanted, and they actually possessed the power to give it to her.
"I want ground that doesn't shift beneath my feet," she said quietly. "I want to be looked at, not seen through. I want a house where I don't have to apologize for breathing the air."
Henry held her gaze. The cynicism in his eyes was completely gone. "Done," he said.
They didn't speak for the rest of the night, but he didn't move back to his side of the carriage. When Norah finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, her head drifted sideways, coming to rest against his shoulder. Henry didn't move a muscle for the next 100 miles.
Lochavan was not a delicate, manicured country house. It was a fortress built in the 16th century on a jagged cliff overlooking a vast black loch. The estate was made of dark gray stone that seemed to absorb the weak Scottish sunlight. The wind howled relentlessly around the turrets. Inside it was a maze of drafty corridors, massive fireplaces, and tapestries faded by centuries of woodsmoke.
When the carriage pulled into the courtyard, there was no line of polished servants waiting to greet them. There was only an elderly groom and Mrs. Gordon, the housekeeper. Mrs. Gordon was a formidable woman, built like a brick wall with iron-gray hair and eyes that missed absolutely nothing. She stood on the stone steps, her hands folded over a spotless white apron, staring at the mud-splattered carriage with deep suspicion.
Henry handed Norah down. Norah's boots hit the cobblestones. She was exhausted, filthy, and wearing a ruined morning dress. She looked entirely feral.
"Mrs. Gordon," Henry said, his voice carrying over the wind. "This is Norah, the Duchess of Rothford. My wife."
Mrs. Gordon's eyes flicked from Henry to Norah. She didn't gasp. She didn't curtsy instantly. She assessed. She looked at Norah's mended muddy hem, the lack of a maid, and the severe unadorned braid down her back. Then she looked into Norah's eyes.
Norah didn't shrink. She didn't try to look regal or apologize for her appearance. She met the housekeeper's hard gaze with equal flint.