Daniel stood outside the front door of Castle Keyvnor and bid his farewell to the guests who preferred to return home at once rather than remain on unhallowed grounds a single moment longer.
“My lord?” One of the castle footmen materialized at Daniel’s side. “Shall I ready your coach now, or have it waiting for you in the morning?”
A pit formed in Daniel’s stomach. Despite his original disinclination to ever set foot again in Castle Keyvnor, now that the time had come to leave, the thought of doing so filled him with hollowness too exquisite to bear.
Leaving Castle Keyvnor meant leaving Rebecca. He was no longer certain that was a loss he could endure.
“Not tonight,” he said to the footman. “Perhaps tomorrow afternoon would be better.”
The footman inclined his head. “As you wish, my lord.”
Daniel’s mood soured. No. Not as he wished. His world was slowly crumbling apart. Everything he thought he wanted, everything he’d worked so hard to achieve…paled if Rebecca wasn’t right there beside him. He closed his eyes.
There was no use fighting the truth any longer. He was in love with her.
Always had been.
As the last of the departing carriages rumbled over the bridge and out of view, he turned away from the drawbridge, away from the stables, and strode instead through the geometric rows of flowers in the front garden.
Once, he might have been surprised that cursed grounds this sinister could be home to something so pure and lovely.
Now, he knew better.
He turned to glance over his shoulder at the imposing stone of the fortified castle. The love of his life was somewhere inside. But Rebecca wasn’t waiting for a white knight to rescue her. She was too strong for that.
She’d done all of the rescuing herself.
For years, she’d managed to survive without family, without a true guardian, cut off from friends and loved ones. More than survive. She’d managed to twist the tale.
Whilst Daniel was off learning to be a viscount, she’d been minding the earldom through ingenious anonymous letters. Whilst other young ladies struggled to navigate the fraught waters of the beau monde, Rebecca quite literally designed a labyrinth to which only she knew all its secrets.
All this time, Daniel had allowed his grandmother’s high-handed influence and his fear of others rejecting Rebecca to act as a drawbridge demarcating the battle lines of his world versus hers.
But Rebecca wasn’t fighting a battle. She was living the life she wanted. She would never bow to the constraints of proscribed mores or cower before the likes of Lady North Barrows.
The force to be reckoned with wasn’t the judgmental whim of the ton, but the desires of Rebecca herself. She’d proven time and again that others’ opinions held no power over her.
Women’s brains couldn’t do figures? Rebecca did. Women couldn’t find their way out of a hatbox? Have a hedge maze. Women were helpless without a maid—or a man? Even smugglers hadn’t found the treacherous strip of isolated beach Rebecca chose to bathe in.
She did not require his protection or his coddling. The only thing she needed was the right to decide her future for herself.
Including whether or not Daniel became part of it.
He loved her so much that his heart ached from the anguish. He dreamed of her every night. Yearned for her every moment they were apart. Flooded with joy at the merest glimpse of her face.
Yet she had no reason to feel the same. No reason to trust him. Even if he confessed his very soul, she still had no proof at all that when he said he was hers forever, he meant every word. Quite simply, love alone would not be good enough.
Now that he realized how much he needed her, how was he going to convince her he wouldn’t let her down again?