The Duke (Victorian Rebels, #4)

by Kerrigan Byrne

“You haven’t any idea the strength it takes to be a woman. In my experience, it is men who are the weaker sex. Either too undisciplined to control their baser, primal instincts or, conversely, they are too fragile to endure the discomfort of honesty or integrity. Yet women endure and survive by whatever means we are able. And still we are either property or playthings. We have as much use in the eyes of the law as a cow or a fertile plot of land. It is not wrong to mistreat us. To objectify us. To shame and demand things of us and bend us to your will. That is your right as a man and our duty as a woman. Is it any wonder the world is in chaos?”

another. “Anyway, the moment I came out of mourning for Edward, I burned all my black dresses, and ordered a new trousseau in all the brightest colors of the spectrum imaginable. I wear them at my leisure, to remind myself that for all the gray in the London sky, there’s always color to be found. A smile to give. A kindness to share. A sunny day to look forward to. Or at the very least … a bright dress to wear. You see, Cole, if I cannot find that color, if there is no bright spot, then I must become one.”

Perhaps he should have his head examined. “I believe you find your way out of the mire with small but consistent victories,” she mused, giving him a sad smile. “But you must look for the light, as it will not always find you. You must stop to marvel at commonplace miracles. You must find wonder in the mundane. To me it’s like weeding through a cacophony to find a melody, and then learning to hum along.” A brittle and bedeviled emotion coursed through him, and he had to gather his composure in order to meet her gentle gaze. She couldn’t possibly know, could she? The maelstrom of angst and rage he grappled with just to pry himself out of his restless bed. The despair that seemed heavier than any load that had previously tested the strength of his shoulders. The alarming and imaginary pain in his missing hand. The endless stretch of lonely days. He was a man who had everything. Money, power, influence, charm, and almost unparalleled physical prowess, despite his injury. And still he was filled with emptiness. Alone in a crowded room. A soldier without a war. A spy without a mark. Except here. Now. On this bench with this woman. The beast within him was still and perhaps for the first time since he’d returned from Constantinople he was … himself. Finally, he felt the sunlight break through the gray.

“I would fall in love with you if you’d let me.” Her agonized whisper shook the foundations of the ground beneath his feet. They were no longer suspended in a fantastical midnight sky, but crashed back to the hard and unflinching earth, spinning and spinning in an endless orbit toward eventual oblivion. She was here, in his arms. Not locked in a memory he couldn’t fully recall, or stashed on a pedestal constructed of the past. Here. Offering him her gentle, honest heart.