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“I try to refrain fro such crass assumptions, but in this case, I think I know you more than you like to admit,” the duke expressed, emotion laced frilly and warm in his tone
“Know me? Pfeh! We spoke over dinner, and only for a few moments, before you folded beneath the pressure of the saust from that boorish man’s throat,” she howled in disdain
“I know our exchange did not last long, m’lady, but there’s far more to it than that I… I feel I do understand you, because like you yourself admitted, we are both chained - chained by thewithin, but circus clipped,” the duke spoke with a passion welling in his tone
“What do you know of social disadvantage? Has anyone ever told you to do so the reins of her steed tightly as she prepared to depart
“They have,” he adh
“When?” Anne asked derisively, expecting some manner of a silly answer
“When the law forced me to inherit over my dear sister,” he said Anne rolled her eyes, but listened nonetheless as the duke paced about the stables, gripped in savage memory
“Wealth and title can be so burdensome,” she murmured
“They can,” he called back, jagged as a sharpened sword “They can They can ruin your relationship with friends - with fahed “H
er heart burned like no man I have ever met She could start a fire froes from classic literature, or retell the history of a dozen battles, and with such fervor She taught me to climb trees - and I would fall from their branches far h on his lips “I loved my sister with clearest heart and conviction, m’lady I had interests abroad - I had found love elsewhere, in exploring the world; in seeing its many worlds and its many peoples I had wanted the same freedom you clamor for, in that sense,on his cheeks “But it was not le, older sister capable of inheriting A sister who refused to take a hand in e, or convenience,” he recalled, blustery, a tear biting at his eye Surprise quieted Anne’s expression as she watched the duke recount his story
“But you could have… done so, couldn’t you?” Anne pleaded, almost silently
“I hope not to equivocate your burden with mine, as I knoomen bear the pain of expectation in their oay,” the duke said, “but we are not so different in our suffering, m’lady My father expectedthe estate to his daughter, a wo and socializing and fulfilling all the duty one would expect of a noble,” he lamented “Yet he refused to consider the possibility, for expectation laid those responsibilities upon my shoulder And when h I did not wish to, she turned away fro his fists tightly, so tight in painful ht her breath aardly, her visage still spread wide in surprise at the tale
“And… so…” she reasoned “Your… your sister, she…”
“Love has eluded iven the expectations upon all of our shoulders as gentlee, but reed, or power - I’ve wanted only to see the world set right, so that what happened to ain,” Lawrence ad the sun through the stable , cresting over a hill as cottony-dark clouds gathered in a cloak across its fiery orange-yellow surface “I have no wish to dominate you, m’lady I have no wish to force you to attend silly frippery like the earl’s extravagant dinners I do not expect you to bear s and clean up after each of them I have no interest in the conventional In that, I feel we can find soh he could not bring himself to look upon her face and see her response, which he certainly presuhtfully scornful Instead, silence fell between the the air He broke the silence with one last admission “I do not want that passion, that fire inside of your chest, to die away I do not want the unconventional to fade”
“I…of her throat “Would… would you like to ride with me?” The question drew surprise across the duke’s expression, his dark-gray eyes narrowing and his brow furrowing in confusion as he turned to find Anne, her cheeks in a subtle blush “I’m… I’m sure one of my father’s steeds would suit you, if… if you have a , that is,” she added with a smile