Theo barely escaped the overheated and overly decorated room with his wits about him. He stepped out into the bitter night. December had blown in with no mercy for the people of London. Flurries of snow swirled around him, and the whipping wind was a welcome contrast to the unbearable heat from within.

The heat of Lord Clemonte's breath as he carried on about the benefits of the marriage. The heat of Lord Trotten's face as he stood against it, undoubtedly fueled by a past he was yet unwilling to share. The heat of Addie's gaze as she willed him to look at her. And lastly, the heat of Andrew's quiet assessment, which seemed to imply his knowledge of what Theo wanted to say while also willing him to stay silent.

Theo, who had always believed himself strong, could no longer stay in that room. It was breaking him. So he had to leave.

Unfortunately, he had quickly been found out.

"You didn't deny it, you know." Lord Trotten's voice sliced through the wind.

Theo sighed, rounding back on Lord Trotten and his house. "Deny what?"

"Earlier, when you asked why I was forewarning you about the proposal. I had said that I know what it is like to lose the woman you love. You didn't deny that you loved her."

Theo's hair flew around him in the wind as he shrugged. "What is the point? If it is a secret, it is a poorly concealed one, at least to those that matter."

Trotten considered the statement. "Yes, perhaps for some of those who matter. But not for the one who matters most." He paused and Theo stared blankly at him. "Adelaide. You need to tell her, Kingfield."

Theo threw his hands in the air, giving up. "Damnit, Trotten, why the bloody hell would I do that? She has to marry the prince, save the country. All of that. She doesn't need me or want me. Even if she did, it would only complicate matters."

"Why don't you at least give her the option of deciding?" Trotten pressed.

When Theo only shook his head and ran his fingers through his wind-tousled hair, the other man continued.

"I didn't tell Emilia the truth when I left her. I didn't tell her what was really going on. I made the decision without her knowing. There's a part of me that regrets that," he finished, maudlin.

Theo rolled his eyes in response. "If you still wanted her, you would have told me the truth by now. You would have told her by now." Lord Trotten was silent. "But you're not going to tell me why you really left her, are you?"

Trotten approached him calmly, his eyes narrowing in contemplation, his hands deep inside his pocket of his buckskin breeches. When Theo thought he might launch into a pleading explanation, he came to a stop just inches before Theo and simply said, "No, I'm not."

"I don't have time for this," Theo muttered and turned to leave.

Lord Trotten shrugged. "Wrong. You'll soon find that you have too much time. For it is you who will have to live a lifetime without her."

Theo stopped short, his stomach plummeting at hearing the words aloud. Words he had been thinking but refused to ponder on. Damn this infuriating man. He glared back at him.

"I'll go with her to meet the king and queen. I'll see if the marriage conditions are met. And then I'll consider telling her."

Lord Trotten walked toward him again. Christ, the man was practically stalking him.

"If you expose yourself as her ally, she won't be able to stay with you in your home any longer," Trotten pointed out.

Theo bristled. "I can protect her."

Trotten's eyebrows rose in a challenge. "In the middle of the night when they come for her in your servants' corridor, you'll be asleep like a babe in your giant bed. You'll wake up in the morning and she will be gone."

Theo's blood boiled, knowing there was truth there. "What do you propose?"

"Adelaide can stay here. They will never suspect it." Lord Trotten shrugged as if it wasn't a treasonous offense to harbor her.

Theo scoffed, "Alone, with you?"

Another shrug. "She could bring a companion if you'd like. She seems to have grown rather close with your sister."

Theo started toward him. "No, no, and no. This is just some ploy to get close to Emilia, and I will not allow it." Theo found himself inches from him again, shaking his finger at Lord Trotten as if the viscount were a six-year-old boy who had gotten into the Christmas ham. Trotten ignored it.

"Suit yourself, but with you and Andrew accompanying Adelaide to meet the king and queen, I can protect them in ways you can't."

"Fuck you, Trotten. If my sister were seen at your house, she would be ruined."

A small, somewhat sad smile crept upon Trotten's face.

"She already is, remember?" And then he clapped Theo on the back and cut through the cold night to return to the warmth of his home. "Let me know what you decide, Kingfield!" he hollered back through the wind.

"Shit," Theo swore under his breath. He dug his hands into his pockets, starting in the direction of home. It was perhaps a thirty-minute walk in the chilling breeze, to put it mildly, but Theo found comfort in the distraction.

"Goddammit," he swore again.

He passed through Mayfair without seeing a single soul, only passing by their resplendent houses, row after row of perfectly manicured facades. It was too late in the night for any respectable man, woman or child of the peerage to be continuing any type of merrymaking, and it was still too early for any servant to be rousing.

So Theo walked along in silence, with just the wind and his footsteps to keep him company. And his thoughts, though he could honestly go without those at the moment.

Trotten was right. Even if Theo didn't go with Addie to discuss the terms of her marriage to Prince George, Andrew would. Their connections were too tied; it would implicate his household regardless.

Addie had to move out. And assuming he could trust Lord Trotten, the safest place for her would be in his residence. So to his house, she would go. And God help him, Emilia would too.

The two women plagued him. Women who he could not control, nor protect as he wished he could do. It seemed at times as though men were the ones he was fighting against, but he knew that wasn't fair to say. Society was the mean mistress that condemned and endangered her own women.

****

It had been four days since the gathering at Lord Trotten's house, which subsequently meant that it had also been four days since Addie had seen Theo. She wanted desperately to talk to him—though, to be honest, she wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to say even after four days of thinking about it.

Perhaps it wasn't that she wanted to say anything, it was more that she wanted him to say something. She wanted a reaction, some advice, a declaration—anything that implied he cared at all.

So when Addie woke up on the fifth day after the meeting at Lord Trotten's house, she decided to go find her elusive duke. No, not hers. Never hers. Just an elusive duke.

She walked through the bustling hallways that were a ducal residence in the morning, all the people it took to keep the house running daily going about their work. Passing them by with determination, she ducked her head into the library, giving the massive room a once-over before deciding that the master of the house was not in it.

She then continued on through the house to his study, not even bothering to knock before entering his sacred space where he conducted all his daily dealings. But to her disappointment, there was no one inside to care.

So, Adelaide did what any self-respecting woman would do when she had been ignored for nigh a week. She forgot all else other than getting the attention she deserved and walked straight up to the duke's private rooms and knocked. Twice, actually, and when there wasn't a response, she just walked inside. Or perhaps it was more of a triumphant waltz inside.

She was met with darkness, and it took several moments for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. It was nearly noon, the rest of the house adorned with the sun streaming in through the windows.

But here the curtains were drawn tight over the panes, shutting out any light from reaching within. Addie examined the chamber, her eyes stopping at the bed. There was a massive lump within it. Was he sleeping? Addie walked around the bed to find a passed out, snoring, Duke of Kingfield.

Addie promptly strolled over to the window and threw back the curtain directly to the left of the huge bed. Whether it was the sound of the curtains thrashing open or the light that hit Theo straight in the face, he lurched upwards with a strangled sound.

Addie smirked.

"What the devil!" Theo cursed, whipping his head around to squint at her. "Addie?"

"Is this what you've been doing all week?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

When all he did was gape at her, she continued.

"I've been doing your laundry, stoking your fires, helping to prepare your meals, all while worrying about marrying the future King of England and you've been what? Sleeping?"

Her clipped words seemed to awaken him as he sprung from bed, uncovering himself before her as he stalked toward her. He was in a considerable state of undress, in the way that, well...

The Duke of Kingfield wasn't wearing anything at all.