Ines's frantic jumps ceased. She landed on the floor with a flat-footed thump, her breath coming in ragged, painful gasps.
The adrenaline was gone, replaced by a cold, leaden dread. He had the paper. He had read the words. He was tucking the evidence safely into his coat pocket, a place she could never reach.
She was defeated.
Slowly, her hands trembling, she tried to regain some scrap of her dignity. She smoothed the front of her gardening apron, her gaze fixed on the floor, on the scattered, crushed rose seeds that lay around her feet.
"It is just a short novel," she said, her voice small, thin, and breathless. She was trying to make it sound unimportant, like a child's game. "A silly story. I don't think it is something the Duke should be concerned about." She put a cold, formal distance in his title, trying to push him back, to re-establish the walls he had just shattered.
