The Duke Posed as a Servant to Observe His Fiancée… and What He Heard Broke His Heart

Chapter 2

There is a particular kind of discomfort that money buys a man immunity from, and Adrian had paid that price so consistently that he had forgotten what the bill felt like. The mail coach introduced him to it again.

Eighteen hours. Wooden benches worn into hollows by a hundred thousand strangers. A window that would not close, spitting rain onto his shoulder until the wool was black with it. The farmer’s elbow in his ribs; the Bible’s spine in his hip; the terrible, rolling rhythm of the road that turned a man’s stomach inside out somewhere past Northampton and left it that way until Derbyshire.

He had not slept. He had told himself it was the bench.