Page 82 of Stolen By the Heartless Duke

She tried to pull her wrist free. His grip didn’t loosen. “Please just leave my father’s things here. I am asking you, please, just to let this go.”

“And I am asking you,” he replied, “to remember your place.”

The words struck harder than his grip. Jane went still.

A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. The smallest confirmation that he had landed where he intended. “You are a guest in your own home at the moment,” Zachary continued. “Do not forget that I am acting under lawful authority.”

His grip loosened slightly as if he was about to dismiss her again, to turn away, to end the conversation on his terms.

That was his mistake. Jane moved. She shifted her weight, angled her wrist in the smallest way she had learned, just enough to break the pressure point he had been relying on. His fingers slipped. Lord Zachary’s eyes widened in surprise. This was the second time she had been able to do this.

Jane stepped back immediately, putting space between them, her wrist free at last. She rubbed it once without looking down at it.

“I told you,” she said quietly, “not to do that.”

Zachary stared at her now with something new in his expression. Not anger yet. “You are learning things,” he said slowly.

Jane lifted her chin. “You have forced me to.”

For a moment, he just looked at her. Really looked at her. As if reassessing what she was capable of. Then his mouth curved slightly.

“That is unfortunate,” he said.

Jane didn’t move. He stepped closer by half a pace, and she didn’t retreat.

“You should understand something,” Zachary continued. “It does not matter what tricks you think you have learned. It does not matter what little alliances you think you are forming. In the end, I hold the authority here. And authority is not earned by sentiment.”

Jane’s voice came out steady, though her heart was still pounding. “Then it should worry you that you are so desperate to remind me of it.”

“That is enough,” he said, turning slightly. “Go find your mother. And stop interfering.”

Jane didn’t move immediately. She watched him as he began to walk away down the corridor, calm and composed again, as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t just slipped his grip. As if she hadn’t just learned something that changed the shape of the house around her.

Only when he disappeared around the corner did Jane finally exhale. Her wrist ached faintly, but she barely felt it.

Zachary had stopped seeing her as a niece. Jane turned slowly and walked back toward the main hall, her steps steady even as her thoughts began to move faster than they ever had before.

Jane had barely made it halfway down the corridor before she heard hurried footsteps behind her.

“Jane!” Her mother’s voice cracked through the air like something fragile breaking.

Jane stopped immediately, forcing her expression to settle into something neutral before she turned.

Her mother came into view at once, breathless, pale, her hands twisting as if she couldn’t decide whether to reach out or hold herself together. Her eyes went straight to Jane’s face, then her wrist.

“What has happened?” she demanded, already panicking. “I heard voices—raised voices—and then the servants said Zachary was in the house again and—” She broke off, staring more closely now. “Jane, your wrist?—”

“It’s nothing,” Jane said quickly.

Her mother didn’t believe her for a second.

She stepped forward, taking Jane’s hand without waiting for permission. Jane almost pulled back out of instinct, but stopped herself just in time. Her mother’s fingers were trembling as she turned Jane’s wrist slightly, her face tightening when she saw the faint marks left behind.

“Oh my God,” her mother whispered.

Jane exhaled softly, already preparing the version of the truth that would be allowed to exist.

“It was just a disagreement,” she said evenly. “Nothing more.”