Love's Unexpected Awakening Elowen's Choice novel Chapter 270

Elowen is gone. Where did she go?

He reached out, only to find the bedding completely cold.

Has she really been awake that long already?

Cassian pushed himself upright.

"Ella?"

Footsteps sounded outside the room, but he immediately knew they did not belong to her.

Bran's voice followed.

"Your Grace, you're awake."

Cassian asked directly, "Where is the Duchess?"

Bran answered at once.

"She woke early this morning, had breakfast prepared in the kitchen, ate a little herself, and she's been in the next room reading."

Cassian nodded.

He dressed, settled into his wheelchair, and allowed Bran to push him into the adjoining room.

The study was quiet.

Elowen sat beside the window.

She wore a pale robe the color of moonlight. Her hair had not been styled formally, only twisted loosely at the crown and secured with a simple silver pin while the rest fell down her back in a long smooth cascade.

Sunlight streamed through the half-open window and made her skin appear almost luminous.

She was completely absorbed in her reading.

One hand rested lightly on the page while her posture remained straight, the line of her shoulders and neck elegant and composed.

Cassian stopped in the doorway and watched her.

He had read phrases like peaceful years in books before.

He had always thought them meaningless, something writers invented because they had never known real danger.

But looking at Elowen sitting quietly in the sunlight, he found himself wondering if such a thing truly existed.

"Your Grace," Bran asked softly, "should I take you inside?"

"No," Cassian replied.

"Go eat."

Elowen had been thoroughly exhausted the night before. Today she could read peacefully.

When she finished, she would come find him. And sooner or later they would share lunch and dinner anyway.

So Cassian finished his breakfast and later went to Hugh for treatment.

By the afternoon he had run out of patience.

He called Bran over. "What is she doing now? Shouldn't it be lunchtime?"

Bran went to ask and returned shortly afterward.

"The Duchess said she wasn't hungry earlier. She took a nap and woke up a little while ago. She's reading again."

Cassian stared at him.

Bran added cautiously, "Your Grace, if you're hungry I can ask the kitchen to prepare—"

"I'm not eating."

Cassian waved him away. "Leave."

So he waited. Elowen could not possibly spend the entire day reading.

Except she did.

By the time evening came and her empty stomach finally began protesting, Elowen at last set the book aside and stretched.

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