Chapter 16 #2
He could not deny that Dorothy had, in some persistent way, become entwined in his days.
Her voice carried into his decisions, her presence wound itself through his routines.
It was as though she had crept into the very fabric of his life, and rather than resist, he had accepted it.
Not openly, not even willingly, but accepted all the same.
Magnus shifted, eyes narrowing at the thought.
This was not the arrangement he had planned for himself.
Not the carefully ordered future he had envisioned for his household.
Dorothy was to have been a convenience, a caretaker for Eugenia, a shield against society’s endless demands.
She was not meant to touch anything beyond that.
Yet, this impossible woman was making him do things he would never have done. Agreeing to accompany her to a dressmaker, of all things... What madness was that? He could scarcely reconcile it with the man he believed himself to be.
Was it good, this yielding? Or was it the first crack in the armor he had so carefully forged?
He did not know, and that ignorance unnerved him most of all.
“Your Grace… the Duchess will be out in a moment. She is… ah… trying on one of the gowns she selected.”
The soft rustle of skirts drew his attention, and when he lifted his gaze from the carpet, he found the modiste hovering a few feet away. She clasped her hands tightly before her, as though they might steady her nerves, and offered a stammering curtsy.
Magnus inclined his head in acknowledgment, saying nothing.
It was enough. For at the moment his eyes met hers, the woman flinched as though she had brushed too near a flame.
The faint color drained from her cheeks, and her gaze darted anywhere but him.
He had seen the reaction before more times than he could count.
A shrinking back, a wariness that clung to the air like smoke.
Yes. That was how the world usually received him.
He was a large man, broad-shouldered, his presence sharpened by the authority he carried like a mantle.
He had long ago ceased to resent the recoil of others or the whispers that followed his name.
In truth, he found the fear almost useful.
It spared him from unnecessary chatter and kept people from daring to get too close.
Perhaps the modiste had heard some of the same rumors that circulated in London’s drawing rooms, the ones that painted him as severe, ruthless, untouchable.
If so, it would only justify her trembling now.
But with Dorothy…
Magnus drew in a breath, his gaze hardening even as the thought pressed against him. Dorothy didn’t recoil. Even on the day they first met, when she might have had every reason to bow her head and avoid his stare, she had tried not to. Her chin had lifted occasionally, and her eyes had met his.
She still did it. Again and again, she met him head-on—questioning, defying, speaking when silence might have served her better.
It ought to have infuriated him. At times it did.
Yet he could not deny the peculiar power of it, that he, Magnus Fitzgerald, Duke of Walford, who had spent his life commanding obedience, now found himself bending, yielding, conceding small victories to a woman who refused to cower.
Was that why he had become so… compliant? Why his no had so easily shifted into a yes where she was concerned?
The door opened at last, and Dorothy stepped through.
Magnus had thought himself prepared, but the sight of her struck him like a sudden blow to the chest. The gown flowed around her in a sweep of deep sapphire silk, embroidered with the faintest silver thread that caught the light and shimmered like starlight.
The cut was modest yet flattering, the fabric molding to her form in ways that drew his unwilling notice.
He stood rooted where he was, fingers tightening imperceptibly at his sides, as though he could steady himself by sheer force of will.
Dorothy moved with an unstudied grace, crossing to the long mirror at the far end of the room.
She smoothed her palms over the gown, the soft rustle of silk filling the silence.
“I had almost forgotten,” she murmured, her voice carrying a curious mix of wonder and nostalgia.
“I had forgotten how London always seems to outdo itself in matters of fashion. This dress is… beautiful.”
Magnus found himself walking toward her without quite realizing it, drawn as though the gown itself compelled him forward.
He came to stand behind her, his towering figure reflected in the mirror above her slight shoulders.
His gaze traced the intricate lines of embroidery, the richness of the hue against her skin, the way the bodice framed her with such exactness.
Every detail imprinted itself on his mind until he felt as though he could sketch the gown from memory.
Dorothy, however, was not looking at the gown. Through the mirror, her eyes sought his. Her reflection met his steady, searching stare, and the room seemed to narrow around them until nothing remained but that shared gaze.
“What do you think of it?” she asked softly, her lips curving though not with her usual smile. “Or would you rather I try on another?”
He did not answer at once. The words that rose to his tongue were far too honest, far too dangerous. He loved it. He loved it because she looked like no one else in this room could ever deserve to look.
Instead, his voice came out rougher than intended. “Do you like it?”
Dorothy held his gaze, her reflection steady in the glass. “Yes. I like it very much.”
Magnus’s throat tightened. The thought surged again, unbidden, relentless. She looked radiant... maybe too radiant, and the simple truth threatened to betray itself in his expression.
Still, she pressed him, her tone almost teasing, though her eyes did not leave his. “And you, Your Grace? Do you want me to keep it?”
The question hung between them, charged, daring him to step beyond the safety of silence.
Magnus found himself moving again before reason could catch up to him.
A single step carried him onto the low dais where she stood before the mirror, her reflection still watching him.
He saw her tense as soon as he closed the distance; her shoulders drew a fraction higher, her breath deepened, and the rise and fall of her chest suddenly became uneven.
Her fingers curled into a fist at her side, as though bracing herself against something unseen.
He knew she felt him behind her. He could see it in every nervous line of her frame.
Still, he had come too near to retreat now.
His hand lifted, slow and deliberate, until his fingers brushed against the fabric of her sleeve.
The silk was impossibly soft beneath his touch, cool and smooth, and yet the reaction it provoked from her was immediate.
Dorothy twitched, her shoulder shifting subtly away, as though the simple graze of his fingertips had burned.
The movement snapped her eyes to his through the mirror. They locked there, hers wide and uncertain, his steady though the control cost him something sharp inside. Neither looked away, not even when the silence thickened into something that hummed in the very air.
“You can keep it,” he said at last, his voice low, almost intimate for how near they stood. “Wear it for the ball if you prefer.”
The words were far less than what thundered through him, but they were all he dared. Her face was so close to his, their gazes bound too tightly, the air between them charged enough to undo him.
Abruptly, he let his hand fall and stepped back, as though distance could smother the pressure building in his chest. His heart beat a furious rhythm against his ribs, the sort that left him faintly breathless though he betrayed nothing outwardly.
“The dress is fitting,” he said more firmly, reclaiming something of his usual composure though the words scraped rough in his throat. “It will do for the ball.”
Yet as he spoke, he could still feel the phantom sensation of silk beneath his fingers, and the sharper memory of how she had flinched from his touch, leaving an ache that settled low in his stomach.
Dorothy inclined her head in a small nod, her eyes not quite meeting his as she clutched the gown at her sides. With careful movements, she stepped away, almost as though retreating, and disappeared behind the screen to change.
Magnus turned his head, fastening his gaze upon the looking glass where her reflection had been only moments before, his chest still taut with an odd pressure. He did not allow himself to dwell on it, though the quickened beat of his heart betrayed him.
Magnus inhaled, steadying himself, and pivoted toward the modiste. She stood with her hands folded, her smile polite yet faintly strained, as though she had been holding her breath during the entire exchange. He strode toward her and stopped only a few feet away.
“Make ten gowns in this style,” he said. “Ten. Each in a different color. Have them sent to Walford Manor.”
At his command, the modiste’s shoulders loosened, as if the tension that had drawn her taut had finally given way. Relief flickered across her face, followed by brisk composure. She sank into a graceful curtsy.
“Very well, Your Grace. I will see to it at once.”
Magnus inclined his head, dismissing her with a glance, though inwardly he could still feel the thrum beneath his ribs.
When Dorothy reemerged, once again clothed in the dress she had worn into the shop, she offered a hasty curtsy and murmured something polite before excusing herself.
The bell over the door chimed as she vanished from view.