Chapter 16 #2
“You are going to breathe,” he continued. “You are going to stand here beside me, and you are going to remember that you are the Duchess of Carrowell and that means something in this room whether you feel it right now or not.”
She looked at him.
“Breathe,” he said.
She breathed.
“Good,” he said.
Emily looked up at him, her chest finally rising and falling in a steady rhythm. “How can you be so calm?” she whispered, her fingers curling into the fine wool of his sleeve. “These people are trying to damage your reputation. They are dragging your name through the mud just to get to me.”
She knew what she wanted from this life: security, a home for Frederick, but she had never intended for her presence to become a weight around Theodore’s neck.
The thought that her proximity might tarnish the prestige he had spent a lifetime maintaining made her stomach twist with a fresh wave of guilt.
Theodore’s expression didn't waver. If anything, his features sharpened into something flinty and immovable.
“My reputation is not so fragile that it can be toppled by the bored whispers of people who have nothing better to do than invent tragedies,” he said.
“I will not stand for you, or Frederick, or my name being insulted. You are my wife. He is my ward. That is the beginning and the end of the matter.”
He stepped a fraction closer, his shadow shielding her from the prying eyes of the ballroom. “It’s just a rumor. If it dies on its own, which it may, then good. If it does not want to die on its own... then I will kill it.”
She stared at him and then smiled. “With what?”
He inhaled sharply. “I’m pretty good with a sword.”
Emily let out a small, breathless laugh, her eyes shining as she looked at him.
In that moment, the relief was so sweet it was addictive.
She realized that she was opening herself up to this man in ways she hadn't prepared for.
She was tempted to feel things... dangerous, soft, permanent things that she had promised herself were impossible for an arrangement like this.
But as his hand remained firm on her shoulder and his gaze held hers with an intensity that felt like a promise, she couldn't bring herself to pull back.
It felt too good to be protected. It felt too right to be seen.
“Who is in here?”
The voice cracked through the silence of the library like a whip.
Emily gasped, her heart leaping into her throat as she nearly dropped the heavy, leather-bound volume she had just pulled from the shelf.
She hadn't expected another soul to be awake at this hour, let alone prowling the darkened corridors of the house.
The figure in the doorway was tall and familiar, and holding a candle.
She exhaled. “Theodore?” she called out.
“Emily?” He stepped inside, holding the candle up slightly. “Is that you? What on earth are you doing down here so late?”
“I couldn't sleep,” she admitted, hugging the book to her chest as if it were a shield.
In truth, sleep had felt like a distant country she couldn't reach. Every time she closed her eyes, the events of the ball played on a loop: the venomous whispers Euphemia had shared, the way the room had felt like it was closing in, and the steady, grounding weight of Theodore’s hand on her shoulder.
Her mind was a chaotic tangle. She had come to the library hoping that a dry history text might bore her into unconsciousness.
“And you?” she asked, trying to steady her breathing.
“I saw the light under the door. I wanted to check who was in here,” he said. “I could not sleep either. I was walking.”
“Walking,” she said.
“Around the house,” he said. “It helps sometimes. When I cannot settle.”
She looked at him, then down at herself, and almost laughed.
They were both in white.
She was wearing her nightgown, the ivory dressing gown that Peggy had laid out for her, the one with the small embroidered detail at the cuffs that she had always thought was slightly too fine for nightwear.
Her hair was down, loose around her shoulders, and her feet were in the soft slippers she wore when the floors were cold.
Theodore was wearing a white untucked shirt, with the collar loose and the cuffs turned back to the elbow.
His waistcoat was undone and hanging open, and he had clearly pulled a dark coat over the whole arrangement as a concession to the possibility of encountering another person, which he had now encountered.
His hair was falling forward at the temple as usual, with complete indifference to the hour or the company.
Theodore crossed the library toward her, set his candle down on the table beside hers, and looked at the shelf she had been standing in front of. He leaned back against the edge of the table, crossing his arms over his chest as he studied the heavy book still clutched in her hands.
“Did you find something worth reading?”
“Not quite,” she said. “At this point I would read anything. A treatise on drainage. Mr. Briggs's opinions on roses were compiled into a volume. Anything that would make my eyes heavy enough to close.”
He looked at the shelf. “I could find you something,” he said. “I am reasonably skilled at selecting the precise book that would defeat even the most determined wakefulness.”
“Is that a talent you developed intentionally?” she asked, turning to lean on the shelf.
“It developed naturally,” he said. “I spent a considerable portion of my youth in this library looking for exactly that kind of book.”
Emily looked at him, her pulse thrumming.
The candlelight softened the hard lines of his face, making him seem approachable, almost vulnerable.
For weeks, she had been a guest in his life, piecing together fragments of who he was from rumors and banter.
She felt the curiosity she had been carrying for weeks move toward the surface.
She took a breath, her heart racing with a different kind of nerves. “What if you told me about yourself instead?” she asked softly. “I think I would prefer that to any book on these shelves.”
Theodore tilted his head, looking at her strangely, his eyes dark. “About me? That is a vast and largely boring territory, Emily. What could you possibly want to know?”
She moved to the table and leaned against it, arms folded, beside him. They were both facing the fireplace, the low warm light of it, side by side with the table behind them, close enough that she could have reached out and touched his arm without fully extending hers.
“I heard your father was a strict man,” she began, her voice steadying as she went.
“That you were raised under a very rigid thumb. I’ve been wondering.
.. how does someone raised in such a cold, disciplined house turn out to be someone who tells jokes so easily?
Who is the liveliest person in the ballroom?
By all accounts, you should be uptight and quiet.
.. peaceful, perhaps, but very cool. You are the opposite of all those things. ”
Theodore let out a sudden, genuine laugh that echoed through the stacks. “I am not entirely sure if I should take that as a compliment or an observation of my lack of decorum.”
He looked away for a moment, his gaze fixed on a distant shadow, before he turned back to her. The humor faded, and he crossed both arms too. “It is... personal. But I suppose we have passed the point of keeping such secrets.”
“I would hope so,” she said quietly.
He sighed, his fingers tracing a phantom pattern on the wood of the table.
“A long time ago, I looked at the man my father had become, a bitter, isolated man, feared by everyone who should have loved him. I made a vow to myself then that I would not be him. I would not turn out to be a man who sucked the air out of every room he entered. It is a rebellion, Emily, if you want to call it that. I spent years learning how to be exactly who he told me I could never be.”
He glanced at her. “Then at some point, it stopped being a deliberate effort,” he said. “It simply became who I was. Or who I chose to be. I am not entirely sure there is a difference.”
“But why?” she asked, lowering her head so she could get a better look at his face. “Why? Was your father very unkind to you? What happened to him? What made him who he was?”
“I don't know,” he answered quietly. “He had always been like that. For as long as I can remember, he was simply that man. Cold and exacting and certain that the world owed him a particular standard of conduct from everyone in it, including his own son.” He paused.
“I used to think there must have been a version of him before. Some earlier version, before whatever happened to him happened, that was different. That was the man my mother had married.” He was quiet for a moment.
“I could never find any evidence of that man. Not in this house. Not in anything he left behind.”
Emily looked at him. “Your mother?” she said softly.
Theodore smiled faintly. “My mother… she was the only light in this place. She used to play the pianoforte until my father told her it was a frivolous distraction. She used to laugh until he told her it was unseemly for a Duchess. One morning, I woke up, and the music was gone. She had simply fled. When I was a boy. I still don’t understand why she left me behind. ”
Emily felt a sharp pang of sympathy, her heart aching for the young boy left behind in this cold, silent house. “I am so sorry,” she whispered.
“I do not blame her,” he said and shook his head.
“I have never blamed her. The only person to blame is my father. My mother was someone who needed warmth, and she was living with a man who had none to give, and one day she simply could not stay in it any longer.” He looked at the fire.
“It’s only logical that she did not stay. ”
“Did you see her again?” Emily said.
“No,” he answered simply, the finality in his voice carrying a hollow ache that seemed to echo through the stacks of books.