Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
“Your modesty seems somewhat belated, Duchess,” Leo observed, amusement evident in his voice as Beatrice turned away with such haste that she nearly lost her balance.
She braced herself against the bedpost as the soft rustle of his discarded clothing reached her. Every instinct of propriety wrestled with a curiosity she couldn’t quite quell.
Then, she heard water splash into what she presumed was the bathtub.
“Considering you’ve already seen me in a similar state of undress during your unexpected visit to the folly.”
The memory of that encounter—his powerful form rising from the bath like some classical statue come to life—sent a fresh wave of heat through her body.
“Propriety demands certain observances, regardless of previous… circumstances,” she managed, her voice steadier than she would have anticipated.
His laugh, a rich, genuine sound in contrast to the practiced chuckle she was used to hearing from him, filled the small chamber with warmth.
Beatrice perched on the edge of the bed, her back turned, trying to ignore the soft sounds of him moving about behind her. She peeled off her bonnet and coat, folding them with rigid care, though her fingers shook slightly.
Leo was behind her, naked. Totally bare. And the thought set her skin on fire.
The splash of water slowed, leaving only the steady drum of rain and the occasional growl of distant thunder. The quiet pressed against her, and before she realized it, words slipped out, betraying her attention.
“Why do you take ice baths?” she asked. “It seems a peculiar habit, particularly when conventional comforts are readily available.”
For several moments, she thought he would ignore her question. The silence stretched until she began to regret speaking at all. But then he answered.
“My father liked to test character with a bit of discomfort,” he said lightly, as if he were discussing the weather. “Ice baths were his preferred method. ‘Master the cold, and you master yourself,’ he would say. I never minded. It does make a man… steadier.”
Something in his calm, measured tone made her pause. She turned despite herself, drawn by a sense that he was keeping more beneath the surface.
She found him sitting in the narrow tub, water clinging to his broad shoulders, his muscles flexing as he shifted to fit.
Her eyes lingered on him, but it was his expression that rooted her in place—distant, withdrawn.
As if his thoughts were far from the room, buried in memories she could not reach.
“Your father… He began this with you?” she asked softly, keeping her voice low, careful not to press too hard.
Leo’s gaze met hers, steady but untroubled. “Yes,” he said simply. “He saw no reason to let anyone else do it. Started when I was small.”
Her heart clenched at the thought, but his tone, so calm and unremarkable, made it impossible to see it as anything more than routine for him.
“How old were you when he started?” she asked.
Leo looked away for a moment. “The first time, I was… six years old. I was crying over a fallen horse, I believe. Displays of emotion were considered unacceptable weaknesses, and they required immediate correction.”
His calm account of what must have been a terrifying ordeal sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with the drafty room. She pressed her lips into a thin line.
“That seems rather harsh for a child’s tears,” she said, her voice steady, though the anger simmering beneath it demanded careful control.
“There were worse times,” he admitted, his voice flat, almost conversational, as if recounting an ordinary lesson.
“Once, around nine or ten, I stumbled over some Latin declensions. He left me in the ice bath until I passed out. The physician mentioned later that a few more minutes would’ve killed me.
” He shrugged lightly, and she detected a faint, humorless curve to his lips.
“He seemed more disappointed that I wasn’t stronger than concerned about… well, me surviving, I suppose.”
The revelation stunned Beatrice into momentary silence. Hearing him speak so matter-of-factly about what must have been cruel, if not traumatic, for a child made pieces of him that she had never understood click into place.
The distance he kept even now, the careful control of his emotions… it wasn’t affectation. It was how he had learned to survive.
“Yet you keep at it,” she said at last, her voice soft, though her words carried all the wonder and concern she could not disguise.
Leo held her gaze, stripped bare yet somehow still armored in his usual reserve.
“Habit,” he uttered. “Or perhaps perverse commemoration. I find it… sobering. A reminder I can keep control when every instinct screams at me to give in.”
Beatrice rose without thinking, drawn forward by an impulse she didn’t question.
She moved slowly, cautiously, having no idea how to approach a naked man.
At the bath, she knelt, bringing herself level with him, suddenly aware of how much he had shown her in these few minutes.
Certainly, more than in their time together.
“The water must be terribly cold,” she murmured, her hand hovering above the surface, hesitant to touch yet unable to look away.
“That is rather the point,” he replied, though the sardonic edge had left his voice, replaced by something more complex.
Uncertainty.
Uncertainty at this emotional proximity.
Without conscious thought, Beatrice allowed her fingertips to brush the water’s surface. The shock of cold against her skin was immediate and intense, forcing an involuntary gasp from her lips.
“How can you bear it?” she asked.
“Practice,” he answered, watching her with careful attention. “The body can be trained to accept nearly any condition, given sufficient motivation.”
“And the mind?” she inquired, raising her gaze to meet his directly. “Can it similarly be trained to accept conditions contrary to its nature?”
The question lingered, heavy with unspoken meaning.
In the small room, far from the rules and expectations that usually shaped their interactions, something new had arisen. It wasn’t physical intimacy, despite his nakedness, but rather a glimpse of the man beneath the careful control.
“The mind is more… complicated,” Leo admitted, the words emerging reluctantly. “Less obedient to discipline, despite one’s best efforts.”
Beatrice considered his words, aware of how rare it was for him to speak so openly.
“Perhaps not everything can be disciplined as we do the body,” she said softly, yet with quiet certainty. “Some parts of us resist control, no matter how hard we try.”
Leo studied her, as if searching for some hidden meaning in her words. The lamplight flickered across his face, leaving half in shadow, half revealed, and enough to intrigue her. Enough to remind her that there was still much she didn’t know.
“You speak with surprising confidence about things you haven’t lived yourself,” he said, his tone more curious than critical. “Did your sheltered upbringing include lessons on the ways of the world?”
She blinked for a moment, recalling how reluctant her father had been to open up to her, Isabella, and even their stepmother.
Beatrice herself had seen how much effort Christine had put into knocking down her father’s walls, to soften him, to show him that he could love them freely, openly, and without any fear.
“Observation doesn’t need experience or formal lessons,” Beatrice said, shifting slightly closer to the bath, ignoring the impropriety of it. “A quiet temperament lets you see what others overlook in their eagerness to be noticed.”
A faint smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “The benefit of being overlooked,” he murmured. “Society’s blind spots can teach you more than most realize.”
Beatrice chewed on the inside of her cheek, recalling how she despised being overlooked by her father and their servants in contrast to her boisterous twin sister.
However, all of that had melted away with her stepmother’s arrival.
And yet that tiny little feeling had bled into her adult life when she had begun seeking a match.
“Indeed,” she said at last. “Though I admit, I never expected to put such observations to use on a husband gained through… rather unconventional means.”
“And I never expected to reveal the… less savory parts of my upbringing to a wife acquired under similar circumstances,” he said, the faint self-deprecation softening what might have been a retreat into his usual reserve.
Outside, the storm battered the inn, rain pelting the windowpanes. The noise cocooned their conversation, suspending the world beyond and letting this unexpected intimacy take shape.
“Why continue doing this?” Beatrice asked, curiosity outweighing judgment. “If it began under such… difficult circumstances, why maintain the practice once the compulsion is gone?”
Leo’s gaze drifted away, contemplative. Water traced lines down his chest, the rare vulnerability made visible.
“Extreme cold brings a clarity that nothing else does,” he explained. “All extraneous thoughts vanish. I am simply present—no past regrets, no future worries, only the body and that singular sensation.”
Beatrice felt an unexpected warmth at the trust in his words. “A form of meditation, then,” she said softly. “Though far more severe than most would choose.”
He laughed, the genuine sound transforming his austere features into something approachable. “An accurate description, though I doubt any Orient monk would recognize their practices in mine.”
The laugh settled over her like sunlight through a storm cloud. She realized, with surprise, that she enjoyed his company and relished the sharp intelligence behind his observations as well as the dry humor glimpsed in the cramped room.
“Has the water grown colder or warmer?” she asked, noting the slight tension in his jaw that suggested physical discomfort.
He tilted his head slightly, considering her question as if it were of little consequence. “Colder, naturally,” he said lightly. “But it hardly matters.”
Without thinking, her hand rose, coming to rest lightly on his shoulder. The contact shocked her in a way the cold never could, a sudden awareness that sparked through her whenever they were near.
He was indeed like marble beneath her fingertips, but under that chill, she felt the steady thrum of his heartbeat, a reminder of the man beneath the cold mask he often wore.
“You’re freezing,” she murmured, more tender than she meant.
His gaze found hers, blue darkening to midnight in the dim light. “Does that concern you, wife?” His voice dipped, resonating through her in a way that bypassed sound entirely.
Her heart skipped a beat.
The use of the word wife tugged at her heart in a way she had not anticipated. It was simple, unembellished, yet it carried a weight she could not ignore.
Her lips parted slightly, and she suddenly became conscious of the dry, curious sensation that had formed in her mouth, as if the word itself had stolen her breath.
Something stirred deep within her, a mix of surprise and warmth that sent a subtle thrill through her. She felt an unfamiliar tightness in her stomach, a flutter that had little to do with propriety or expectations and everything to do with the man before her.
Wife. Not merely a title or formality. There was intent behind it, a recognition of bond, of connection, of claim.
“It seems… unnecessary to put oneself through such discomfort when alternatives exist,” she said, aware that their conversation had crossed into a territory where literal and metaphorical blurred.
“And what alternative would you suggest?”
His question carried weight far beyond the bath, and she felt it as keenly as the warmth of his skin beneath her hand.
Beatrice teetered on the edge of some unspoken threshold, a moment that might shift the careful boundaries they had set.
She should have pulled back, letting propriety and habit dictate her actions.
Yet the storm beyond the window seemed to strip away the usual rules, leaving her unusually fearless.
“Perhaps,” she said, her voice steadier than she expected, given the frantic beat of her heart, “warmth might prove just as clarifying.”
Leo’s pupils dilated, searching, intense.
“An interesting hypothesis,” he remarked, his voice light but his eyes serious. “Though it requires empirical testing.”
Beatrice allowed a smile, soft and deliberate, to curve her lips as heat curled low in her stomach.
“The scientific method applied to human comfort,” she murmured. “How very modern of you, Your Grace.”
“I’ve been accused of many things, darling, but rarely modernity,” he replied, the faint curve of his lips easing some of the tension between them. “Though I find myself increasingly open to… contemporary approaches when tradition fails.”
The implication lingered, this intimate proximity, the air between them thick with intensity.
“Perhaps you should step out of the bath before hypothermia renders the experiment moot,” she said.
He nodded but stayed where he was, seemingly aware of the vulnerability that leaving the bath entailed.
“If you would be so kind as to pass me the towel,” he murmured.