Chapter Eleven #2
“Of course I was frightened,” she said, moving toward him. “You vanished into a death trap.”
“It wasn’t—”
“It was. And you knew it.” Her voice softened. “But you went anyway, because someone needed help.” She moved closer to him. “That’s who you really are. Not the Beast, not the controlled Duke, but the man who risks everything to save a child.”
“You’re romanticising a practical decision.”
“I’m recognising the truth you keep trying to hide.” She was close enough now to see the pain lines around his eyes, the exhaustion he was fighting. “You should rest.”
“I cannot.”
“Why not?”
He exhaled slowly. “Because every time I close my eyes, I see your expression as I went in after the boy. I have never—” He stopped, searching for words. “No one has ever looked at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I mattered. As though losing me would…” He swallowed. “Would trouble you.”
“It would do more than trouble me,” she said softly. “It would undo me.”
He went absolutely still.
“Don’t say things like that,” he whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because I may begin to believe them. And then where would we be?”
“Together,” she said simply. “Actually together. Not merely pretending.”
For a heartbeat, the air between them felt charged enough to spark. His gaze flicked to her lips, to her throat, back to her eyes—his restraint a trembling thing.
Then he stepped back.
“Goodnight, Celine.”
“This is becoming absurd,” she called after him. “We’re married!”
“In name only,” he said without turning. “For twenty-three more days.”
The door closed behind him, and Celine was left alone with her frustration and the growing certainty that twenty-three days might as well be twenty-three years.
Later, as she prepared for bed, she heard him in the adjoining room. Footsteps pacing. A chair pushed back. The restless movements of a man at war with himself.
She paused beside the locked door, her fingers brushing the wood as though it were his skin.
Who would break first?
***
The next three days settled into a rhythm.
Mornings spent riding out to visit tenants, afternoons reviewing estate business, evenings carefully parted by locked doors and polite distance.
Yet the tension gathered with each passing hour, each accidental brush of fingers, each glance too weighted to ignore.
The modiste had arrived as promised, bringing bolts of cloth and elegant sketches. The Duke insisted upon attending the fitting, claiming he needed to approve the expenses. But Celine caught him watching her with an intensity that had nothing to do with financial concerns.
“The green velvet,” he said when she stepped out in a riding habit. “Most assuredly the green.”
“It is rather dear,” the modiste warned.
“My wife will have the best,” he replied, his gaze fixed entirely—unapologetically—upon Celine.
“Your wife is standing right here,” she reminded him, heat rising in her cheeks.
“I am aware,” he murmured, his eyes travelling slowly—deliberately—from hem to shoulder before meeting hers again. “Painfully aware.”
Sensing she intruded upon something not meant for outside observation, the modiste completed her measurements with admirable haste and departed, promising the finished garments within the week.
“That was inappropriate,” Celine said once they were alone.
“What was?”
“The way you looked at me.”
“How did I look at you?”
“Like you wished to devour me.”
A faint pause, then—“I was looking at my wife.”
“That is not an answer.”
His eyes warmed, darkened. “It is the only one I can give without overstepping myself.”
“Then overstep.”
“Not for twenty more days.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I am attempting to be honourable.”
“I do not want honour,” she said quietly. “I want my husband.”
Something in him tightened—subtle but unmistakable. He crossed the room in two decisive strides, backing her gently against the wall. “You want the Beast, is that it? That is what you ask for?”
“I want you. All of you. The man, the creature you fear within yourself, the landlord who sits up with sick tenants, the reckless soul who disappears into collapsing barns. Every part.”
“You could not weather every part.”
“Try me.”
He leaned closer, his breath warm against her ear. “If I begin, I will not stop. Do you understand? I will not be measured or careful or restrained. I will lose myself.”
“Promise?”
He made a low sound—half laugh, half groan. “You will be my undoing.”
“Or your salvation.”
He drew back enough to meet her eyes, and she saw everything in his—desire, dread, wonder, confusion.
“Twenty days,” he said, his voice strained.
“Nineteen and a half.”
“You are counting half days now?”
“I am counting hours. Minutes. Heartbeats.”
He closed his eyes briefly, exhaling through his teeth. “I must… I need air. I shall ride.”
“It is nearly dark.”
“Then I shall ride in the dark. It is that, or tear down your door this very night.”
He left her standing against the wall, her pulse thundering, her whole body alive with the tension coiled between them. Through the window, she saw him stride toward the stables, his movements sharp with frustration and something perilously close to surrender.
Nineteen and a half days.
She was no longer certain either of them would last so long.
***
That night, she heard him return late—the faint thud of his boots, the restless pacing in his chamber. Celine crossed to the connecting door almost without thinking, pressing her palm against the wood as if it were warm skin.
A pause. Then his voice—low, weary, too honest for daylight.
“Celine?”
“Yes?”
“I am… sorry. For earlier. For all of it.”
“Do not apologise for feeling what you feel.”
“I’m apologising,” he murmured, “for being too much a coward to act on it.”
“You’re not a coward. You’re cautious. There’s a difference.”
“Is there? Because from where I stand, it appears I’m too afraid to reach for what’s freely offered.”
“You’re afraid of hurting me.”
Silence, then a breath that seemed to scrape through him.
“I’m afraid of ruining you. Of becoming my father in the worst ways—taking without thought, without control.”
“You are nothing like your father.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because you’re having this conversation through a locked door instead of breaking it down. Because you care enough to wait, even when it costs you.”
Another silence. Softer this time.
“It is costing me.”
“Me too.”
“Truly?”
“I dream about you,” she whispered. “About what might happen when the month ends.”
The quiet between them sharpened.
“What do you dream of?” he asked—steady voice, unsteady breath.
“I—I dream about your mouth,” she shallowed hard. “Right here.” She traced a fingertip just below her collarbone, then lower. “I dream about your hands pinning mine above my head. About your voice in my ear when you’re too far gone to be proper.”
On the other side of the door, something hitched—half breath, half groan.
“Celine,” he warned.
“And you?” she breathed. “What do you dream of?”
He leaned closer; she felt the heat of him even through the wood.
“I dream,” he said, voice breaking around the edges, “of your hair spread out over my pillow, your thighs around my hips, your nails in my back.” A pause, then lower: “I dream of the sounds you will make when I’m so deep inside you, you forget your own name.”
She inhaled sharply, thighs instinctively pressing together.
“Go on.”
“Celine…”
“No, don’t stop. Tell me. What else?”
His voice was rough now, unravelling. “I dream of you begging. Not because you’re scared—because you’re so desperate for it you can scarcely breathe. I want to see you fall apart. I want to hear you sob my name when you’re already undone and I still refuse to let you go.”
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t flinch.
“I dream about your control snapping,” she said, her voice unsteady now. “About seeing what you look like when you lose that rigid, perfect self-control you cling to like armour.”
A flicker of something dark passed through his gaze. “That might not be safe.”
“I’m not asking for safe.” She leaned in, “I’m asking for real.”
Another long silence, then the sound of him moving away from the door.
“Nineteen days,” he said, voice fading. “Nineteen more days.”
But as Celine lay there, staring at the ceiling, she wondered whether they were counting down to a beginning, or an undoing.
And which one she feared more.