Chapter 21
The house was silent in that particular way London townhouses were late at night, the faint hum of the city pressing against the glass.
Beatrice sat beside Pip’s cradle with a book open in her lap, though she had not turned a page in a while. The lamp cast a soft golden glow, catching the tufts of hair on Pip’s head.
The baby slept soundly, her lips parting on the gentlest little sighs. The rise and fall of her chest was hypnotic, and soon Beatrice felt her own eyelids begin to droop.
She tried to refocus on the words on the page, but her eyelids grew heavier. The third time, she startled awake, her spine straightening with a jolt.
Before she could gather her thoughts, a heavy warmth draped over her shoulders. It felt like soft wool, smelling faintly of cedar.
She looked up, her breath catching in her throat.
Edward stood behind her. He said nothing, only adjusted the his greatcoat lightly so it covered her properly. The movement was so soft, so careful, that she might have missed it entirely if not for the faint brush of his fingers against her neck.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” she whispered.
“You were nearly asleep,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to startle you.”
“You did,” she admitted softly. “Just a little.”
“You should be in bed,” he said, smiling faintly.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she whispered.
He crouched slightly to meet her eyes. “You did.”
“I shouldn’t have,” she murmured, closing the book. “I was only waiting for Mrs. Hart to take over. Or perhaps I was not ready to leave her yet.”
“She’ll wake up if the baby needs her,” he assured. “You don’t have to sit here all night.”
“I know,” she whispered, though she stayed seated a moment longer, watching Pip’s peaceful little face.
He followed her gaze. “She seems content tonight.”
“She always sleeps better after a fussy afternoon.” Beatrice rubbed her thumb along the book’s spine. “Being a baby is so exhausting.”
Edward gave a quiet huff of amusement.
Beatrice rose carefully, setting the book aside. “You should have some tea. I’ll fetch some for myself.”
“I’ll bring it,” he said immediately. “Meet me in the small library.”
She nodded, not trusting her tired voice. The look on his face—somber, tinged with something he rarely let show—lingered in her mind as she stepped into the dim hallway.
By the time she reached the library, the fire had warmed the room into a cocoon of amber light. She settled into one of the two small armchairs near the hearth, her shawl pulled tight around her.
A moment later, Edward entered with two steaming cups.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting one with a wan smile.
He sat across from her, and for a moment, neither spoke. The flames crackled softly, casting golden light across his face. He looked tired, as though the day had worn him out.
She waited. Something weighed on him—she could see it in the tightness at the corners of his mouth, the restless flex of his fingers.
Finally, he spoke. “I found Simon.”
Beatrice’s head rose, the movement small, almost cautious. “Where?”
“A gaming hall off Covent Garden.”
Beatrice winced, a delicate crease forming between her eyebrows. “That must have been… loud.”
“And smoky,” he added dryly, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-humorless line. “And filled with the kind of people who thrive on shirking their duties.”
Beatrice’s fingers tightened around her teacup. “Did he admit anything?”
Edward looked into his tea for a long moment. “He claimed he didn’t know who the mother could be. Too many mistresses in too little time.”
Her chest tightened. “I see.”
Edward continued, his voice dropping, almost as if he were speaking to the fire instead of her. “He is so certain that life will simply sort itself out. That others will clean up after his mess. That consequences are for lesser men.”
Beatrice studied his face—the hard line of his jaw, the gentle shadow the fire cast across his cheek. “Do you believe him?” she asked quietly.
“I believe he has no idea what he’s done,” Edward replied flatly. “And that is the problem.”
Beatrice shifted in her chair, only a fraction, but enough that her skirt brushed the carpet near his boot. “It must be difficult. He is your cousin.”
His face contorted in disgust. Whether at Simon or himself, she wasn’t sure.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “It isn’t pity I need. Simon… he is my responsibility.” A pause. “Or he should have been.”
Beatrice frowned. “What do you mean?”
A muscle ticked in Edward’s jaw. “Our fathers were brothers—mine the elder. By all rights, I should have taken him under my wing when we were young. Taught him better. Shown him what it meant to be a man with a title and obligations.”
Her breath caught. He had never spoken of this before.
“I assumed,” he continued, his voice roughened by memory, “that he would grow out of his recklessness, the way a boy does when he realizes the world won’t indulge him forever.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “But he never did. And I never guided him.”
“Edward…” she trailed off.
He set his teacup on the saucer with a faint clink. Leaning back, he let his head rest against the high back of the chair, his eyes glinting in the glow of the fire. The shifting flames carved sharp lines across his face, revealing a man worn to the bone.
“When my father died of heart failure,” he said quietly, “I was twenty-four. Still not fully trained. One day, I had a family; the next, I had a title, a household I did not know how to run, estates in disarray, and a mother too deep in grief to speak for weeks. And judgment. So much judgment. The debts alone—”
Beatrice felt the weight settle on her chest like an unwelcome cloak. She could almost picture a young Edward, sharp but untempered, standing alone in a cavernous study with ledgers piled high, servants waiting for orders, relatives whispering criticisms behind closed doors.
He shook his head. “I had no idea what I was doing. Not at first.”
She swallowed. She had never heard him speak like this—not the surface charm, not the quick wit, but something bare and honest.
“You managed,” she whispered.
“I survived,” he corrected with a sad smile. “There is a difference.”
Her breath hitched.
Edward stared into the fire as though it held all the answers.
“I did everything that was expected of me. Signed every paper, attended every meeting, pretended I had all the certainty of a man twice my age. But the truth is…” His voice dropped.
“I hid the rest. The fear. The inadequacy. The weight of it all buried under the only thing I knew how to use.”
Beatrice’s fingers tightened around her teacup. “Your charm,” she breathed.
Edward looked up, startled. He looked boyish for a fleeting second. And then, with a bleak smile, he said. “Yes. That.”
Beatrice’s heart twisted. She had seen his charm a thousand times, his easy confidence, the quick banter, the disarming smile that made half of London adore him. But this… this was the scaffolding beneath all of it. Now she saw past it.
He looked down at his hands as though seeing them for the first time.
“I hid them under… what everyone expected of me,” he said. “A rake. A charmer. A man who laughed too loudly and lived too carelessly. If people believed I didn’t take life seriously, then they couldn’t see how close I felt to failing.”
Her heart clenched. She had known men like Edward. Or thought she had. But this…
This was something else entirely. She had misjudged him—no, misunderstood him. All those years of assuming his carelessness was deliberate, effortless, when in truth it had been armor.
“Edward—” she began.
He turned to look at her. And she saw it—truly saw the tiredness beneath the charm, the old hurt beneath the arrogance, the boy who had become a duke before he had learned how to be anything else.
Something dawned on her, aching and undeniable.
“You don’t have to bury anything with me,” she whispered.
He stared at her as if the words had knocked the air out of his lungs.
For a moment, neither spoke. The fire popped gently, and a log shifted.
Beatrice felt the warmth of the room settle into her bones, but another warmth sparked between them—something quiet and impossibly new.
She held his gaze. He held hers. And for the first time, the charm disappeared completely, leaving something real in its place.
His voice, when it finally came, was quiet. “Then perhaps it is my turn to ask you something.”
She blinked. “Me?”
“Yes.” He sat back, watching her with a strange, searching calm. “You know nearly everything about my… missteps. My history. My foolishness.” His eyes softened. “Yet I know very little about yours.”
Beatrice’s stomach fluttered. “I… don’t have missteps.”
He arched an eyebrow. “No? Not even one?”
She flushed. “Not the kind you mean.”
“Then tell me this.” He tilted his head slightly. “Why did you become Miss Verity?”
Her breath stuttered. Of all the questions she had expected, of all the hidden fears she had thought he might reveal, she hadn’t imagined he would turn his attention to her secrets.
She looked down at her hands, picking at a loose thread on the hem of her shawl. “That is… difficult to answer.”
“I imagine most truths are,” he murmured.
Beatrice hesitated, feeling a knot tighten in her chest. The truth of Miss Verity wasn’t exactly painful, but it was private. Born from the shadows of rooms where men refused to listen, and long dinners where she had bitten her tongue until it bled so as not to embarrass her family.
She lifted her gaze, choosing her words carefully. “I never meant to be anyone at all,” she said softly. “Least of all a writer.”
Edward did not answer; he simply waited.
“It began with my sister,” Beatrice continued.
“She had opinions—bright, bold ones—and was dismissed at every turn. Laughed at. Ignored.” She swallowed.
“Then Mama… her thoughts were always softened, altered, or scolded away in company. I watched her swallow her opinions until she hardly recognized them as her own.”
“And mine…” Her throat tightened. “Mine were treated as though they were nothing more than the chatter of a young girl who didn’t understand the world. I couldn’t bear to swallow my opinions.”
Edward’s jaw tightened.
“So I wrote,” she said. “First in anger, then in hope. At my desk late at night, by candlelight, when everyone was asleep.” Her voice lowered. “Miss Verity gave me a voice no one could interrupt or dismiss.”
She looked into the flames.
“What began as essays on manners and hypocrisy became something… bigger than me. A way to speak the truth when the truth was unwelcome.”
The room fell utterly silent.
After a long moment, Edward murmured, “Beatrice…”
The way he said her name sent a warm shiver down her spine.
“You surprise me,” he admitted. “Constantly. Just when I think I understand you, I realize I don’t. Not even a fraction.”
She laughed weakly, nerves prickling beneath her skin. “Surely I’m not so mysterious.”
“Oh, but you are.”
She felt his gaze before she dared to meet it. And when she did, her breath caught.
There was no charm there now. No rakish amusement. Only sincerity. And something that made her heart stammer in her chest.
She looked away.
“Tea,” she said, too briskly. “I should… finish my tea.”
They both reached for the same cup, and their fingers brushed.
The touch was light, but it shot through her like a spark traveling along a taut line. Her breath hitched, barely audible, but she felt it burn all the way to her cheeks.
Edward stilled, and Beatrice withdrew her hand first, as if the porcelain had scalded her.
“I—sorry—I thought that one was mine.”
“It can be,” he murmured, not taking his eyes off her.
Her pulse fluttered wildly. She forced herself to look away, staring at the embroidery on the shawl to steady herself. “Thank you. For… earlier. For being honest with me.”
“You deserved that honesty.”
She nodded, though she felt strangely unsteady, as if the floor beneath her chair had shifted just an inch to the left.
“I should check on Pip before I go to bed,” she declared, rising too quickly. Her skirts rustled, and the firelight grazed the hem. “She’ll be waking up soon for her midnight feed.”
Edward rose as well. “Of course.”
He didn’t move to follow her, but she could feel his gaze tracking her steps toward the door. It heated her from the inside out, a slow spreading warmth that pooled low in her stomach.
She paused in the doorway, pretending to adjust the shawl so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge the tremor in her breath.
It’s only the fire. The warmth of the hearth. That is all.
But deep down—beneath the practiced reason, beneath the shield she had learned to wear—she knew it wasn’t.
She could feel him behind her. And she felt something else, too. Something she absolutely must not let herself feel. Not for him. Not for a man with his history.
If she let herself fall for him, she would get hurt in the end.
Beatrice drew one last breath, steadying herself, and stepped into the hall, determined to convince herself that the heat on her skin was nothing but the fire’s glow.