Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“The letters,” William said, as soon as she walked into his study. “Did you bring them?”
“I am nothing if not prepared, Your Grace,” Seraphina replied. She reached into the small reticule at her wrist, pulled out the neatly folded packet of parchment, and extended it toward him.
William took them, his fingers brushing against hers for a brief second before he turned away to lean against the edge of his desk. He unfolded the first page, his head tilting down as his eyes began to scan the letter.
With his attention fully occupied, Seraphina finally allowed herself to look at him.
There was no denying that the Duke of Norwyn was an aggressively attractive man.
He possessed a striking, athletic build that even the tailoring of his superfine coat could not entirely hide.
His shoulders were broad, tapering down to a lean waist and long legs that suggested a man who spent more time in the saddle than in smoky London clubs.
His hair was a rich, deep brown, thick and slightly wavy, falling just loose enough to soften the otherwise harsh angles of his jawline. But it was his eyes that drew the gaze most of all... a vivid green that seemed entirely too intricate to belong to a cold man like him.
He looked less like a pampered peer and more like a dangerous predator briefly wearing the clothes of a gentleman.
Men like these have to be hiding secrets.
William shifted, the fabric of his trousers straining slightly against his thigh as he leaned heavily on the desk, flipping to the next letter. She wasn’t sure how many he had read in the time she spent studying him.
“These are worse than I anticipated,” he murmured, his brows drawing together. “From what I can see here, this person wants you to stop writing?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“Why?” he questioned. “That is ridiculous. Look here. The first two only hint at your style of writing, but by the third, they are referencing your exact phrases from the April edition. Whoever this is, they are tracking your specific vocabulary. They are gathering more precise information about you as time goes on. It feels like stalking.” He looked up, his eyes locking onto hers, searching.
“It is incredibly concerning. How did you read these and simply keep writing? Most women would have burned their pens and fled to the countryside in terror.”
Seraphina forced a smile. “Most women would be right to do so. But this is practically the only thing in the entire world that I am good at, Your Grace, and I am not easily frightened by words on a page. I knew the risks when I took up the pseudonym. I expected someone, eventually, to grow angry enough to threaten me.”
William stared down at the final parchment, his thumb tracing the edge where she had torn it open. “But you are desperate enough to want to find them?”
“Yes. The last letter they sent is the only one that truly managed to terrify me,” she admitted.
“The one that explicitly mentioned my sisters. I can tolerate a coward throwing stones at me from the shadows. I am perfectly willing to face this man myself, to look him in the eye and watch him try to ruin me. But I will not allow him to use my family to threaten me. They did nothing wrong. These are my opinions.”
The study fell completely silent, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
William did not look back down at the letters.
Instead, he simply stared at her, his eyes unblinking.
For a long moment, it felt as though he were measuring her, testing the mettle of the woman standing before him.
Finally, he cleared his throat, the sound cutting through the tension of the room. He straightened up to his full height, folding the letters back into a neat stack.
“You have an absurd amount of courage, Miss Seraphina,” William said, his voice entirely serious now.
“Under normal circumstances, a threat like this would not concern me in the slightest. What you must understand right now is that I am incredibly, obsessively protective of my family’s name.
I have not spent years protecting that name just for someone to make a mockery of it with a stolen crest. I am going to get to the bottom of this, and I will find the person who did this. ”
“Also, for what it is worth,” he continued. “I actually like your writing. I like your opinions, even though some of them can be quite problematic and wrong.”
Seraphina’s posture went instantly rigid. She snapped her head up, her eyes narrowing. “Problematic? In what way, exactly, are my columns problematic, Your Grace?”
A small smile crept onto his face. “We can get into that later,” William countered smoothly, brushing the question aside.
“For now, what is important is that you should know that I am looking into this. I have people already doing something about it, and they will be coming in later today to meet with me. You do not need to face him alone, Miss Seraphina. Though I must admit, it is quite refreshing to meet a woman who is entirely unafraid of a fight.”
The gravity of his promise hit her all at once.
For the first time in her life, a stranger was standing between her and a threat, declaring his intention to shield her.
Even though she knew his primary motivation was protecting his own legacy, the fact that he was extending that protection over her made something warm and entirely unwelcome tingle deep in her chest.
A fierce heat rushed into her cheeks. Embarrassed that she was allowing his words to reach places in her body, Seraphina quickly looked away, feeling thoroughly flustered.
She heard the soft thud of his boots against the rug. William walked right over to her, closing the space until she was entirely trapped by his shadow. Without a word, he reached out, placing one finger right beneath her jaw. With a gentle pressure, he angled her face up.
Seraphina found herself staring straight into his eyes, where a distinct, teasing humor was dancing.
“Your cheeks are flushed a rather brilliant crimson, Miss Seraphina,” William murmured, a wolfish grin pulling at his lips. “Tell me... is this the very first time a gentleman has ever made you swoon?”
It was, in fact, the first time a man had ever made her feel utterly breathless. Hating the sudden weakness, Seraphina pulled her jaw out of his grasp and glared at him, her eyes flashing with fury.
“Do not flatter yourself, Your Grace,” Seraphina said as she stepped back to break his hold completely. “It is a simple matter of... vasomotor activity.
“Vasomotor activity?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes. Your sudden and entirely unnecessary proximity restricted the ambient airflow between us, causing a minor thermal imbalance. My cutaneous capillaries merely dilated to regulate the surface temperature of my skin. It is basic human physics, not... swooning.”
William’s hand hovered in the empty air for a fraction of a second before he dropped it back to his side. “Physics? You are blaming a blush on atmospheric conditions?”
“I am stating a physiological fact,” she countered.
“When an individual is suddenly crowded by an exceptionally large, overbearing object, the body prepares for a threat by accelerating the pulse. A startled horse flushes in the muzzle for the exact same medical reason, yet I highly doubt it is swooning for the rider.”
“A horse, Miss Seraphina?” William let out a short, low laugh, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “You are comparing me to a horse? If your pulse accelerated, it was not out of fear. You are far too stubborn to be afraid of me. But if it pleases your pride to believe your blood vessels are merely obeying laws of biology, far be it from me to dismantle the illusion.”
“It is not an illusion; it is mechanics,” she snapped, her chin tilting upward. “But I did not come down to your study to debate the laws of circulation. You requested my presence.”
The amusement that had been in his eyes withered and he looked serious so suddenly. He cleared his throat and walked back over to his desk to lean on it. “Right. Alice. Tell me of your time in the nursery. Did you manage to establish any form of rapport?”
Seraphina felt a distinct tightening in her stomach, the lingering heat of her blush instantly replaced by a cold wave of dread. “I am afraid I could not do much for the girl today. But she spoke to me.”
“She did?” he asked, seemingly surprised.
“Yes.” She answered, not wanting to go into any details about how Alice questioned if she was well.
“Tell me, Miss Seraphina, do you even possess any actual experience with children? I realize that I did not ask you that.”
Seraphina hesitated, her tongue catching against the roof of her mouth. The proud, defensive urge to lie was overwhelming, but she knew an outright fabrication would tumble down the moment he asked for specifics.
“I have... observed children,” she began.
“Observed them?” William countered. “Like a specimen under a glass? That is not experience.”
“I did my research before coming here, Your Grace,” Seraphina defended sharply.
That much was true. “I read books for half of last night. I am well aware that I do not possess a maternal disposition, but I understand logic. Let’s say Alice has suffered a tremendous, destabilizing shock pending when you give me actual details on why she is screaming at night.
The human mind does not simply reset itself because a new face enters the room.
Healing requires a predictable environment and a great deal of time.
I cannot perform miracles within the span of twenty minutes, and it is entirely unfair of you to expect them. ”
“I do not expect miracles,” William said back. “I expect progress, though. I expect some indication that she is not slipping further away into that terrifying silence. If you are entirely out of your depth, you should have stated so before we struck our bargain.”
“I am not out of my depth,” Seraphina responded, hesitating to continue talking. “But she did fall asleep while I was speaking to her. I don’t know... I might have bored her. But that only means that I know what not to say when I try again. No more talk about Isaac Newton. “
William crossed his arms and scoffed. “She... what?” William whispered.
“She fell asleep,” Seraphina repeated, lowering her voice, though her heart was still beating violently. “Right there on the window seat. Her head slumped against the framework, and she drifted off entirely.”
William stared at her, stunned. He looked at Seraphina as if she had just spoken to him in a foreign language. “She has never done that before,” he said.
“What? Fallen asleep? That’s impossible.”
“She doesn’t sleep when people are in the room.
That is what I hear,” he explained. “She just stares at them until they leave. She only sleeps when no one is watching her. Even the faintest noise wakes her up. She is hyper-vigilant, Miss Seraphina. If a maid so much as adjusts a curtain or walks within five paces of her room, Alice bolts upright in terror. Her mind is always on guard.”
He took a slow step toward her, his gaze searching her face so intensely that it made her breath hitch. “It is interesting that she fell asleep with you in the room. How did you manage it? What did you say to her?”
Seraphina’s throat went entirely dry. She could not possibly tell him the truth.
She could not look him in the eye and admit that she had bored his deeply traumatized ward into a state of absolute unconsciousness by delivering a dry, aggressive lecture on the most stupid thing she had done in weeks, and how it tied to Newton’s law.
“That...” Seraphina said. “... is a trade secret.”
William’s eyes narrowed. “A secret? We are partners, Miss Seraphina. You are required to share your methods if they are yielding results.”
“Our partnership is built on a mutual exchange of information,” Seraphina countered smoothly, crossing her arms and offering him a cool, challenging smile.
“I will gladly exchange the exact details of my nursery methodology the moment you provide me with something substantial regarding the blackmailer. Just one clue, Your Grace. Give me a name, a direction, or a piece of evidence your professionals uncover, and I will tell you exactly how I put Alice to sleep.”
William stared at her for a long moment before a small, begrudging smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“Very well,” William murmured, dipping his head in a shallow bow. “I accept your bargain. I shall have some answers soon. See that you are prepared to deliver yours.”
“I am always prepared,” she replied.
Without waiting for him to dismiss her, Seraphina curtsied and turned on her heel to march out of the study, the door closing behind her as she finally let out the long, shaky breath she had been holding.