Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Seraphina blinked against the light in her eyes, a dull ache throbbing behind her temples from her cramped position in the bed. She hadn’t moved for hours. Beside her, Alice remained perfectly still. Sleeping.
Seraphina looked down at her lap. Alice’s tiny hand was still wrapped around the fabric of her skirt, but it was looser now. Moving slowly, Seraphina began to slide the fabric free, centimeter by centimeter, until her skirt was released without a single stir from the sleeping girl.
A low sound drew her gaze upward.
William was standing on the opposite side of the bed, still looking entirely unraveled by the night.
He had not dressed for the morning. His coat was entirely missing, and his white linen shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, revealing the line of his throat and his chest. The fabric was thoroughly rumpled, clinging slightly to the broad expanse of his shoulders as he leaned back against the bedpost.
Seraphina’s eyes caught on the exposed skin of his throat, tracking the pulse beating there. Her gaze lingered against her own volition, dipping down to the shadow where his shirt parted before she forced herself to look away, her throat suddenly dry.
“Your Grace,” she managed to whisper. “You came back.”
“We need to talk,” William said. “In my study. Now.”
Seraphina offered a tight nod, carefully smoothing down her wrinkled skirts to hide the inexplicable tremor in her hands. She followed him out of the room, her eyes fixed firmly on the carpet to avoid looking at him.
Once they were in his study, William did not sit behind his desk. Instead, he paced toward the center of the room, turning sharply to face her as she closed the door behind them.
“Is something wrong, Your Grace?” she questioned. “You look... even more worried.”
“Miss Seraphina,” he began, his gaze locking onto hers so fiercely, it made her breath catch in her throat.
“I have spent the early hours of the morning analyzing the parameters of our current situation. The blackmailer possesses my family crest. He threatens your livelihood, your identity, and your security. Simultaneously, my ward is trapped in a profound state of psychological distress, and you are the single individual in this city who has managed to stabilize her.”
Seraphina crossed her arms, trying to ground herself. “I am glad my methods were efficient, Your Grace. But I fail to see what parameters require an emergency discussion at dawn.”
“The parameter of proximity,” William stated, taking a slow step toward her.
His shirt remained undone, the loose linen shifting with his movement, and Seraphina found her gaze dropping back down to his chest, utterly distracted by it before she snapped her eyes back to his face.
“Alice requires your presence. You cannot properly administer your methodology to her if you are traveling across London at midnight. Yet, your constant presence under my roof would ruin your reputation entirely within a fortnight. The society we inhabit is rigid and small.”
He paused, his jaw tightening. “Therefore, the only practical... logical solution to both our problems is for you to marry me.”
The room fell into an absolute, ringing silence.
Seraphina stared at him, her mind completely locking up. For a woman who prided herself on having a swift, razor-sharp retort, she could do nothing but blink.
“You... what?”
“I am asking you to marry me,” William repeated, his tone entirely businesslike, as if he were proposing a corporate merger or an alliance between two merchant houses.
“It is the single arrangement that provides total legal and social protection. You will have permanent access to Alice, the scandal of your presence is entirely neutralized, and the blackmailer will find himself targeting the wife of a Duke, which carries an entirely different set of legal consequences.”
“No,” Seraphina said instantly.
William froze. His eyes widened slightly, a look of unadulterated shock flitting across his features. He looked at her as if she had just spoken in a foreign tongue. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“I mean exactly what the syllable implies, Your Grace,” Seraphina countered, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “I am rejecting your proposal. I have absolutely no intention of marrying you, nor any other man.”
William stared at her, taken aback. “Why?” he asked, bewildered. “Why on earth would you refuse? It is an incredibly advantageous arrangement. It solves every logistical hurdle currently before us.”
“It solves your hurdles,” Seraphina snapped, her chin tilting upward.
“I have spent years building my own mind, my own career, and my own goals. I am entirely content to remain a spinster. I will not surrender my autonomy, my work, or my identity to become an ornament in your house, expected to produce heirs and manage your domestic accounts while my own thoughts are locked away in a drawer. I have my own life, Your Grace.”
William looked at her, his gaze tracking the flush that had rushed into her cheeks. Slowly, the shock left his face. He took another step forward, closing the distance between them until he was standing much closer than was socially acceptable, his height completely casting her into shadow.
“You misunderstand the parameters of the contract,” William said.
“I am not asking for an ornament. I am asking for a partner. I am asking for your mind. If you marry me, we will not consummate the union. We wouldn’t need to.
I am not looking for that sort of arrangement, and I will not ask an heir of you.
The marriage will remain strictly legal and with boundaries.
The moment Alice is thoroughly healthy, stable, and independent, we shall seek an annulment on those exact grounds.
You will have your freedom back, entirely intact. ”
Seraphina’s breath hitched. He was standing far too close. The scent of him was completely filling her senses. She could see the slight movement of his chest as he breathed, the fabric of his shirt brushing against the empty space between them.
“Furthermore,” William continued, leaning down slightly.
“Your work will remain entirely your own. I will not forbid you from writing a single word. In fact, you may use my library, my resources, and my political connections to sharpen your columns. I am offering you an absolute shield... Seraphina. The world is a dangerous place for a woman with your specific intellect. If you are my Duchess, both you and your sisters that you want to protect will be entirely safe from any ruin this blackmailer intends to bring. My title is an iron wall. Let me put it around you.”
Seraphina felt a sudden, violent spasm in her chest. Her heart began to hammer loudly. It felt dangerously fast, almost suffocating. A strange warmth pool tightened deep in her stomach, making her feel thoroughly disoriented and weak.
“Your Grace,” she gasped, her voice sounding breathy and small as she took a hasty step backward to break his proximity. “Stop. Please. I... I feel quite sick.”
William’s brows drew together in instant concern. “Sick? In what manner?”
“My heart,” she stammered, pressing a hand over the center of her bodice, entirely flustered by the internal chaos.
“It is accelerating at an unquantifiable rate. It must be a consequence of the late hour and the lack of rest from last night. It is affecting my internal mechanisms. I am certain I am developing a fever.”
Before she could protest, William closed the gap between them again. He reached out, his warm hand coming to rest flat against her forehead to evaluate her temperature.
The physical touch was like an electric current firing through her nerves.
Seraphina’s face instantly heated up to a burning crimson beneath his palm.
Her eyes locked onto the open collar of his shirt, her gaze tracking the line of his collarbone, her mind completely spinning as the proximity of him threatened to overwhelm her logic.
“You do not have a fever, Seraphina,” William murmured, his thumb brushing lightly against the temple of her forehead before he slowly lowered his hand. “Your skin is entirely normal.”
“I do have a fever,” she insisted sharply as she pulled away from his hand entirely. “I am the one experiencing the internal thermal imbalance, Your Grace, and I tell you, I am quite unwell.”
William stared at her, a clever look entering his eyes, though his face remained perfectly serious. “If you say so. But my proposition stands. A temporary contract, Seraphina. With no physical strings, to ensure the preservation of your family. It gives you the opportunity to fix this.”
Seraphina looked at him, and thought about the absolute safety his title would grant to Leonora. Her heart was still thrashing wildly in her chest, and it was difficult to think straight. She needed to escape this room. She needed to escape his gaze.
But her mind, ever the analytical machine, forced her to pause and weigh the logic of his words before she spoke.
He was right. Under any other circumstances, the proposition would be utter madness, but functionally, it was the most efficient equation available to her.
If she became his wife, she would be cloaked in the power of his family name.
The house of Norwyn carried a deeply entrenched weight in the ton.
It was a name that commanded caution. A malicious extortionist might easily crush an anonymous spinster writing for a newspaper, but that same person would undoubtedly think twice, perhaps even retreat entirely before exposing the wife of a Duke.
The title would buy her the one commodity she desperately required. Time. It would give her the positioning she needed to uncover the blackmailer and fix the issue herself, without dragging her sisters down into ruin.
Yet, the thought of surrendering her hard-won independence tasted like defeat. She had vowed to remain a spinster, to dedicate her life entirely to her books, her columns, and her intellect. To bind herself to a man felt like erasing everything she had built.
‘But it is temporary, Seraphina,’ she reminded herself, clinging to his precise wording. There would be no physical strings, no consummation, and a clean annulment waiting for her the moment Alice was restored to health. Her work would not be forbidden, her goals would remain intact.
What could possibly go wrong?
“Very well,” she breathed and swallowed. “I agree to the terms. We shall marry under those exact parameters, and not a single variable more.”
William nodded and finally took a step back. “Deal.”
Seraphina turned on her heel and practically fled the study, her skirts twisting around her ankles as she hurried through the doorway. Standing alone, she leaned her back against the wall and let out a long, shaky breath.
Slowly, with every meter she put between herself and the door of the study, she noticed how the acceleration in her chest began to subside.
The hammering slowed, her pulse gradually returning to its ordinary rhythm.
She looked down at her hand, which was still trembling slightly against her skirts, and reasoned that the room probably needed to be aired out.
The study had been shut up all night with stale air and coal gas, and she was certain that the lack of proper oxygen had simply caused a temporary constriction of her respiratory tract.