Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Iam confused,” Anthony said, setting his tumbler down onto his desk.
He leaned back in his armchair, searching William’s face.
“Let me ensure I have captured the exact... architecture of this. You confronted your wife with the declaration that she is physically attracted to you... and she simply admitted it?”
“Yes!” William barked, turning sharply at the edge of the rug and pacing back to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
His shoulders were tight beneath his coat, his jaw set in a line so rigid it looked carved from granite. He was practically ranting, his voice rising in an uncharacteristic, agitated pitch that filled every corner of the room.
“She did not hesitate, Anthony. She did not flinch. It was not news to her. Seraphina is a woman of exceptional intelligence; anyone with a fraction of a brain could have deduced the situation weeks ago. She reacts to me. She cannot hide it. It is written in the elevation of her pulse, the way her eyes dart away when I step into her space, the undeniable tension that electrifies the room whenever we are within five feet of one another. It was obvious.”
William stopped near the window, thrusting a hand through his hair, a chaotic gesture that sent several strands falling out of their usual alignment.
“Usually, when a woman is confronted with a truth of that magnitude, there is a predictable, human sequence of events,” William continued, gesturing sharply toward the ceiling as if appealing to the heavens.
“She ought to have been flustered. She should have blushed, stammered, or launched into a spirited, illogical denial! I expected an argument. In fact, I was prepared for one.”
He resumed his pacing. “I have confronted her about being nervous around me before, Anthony. Whenever I tell her that I make her heart race or that she is hyper-aware of my presence, we bicker. It’s funny.
She constructs elaborate, defensive theories about heat, or bad tea, or the pressure of the social calendar.
She fights back. But last night? Nothing! No resistance whatsoever.”
William threw his hands up in disbelief.
“She looked me dead in the eye, agreed that she finds me visually and physically attractive, and moved on as if she were ticking a box on an inventory ledger. As if she were stating that the weather was mildly overcast or that the soup required a pinch of salt. A minor, entirely unremarkable observation. She was also happy. Did I mention that? Relieved even. I do not understand it.”
Anthony tilted his head, a smirk spreading across his features as he put his elbows on the armrests of his chair, joining his fingers in a steeple.
“Tell me this: why, precisely, is that a catastrophe, my dear William? The woman finds you attractive. It is hardly an insult. So what? Are you attracted to her?”
“That is entirely beside the point,” William declared instantly, waving off the question with a dismissive flick of his wrist as if swatting away a persistent fly.
He didn’t even pause in his stride. “That is not what we are discussing here. Do you have any idea what a development like this does to our arrangement? Do you have any concept of how thoroughly it threatens to ruin everything we meticulously planned?”
He paused near the corner of Anthony’s desk, planting his hands flat on the wood and leaning in, his eyes flashing with intensity.
“She cannot afford to harbor feelings for me, Anthony. The entire foundation of this marriage rests upon its eventual, seamless dissolution! A time will come when we must quietly, discreetly annul this union. That is another reason we have refrained from consummating the marriage in the first place.”
William stood up straight again, running both hands over his face, dragging his palms down his jaw with a long exhale that sounded almost like a groan.
“If she develops an emotional attachment to me, it complicates every single variable in the equation. What if the time comes for us to sever ties, and she refuses to go? What if she wishes to remain? What if she looks at me with those wide, trusting eyes and tells me she wants a real marriage? What am I supposed to do then, Anthony? I cannot simply throw her out into the street if she does not wish to leave. I am a gentleman, not a monster. It puts me in an impossible position.”
Anthony let out a rumbling chuckle, raising his hands in a calm, placating gesture. “William. My good friend. Take a breath. I fail to see the issue here.”
“If she falls in love with me, what am I supposed to do then?” William demanded.
“But she never said she was in love with you,” Anthony pointed out. “She said she was attracted to you. There is a vast, expansive gulf between physical attraction and love.”
“No, there is not,” William countered instantly, spinning on his heel to face him.
“They are two sides of the exact same treacherous coin. Attraction is merely the gateway, the inevitable, slippery slope before a person succumbs completely and admits they are in love. It is a sequence. First comes the physical awareness, then comes the emotional investment, and finally, total, unmitigated attachment. Trust me on this, Anthony. I know how human nature operates. This physical attraction will lead directly to emotional entanglement; it will complicate our lives beyond repair, and it is entirely, disastrously contrary to everything we agreed upon.”
Anthony sighed deeply. He set his tumbler down, leaned forward, rested his forearms on the desk, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Look, William,” Anthony said, his tone shifting from light amusement to bone-deep exhaustion. “We have been in this room for nearly an hour. For sixty minutes, I have listened to you pace holes into my carpet, and frankly, I am entirely exhausted from hearing Seraphina, Seraphina, Seraphina.”
William halted mid-step, blinking as if he had just been doused with cold water. “What do you mean?”
“I mean...” Anthony said, rising slowly from his chair and rounding the desk, “...that you have spent the last hour dissecting her thoughts, analyzing her motives, complaining about her reactions, and mapping out her future emotional states, yet you have not allowed a single, solitary word to cross your lips about what you are feeling.”
Anthony stopped a few feet away, folding his arms across his chest and looking at William.
“Every time I bring up your internal state, every time I ask how you view her, you dismiss it as beside the point. Well, I am sick of that excuse. Now I want an answer, William. What is the point? What do you feel for her?”
The room fell into a short silence. The only sound was the crackle of the dying fire in the hearth.
William stood motionless, taking a deep breath in through his nose, forcing his lungs to expand, forcing his racing pulse to steady. He closed his eyes for a brief second, calling upon every ounce of his discipline to erect the stone walls of his composure once more.
He would not lie. He was a man of absolute facts, and he refused to deceive himself, nor would he deceive Anthony, who had known him since they were boys chasing stray dogs through the muddy alleys of Eton.
Of course there was an attraction on his side.
It would be pure, cowardly delusion to deny it.
Seraphina was breathtakingly beautiful. She possessed an ethereal, striking elegance that made every other woman in a ballroom look like a faint watercolor sketch standing beside an oil painting.
But it was more than her physical form. She was fiercely, terrifyingly intelligent.
She possessed a mind that moved like a rapier, cutting through fluff and nonsense with precision.
He loved listening to her talk. He loved the way her eyes lit up with a fiery, passionate spark whenever she debated a point of philosophy or science. He loved the way she refused to bow to his intimidating title or his imposing posture. She met his gaze as an equal, challenging him at every turn.
However, William reminded himself harshly, it was nothing he could not master.
William had spent his entire adult life cultivating absolute, unshakable control over his mind and body. He was not a slave to his impulses. He possessed an internal switch, a cold, mechanical off-and-on mechanism that allowed him to compartmentalize his desires, his worries, and his attachments.
There was only one enduring, sacred priority in his life.
The management, expansion, and protection of the Norwyn estate and legacy.
He had built an empire of shipping lines, land holdings, and political influence through unyielding discipline.
While Seraphina was a fascinating, mesmerizing, and highly welcome distraction...
she was ultimately just that. A distraction.
He could flip the switch. He could turn it off.
He could walk away from her tomorrow if required, and his world would not tilt on its axis.
Anthony was watching him silently, a smirk lingering at the corners of his mouth.
“I believe I have my answer,” he said.
William narrowed his eyes. “What? I am certain you have compiled some clever, insufferable retort in that head of yours, but let me assure you before you speak. Whatever conclusion you have arrived at, you are completely wrong.”
Anthony did not laugh. Instead, he leaned against the front of his desk, crossing his ankles and folding his arms over his chest.
“Like I said before, we have been in this study for an hour, William,” Anthony began softly.
“In that time, you have spoken faster than I have ever heard you speak in the entire duration of our friendship. In fact, you have deployed more words in the past sixty minutes than you typically utter in a fortnight. If I were to sit back and remain silent, you would continue to rant for another two hours, dissecting a problem that does not require a single grain of this hysterical analysis.”