Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Just do it. Just do it, Seraphina. Just knock.
Seraphina stood in the corridor outside William’s primary study, her knuckles hovering an inch above the wood. Her pulse rattled. For weeks, this wing of Norwyn Manor had been plunged into darkness, as William retreated into whatever impenetrable corners of his mind he inhabited when he decided to.
But tonight, a thin sliver of light bled out from beneath the doorframe.
He was inside.
She swallowed hard, trying to smooth down the front of her purple dressing gown, though her fingers were trembling so violently the fabric rustled.
She had spent the last hour beside Alice’s bed, watching the rhythm of the child’s breathing.
She had wanted so desperately to share it with him.
But now, standing at his threshold, the brave momentum that had carried her down the hall faltered into panic.
Just knock, you absolute fool.
Before her nerve could desert her entirely, she rapped her knuckles against the door. The sound echoed loudly in the hall.
A beat of silence followed, so prolonged that she thought he might ignore her altogether. Then came his voice, deep, raspy, and stripped of all softness.
“Enter.”
Seraphina turned the handle and slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind her. “Good evening... William.”
He did not look up.
He was seated behind the desk, illuminated only by the glow of a single brass desk lamp and the embers of the hearth.
Spread out before him were stacks of ledgers, yellowed correspondence, and documents bearing wax seals.
In his right hand, he held a crystal tumbler filled with what looked like scotch.
He did not offer a greeting. He did not ask her why she was out of bed at such an hour. He kept his eyes fixed on the ledger before him, an unforgiving shadow casting over the high planes of his cheekbones.
Seraphina hovered near the doorway, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
The words she had rehearsed on her way down the corridor vanished.
She could not simply stride in and begin complaining about his weeks of absence, nor could she burst out with the news of Alice when he looked so entirely consumed by whatever lay before him.
The man sitting at that desk was not the dryly humorous, surprisingly patient man who bantered with her over the littlest things.
This was the Duke of Norwyn. Severe. Formidable.
Cold. He looked terrifyingly untouchable, surrounded by an aura of authority that made the spacious room feel suddenly very small.
Uncertainty warred with Seraphina’s pride. She needed a bridge, a neutral subject that belonged to their transactional reality, something that would force him to engage without demanding emotional intimacy.
“Is there... has there been any lead with the investigation?” she asked softly, her voice cutting through the silence. “Have you found anything?”
For a moment, he remained motionless. Then, he set the glass down on the desk.
“I was going to inform you tomorrow,” he said. “We have a name. Several names, actually.”
Seraphina took a tentative step forward, resting her hands on the back of one of the armchair choices facing his desk. “Names? What does that mean?”
“The Higgs conducted a more thorough search of the secondary quarters. They discovered a hidden compartment in the secretary desk containing letters and ledgers detailing financial disbursements.”
He turned a page. “Several individuals are now implicated,” he continued.
“But the mistress is still the most promising lead regarding the physical possession of the signet. However, the letters left at the cottage suggest a second actor, a former business associate of my father, a distant cousin whose estate was ruined by my father’s legal maneuvers a decade ago.
He would have ample motive to attempt extortion, and the handwriting matches the syntax of the blackmail notes. ”
“So you have actual suspects,” she breathed, a spark of excitement lighting up her chest. “Real leads... names, at last.”
“Three potential leads,” he corrected. “Yes. Anthony and I depart at first light. We intend to track down each individual, press them systematically, and determine who the blackmailer is.”
The prospect of action made her chest expand with relief. After weeks of waiting, the wheels were finally turning. “Let me go with you,” she said quickly, leaning across the desk. “I can help. I could observe, ask discreet questions —”
“No,” William cut her off.
She blinked, taken aback by the rejection. “William, I am entirely capable of assisting. It is my reputation on the line as much as yours —”
“I will handle it,” he said. “It is my duty to resolve this issue. You will remain here at the manor. When I have a concrete suspect or the blackmailer in custody, I will inform you.”
A prickle of frustration flared in her chest. She stared down at the top of his dark head, watching him reach for his glass once more. He hadn’t looked at her once. Not when she entered, not when he explained the leads, and not when he issued his outright refusal.
“William,” she said seriously. “Would you look at me?”
He did not move.
“Is there something wrong?” she pressed, taking another step closer to the edge of the desk. “Why will you not look at me?”
Slowly, almost painfully, William lifted his head and sighed... almost as if he was reluctant to do so.
When his serious gaze finally met hers, the air was instantly sucked from Seraphina’s lungs. That terrifying flutter deep in the pit of her stomach. Her breath caught in her throat.
It hadn’t gone away. Weeks of distance, weeks of silence and empty halls, but the moment his eyes locked onto hers, that absurd, electrifying current flared back to life. It was infuriating. It was illogical. It defied every rational framework she had built to protect herself.
Yet as she stared at him, the initial spark of irritation dissolved into a troubling realization.
There was something deeply wrong. The shadow in his eyes was not merely fatigue.
It was a brooding intensity that felt dangerous.
He looked at her not with that familiar, dry affection she had over time come to expect, but with a guarded, almost resentful distance.
She opened her mouth to ask if she had offended him, to inquire if she had made a mistake in assuming they had built a friendship amidst this bizarre arrangement.
Before she could utter a single word, William spoke.
“Seraphina... you cannot fall in love with me.”
The world seemed to halt on its axis.
Seraphina froze, her jaw slackening. The silence that followed was deafening.
What?
Her mind scrambled, racing through a dozen different interpretations of what he had just said.
Had she misheard him? Was this some twisted, bizarre joke?
Was she wearing her awareness of him so blatantly on her face that he felt compelled to issue a warning?
They had already acknowledged the physical tension between them, had they not?
They had agreed it was an attraction that would pass with time.
A nervous, disbelieving scoff escaped her throat before she could stop it. She let out a laugh, trying desperately to lighten the oppressive weight in the room.
“Where on earth is this coming from?” she demanded, crossing her arms tightly over her chest to hide the frantic beating of her heart.
“I thought we had thoroughly established the nature of our dynamic, William. We acknowledged a mutual... physical awareness at the ball, remember? A temporary chemical response... to proximity. I am most certainly not in love with you.”
She began to pace the edge of his desk, her voice rising in pitch as her defensive instincts kicked in full force.
“To suggest such a thing is utterly preposterous. Finding a man visually pleasing and intellectually engaging is hardly a precursor to tragic, romantic devotion. Science dictates that physical attraction is a sensory response to... familiarity. It is not a crime, nor is it a sentence of eternal adoration. I am a rational woman. I do not swoon, and I most certainly do not fall into unrequited love like a heroine in a foolish penny-novel!”
William did not interrupt her. He simply sat back in his chair, resting his chin on his steepled fingers, watching her pacing with an unreadable expression on his face.
His silence only fueled the fire beneath her pride.
“Is that what this has been?” she exploded, throwing her hands up in the air as the pieces suddenly clicked together in her mind.
“Is that why you have been hiding away in this room for weeks? Avoiding meals? Slipping through the corridors like a ghost? Because you manufactured this delusional notion in your head that I was pining for you?”
She stopped in front of his desk, her cheeks burning hot with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. “You must think remarkably high of yourself, Your Grace. You assume that because I enjoy our conversations, I am lying awake at night weeping into my pillow over a... temporary marriage contract?”
She knew, deep down, that her dramatic tirade was slightly exaggerated.
She knew her heart was hammering not just from anger, but from the truth that his words had struck far closer to a tender, vulnerable nerve than she dared to admit.
But she was in no state of mind to dissect her own emotions.
She just needed to defend herself. She needed to tear down his arrogant assumption before it destroyed whatever dignity she had left.
“You are being entirely absurd,” she added, her arms crossing tightly. “William, do not make this awkward. You are making things incredibly weird.”
William’s jaw clenched. A muscle ticked rhythmically beneath his cheek. He slowly lowered his hands, resting his palms flat on the desk as he leaned forward.