Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Your Grace, do you realize that King Henry VIII had six wives, and two of them lost their heads entirely?” Alice swung her legs off the edge of her bed, gesturing wildly with her feather quill.
“Miss Peyton says it was all rather chaotic, but I think if a man requires six attempts at a marriage, the fault lies entirely with his own disposition. Don’t you think?
What do you think? I want to know what you think. ”
Seraphina sat on the chair beside the small bed, her hands folded neatly in her lap. “Indeed, sweet girl. A most tumultuous period.”
In truth, Seraphina had barely heard a word Alice said. Her mind was a stormy sea.
‘Why must love be so thoroughly, maddeningly inconvenient?’ she thought, staring blankly at the floral pattern of Alice’s wallpaper.
She recalled a passage from an old French philosopher she had read in Lady Byron’s library...
something about love being a gilded madness, a poison that made wise men fools and women reckless.
It was absurd. How could a single human being invoke such an overwhelming, bone-deep affection within her, while simultaneously inspiring a burning urge to strangle him with his own cravat?
She had sacrificed everything for his peace of mind.
She had accepted his rules, protected his household, kept his secrets, and swallowed her own desires because he insisted upon drawing lines.
She had agreed to leave, to go back to the suffocating solitude of the countryside because she thought it was what he truly wanted.
Yet, he walked around his own home looking as though he wished to tear down the timber with his bare hands.
Truly, there was no pleasing a man so determined to be miserable.
She needed to write to Euphemia. She needed to write to someone who possessed a semblance of romantic wisdom, if only to ask why love had to feel like navigating a minefield blindfolded.
“—and so I told Miss Peyton that if I were Queen Catherine, I simply would have locked the palace gates,” Alice finished, looking at her expectantly. “What do you think, Your Grace? What would you have done?”
Seraphina blinked, snapping back to the present. She offered the girl an apologetic smile. “Forgive me, Alice. My mind wandered for a moment. It is getting quite late, and it is past time for sleep.”
She had originally come into the nursery to begin the task of preparing Alice for her departure, to gently ease the child into the reality that she would not be here forever. But looking at Alice’s face, her courage failed her.
“You are behaving just like His Grace,” Alice noted, pulling her blankets up to her chin with a put-upon sigh.
Seraphina paused. “What do you mean?”
“He came in here this afternoon, and he was just as distracted,” Alice said, plumping her pillow. “He didn’t hear a word about King Henry either.”
“Oh,” Seraphina murmured softly. “Was he... talking to you about history?”
“No,” Alice replied innocently. “He just sat right where you are sitting, and told me that if I could convince you to stay for a very, very long time, he would buy me the pony with the white spot on its nose that we saw at the market when I went with Mary. But I told him you weren’t going anywhere anyway, so it was a very silly bribe. ”
Seraphina froze, the air leaving her lungs in a sharp gasp. “He... he said what to you, Alice?”
“He said I should ask you to stay,” Alice repeated, yawning sleepily. “I can sleep alone tonight, Your Grace. I don’t have nightmares anymore.”
“Of course, my dear,” Seraphina whispered, her heart beating a little too fast. She rose to her feet, leaned in, and placed a kiss on Alice’s forehead. “Goodnight, dear Alice.”
She stepped out into the corridor, her mind spinning in circles.
Without stopping to think, without allowing her mind to construct a single objection, Seraphina marched down the hallway directly toward the Duke’s private bedchamber. She didn’t knock. She pushed the door open and strode inside.
William stood near his side table, a cup held to his lips. He was stripped of his formal coat, cravat, and waistcoat. His white linen shirt was unbuttoned, exposed and loose, revealing his chest.
At the sound of the door crashing open, he froze, his eyes widening in stunned shock as he looked at her.
“Did something chase you?” he asked, setting the cup down.
“What did you tell Alice?” Seraphina demanded, her chest heaving as she closed the distance between them.
William went completely still. “What?”
“What did you tell Alice?” she repeated, stopping just a few paces from him, her cheeks flushed. “Did you tell her to convince me to stay? Did you offer her a pony to ask me not to leave? Did you, William?”
He stood motionless, his silence stretching.
“Say something!” Seraphina asked, her voice trembling.
“Stop with the mystery! Stop with the silence and the cold stares. I have laid my heart open to you twice now; I have confessed things I swore I would never say aloud, and you stand there like an impenetrable fortress. If you do not say something meaningful to me in the next five seconds, William, I am walking out of this house and I am never coming back.”
He stared at her. She could see it happening, the shift in him, the way his hands unclenched at his sides and the breath he drew in slowly as though he were steadying himself against something. She could see his jaw working. She could see the stillness that came over him.
“I am not a man who explains himself easily in many words,” William said softly. “So it is... exceptionally difficult for me to explain to you just how hopelessly I have fallen in love with you.”
Seraphina gasped, taking a step back. The declaration settled into the room, and she did not know what to do with it.
“Is this a ploy?” she asked, her voice breathless as she searched his face. “Is this some sort of game? What is your motive, William? Because this does not sound like the man who drew lines.”
He did not answer her with words.
He breached the space between them in two steps, framing her face in his hands.
The heat of his palms pressed against her jawline while his thumbs rested softly on her cheekbones, a stroke so tender it defied the volatile storm that had driven her into his room.
Tilting her chin upward, he brought his lips down on hers.
It was nothing like their collision in the study, which had been pure friction, heat, and the panic of two people fighting an inescapable pull.
This was deliberate. He claimed her lips patiently, intentionally, grounding the kiss with a devotion so absolute that hot tears pricked the backs of her eyes.
The feeling rippled straight through her, piercing the precise emotional vault she had spent months fortifying.
When he broke the contact, his thumbs brushed over her skin. Seraphina fluttered her eyes open.
The look in his eyes defied every label she possessed. She had never seen this face. It was vulnerable, a sight so unprecedented that it robbed the air straight from her lungs.
“I am terrified,” he whispered against her skin.
Seraphina blinked, her hands resting against his bare chest, feeling the wild, rapid beat of his heart. “Terrified?”
“I am terrified, Seraphina,” he repeated, letting out a ragged breath.
“That is how I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that what I feel for you is real. Nothing frightens me. When you grow up under the shadow of a man like my father, you learn never to panic. You learn to make yourself cold and untouchable.”
He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closing for a brief moment.
“Before you walked into my life, I was a bitter, terrible man,” he confessed softly then let out a light chuckle.
“I was rigid. I was callous. I did not care for anyone’s feelings.
I barely tolerated my own. Jameson is a saint for not abandoning me years ago.
But then you arrived with your wit, your brilliant mind, and your refusal to be intimidated by me. ”
A soft smile touched his lips as he looked down at her.
“Suddenly I found myself wanting to learn how to laugh again. I wanted to speak to Alice without watching her recoil. I wanted to feel warmth. I was already spellbound by the mind of E.R. Voce. Then I met you, and I like the feisty, logical Seraphina more than I like the mind of E.R Voce. How could I possibly not fall in love with you? What man alive could resist you?”
Seraphina felt as though the floor beneath her had turned to water. Her throat felt tight, her eyes stinging with tears. “Do you truly mean that?”
“With every breath in my body,” William murmured.
“I always believed that love was a weakness. A poison that made wise men foolish and ruined every life it touched. I saw what my father’s hollow promises did to the women around him, and I swore I would never let anyone close enough to hurt me, or let anyone close enough that I hurt them. ”
“Me too,” Seraphina whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I swore the very same thing.”
“But the thought of living the rest of my life without you... The thought of this house returning to the cold, silent tomb it was before you arrived... that fear is infinitely greater than any terror of opening my heart. I want you to stay, Seraphina. I want us to be the family we were meant to be. I refuse to let this be a lie.”
Seraphina let out a trembling laugh, her chest bursting with warmth. “Me too.”
William pulled back to meet her eyes. “You... you do? I thought... I thought all you wanted was to return to the countryside to live with Lady Byron.”
“That was a last resort.” she laughed softly, shaking her head. “I only said that because I thought you were desperate to be rid of me. As much as I love Lady Byron, there is no life for me there anymore. I have entirely outgrown it.”
William beamed, a sight so breathtakingly rare that Seraphina’s heart skipped a beat.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, lifting her slightly off her feet as he pulled her into a tight embrace, burying his face in the crook of her neck.
When he set her down, he captured her lips once more in a slow, lingering kiss that calmed the last of her nerves.
“So,” William murmured, pulling back just enough to look into her eyes. “Do we live our lives together, then? Forever?”
“Yes,” Seraphina replied softly, resting her cheek against his chest. “I would like that very much.” She paused, a small frown touching her brow. “Though... I do still worry for Lady Byron. I do not wish for her to be completely alone.”
William hummed thoughtfully, smoothing his hand over her hair. “Then we shall make it a rule to visit her every three months. Or better yet... we shall invite her to stay here. The estate is vast enough for her to have her own wing, and she may debate politics with you to her heart’s content.”
Seraphina looked up at him, her eyes beaming. “That is a wonderful idea, William. I would love that.”
“However,” William added. “I would strongly prefer that we take a proper honeymoon before any of that occurs.”
Seraphina squinted her eyes at him suspiciously, a playful smile tugging at her lips. “A honeymoon? What, pray tell, would be different about this honeymoon compared to our last?”
William leaned in close, his voice dropping. “Well... I could properly show you how to consummate a marriage. Since you were so delightfully curious in my study the other night, I believe it is only right that I demonstrate how it is done... the proper way. Together. In our bed.”
Seraphina’s cheeks flushed crimson, her eyes widening as she looked up into his handsome, unrepentant face. “William!”
He merely chuckled, pulling her against his body and pressing a soft kiss to her temple. “I promise to show you everything, my love.”