“I will not be made a fool of,” she hissed.
Felix leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms with a lazy, calculated grace. The amusement from the ballroom still lingered in the curve of his mouth.
“I would never dream of it, wife,” he replied. “In fact, I thought I was being quite the dutiful husband, fending off the vultures.”
“Don’t,” she snapped, pacing the small space between the desk and the hearth. “Do not use that tone. I saw Lady Rutledge. I saw the way you leaned into her, the way you let her simper over your lapel on ourwedding day.”
“She was a nuisance,” Felix said, his voice dropping to a low, soothing vibration. He moved into the room, closing the distance between them. “One I was happy to be rescued from. If you wanted the room to know I am yours, you needn’t have dragged me to the dark. You could have simply asked me to dance.”
Rose let out a sharp, jagged laugh. “Dance? You think this is a game of quadrilles and flirtations? You promised me respect, Your Grace. And yet you stand there preening while the ton waits for me to stumble.”
He reached for her, not to restrain but to steady, his fingers hovering just an inch from her silk-clad elbow. “I am respecting you, Duchess. I was merely being polite with my guests.”
She looked at him then, really looked, and for the first time since the bells had rung, Felix felt the mirth begin to drain from his limbs. Beneath the outrage, he saw a tremor in her mouth. She looked like a woman who had not slept in weeks, who carried the weight of an infant’s future like a stone around her neck.
“We need rules,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “For Lizzie. For the sake of her reputation, we must be beyond reproach. We must share outings. We should appear unified. We shouldnotembarrass one another.”
“A wife after my own heart. Rules, then. Let us set them out.” He straightened, adopting the pose of a barrister. “Rule one?”
Rose folded her arms. “We will be seen together, whenever possible.”
“A show of unity.” He nodded. “Practical.”
“Rule two: You will not publicly contradict or undermine me. If you have a grievance, you may air it in private.”
“Wife craves privacy for all domestic bloodshed. Noted,” he nodded.
Rose pressed on. “Rule three: Appearances are everything. Lizzie is to be treated as your legitimate ward. There will be no whiff of scandal attached to her, ever.”
He did not smile this time. “No one will harm a hair on her head, or a syllable of her name.”
She looked at him as if suspecting sarcasm, found none, and then, her anger seemed to waver.
“Anything else?” Felix prompted. “Shall we share breakfast and dinner? Attend every tedious ball as a matched set? Shall we share—” he let the word linger like a caress “—the same suite of rooms?”
She hesitated, her gaze flickering to the floor before snapping back to his. “We will maintain separate quarters. Behind locked doors.”
“Of course,” he said, giving her a shallow, mocking bow. “I am a rogue, Rose, not a marauder.”
He watched her, expecting a sharp retort or a flush of embarrassment. Instead, she laughed, and it was a brittle, jagged sound that scraped against the quiet of the study.
“I doubt you’re either, really,” she whispered.
Felix felt a rare spark of genuine surprise. He straightened, his eyes narrowing as he studied the sudden, sharp clarity inher expression. “You think you see through me, Duchess? Most people spend their lives trying to do that and fail.”
“I see a man who uses charm as a shield,” she said, her voice dropping. “And I see a man who is currently asking for my bed while the woman he actually ruined is barely cold in her grave.”
The mirth died in Felix’s chest. The air in the room seemed too thin, turning cold and sharp.
“Rose,” he warned, turning his voice into a low, dark vibration.
“Was that the rule you forgot?” she pressed, stepping into his space, her fury finally breaking through the surface. “Rule four: You will own your cruelty. You will admit, here in the dark where no one can hear you, your part in what happened to Julia.”
The name landed like a dropped glass, shattering the polished veneer Felix had spent years perfecting. His composure held, but only just. He didn’t look at her; he could not. Instead, he looked past her at the cold, unlit hearth, his jaw tightening until the muscle ticked.
“What happened to Julia,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of its usual silk, “was not my doing.”
Rose’s face froze. “You are lying to yourself. You seduced her, then let her rot when it was inconvenient. Because you never came for her, Your Grace. Not once.”
