“Of course I was frightened,” she said, moving toward him. “You vanished into a death trap.”
“It wasn’t—”
“It was. And you knew it.” Her voice softened. “But you went anyway, because someone needed help.” She moved closer to him. “That’s who you really are. Not the Beast, not the controlled Duke, but the man who risks everything to save a child.”
“You’re romanticising a practical decision.”
“I’m recognising the truth you keep trying to hide.” She was close enough now to see the pain lines around his eyes, the exhaustion he was fighting. “You should rest.”
“I cannot.”
“Why not?”
He exhaled slowly. “Because every time I close my eyes, I see your expression as I went in after the boy. I have never—” He stopped, searching for words. “No one has ever looked at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I mattered. As though losing me would…” He swallowed. “Would trouble you.”
“It would do more than trouble me,” she said softly. “It would undo me.”
He went absolutely still.
“Don’t say things like that,” he whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because I may begin to believe them. And then where would we be?”
“Together,” she said simply. “Actually together. Not merely pretending.”
For a heartbeat, the air between them felt charged enough to spark. His gaze flicked to her lips, to her throat, back to her eyes—his restraint a trembling thing.
Then he stepped back.
“Goodnight, Celine.”
“This is becoming absurd,” she called after him. “We’re married!”
“In name only,” he said without turning. “For twenty-three more days.”
The door closed behind him, and Celine was left alone with her frustration and the growing certainty that twenty-three days might as well be twenty-three years.
Later, as she prepared for bed, she heard him in the adjoining room. Footsteps pacing. A chair pushed back. The restless movements of a man at war with himself.
She paused beside the locked door, her fingers brushing the wood as though it were his skin.
Who would break first?
***
The next three days settled into a rhythm. Mornings spent riding out to visit tenants, afternoons reviewing estate business, evenings carefully parted by locked doors and polite distance. Yet the tension gathered with each passing hour, each accidental brush of fingers, each glance too weighted to ignore.
The modiste had arrived as promised, bringing bolts of cloth and elegant sketches. The Duke insisted upon attending the fitting, claiming he needed to approve the expenses. But Celine caught him watching her with an intensity that had nothing to do with financial concerns.
“The green velvet,” he said when she stepped out in a riding habit. “Most assuredly the green.”
“It is rather dear,” the modiste warned.
