Page 77 of The Duchess’ Little Miracle

“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.”