Page 14 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

“You heard me.”

“I did, and I am allowing you an opportunity to phrase it less like a challenge.”

She gasped, and it was a delightful sound to hear. “It is not a challenge. It is a condition.”

He considered her rule.

“Are you truly asking a duke to give up the possibility of an heir?” He raised a brow at her.

“I am asking a man who proposed marriage for the sake of two little girls whether he meant what he said.” It was a clean hit.

Hector lowered his chin slightly.

The matter of an heir was not small. Men had built entire lives around less. He was not indifferent to duty in that form. But he had not come to Bendon House in pursuit of a wife in the ordinary sense, and he would not pretend otherwise merely because the consequence now stood before him with a steady voice, frightened courage and a beautiful countenance that intrigued him.

“And this is absolute?” he asked.

She nodded firmly. “Yes.”

“Very well.”

The swiftness of his answer seemed to unsettle her.

“Very well?” she repeated, and she almost sounded disappointed.

Hector nodded just as firmly as she did. “Yes, I agree with your rule, but I have one condition of my own.”

Her composure returned at once. “What is it?”

“You must care for the girls. That is the purpose of this arrangement. Their comfort, their health, and their security come first. I have a sort of reputation amongst young children, where I have been called a monster; you will help them get over that fear. Nothing else.” It was an order.

Poppy studied him then and imagined how he would look to a child. His eyes, height, and broadness made him seem monstrous, but as he spoke, that mirage slowly drifted away, leaving room for the man beneath.

“I have been doing so for quite some time,” she said smugly. “Longer than you. But truly, I understand.”

“I hope you do. Because if you have any foolish romantic ideas about this arrangement becoming something more, you should abandon them immediately.”

Silence followed before Miss Norish laughed loudly. She tried to contain it and failed, which made the sound far more revealing than any answer she might have given. Hector grimaced as he listened to the clumsy, tinkling sound.

“This is not a joking matter, Miss Norish,” he admonished her.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, though laughter still touched the edges of the words. “It is only that romance and Your Grace seem the most unlikely pair imaginable.”

Hector sat very still.

He ought to have been offended, but he was in awe of her honesty. It was refreshing to a man of his title. He found himself attending to the quiet after her laughter had died down, and she seemed to hold herself together after unraveling in her own mirth.

Besides, she is right.

“Keep your thoughts of me as such,” he said firmly.

“If that is what you wish for,” she replied drily.

“You understand,” he continued, “that I cannot offer you what another husband might, but I will provide for you. You will have the position and protection befitting my wife. And you will not be mistreated in my house.”

“But it would be loveless.” The sadness in her words struck him painfully.

There was a slight shift in her stillness, and he imagined that she must have dreamed of falling in love and getting married. Hector felt slightly guilty that he would be crushing that dream of hers.