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He had shown me concern tonight, ordered my food, and acknowledged my hard work. Yes, his delivery was gruff and contradictory. But he had seen me and my efforts.

And he had pledged his innocence . He had claimed to be a man of his word, and she had seen enough of his rigid adherence to propriety to believe he might value that above all else. But if Nicholas wasn't his, then who was he? The thought spun in her head, adding to the perplexing puzzle.

After her bath, she walked to the window sill and sat down to stare out at the moonlit grounds of Morland Eestate, no longer feeling quite as if she owned them, but rather as if she was merely a guest, a pawn in a game far larger than herself.

Who was Julian Harrow, really? The proper, distant Duke? The man with a quick temper and a penchant for harsh words? Or the man who could kiss her with such unsettling passion despite their constant clashes, then order her a hot meal, and appear, for a fleeting moment, as lost as she felt?

Her thoughts gained no clarity as time passed and soon, she fell asleep with his image burned into her mind, a perplexing, frustrating, and undeniably compelling puzzle.

“I am truly the king of fools,” Julian mumbled to himself.

The kiss had been a mistake. An infuriating, utterly illogical mistake. Julian clenched his pillow, the soft thing offering no resistance to the turmoil churning within him. He had been foolish. Completely and utterly so. He had lost his head, surely.

Do not ever marry. The words echoed in his mind, a mantra he had clung to for years, a shield against the inevitable pain he believed he would inflict.

He had wanted nothing to do with Anna Munro, this stranger forced upon him by circumstance and conniving parents.

He had given her freedom, given himself freedom, and for nine months, it had worked.

A peaceful, solitary existence, precisely as he had planned.

But then the blasted child with troublesome parents – who would find more trouble on their hands when he was through with them - had arrived, pulling him back into the chaos, and suddenly, she was there.

Her green eyes, sharp with indignation, her slender form, her infuriating stubbornness.

And tonight… those lips and that cutting tongue had fueled him with a feeling of desire that had been ignited by the sight of her from the night before.

It was that blasted nightgown, the vulnerable and exposed appearance she had donned in the dim hallway light, that had struck him with a primal notion he hadn't known he possessed.

After years of instilling control within himself, after cautioning himself against the all-consuming feeling that could overwhelm one’s heart and lead to dire mistakes, it was very foolish indeed, how it had taken a moment of want to kiss his wife.

He rolled onto his back, staring at the dark ceiling.

He could still feel the startling softness of her lips, the subtle tremor that had run through her body when he had pulled her close.

How easily she had been overtaken by him, melting in his arms, her hands clutching his shirt.

A dangerous thought slithered into his mind – how easily he could have claimed her completely, there and then.

And God help him, how much he had wanted to do just that.

Do not be tempted, you damned idiot. He cursed himself silently.

It was a woman’s nature, he reminded himself, to be seductive, to draw a man in.

It was a trick, a lure. He had seen it in his father’s mistresses, the way they twisted men around their fingers, how they reveled in the chaos they created.

He would not be like his father. He would not succumb.

He would not hurt her as his father had hurt his mother.

His primary objective was to find the parents of the child, the true parents, and then he could return to his solitary life, away from this unsettling woman who threatened to unravel his carefully constructed world.

He forced himself to think of Ernest, the butler, and the search for the nursemaid. He needed to set clear boundaries, implement protocols, and regain control of his household, and his own increasingly erratic thoughts.

Come morning, however, the resolve he had clung to through the sleepless hours began to fray. He found himself looking for her in the halls, his eyes scanning for the flash of her dark hair, the swish of her skirts, and the faint, lingering scent that seemed to permeate his very home now.

It was as ridiculous as it was tiresome. He was a Duke, with responsibilities and pressing matters, not an infatuated schoolboy.

He was surprised, pleasantly so, when she appeared to join him for breakfast. She walked into the dining hall with quiet dignity, her hair neatly pinned, a sensible gown replacing the scandalous nightwear he had found himself wishing multiple times that she had been wearing when he had his hands on her last night.

It would have been so easy then, to feel more of her smooth skin, to taste her scent until it was all he knew. To mark her up as –

Oh, God. It was getting worse.

Julian cleared his throat and raised his cup of tea to take a sip, his eyes following her as she settled in the seat facing him.

She looked… composed. Too composed, perhaps, for a woman who had been thoroughly kissed by her the husband she wished to wage war against just hours before.

A flicker of annoyance mixed with a strange disappointment flashed through him.

Was she truly so unaffected?

“Good morning, Duchess,” he managed, his voice a little rougher than he intended.

“Your Grace.” Her response was equally formal, her green eyes fixed on the spread before her, without sparing him a single glance.

The dining table they sat at was quite large, but the silence that hung over them made the expanse feel vast. And Julian hated it completely.

“How are – the child? How is he?”

There was a slight quirk to her eyebrow as she reached for a piece of toast.

“He has a name. Choosing not to use it will not make him disappear.” Anna responded lowly, focused on slathering jam over her toast.

Irritation flared within the duke and he sighed.

“Nicholas. How is he?”

“He is well. Has been fed and cleaned for the morning and last I saw, he was being showered with attention and affection by the maids. He is in good hands.”

“That is… that is good. I have already asked Ernest to look into finding him a nursemaid. We should begin to receive applications soon. And I am also searching for his parents. I intend to find them as soon as possible.”

Anna nodded, lifting her cup of tea. “All right.”

The small talk was stilted, void of emotion and inflection. It seemed neither of them could meet the other’s gaze for long, their eyes darting away whenever they inadvertently locked. The memory of the kiss hung in the air, a thick, unspoken tension that made the simplest exchange feel fraught.

Then, suddenly, she broke the silence that followed the clinking of cutlery. Her voice was a little higher than when she had blandly answered his questions, as though she could not hide the emotions behind them.

“Why did you marry me, Your Grace?”

The bluntness of it caught him off guard. He froze his fork midway to his mouth. He set it down slowly, carefully. He hadn’t expected her to raise it, not like this, not now. Or rather… he had hoped he would never have to hear it at all.

“It was… necessary,” he finally managed, his voice strained.

He remembered the fury he had felt when they had been found in the conservatory, the whispers that had begun before he even left the ball, the unavoidable scandal that would have found them both if he had not done the right thing.

His oath to never marry, to never subject a woman to the pain of a faithless husband, had been shattered in that instant, pushing him down a disconcerting and uncomfortable path.

“Necessary?” she repeated a hint of hardness in her tone.

“For whom, exactly? You clearly didn’t want a wife.

You couldn’t stand the idea of living in the same house with me, so you left, barely a day after we were wed.

For nine months, you were absent and you would have never returned, had I not summoned you.

So why did you marry me? You could have simply let me face my fate. Ruined, perhaps, but free.”

His jaw clenched.

She had raised good points that had aligned with his intention never to marry to avoid subjecting a woman to the agony his mother had endured. He had planned a solitary life, dedicated to restoring his family name, to ensuring the Harrow legacy was spotless.

But the scandal… it had left him no choice. To resist the pull of propriety required after being caught so obviously would have been an even greater stain, an ungentlemanly act that would have tarnished his carefully cultivated reputation and dragged his family name further into the mud.

And she might claim to have been able to stand against what would have followed, but he knew that was not true. Anna had no idea how cruel people could be. But he did, all too well.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said, the words clipped, defensive.

A dry, sarcastic laugh escaped her, a sound that grated on his nerves.

“You are not the martyr you think you are, Your Grace. Perhaps we both would indeed have been better off if you had just left me to my fate. A ruined woman is hardly a happy one, but a woman trapped in a cold marriage to a man who despises her presence is surely worse.”

The words stung, hitting closer to the truth than he cared to admit.

He could be kinder. He knew it. He could tell her that their fates had been intertwined the moment she’d stepped into the conservatory and that his sense of honor, his deep-seated need for order and reputation, had compelled him to act.

He could confess that the idea of her facing utter ruin, of being cast out, had not been his motivation then, but he was working to forget that it still indirectly played a part in his actions.

He could tell her that, despite his rage, he hadn't wanted her to suffer.

But the words remained lodged in his throat, choked by his own pride. Instead, he forced a curt, almost dismissive reply. “Perhaps you are right. But there is little to do about the past now than regret it.”

He pushed back his chair, the scraping sound loud in the quiet dining hall. Without another word, he rose and left her sitting alone at the vast table, realizing with each step away and a fresh wave of frustration, that the kiss they had shared had only complicated everything.