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For a moment, her careful composure wavered, and he glimpsed the vulnerability she worked so hard to conceal, her eyes shimmering in a way that make his chest tighten. But then her spine straightened, and the familiar mask of polite distance slipped back into place.

“That is not your concern. The truth remains: any association between us puts Celia at risk. She’s a lovely, innocent girl who deserves every advantage her birth and your position can provide. I will not be the reason society turns its back on her once she comes out.”

“I know that what exists between us is worth fighting for.”

“Is it, truly, Your Grace?” Annabelle opened her eyes, and he was struck by the desperation he saw there.

“Is it worth watching Celia struggle to find a suitable husband because his parents remember her father’s scandalous attachment?

Is it worth seeing her excluded from gatherings, whispered about in drawing rooms, and judged for choices that were never hers to make? ”

He knew she spoke truly. Because these were the very same things that he’d sought to make sure his only progeny never had to go through at the hands of society. He’d never realized how much he would come to detest hearing them spoken back to him.

So, the questions hit their mark. Henry felt his certainty waver as he thought of his daughter—brilliant, curious Celia—who deserved every opportunity society could offer.

“We could weather their disapproval,” he said, though the words felt less certain than before. “Time has a way of softening even the harshest judgments.”

“Does it?” Annabelle’s laugh held no humor. “Tell me, Your Grace, how long did it take for society to forget Philip’s betrayal? How long before they stopped viewing me with suspicion and pity? Because I can assure you, the answer is that they haven’t. They never will.”

Henry felt something crack inside his chest at her words and the resigned pain in her voice. He wanted to argue, to insist that their situation was different, and that his position would shield them both. But the doubt she’d planted was taking root and spreading through his certainty like poison.

“Then what do you propose?” he asked quietly. “That we simply… end this? Pretend that what’s grown between us doesn’t exist?”

“Yes.” The word was firm, final. “That’s exactly what I propose.”

“And if I don’t agree? If I refuse to simply walk away?” he asked, his breath quickening.

Because he truly did not want to. He could not bear the thought of letting her go.

“Then you’re not the man I believed you to be.” Her voice was steady, but he could see her hands trembling. “Because the man I’ve come to know would never prioritize his own desires over his daughter’s welfare.”

The accusation struck him silent. She was right, of course; Celia’s future had always been his primary concern and the driving force behind every decision he’d made since her birth. Annabelle had begun to occupy a space in his thoughts that rivaled even his paternal devotion.

It wasn’t that he would not let her go. It was simply that he could not .

“Marry me.”

The words left his lips before he’d fully formed the thought. His hastiness startled them both; Annabelle went completely still as her face drained of color.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“Marry me,” he repeated. The idea gained strength as he spoke. “If we wed, their whispers become irrelevant. You would be a duchess, beyond their petty judgments. Celia would have a mother who genuinely cares for her, and?—”

“No.” Annabelle’s voice was sharp. It cut through his growing enthusiasm. “No, we cannot.”

“Why not? It solves everything?—”

“It wouldn’t solve anything,” She said. “Henry, do you truly believe that marriage would silence their tongues? That they would not view me as less-than? A spinster who was previously married, a duchess? What suitor would want me as his mother-in-law? I’ll tell you: they would not.

Marrying me would affect Celia in the worst way possible. I cannot do this to her.”

Henry felt as though the ground was shifting beneath his feet, his heart pumping so hard in his chest that he thought it’d crack right through his ribcage.

“But I say this because I…” He started to say, but quickly stopped, as though the full import of his words seemed to dawn on him.

The silence between them stretched cold and frozen.

“So that’s it, then?” he said quietly. “You do not wish to be my wife? Have these past weeks meant nothing?”

“No. They… they meant so much,” she whispered, and the admission seemed to shatter something inside her. “And that’s precisely why they must end.”

She moved toward the door, and a terrible sense of panic seized him. “Annabelle, wait?—”

“Please don’t make this harder than it already is.” She paused with her hand on the door handle, her profile etched in the afternoon light. “I’ve made my decision. I pray that someday you’ll understand it was the right one.”

“The right one for whom?” he demanded, unable to stop himself from fighting for this…for her . “For Celia? For society? Or for the coward you’ve chosen to become?”

He words tasted like ash on his mouth as he uttered them. He despised speaking ill of her. And yet, his blood raced in his veins. He had to make her see, to tell her anything to get her to stay?—

She flinched as though he’d slapped her but didn’t turn around.

“Perhaps for all of us, Your Grace,” she said.

And then she was gone, leaving him alone among the exotic blooms and the gentle sound of falling water.

Henry stood motionless, every instinct urging him to go after her. But he held himself back.

He gave her those moments, waiting, daring her, to turn back, to take back the words that had cut deeper than any scandal ever could.

Yet she never did.