Page 121 of Bound By the Duke

His answer came in a whisper, as though torn from the deepest recesses of his soul. “Because I have hurt someone before.”

Her breath caught. Her hands fell from his shoulders, and her eyes searched his face. She didn’t know how to react to such a confession. She didn’t know what answer she had been expecting but this hadn’t been it.

He looked away, but she saw it. The shame. The way his gaze darkened with memory.

And then, in a shaky voice, he said a single name: “Madeline.”

The air left her lungs.

Aurelia knew that name. Everyone did.

The late Duchess of Whitmore. The one whose ghost still haunted every cold corridor of Whitmore Estate.

“I was young when my father arranged it.” His jaw clenched, but he forced himself to continue. “A marriage with a woman I barely knew. My heart didn’t yearn for her. Nonetheless, I thought I was doing my duty as a duke, as a son. But she…” His voice cracked slightly. “She was in love with another. And I, fool that I was, did not see it until it was too late.”

He paused, closing his eyes as if trapped in memory.

“I gave her space because it was a loveless marriage. And she appreciated it because she felt the same way. We barely saw each other after our wedding night. I thought… I thought that was a kindness.”

Aurelia didn’t speak. Didn’t move. She just listened. Her hands slowly moved back to his shoulders.

“Before Lottie was born…” His voice lowered, heavy with sorrow. “I went to see her, and that was when I realized how wrong I had been. The moment I walked in, she turned from the window with tears in her eyes. She told me…”

He took a deep breath and pressed on, his voice hoarse. “She told me that everything was my fault. She told me that she hated me. That she wished she had never met me because I ruined her life. I took her away from her lover, and her lover had found someone new.”

Aurelia’s breath hitched softly. She could already guess what had happened next.

“And then,” Percival whispered, his eyes distant, “she died birthing Lottie. But even before then, she was clearly unhappy forced into the match she didn’t want.”

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.

That fear, that past that had haunted him for ten years, he had finally revealed it. Not as the Duke of Whitmore, but as Percival, a victim of his father’s choices.

It made Aurelia’s heart ache. It thundered, like a storm behind her ribs.

She could only stare at him. Though her lips parted, she could only manage shallow breaths.

It was a painful realization that the distance in his gaze, the way he always unclenched her fists, the way he avoided his first wife’s portrait, was caused by what had happened ten years ago.

The pieces finally clicked into place.

This is why he keeps his distance. This is why he fears love. This is why he fears me.

For the first time, she saw him. Not as the untouchable duke the world feared, but as a man. A broken, haunted, wary man.

He turned his face away, his jaw tight, as if even now he couldn’t bear to be seen in such a vulnerable state.

“This is why I can’t give you a child,” he whispered.

Aurelia’s heart lurched.

“I’ve thought about it every night since you left,” he admitted. “What if you hate me one day? What if childbirth takes you from me, and I’m left holding the pieces? What if I watch it all fall apart again and I can’t—” His voice cracked. “I wouldn’t survive it, Aurelia. Not again.”

She had never seen him like this. So emotional. So lost. So desperately, nakedly human.

Tears welled up in her eyes before she could stop them.

He still wouldn’t look at her. His hands were clenched, white-knuckled, like he was bracing for her silence. Her anger. Her rejection.