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W illiam felt as if his heart had been working overtime from the moment they’d gone out on their ride together.

It was not a pleasant feeling in the least. He had wondered, at first, whether he might not be ill.

Now he didn’t think he was because he hadn’t developed any other symptoms, but it didn’t feel good to be walking around wondering if his heart was damaged somehow.

If it was beating too quickly. If his body would be able to maintain this strange new rhythm.

It was worse, of course, whenever he came into close proximity with Arabella, and that was what let him know what the real cause of his illness was.

He had developed feelings for his wife.

That was not supposed to have happened. He had married her as a way of getting revenge against his own father.

He had never intended her to live a life of deprivation or cruelty of course—he had always intended to provide for all her needs and to ensure that she was happy.

But there was quite a big difference between providing for her and caring for her.

He couldn’t care for her, could he? It would be irresponsible—and it went entirely against every plan he had made!

Not to mention the fact that he was setting himself up for disappointment because she didn’t care for him in the least. That much was abundantly clear.

Again, there was nothing cruel or unkind in her lack of caring, but she had only married him so that her sisters would be provided for. She’d said so outright.

How frustrating that that fact was one of the things drawing him to her now.

But he had to admit, it did cause him to feel something, seeing the way she couldn’t turn her attention from her sisters’ needs.

Seeing how their happiness meant more to her than anything else in the world.

It was the very thing William had never had from his own parents, the very thing he had always wanted.

He had chosen her as someone his father would dislike because she was poor and suffered from an unfavorable reputation, but now, he realized that his father would disdain this fact about her too.

He would not admire, as William did, the way Arabella was willing to sacrifice her own needs for the sake of her sisters.

He would think she was foolish for that. Overly sentimental, he would call it.

William wished his father could have met Arabella. He wished he had had the opportunity to introduce the two of them. Arabella would have his father driven mad.

Certainly, she had him driven mad. And there was nothing to be done about that. It had been a term of their marriage that he would ask nothing of her and expect nothing of her. He couldn’t try to renegotiate that now.

Still, he couldn’t help making overtures of affection toward her. Perhaps there was some hope he might warm her up.

“Who put these here?” Arabella asked as she descended the stairs one morning. She was looking at the vase of hydrangeas on the table in the middle of the foyer. As William watched, she walked up and touched one gingerly, as though afraid she might damage it.

“I did,” William replied, unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice. “They’re your favorite, are they not?”

“I—well, yes, they are,” she admitted. “But how did you know that?”

He smiled. “You told me when I proposed,” he reminded her. “You said that you wanted to grow hydrangeas in the garden, remember?”

“I didn’t think you had remembered that,” she admitted. “I wasn’t being overly serious about it.”

“You don’t want them, then?”

“No, I do. I just… it wasn’t really a condition as such. I wasn’t planning on bringing it up again if you had forgotten it.”

“Well, I didn’t forget,” he told her. “The flowers are being moved into the garden as we speak.”

Arabella blinked. “They are?”

“I had some of the blooms brought in for you as a surprise—and as a way of letting you know the flowers had arrived,” he explained. “Are you happy?”

“I’d like to go out and see them,” she said, eyes wide.

“So you should, as soon as breakfast is over,” he agreed. “Let the gardeners finish their work, though. You can go out to the garden once they’re done.”

She shook her head. “William… I truly didn’t expect you to follow through with this. You laughed when I asked for it… We both knew that I was only trying to think of more things to ask for before agreeing to the marriage. We both knew you didn’t have to.”

“We can add that to the list of things I didn’t have to do, then,” William chuckled. “You do seem to keep reminding me that I was under no obligation to marry you in the first place.”

“Well, you weren’t,” she said.

“It’s possible I’m simply a more generous individual than you’ve given me credit for,” he told her.

She laughed. “I suppose that’s something I’m going to have to consider,” she agreed.

“Let us have our breakfast. Afterward, I’ll take you out to the garden and show you the new flowers. I’m sure you’re going to love the way they look.”

She followed him into the dining room, still smiling, and William’s heart soared. It was such a little thing, knowing that he had her gratitude, and yet, in this moment, it felt like everything in the world.

“I have something for you,” William said later that afternoon.

They were seated in the sitting room, each of them with a book in their laps.

William hadn’t been able to read a word of his.

He had been wrestling for the past hour with the question of whether he ought to give her the next gift he had for her today or if he should wait until tomorrow or the next day.

She had loved the hydrangeas as much as he’d hoped she would, and it did feel like a big step in the right direction.

It felt like they might be able to move their relationship forward.

It didn’t mean that she was falling in love with him, he knew that—but maybe it meant that she would develop a fondness for him.

And who knew what could grow out of that?

Besides, it’s not as if I’m in love with her either. That’s not what this is. It’s just… affection. I care for her.

He wondered whether he was right about that. He hoped he was. If this was really heading toward his being in love, he would lose control of the situation quickly, and that could lead them both into all kinds of trouble they didn’t need or want.

He had, in the end, decided that he would give her the gift he had for her.

Not for any well thought out reason but simply because he couldn’t bring himself to hold on to it any longer.

It had been delivered to the house earlier that day, and it was just so difficult to know that it was in his pocket, and he could bring it out and show it to her at any time.

He ached already to see the same smile on her face that had been there when he had shown her the new flowers.

He was going to have a hard time controlling the urge to buy her gifts.

And why should he control it? After all, this was his wife. If anyone in the world ought to be buying her gifts, it was him.

He reached into his pocket and closed his hand around the box concealed there. “I have something for you.”

She looked up from her book, marking the page with a finger. “Something else? Besides the flowers?”

“Yes.” He pulled out the box and opened it, revealing the emerald pendant within.

Arabella gasped. The book slid from her hands and landed on the floor with a muted thud. “William?—”

“I thought it would bring out the color in your eyes,” he explained, removing the pendant from the box. He held it out to her, rising to his feet. “May I?”

Arabella hesitated. “William, that’s too much. It’s too… too fine. I don’t need something like this.”

“You do,” he insisted. “You’re a duchess now, Arabella.

You ought to have fine things.” And I want to be the one who gives them to you, he added internally though he knew he couldn’t say that out loud.

There was no telling how she would receive that.

Would she be grateful that he had those feelings?

Would she return them? Or would it all just make her more uncomfortable than she already was?

He didn’t know, and until he found that out, he couldn’t run the risk of confiding in her about the way she made him feel.

He would have to keep that to himself, difficult though it might seem.

“Let me put it on you,” he insisted, holding the pendant out to her. “I just want to see how it looks on you.”

She rose to her feet and turned her back to him, permitting him to put the chain around her neck.

He fastened it carefully then rested his hands for the barest moment on her shoulders.

He felt the rise and fall as she breathed.

Was it his imagination, or was her breathing a bit more unsteady than usual?

He should have known. He should have known the risk he was running in bringing a beautiful young woman to live in his house with him. He should have known that having her around all the time like this would tempt him, would make him look at her in ways he had never planned on.

And yet, he hadn’t known. He hadn’t seen it coming.

He released her shoulders and allowed her to turn and face him. She did turn, but she didn’t look up at him, and the smile he had hoped to see on her face was absent.

Instead, she was gazing down at her shoes, her forehead creased with worry.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her. “You don’t like the necklace?”

“No, it isn’t that.” She lifted a hand to touch the pendant. “It’s beautiful, William. Of course, I love it.”

“Because if it isn’t to your taste, it can be exchanged for something else,” he said. “A sapphire, perhaps. Or even a diamond?”

“No!” She looked up so sharply that William felt startled.

“All right,” he conceded. “Not a diamond, then.”

“It’s lovely, William, truly,” she said. “I haven’t any complaints. I just… I’m a bit tired right now. I think I ought to lie down.”

“Well, of course, if that’s what you want,” William agreed, feeling rather befuddled.

She reached up, unhooked the necklace, and removed it quickly—so quickly that William couldn’t help thinking it looked as if she was pained by it. She held it out to him at arm’s length. “It really is beautiful,” she said. “Thank you very much, William.”

He accepted the necklace and put it back in the box. “Of course,” he said. “It looks lovely on you as well.”

She turned and rushed from the room.

William watched her go, wondering what on earth that had been about. She hadn’t received the necklace nearly as happily as she had the flowers.

Perhaps she doesn’t like jewelry , he mused. She couldn’t have had very much of it up until now. Her family had been too poor to purchase such lavish things.

Yes, that would be it. She simply wasn’t used to such things.

Well, she would adjust, he reassured himself. Now that she was a duchess, she would have to. He would buy her something more this very day. Soon enough, she would come to terms with how normal and expected it all was.