Page 13 of His Scandalous Duchess (Icy Dukes #4)

CHAPTER EIGHT

“ I do not intend to have more children,” he said simply.

This was definitely not a subject that Cecilia had intended to broach that evening.

Certainly not while the air between them still felt crisp from their awkward wedding that morning.

But the moment hung, charged and very uncertain, and she found herself watching Valentine as he discarded his coat and loosened his cravat.

Cecilia faltered, her chest tightening. “Surely,” she added. “You do not mean to exclude our duty to produce an heir. That cannot be ignored, no matter how coldly you feel about the rest of this arrangement.”

“I have an heir,” he said to her, returning to her side when he was done loosening his clothing.

He stepped closer to her, his voice infuriatingly calm. “Who told you it must be done?”

She stared at him. “Everyone.”

“Well, apparently, everyone seems to be wrong about the subject.”

Cecilia squinted her eyes slightly, unsure whether he was jesting or truly serious.

Surely, one of her key responsibilities as the new Duchess of Ashbourne was to provide an heir.

To secure the line. It had been whispered into her ear from the moment she came of age, discussed with maddening certainty by her aunt and her tutors alike, as if motherhood were an inevitable condition of different titles.

To hear him dismiss it so casually felt… disorienting.

She stood a little straighter and took in a sharp breath. “I see,” she said, even though the heat rising in her throat made it almost impossible to stay polite. “You mean to break with tradition. How very modern of you.”

Valentine didn’t so much as flinch. He reached behind him for the glass he had been drinking from and then turned back to her, standing only a few inches away now. “That is not the case here, Duchess.”

“Then what is the case?” she questioned, feeling her patience wear thin. “Explain it to me so I understand, Your Grace.”

He arched a brow, not with irritation, but with the faintest gleam of amusement, as though she were an unruly pupil testing her tutor’s endurance. “You appear very determined to understand matters you have only the faintest grasp of.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He took a deliberate sip, and she hated how calmly he did it, as though she were a fluttering sparrow pecking at the edges of a feast she had no business approaching.

“This sudden interest in marital obligations, is it curiosity, or are you merely eager to check off a duty from your long list of duchess duties?”

Her cheeks burned. “I assure you, Your Grace, I don’t go about ticking off lists when it comes to–”

“To what? Intimacy?” he asked, a single brow rising as he took a step forward.

“You came into my study, indignant, muttering about heirs and wedding nights without the faintest idea what you were proposing. So I ask again. Did I obsess you so thoroughly in the past few days that you’ve begun fantasizing about fulfilling your duties? ”

Cecilia’s mouth dropped open, and something sharp and wild twisted in her chest. “Obsess me?” she repeated with a laugh that held no humor.

“I came in here to have a rational conversation. A practical one. Forgive me if I thought it prudent to address the rather large elephant in the room, one you seem determined to pretend does not exist.”

“You call marching in and asking me to lie with you practical?”

“Lie with me?” she questioned with eyes, unable to believe her eyes.

“Your Grace, pardon me, but that is not at all what I came here to propose. I came here because I was under the very clear impression that something of consequence was meant to happen on one’s wedding night.

Or have I gravely misunderstood what all of London means when it speaks of consummation? ”

He exhaled slowly, but not without the twitch of a smile. “The word is correct, Duchess. But the assumption was yours.”

“Then enlighten me,” she said, arms folded tightly across her nightdress. “What exactly did you mean when you said you had no desire for an heir?”

Valentine’s eyes flicked to hers, and for a moment, she thought he might deflect again.

But instead, he took a step back and walked toward the sideboard, where he poured himself another glass of brandy.

“I meant precisely what I said,” he replied at last, swirling the amber liquid in the glass.

“My brother, Norman, is my heir. He always has been. I have no wish to change that.”

Cecilia blinked, not quite certain she had heard him correctly. “You… you mean to say that you would rather your brother inherit everything than–?”

“Yes.”

“But that makes no sense!” she snapped, unable to stop herself from advancing a step. “Why go through the trouble of marrying again if not for a legitimate successor? Surely, you don’t imagine society will let it rest with that explanation.”

“Let society imagine what it will,” he said flatly. “I am not beholden to its expectations.”

Cecilia stared at him as a deep unease bloomed in her chest, not from fear, but from something more disquieting.

Disappointment. Even now, she could not entirely name why it stung so much.

She had never dreamt of becoming a mother.

She had never imagined a household full of children, not for herself.

Yet, to be denied the possibility so summarily.

..to be cast aside so easily as irrelevant to his legacy, chafed more than it should have.

“What about me?” she asked softly, almost against her will.

Valentine’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t look at her. “You are the Duchess of Ashbourne. That is not a trifle. I told you once before that this is a marriage of convenience.”

Cecilia said nothing at first. She merely watched him, this maddening, unreadable man, whose every word seemed chosen to keep her at arm’s length. In that moment, she realized that she had no reason to be upset. It was all communicated to her before they ever got married.

Although she feared the expectations of family, of duty, of legacy, she could hardly press for a future that was never meant to be hers, not when this marriage had been born of a misunderstanding, not intention.

It wasn’t even a marriage she wanted to begin with. Why hold on to anything?

She loved children. Truly, she did. Having grown up in a noisy household with younger siblings clinging to her skirts and crawling into her bed during storms, she had been more nursemaid than sister long before she ever had the title for it.

But while affection for them came naturally, the idea of having children of her own had never quite settled in her mind.

It had always been a conversation for other women, those who dreamed of nurseries and names.

Those who had prepared their minds for the journey long before they got married.

She could, she supposed, pour her attentions into Abigail, Valentine’s daughter. The girl seemed spirited. There would be satisfaction in winning her over, in nurturing something tender there. Cecilia had never been adept at softness, but for a child, perhaps she could learn.

“You’re quiet,” Valentine noticed, walking back to her side. “Are you starting to regret agreeing to this arrangement?”

Cecilia turned her head slowly, meeting his gaze. “I regret assuming it would make more sense up close,” she said crisply. “But the more I try to understand, the more ridiculous it all seems.”

Her response earned a faint twitch of his brow. “Ridiculous?”

“You don’t want an heir,” she said, counting on her fingers.

“You don’t want a partner. You certainly don’t want a wife in any meaningful sense.

You do not want companionship, or conversation, or even the appearance of warmth.

If all you sought was a stable household and someone to care for your daughter, you might have hired a governess. ”

Valentine’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

She pressed on. “I know I have asked you this question multiple times before with no clear answer, but I’ll ask again. Why marry? Why drag someone else into a life you have so clearly walled off for yourself?”

Valentine exhaled through his nose, slow and quiet. His gaze slid away from her for a moment, toward the dying fire in the hearth.

“This marriage,” he said at last. “Has nothing to do with me. Abigail deserves a mother. That is the reason this arrangement was born. I do not want anything from you, Duchess.” He looked back at her then.

“Not your affection, not your sacrifices, not your concern. You will be provided for. You will want for nothing, and in return, I ask only that you be kind to my daughter and maintain the household.”

Cecilia swallowed, her fingers tightening around the edge of her sleeve.

He said it so plainly, so coolly, that she had no reason to doubt him.

He truly wanted nothing. Not from her, not from this marriage, not even from life, it seemed, beyond what duty demanded.

No affection, no intimacy, no claim to happiness.

Yet, as she stood there, processing all he had said, Cecilia felt something hollow open inside her.

She had dreamed of love. Not boldly, not with the indulgent certainty of girls raised to expect grand love stories, but she had dreamed all the same. In her quiet moments, in borrowed books...in ballrooms.

She had dreamed of something warmer than this. She had not set her hopes high. But she had set them somewhere.

But this?

This arrangement and promise of absence bruised her in places she hadn’t realized were tender. What she had not prepared for was a life of being entirely untouched.

She thought, absurdly, of dancing. A waltz before the ton, in grand ballrooms, even private ones.

The kind of quiet, unexpected thing she’d once seen between her father and her late mother when they’d dance in the corridor and giggle so loudly, it echoed through the walls.

Just two people, moving with no music but the sound of each other’s breath.

Would she never even have that?

“If that is all,” she said softly, folding her hands before her as though to steady herself. “Then I believe I shall retire, Your Grace. It has been a long day, and I think rest would serve me well.”

Valentine stood where he was, watching her with an unreadable look on his face.

“Goodnight, Duchess.”

She nodded once, then left the room. She closed the door behind her with careful hands, each step away feeling heavier than the last. Her heart felt oddly weightless and full at once, like something suspended in water.

Now, all she wanted was rest. Her thoughts were a tangle she could not unravel tonight.

Perhaps with sleep, the ache in her chest would dull, and she could begin to accept this strange, emotionless arrangement she had agreed to.

After all, this was her life now, not a dream, not a fantasy, but reality in all its cold, graceful civility.