Page 8 of Matters of a Duke’s Heart

“Heavens, right now I would be most grateful,” she almost muttered.

“My request for a quick engagement is not one of caution, you are right. It is one of… I do not like to say desperation but I suppose that is what it is. It is one of resignation, perhaps. You may have heard around the ton that I have a son, Alexander. He is seven years old, bore from my late wife, Lady Sophia Dunne. Formerly Harrington. Alexander needs a mother. To be frank, that is why I need to marry. He is… free-spirited, I shall say, and I do not have the things he requires to be patient and kind. I do not have the time nor the qualities as I believe you do. I have heard good things about you, Lady Felicity. When the ton speak of you, it is highly and kindly.”

Felicity blinked, trying to process his words. She had indeed heard rumors of the duke’s son, but when there was so much hearsay it was hard to know the truth from fabrication.

“So I am not only to be wed in four days, and not only to become a duchess,” she said slowly, “not only to give up my hope of a love match, but also to immediately become a mother?”

“Only a maternal figure,” he corrected. “I will not have Alexander call you any motherly titles until both of you are ready. I will not force you into any role you cannot or wish not to have.”

“Yet you are, in a way.” Felicity’s chest grew tight, and she pushed down her emotions, focused only on how to be the perfect lady her mother had taught her to be. “And even if it is not immediate, I know that our marriage is simply the gateway into motherhood.”

With a wince, the duke asked, “is that not always assumed when matches are made, regardless?”

“Yes but that would be in time,” she countered. “This… I will always have that over my head, that you are simply waiting for me to grow comfortable enough to take on such a role. I must adapt to motherhood and being your wife.”

Even the duke winced at the second title, and she was partially grateful that he was clearly as uncomfortable as her.

“You do not want children,” he boldly stated, but Felicity only made a noise of frustration as she gathered her thoughts.

“On the contrary,” she argued. “I am not an only child, and my sister has brought me a great deal of joy and has made me want to have more than one child of my own.”

She grimaced at her wording when he flinched, but there was no mistaking that Alexander could never be seen as her own. It was perhaps a harsh outlook, but Felicity felt ungrounded.

The floor had not simply been tugged away beneath her feet, but the whole foundation she knew was crumbling.

In a blink of an eye, she saw herself moving into the duke’s residence, a honeymoon of silence and awkward tension in the countryside, a boy who would not see her as a mother, yet she was expected to be one.

It sent steel terror into Felicity’s spine, and she thought perhaps she understood why the duke was so stiff.

But her consideration arose all the same: what had it taken for him to break is social isolation and decide this for himself, for his son?

“So,” he said tightly, tugging on his cravat for a moment. “You feel comfortable with children?”

Felicity bit her lip and nodded. “As much as any lady who wishes to be a mother, yes. I looked over my sister a great deal ahead of her debut, and although she was not a young child then, I was very good with her, or so I have been told. I also used to visit my aunt and cousins, all of whom are at least younger than ten years old. They are positively devilish yet sweet.”

“Devilish,” the duke echoed with a small laugh. He looked up at her again before looking toward the window. She wondered if his conversation was more to comfort himself or her. “That is… well, that is one word for a young boy.”

“Will you tell me what he is like?” Felicity asked.

Her voice was tight, and her head still spun terribly with the whirlwind of the day, of her future, of what was now being proposed for her life.

She had to compartmentalize it—she had to box it up tightly, get through the conversation, ask the necessary questions.

Later, she could think through everything in private.

Later, she could unpack it all. “Your son, I mean. I would like to know more about you, but as you can speak properly with me, I think it is important I ask of his character.”

“Of course,” he told her, nodding. “Alexander is…” The duke let out a disarming laugh as if he didn’t know where to begin.

“He is very energetic, and his curiosity knows no ends. I have seen children playing in Langdon Village who simply sit by a fountain, perhaps reading, or watching the day go by, but Alexander would be happy to overturn every stone and bench he finds if he was able to. He asks questions—lots of questions—yet there are moments where he can be very quiet. He does not speak to me a great deal, that is.”

A furrow appeared on the duke’s brow, and a shadow of discontent passed over his face. Knowing it was not the right moment to push why he didn’t speak to the duke, Felicity kept quiet and continued listening.

“I believe he is currently learning French at the moment,” the duke mentioned.

“Just this morning, I tried to speak with him over breakfast to ask how his studies were coming along. He stared down at his plate solemnly and promptly lifted his eyes to me after a moment and told me that I likely did not truly care. All in French, of course.” The wince the duke gave was painful to witness, and Felicity’s tight chest eased a little at what she was seeing start to unfold.

He cares, she thought. He cares more than he perhaps realizes or wants to.

It only made her wonder further about his rude abruptness.

“He thinks I do not care about him when the truth is… I simply do not know how to reach him, and I fear I have started to try to reach him too late.”

“Perhaps it is not too late, but a matter of consistency,” Felicity delicately suggested. “You might think that due to him not wanting to speak with you at breakfast then he will not want to any other time, either. It could discourage you to try again.”

The duke looked ashamed as he nodded his admittance. “Yes, that is quite right. I do not want to crowd him. ”

“There can be a difference,” she urged gently.

“Between crowding and showing your interest at every moment. Discouragement can be the very thing you fight against. Continue the interest, continue the attempts to speak with him, for you may not have noticed Alexander’s own previous attempts to connect with you. ”

At the flash of guilt that slanted over the duke’s handsome face, Felicity realized she had struck the truth.

“I confess I have tried not to think of such things.” His tone was one of resignation as he sighed. “So you see my predicament.”

Felicity slowly nodded. Part of her did, and the other part did and wondered why it had to become her problem, as selfish as that thought was.

But that was not a luxury she could afford, for the ton spoke well of her enough for him to choose her among other women, and she ought to be grateful. It was the perfect, high-rank match she should have always strived for.

But how could Felicity explain her reluctance without sounding foolish?

That she dreamed of moonlit walks through beautiful, flowering gardens? Love notes left upon her pillow in the morning, a sweet, shy glance over breakfast, dancing in an empty ballroom after dinner.

It was all frivolous, whimsical dreams of romance, but they had been ones she clung to desperately.

The duke sat before her, and Felicity knew that the moment she agreed to his proposal was the moment she bid goodbye to those dreams for good.

But had she not already with every failed Season, with every rejection she made toward a suitor who did not care about her in the way she yearned for?

He has not shattered my dreams of romance, Felicity thought, and it was perhaps only that thought she clung onto, would have to cling onto, in order to see the proposal through. Romance was something I should have buried a long, long time ago.

“I see your predicament, Your Grace,” she quietly answered, finally. “And I accept your proposal.”

The words came out as she needed them to. She could only hope they did not sound as hollow as she thought they did to her own ears.

Duty was the pillar she lived by, and while her mother had encouraged her to follow both her heart but be mindful of duty, Felicity knew a choice needed to be made.

For her family, for a little boy she did not know, and for her own future.

It was time to stop hoping for love in the sea of face at every ballroom, and time to take her place in society.

“I have not officially proposed yet,” he reminded her with a wry smile, as if he himself wasn’t quite sold on the idea. “I ought to.”

“You ought,” she agreed.

“Lady Felicity,” he began, inhaling slowly.

His eyes tracked over her face as if searching for her uncertainty as much as his own showed.

“Will you do me the honor of marrying me? Of wedding if only for convenience. Be a maternal figure at your own pace to my son, and a duchess for me. I will not control you, nor demand anything else of you. Everything else is of your choosing. All I ask is that you help me with Alexander and remain faithful.”

His voice cracked as he requested her faithfulness. Felicity paused, wondering why the well-composed man would falter at that.

Felicity was already nodding, for she faced a man who she thought was honest if not a little too sharp, a man who didn’t know entirely how to show his care and love for his son, a man who hid himself behind a facade when he needed.

But beneath…

Was there something softer? Had he endured a terrible hurt, as the ton whispered, regarding his late wife?