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Page 32 of The Duke’s Untouched Bride (Regency Second Chances #3)

Grace stepped forward, her usual warmth replaced by steel. “I think that’s quite enough speculation about my friend’s private affairs.”

“Of course, of course. We meant no offense.” Lady Tremblay’s retreat was strategic rather than genuine. “Just making conversation about such a lovely child.”

They moved on with satisfied smiles, leaving Iris standing frozen beside the pram. Evie had begun to cry earnestly because she was disturbed by the tension that had surrounded their encounter.

“Vultures,” Grace muttered while lifting the baby from her pram. “Don’t listen to them, darling. They’re just jealous because their children look like potatoes.”

But the damage was done.

As Grace soothed Evie with practiced ease, Iris’s mind raced with the implications of what the women had suggested.

Did Evie truly resemble Owen so strongly? And if so, what did that mean for the charade they’d kept up so far?

“You’re thinking too much,” Grace observed as they began the walk home. “I can practically see the wheels turning in your head.”

“They might be right. About the resemblance.”

“So, what if they are? Children often grow to resemble their adoptive parents. It’s one of life’s small kindnesses.”

“But what if she’s not adopted? What if Owen lied about everything, and Evie really is his child from a liaison before our marriage?”

Grace stopped walking and turned to face her directly. “Do you truly believe that?”

Iris thought of Owen’s grief when he spoke of Nicholas, the careful way he’d avoided claiming Evie as his own, and his obvious affection tempered by something that looked like guilt.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she admitted. “He keeps so many secrets, avoids so many questions. Sometimes I feel like I’m living with a stranger.”

“Then perhaps it’s time to stop accepting secrets and start demanding answers.”

The suggestion was simple but implementing it would require courage Iris wasn’t certain she possessed. Because demanding answers meant risking truths that might shatter what little happiness she’d managed to build.

As they neared the townhouse and Evie slept peacefully in Grace’s arms, Iris wondered if ignorance might be kinder than knowledge. But watching her friend’s natural ease with the baby, seeing how right it looked, she realized the question wasn’t whether she could handle the truth.

The question was whether she could continue living without it.

Owen heard the front door close behind him with a finality that seemed to echo through the empty townhouse.

The clock in the entrance hall chimed half past midnight.

The sound was unnaturally loud in the stillness.

He’d expected to find the house dark, the servants retired, and his family long asleep.

Instead, he found Iris waiting for him in the drawing room.

She sat in the wingback chair by the dying fire, still dressed in her evening gown from hours ago.

The blue silk had creased from sitting, and her hair was a little mussed, indicating that she had run restless fingers through it.

But her eyes were alert and focused on him with an intensity that made his chest tighten.

“You waited up,” he said while setting his hat and gloves on the side table.

“We need to talk.”

The words carried a weight that suggested this conversation had been building for days, perhaps weeks. Owen moved to the brandy decanter and poured himself a measure with hands that weren’t quite steady.

“It’s late, Iris. Perhaps tomorrow?—”

“No.” She rose from her chair. The movement was sharp with suppressed anger. “Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now.”

He turned to face her, noting the way she held herself like a woman preparing for battle. “Very well. What’s troubling you?”

“What’s troubling me?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Where have you been, Owen? Tonight, last night, the dozen nights before that. Where do you disappear to when the sun sets?”

“Business meetings. I’ve told you?—”

“You’ve told me nothing.” Her voice rose slightly before she caught herself and glanced toward the door. “You offer vague excuses and expect me to accept them without question. But I’m not a child to be placated with half-truths.”

Owen set down his untouched brandy. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

“I’m not accusing. I’m asking. Directly, honestly, for once in this marriage.” She stepped closer, and he could see the hurt she’d been hiding behind her composure. “If you have a mistress, just say so. Don’t insult me by pretending these mysterious appointments are anything else.”

- The accusation left him feeling wounded. After all this time, she was still reading him wrong. “A mistress?”

“What else am I to think? You leave before dawn, return after midnight, and offer no explanations. You avoid meals, dodge questions, and treat me like a stranger in my own home.” Her voice cracked slightly.

“If there’s someone else, someone who gives you what I apparently cannot, then have the courage to tell me. ”

“You think I’m unfaithful to you?” The words came out rough with disbelief and something akin to hurt.

“I think you’re keeping secrets. Big ones. And in my experience, when husbands keep secrets from their wives, it usually involves other women.”

“You’re being presumptuous.”

“Am I? Then explain. Make me understand why my husband can’t bear to be in the same house as me for more than a few hours at a time.”

Owen rubbed a hand over his face. The search for Adele, the careful lies, and the distance he’d maintained to protect them both—it was all crumbling under the force of her questions.

“It’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Everything’s complicated with you.” She moved even closer, close enough that he could smell her perfume beneath the faint scent of baby powder that seemed to cling to her these days. “I’m tired of complications. Tired of being shut out of my own marriage.”

“Iris—”

“I won’t live like this anymore.” The words came out fierce and final. “Either you trust me enough to tell me the truth, or we stop pretending this arrangement is anything more than a contract.”

The ultimatum hung between them.

Owen looked at his wife and saw not the sheltered young woman he’d married, but someone stronger. Someone who’d been tested by a year of abandonment and emerged with steel in her spine.

“You want the truth?”

“I’ve wanted it since the day we married.”

Owen moved to the fireplace. He stared into the dying embers while he gathered the words that would either bridge the gap between them or widen it beyond repair.

“When I told you that Evie isn’t mine, I was telling you the truth. But…” He trailed off.

When he looked back at Iris, she had gone very still.

“But?”

He turned to face her fully. “She belongs to Nicholas, the former Duke of Richmond, and a French woman named Adele Martel.”

Iris dropped into her chair as if her legs would no longer support her. “Nicholas? The friend you’ve mentioned before.”

“My closest friend since school. He met Adele in Paris and fell head over heels in love with her.” Owen’s voice softened with memory. “He used to write about her and proclaim how she made him want to be a better man. How she was all that remained of his heart.”

“All that remains,” Iris whispered, recognizing the phrase from the note.

“I keep remembering something he said to me once, when I asked why he stayed in Paris for so long. He said titles and money were just inheritance, but love was all that remained when everything else was stripped away.”

All that remained…

Those words appeared in the note that had been left with Evie the night Iris had found her. That’s how he knew Evie was Nicholas’s.

“And Adele?” she asked.

“Was pregnant when Nicholas died. Before he passed, he had hinted that he was planning to even marry her. But after… Well, after that, Adele was alone in a foreign country with no resources or protection.” Owen’s hands clenched at his sides.

“I should have looked for her sooner. I should have realized that she might need help.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the entire story? Why hide Evie’s parentage?”

There was no accusation in the question, only a quiet hurt that cut deeper than anger might have.

“Because I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone with the truth.

Because Nicholas’s death wasn’t an accident, and knowing about Evie puts people in danger.

I think Jasper would do whatever was necessary to protect his interests.

Including eliminating evidence of Nicholas’s indiscretions if it threatened the family name. ”

Iris was quiet for a long moment, processing everything he’d told her. When she spoke again, her tone was thoughtful rather than hurt.

“That’s why you’ve been gone so much. You’ve been searching for Adele.”

“Trying to. She’s vanished completely, so she’s either dead or hidden so well that we can’t find her.” He turned back to her. “I wanted to tell you sooner, but I wasn’t sure?—”

“You weren’t sure you could trust me.”

“I wasn’t sure I could protect you if you knew too much.” The distinction mattered, even if she couldn’t see it. “I didn’t want to drag you into this mess.”

“This mess?” She stood up and moved toward him with that determined stride he was learning to recognize.

“Owen, she’s my daughter now. Whatever danger surrounds her, I’m already in it.

In every way that matters, she’s mine. I feed her, comfort her, and sing to her when she can’t sleep.

I worry when she’s fretful and celebrate when she smiles. Blood doesn’t make a mother.”

The declaration hit him like a revelation. He’d been so focused on protecting Iris from external threats that he’d missed the most important truth: she didn’t need protection from loving Evie. She needed protection so she could continue loving her.

“If anything happened to you…” The words escaped before he could stop them.

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