Page 46 of The Duchess’ Little Miracle

Seraphina offered a conspiratorial smile. “I tell her that you are kind. I tell her that while you may carry yourself with a stern, intimidating air... the grand Duke of Norwyn, brooding over his estates... you are a true gentleman at heart. I tell her you are fiercely protective of those you love. I honestly did not know if she was truly absorbing my words, but perhaps... perhaps she was listening all along.”

William let out a quiet breath, his eyes locking onto hers with a depth of feeling he didn’t care to hide. “Then I owe this to you, Seraphina. You made her see me in a different light.”

“Do not give me all the credit just yet,” she replied gently, shaking her head. “The truth is, until Alice finds her own voice completely, until she feels safe enough to tell us what truly happened in her past, we will never fully understand why she was so frightened, or why she withdrew from the world. But for today, William...”

Seraphina turned to face him fully. “For today, we call this progress.”

He looked out toward the lawn where Alice was currently squatting near a stone urn, her small fingers carefully inspecting a piece of bark. A tangle of emotions tightened in his chest. Gratitude, immense and overwhelming, was the largest part of it. He knew, with absolute certainty, that without Seraphina’s presence over the past weeks, Alice would still be locked in her prison.

But running parallel to that gratitude was a prickle of competitive pride.

The blackmailer.

For weeks, he had promised Seraphina that he would handle it. The venomous, anonymous letters targeting her remained a looming, unresolved shadow. He had found small leads, dead ends, and cold trails, but no culprit.

She had made progress with Alice, and he had not even delivered her peace of mind.

“I will have an update on the blackmailer soon,” he said then. “I assure you. I should have found the person behind them by now.”

“Oh, I know you’re working,” Seraphina said softly. “You have made far more progress in four weeks than I made in months of searching on my own. You are investigating a ghost, and you are doing so while protecting me from the scandal.”

Just then, she reached over to place her hand on his knee, smiling with wide eyes. “I trust you with it. Completely.”

William stopped breathing.

Her words were profoundly kind. They were the words of a true partner, a woman who saw him far beyond the cold mask he wore for the rest of the world. To the ton, to society, and to his business associates, he was entirely unyielding, a man who showed no mercy, made no friends when profit or legacy was on the line, and rarely graced anyone with a smile. Yet, he had never once turned that ruthless edge upon her. He had often wondered what she had done differently to unlock this warmer, softer side of a man so widely feared.

But as much as his mind tried to absorb the grace of her speech, his physical body had completely abandoned the topic of blackmail and letters.

All of his sensory awareness had violently narrowed down to the exact five square inches where her hand still rested on his thigh.

Through the fine, dark wool of his trousers, the heat of her palm was blinding. It did not feel like a simple touch. No, it felt as though she had pressed a hot iron directly against his skin. The heat did not stay localized, either. It surged upward through his bloodstream like wildfire, racing up his torso, tightening his lungs, and burning with violence in his ears and cheeks. His pulse, which had just settled after Alice’s outburst, exploded into a frantic thud.

‘Good Lord,’ William thought.

It seemed as though he had contracted the exact same contagion Seraphina had felt days ago.

He could feel his skin burning. His chest felt constricted, as if an iron band was tightening around his lungs. His heart was hammering so loudly he was convinced she must be able to hear it through the linen of his shirt. It was an infectious, localized fever, transmitted through proximity and touch.

Driven by an instinct he could neither analyze nor control, William reached down with his hand. He didn’t push her hand away. Instead, he covered her fingers with his own, pressing his large, warm palm flat over the back of her hand where it rested on his thigh.

The moment his skin brushed hers, Seraphina went completely still, letting out a tiny, audible gasp that seemed to vibrate straight into William’s chest.

Slowly, as if dragged by a physical weight, Seraphina’s gaze dropped from his eyes down to their joined hands on his lap. William watched as the pale skin of her neck flamed pink, the color creeping rapidly up to her cheekbones and the tips of her ears.

She did not pull her hand away. Neither did he.

The glade around them seemed to fall into a vacuum-like silence. The rustle of the wind in the oak leaves, the distant chatter of birds, the hum of insects, all of it vanished, replaced by the deafening, double-time thud of two hearts beating out of sync. The space between them grew thick, heavy with a suffocating static that made William’s fingers tremble slightly against hers.

He stared at her, his mind completely vacant of logic, overwhelmed by a desire to lean closer, to trace the curve of her cheek, to demand she explain how her touch could possibly alter his physiology so completely⁠—

A rustle of grass signaled Alice’s return.

Both of them recoiled as if they had been struck by a live current. Seraphina yanked her hand back to her own lap with blinding speed, suddenly seizing a loose thread on her cuff and inspecting it. William sat up rigidly, clearing his throat so hard it hurt, his hands flying to his cravat to tug at the already loosened linen as if he were suffocating.

Alice walked back onto the wool blanket and simply sat down cross-legged, tucking her feet under her skirts, her face calm, holding both of her small hands securely hidden behind her back. She looked at William, then at Seraphina, giving a single, subtle nod.

Sensing a desperate, critical need to reclaim control over his own malfunctioning brain, William threw himself back into the game.