Page 56 of The Duchess’ Little Miracle

“Half the underwriters were weeping, two of your partners were threatening ruin, and a fortune was sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic,” Anthony said softly. “But you? You sat at the head of the table, entirely calm, dipping your quill in ink and calculating our recovery strategy without so much as a tremor in your hand. That was the day I realized you were made of iron. I believed nothing on this earth could rattle you.”

Anthony tapped William’s chest gently with his knuckles. “Look at yourself right now, William. Look at you. You are utterly, completely, helplessly rattled. It leads me to one undeniable, glaring deduction. You are falling in love with her. Only love makes a man like you do these things.”

The stillness returned to the room, thick enough to cut with a blade. William stared at his friend, his eyes darkening until they looked like storm clouds over an icy sea.

“If you had accused me of being merely attracted to her,” William said, his voice dropping into a register so low and dangerous it was barely more than a growl. “I might have conceded to your judgment. I might have admitted that she is a stunning woman who occupies my thoughts more than she ought to. But love? Do not be ridiculous, Anthony.”

“I know your stance on the matter,” Anthony countered, refusing to back down. “I know what your father did to you. I know how that man ruined your perception of human devotion. He taught you that love was a fickle, useless emotion designed to make strong men foolish and bankrupt. When you live with someone like that all your life, that is what you learn. Because of him, you built walls around your heart so high that no one could ever reach you. I know the vows you made to yourself never to succumb to that madness.”

Anthony leaned in. “But the human heart does not obey contracts, William. It does not care about your vows, nor does it care about your neatly organized business plans. You are exhibiting every classic, textbook symptom of a man who is desperately in love. I would know.”

“It is impossible,” William said. “My heart is not built for such sentimental drivel! I have a vow to uphold, a vow I made to myself when I took over this estate. I do not break my word. I am in complete control of my life.”

Anthony crossed his arms again. “Is that so? Tell me, William... did you not just inform me ten minutes ago that physical attraction is merely the precursor to love?”

William froze.

“You stated it yourself,” Anthony reminded him triumphantly, leaning in. “You claimed that once attraction takes root, love is merely the next logical step waiting to happen. You said they are two sides of the same coin. So let me ask you your own question. Do you truly intend to stand there and wait for love to overtake you completely before you have the courage to admit it has already begun?”

William stepped back, taking a physical step away from Anthony as if the words had landed like a punch against his chest.

He couldn’t help but think back, as memories from the past month flooded his consciousness. He thought back to the picnic, to the overwhelming, almost unbearable magnetic pull he had felt while sitting beside her on the grass, watching the sunlight play through the dark curls of her hair. He thought of the late-night hours in the library, how he actively sought her out, inventing excuses to debate her just to hear the cadence of her voice. He thought of how he deliberately provoked her, teasing her simply to watch her eyes flash with fire.

He had been behaving like a man possessed. He had been acting entirely outside his nature.

The most terrifying realization of all hit him. He had enjoyed it. God help him, he had loved every single second of it.

He was playing a dangerous game.

He had to stop it. Flip the off switch. He had to drag himself back to reality before he destroyed everything he had built. Soon, massive commercial ventures, political negotiations, and enterprise expansions would demand his absolute, undivided attention. He would be thrust back into his relentless, unforgiving cycle of endless work, and he could not afford a single point of vulnerability. He could not afford a compromised heart.

Anthony was right about the diagnosis, even if he was wrong about the prognosis. The attraction was real; it was potent, and it was spreading like wildfire. But William was the master of his own destiny. He would not allow a temporary distraction to mutate into the catastrophic weakness known as love. He had to extinguish the flame before it consumed the house.

Anthony watched him quietly. “Looking at the fire in your eyes, I’m starting to recognize the William I know. That terrifies me for some reason. What... are you going to do now?”

William reached up, deliberately smoothing down the lapels of his coat. He adjusted his linen cuffs and cleared his throat. He ran a hand through his hair, forcing every stray strand back into its proper place.

The warmth vanished from his eyes. He reached deep within himself and slammed the internal switch firmly, decisively to off.

“What else is there to do?” William said. “I shall stay away from Seraphina. I will keep as far from her as humanly possible until this absurd attraction starves and dies.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ONE WEEK LATER...

“You came all the way here to Mayfair to see Euphemia and me simply because you have not seen your husband in a week?” Leonora asked, leaning back against the settee and tilting her head in disbelief.

Seraphina paused, her teacup hovering mid-air halfway to her lips. She looked down into the swirling liquid, unable to immediately construct a suitably rational reply.

She had no clue how her reality tilted so violently on its axis in the span of seven short days. A mere fortnight ago, she had been actively engineering methods to avoid William altogether. She had calculated his daily routine, mapping out his movements through the Manor, simply to ensure she did not cross his path. She had sought to protect her nervous system from him.

Yet now? The situation had inverted into something far more dangerous, far more destabilizing.

Avoiding him by her own conscious choice was one matter; being systematically excluded from his presence was an entirely different trial. Over the past seven days, it felt as though she had lost a vital piece of her own structure, as if an essential structural rib had been excised from her side, leaving her balance utterly compromised.

The absence of him was actively unraveling her.

He did not come down for breakfast. The head of the long table sat empty morning after morning, his silver cutlery lying untouched beside an unread copy of The Times. He did not appear for lunch. He was absent from dinner, leaving Seraphina to pick silently at her roast fowl in a dining room that felt vast, cavernous, and devoid of warmth. Even when she spent her afternoons with Alice, guided by a swelling sense of pride as the girl began to speak in clearer, more confident sentences, the victory felt hollow. Seraphina had caught herself constantly glancing toward the door, desperately hoping to hear his footsteps in the corridor so she could share the news of his ward’s remarkable progress.