Page 43 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

It broke his heart that someone else was born from his father’s appetite and then abandonment, like he was. Only in his sister’s case, she died too young, and her children passed from grief to institution to him. His father had reached beyond the grave and made more ruins for her and her mother. He left them in poverty and continued to live as though they had never existed. Hector had spent much of his life refusing to be shaped by that man. Yet here again was the old inheriting harm done, and him left to pay for it.

He cleared his throat. “Her Grace and Aurora call the baby Princess.”

He expected Jasper to seize upon that and turn it neatly, making it into some joke. Instead, his friend drank, set the glass down, and said, “There are worse names to be given by someone who loves you.”

Hector had no answer. The fire shifted beside him. A small collapse of coal sent sparks muttering behind the grate.

“Your wife loves them, does she not?” Jasper asked curiously. “That is why you married her.”

Hector thought of the duchess’s soft hands, so quick and sure when touching his brow and again when touching Aurora’s hair in comfort. He remembered how her voice changed from iron to warmth without losing strength. “Yes, she loves them. I am afraid that she loves too much; it is becoming infuriating.”

“Love often is infuriating, or so I’m told.” Jasper gulped his brandy down in one swig.

“She contradicts me in my own house.” Hector’s mouth hardened. “And she assumes the worst of me.”

“Do you make the best in you easy to find?” Jasper pointed out.

Hector turned away before his face could betray anything. Jasper waited.

Hector should not have continued, but he could not help himself. “I found myself wondering what color her eyes were.”

He held his breath as he felt the shift in the room.

When Jasper spoke again, he heard the smile in his voice. “Shall I have a look for you?”

Hector’s head turned, and his shoulders locked. Heat moved through him with such force that for one absurd second, he considered ordering Jasper to leave his house. The jealousy he felt was unreal, but he did not want his womanizing friend near his wife. The thought of Jasper standing close enough to tell him whether her eyes were blue or green or brown set something primitive free in his mind.

“No,” Hector said flatly.

Jasper chuckled.

Hector forced his fingers to loosen. “You will not go near her for the purpose of satisfying your amusement.”

“My dear fellow, I have many purposes when going near beautiful women. Amusement is only one.”

Hector got up and took one step away from him.

Jasper laughed. “There he is.”

“Do not provoke me, Jasper!”

“I am not provoking you. You do realize,” Jasper said with a wide grin, “that husbands are generally permitted to look at their wives.”

“I cannot look as you mean.” Hector had not meant to say that out loud.

He thought of his duchess that morning and how he refused to look at her face. She had been close enough that he would have made sense of it all, but he could not do it because she was beginning to scramble his mind in ways he was uncomfortable with.

He learned the warmth of her presence, the faint scent that clung to her clothes, and the quick intake of breath she took whenever he stepped nearer to her. He had even seen the suggestion of her mouth but not its precise curve and the lift of her cheek with the color in it. He had wondered, with the force that unsettled him, what her skin and her face would feel like beneath his fingertips.

Would she be soft, warm, and inviting as he imagined her to be?

“Have you considered asking her?” Jasper’s question pulled him back to reality.

“To allow me to touch her face?” Hector said, appalled by confessing yet another thought.

Jasper was beyond amused.

“It has been known between husbands and wives that they may⁠—”