Page 147 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

“I am.”

The conversation moved easily between them, the way conversations used to before everything between them had broken apart entirely. Neither of them forced or steered it. That was not necessary.

That is the real difference now, Leopold realized.

There was nothing hidden underneath any of it any longer. Every previous conversation they had shared had been resting quietly on top of something neither of them had been able to say aloud.

“I have been thinking about what comes next,” Leopold said at last.

“What do you mean?” Honora asked, turning fully toward him.

“Cecily is acknowledged now. Your father knows exactly where you are, the scandal is settling, and my mother is finally beginning to reckon with what she did.” He paused before he continued. “What I have not yet addressed is what you are to me. And what I want you to be.”

She blushed. “And what is it that you want me to be?”

He had rehearsed this conversation more than once in his mind, though none of the rehearsals survived the actual moment.

“I started falling for you in the nursery, in the second week you were here,” he said.

Her eyes and mouth widened.

He had not meant to be quite so blunt, but he continued. “I spent the entire next month pretending that I was not.”

“You were very convincing,” she said softly, looking both scared and hopeful.

Leopold nodded. “The pretending was harder than anything I have done since inheriting this title.”

“I believe you,” Honora said, her expression softening.

He looked back up at her.

“I built you in my mind before I ever came here,” she said, drawing in a breath. “You were an obstacle, something I needed to overcome and get around to get Cecily to safety.”

“You expected me to be difficult,” he said, smiling faintly.

“And careless.”

“You must have been very disappointed.”

She shook her head. “I thought I would come here, take Cecily, and leave again. Every part of it was planned, down to the exact hour of the morning that I would take her.” She shook her head slightly. “But then, I met you. I got to know you. I developed feelings for you, even as I actively tried to continue seeing you as the obstacle keeping me and Cecily from a safe, secure life where no one who did not want her could never find us.”

“I do hope you never felt unsafe here.”

“You frightened me,” she said suddenly, looking toward the dark garden. “I was frightened because I realized I could lose you. And that would hurt in a way I had no preparation for at all. I had prepared myself for everything else: being caught, being sent away, being arrested if it ever came to that. What I had never once prepared for was wanting to stay. Or wanting to be with you.”

He said nothing. He could not. He had hoped that Honora reciprocated his feelings. But he had not expected any of what she was saying right then.

“I wanted to tell you the truth so many times. I nearly did twice. I got as far as the study door each time.”

“What stopped you?” he asked.

“The second time, you were on business in London,” she said, lowering her gaze. “But the first time, it was fear. I was terrified that if I told you who I truly was, you would send me away.”

“I did,” Leopold said quietly, the crushing guilt overwhelming him. “I would not hear you, and it was almost the very last time I saw you or Cecily alive.”

“Yes.” She looked back up at him. “But you came after us. You saved us.” She paused, giving him a small smile. “Besides, given what you believed, you were justified in sending us away. It is not your fault that Isolde had sinister plans that no one could have anticipated.”

Leopold bit his lip, struggling to keep his eyes dry.