Page 65 of A Family Bargain with the Duke

Thomas looked up. “You have done more than anyone else has done in years.”

“No.” Julian met his eyes evenly. “The extraordinary thing was that your father endured three years without anyone bothering to ask whether the accusations against him were true or not.”

Silence settled over the room.

Thomas lowered his gaze. “There were times,” he admitted quietly, “when I wondered whether I should simply let it remain buried.”

Julian frowned. “You knew your father was innocent.”

“I did.”

“Then why?”

Thomas gave a small, tired smile. “Because proving an innocent man innocent is a great deal harder than allowing a guilty one to remain guilty.”

The words hung in the air. Julian understood them more than he cared to admit.

“My father died believing history would remember him as a cheat.” Thomas swallowed. “If that can be fixed, even now, I shall consider the effort worthwhile.”

“It will be fixed.”

Thomas searched his face. “You sound remarkably certain.”

“I am.”

“Then…” Thomas placed the neat stack of papers on the table. He rose, gathering his gloves. “For the first time in many years, I believe I may allow myself the same certainty.”

For a moment, he seemed uncertain what gesture would properly close such a conversation, before he simply extended his hand. Julian rose to take it.

“Thank you, Your Grace. I confess I did not know what I would find, coming here today. I had hoped for justice. I had not expected to also find honor.” He bowed first to Julian, then to Louisa. “Your Grace.”

Louisa inclined her head. “Mr. Whitmore.”

As if on cue, Simmons appeared in the doorway to show him out.

The door closed behind Thomas, and Julian remained standing for a moment before he became aware of Louisa watching him with an expression he had rarely seen her wear so openly.

He let out a slow breath he had not realized he’d been holding.

“I am proud of you,” she said quietly. “For what you just did.”

“There was no other choice.”

“There is always the other choice, Your Grace. You could have delayed or done nothing. You could have consulted your solicitor first, weighed the cost to your own name before committing yourself so plainly. Vane certainly believed you would choose the truth, or else he would never have bothered to warn you off it beforehand.”

Louisa crossed toward him, stopping close enough that he could see the warmth in her eyes, unguarded in a way she rarely permitted herself in company.

“You chose the harder path without hesitation the moment you realized the truth. That is not nothing, Julian. That is precisely the sort of man I hoped you were that first afternoon I sat across from you in this very room and proposed an arrangement neither of us had any right to expect would work as well as it has.”

Julian looked at her and found her words settling into him with a weight he had not anticipated, something in his chest loosening that had been held carefully in place for longer than he cared to measure.

He thought of the last time they had stood in this room together, close enough to touch, the air between them charged with tension.

If he let himself, he could still feel the fierce urgency of her mouth against his, her hands gripping the front of his coat as though she meant to hold him there by force if gentler persuasion failed, the whole of him undone by a single kiss nothing had prepared him for.

He had told himself, in the days since, that the kiss had been born of the heat of the argument, nothing more, an unguarded moment neither of them had intended. He no longer believed that. He never thought he did, standing here now, watching her face soften with genuine pride rather than mere politeness.

I have spent months trying to protect us both from something that was already here, long before I ever admitted it to myself. I built a promise out of my grief and told myself it would hold against anything, and here she stands, entirely unaware that she has already dismantled it simply by being exactly who she is.