Page 62 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

"You were the one who demanded the admission."

"I did not ask you to drag me bodily into the rain to provide it."

"No," he agreed, "that part was entirely my own inspiration," and returned his attention to his book with a small, satisfied smile that told her he regretted none of it.

She settled into the chair opposite, opened her own book onto her lap, and for a long while neither of them spoke at all, the fire crackling low, rain still ticking gently against the windows, the whole house settling into a quiet that asked nothing of either of them.

She found, turning her own pages, that she did not miss the argument, did not feel the usual restless need to challenge some point of his or defend one of her own. The silence itself felt like its own kind of conversation, comfortable in a way she had not expected marriage to be.

She caught him watching her once, over the top of his book, his eyes lingering a moment too long before he returned them hastily to his page, and she pretended not to notice, though the small, pleased warmth of it stayed with her.

"You are doing it again," she said eventually, not looking up from her own page.

"Doing what."

"Watching me instead of reading."

"I am reading."

"You have not turned a page in a while, Sebastian."

He said nothing to that, though she heard, a moment later, the soft, unmistakable sound of him closing his book, setting it aside, content, it seemed, simply to watch her without the pretense of reading to disguise it.

She let him, glancing up once to find his gaze steady and warm on her face, and felt, in the quiet of that firelit room, a peace she had not known to expect from a marriage that had begun in scandal and argument and had somehow, against all odds, arrived here instead.

"The Dowager Duchess of Ravensmere."

Hopkins’ announcement dropped into the morning room like a stone into still water, and Amelia watched her husband go rigid over his coffee, cup halfway to his mouth, before he set it down with a precision that betrayed how little composure he actually felt.

"Send her away."

"I have already shown her into the drawing room, Your Grace." Hopkins’ face gave nothing away, though Amelia thought she caught something apologetic in the set of his shoulders. "She was quite insistent."

"She is always quite insistent."

Amelia rose with him, uncertain whether her presence would help or hinder whatever was about to happen, but unwilling to let him walk into it alone. She knew, in the broadest strokes, that mother and son were estranged and she decided to watch the Dowager Duchess with considerably sharper attention than she might have offered a mere unwelcome relation.

"You are not welcome in this house." Sebastian said flatly, the moment they entered and Amelia felt the temperature of the room drop several degrees.

"That is a rather cold greeting for a mother who has traveled across London to meet her son's new wife."

"You have had years to play the devoted mother, and chose instead to keep your distance." His voice stayed level, though Amelia could seewhat that levelness cost him. "I fail to see why my marriage should change the arrangement now."

"Because it is natural for a mother to wish to know the woman her only son has married." The Dowager Duchess turned to Amelia, her gaze assessing, sharp, entirely unlike anything Amelia had encountered from an older woman before, more calculation than warmth in it. "Miss Hartwell. Or I suppose I ought to say Your Grace now, though the title still sits oddly on my tongue for anyone but myself."

"Your Grace." Amelia inclined her head, carefully neutral, watching the tension coil tighter in Sebastian's shoulders beside her.

"I confess I am curious what sort of woman finally persuaded my son toward marriage when all my efforts on the matter failed."

"One who did not try to persuade so much as offered an honest conversation, Your Grace," Amelia said carefully, and watched something flicker behind the older woman's eyes, quick and assessing, as though filing the answer away for later use.

"Mother, I would ask you to leave before luncheon."

"No silly, I will stay for dinner, at the very least." His mother's voice carried the same flat, unshakable certainty Amelia was beginning to recognize as a family trait, however differently it expressed itself in mother and son. "One day, Sebastian. Surely even you can extend that much courtesy to your own mother."

He did not answer. He turned and left the room, and Amelia understood, from the set of his back, that the argument had merely been postponed.

Dinner was served at eight, the temperature of the room no warmer for the intervening hours.