Page 78 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

"It is very specific, If he wants to prove himself through actions, I intend to be very clear about which actions I require. " She continued writing. "He will attend one social event of my choosing without complaint, however tedious he finds it, because I have attended every event society demanded of me without complaint since the day I married him, and I would like him to understand what that costs."

"You are enjoying this."

"I am finding it rather easier than crying, which is the only alternative I have managed this past week." Something that was not quite a laugh escaped her, thin and worn but genuine. "He will dance with me, at least once, without steering the conversation toward politics or philosophy, because I would like to know whether the man beneath the scholar can simply enjoy my company without needing to win an argument first."

"And?"

"And he will compliment me without once mentioning my intellect, because I have begun to wonder whether he loves the whole of me or merely the parts of me that argue with him well." Amelia's pen slowed here, something quieter and more vulnerable rising beneath the humor of the list. "He will admit when he is wrong, plainly, without dressing the admission up in some clever qualification that lets him keep half his pride intact."

"That is a rather tall order for a man as proud as Sebastian."

"It is precisely the order he requires, then." Amelia set down her pen at last, looking at the final line she had yet to write, and felt her throat tighten unexpectedly. I do not know if I am protecting myself or punishing him, writing this last one. Perhaps both.

"And the final requirement?"

"He is not to touch me." Her voice came out quieter than the rest, some old ache surfacing plainly now. "Not until I decide, myself, that he has earned it back. I do not intend to hand him the easiest comfort available simply because my body still wants him even now, when the rest of me is not yet ready to trust him with it."

"Amelia." Mary's voice had gone somewhere between delighted and faintly scandalized, reading the sixth requirement twice. "You cannot possibly mean to enforce that one."

"I mean to enforce every single one of them." She set down the pen, surveying the list with a grim satisfaction she had not felt since before the ball. "He built an entire argument, once, about proving oneself through evidence rather than assertion. I intend to hold him to precisely that standard, and I do not intend to make it easy for him."

"And if he refuses."

"Then I will know exactly what his apology was worth." Amelia folded the paper carefully, something steadier settling into her chest than she had felt in a week. "But I do not believe he will refuse, Mary. I believe, whatever else is broken between us just now, that man does not know how to walk away from a properly constructed argument, particularly not one supported entirely by evidence he provided himself."

Mary said nothing for a long moment, only settled a hand gently on her sister's shoulder, and Amelia sat with the finished list in front of her, feeling, for the first time since the ball, the shape of a path that might, if he proved himself capable of walking it, eventually lead to forgiveness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Requirements for the Duke of Ravensmere to Become a Husband Worth Keeping. He nearly laughed, reading the title alone, some old academic instinct recognizing, with genuine admiration, the precise architecture of an argument he had absolutely no grounds to dispute. She has given me a thesis with six conditions and expects me to defend it through action rather than words.

He read the sixth requirement last and felt something in his chest tighten. He will not touch me, in any manner, until I have decided for myself that he has earned the right to do so again. It was, he understood immediately, the fairest and most devastating clause of the six.

"Hopkins." He folded the paper with more care than necessary. "Send word to Mrs. Hartwell's stationer that I require the finest paper in the shop, I have a letter to respond to."

The first requirement took them to the village near the Ravensmere Estate outside London. Amelia collected him early from Ravensmere House in a hired gig, her chin lifted with the determination he had learned meant she intended to be obeyed without argument.

She had dressed simply, a walking dress in soft green that caught the light rather than competing with it, her hair pinned looser than usual and had somehow neglected to notice how thoroughly lovely she looked simply walking beside him in ordinary daylight.

"You are meant to be following my instructions, Your Grace, not admiring the scenery."

"I am admiring the scenery precisely as instructed. You did not specify which scenery."

"That is a very convenient interpretation." Her mouth curved despite herself, the first real warmth he'd seen from her since the ball, and something in his chest eased at the sight of it. The village on a bright morning was not, Sebastian reflected, a place he had ever properly looked at.

"You are to speak to Mrs. Aldous," Amelia informed him, standing before a small shop front hung with dried herbs and ribbon, her tone entirely without mercy. "She has run this shop for thirty years and knows more about the estate's tenants than either of us. You will ask her about her stock, and you will not attempt to steer the conversation toward anything you find more interesting."

"I do not attempt to steer conversations."

"You’ve attempted to steer at least three since we left the house, Sebastian. I have been counting." She held the shop door for him, an inversion of manners that made something in him want to protest and made him bite the protest back, rememberingthe terms of the arrangement. "In you go."

He went. Mrs. Aldous proved to be a small, sharp-eyed woman fully unimpressed by his title, who informed him within two minutes that his steward had been buying inferior candle wax from a supplier three villages over when her own stock was both cheaper and better, and then continued by explaining, in considerable detail, precisely why. Sebastian listened, resisting three separate urges to redirect the conversation toward something he found more immediately useful, and found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he had, despite himself, stopped resisting and simply become interested.

"You did not attempt to correct her figures," Amelia observed, once they were back on the lane, something almost pleased in her voice despite the careful distance she still maintained between them.

"I wanted to. Her arithmetic on the wax pricing was slightly off."

"And yet you did not."