Page 19 of The Feared Duke’s Found Family

“Well, Peter, I am Fanny.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a small, lace-trimmed handkerchief, and gently dabbed a smear of black mud from his nose. He didn’t pull away; instead, he peered up at her through his long, dark lashes, watching her face with cautious curiosity.

“Are you a lady?” he asked, his voice dropping into a secret whisper. “Nanny says ladies don’t sit in the dirt.”

“Only the sensible ones,” Fanny whispered back, winking at him. “And only when there is very important mouse business to discuss.”

A tiny, involuntary smile twitched at the corner of Peter’s mouth, erasing the last of his tears. He held up two fingers, showing her a small, jagged blue pebble he had been clutching in his left palm. “I found a diamond, too. For my collection.”

Fanny took the pebble, turning it over in her palm as if inspecting a rare jewel. “A fine specimen,” she said, placing it back in his small hand and closing his fingers over it. “Every proper collector needs a stone of that exact shade of blue.”

Peter beamed, a small dimple appearing in his left cheek. “I have four more under the big oak tree. I can show you if you like.”

“I would like that very much,” Fanny said softly, her heart warming to the small, lonely boy.

Before he could lead the way, the sharp, heavy crunch of iron-shod boots echoed against the stone path behind the yew hedge.

Peter’s entire body went rigid.

The color drained from the boy’s small face. The boy’s easy, childish openness vanished, replaced by sudden, heartbreaking terror. He scrambled to his feet from the grass, his dark eyes wide with panic as he stared toward the hedge’s opening, where heavy footsteps were approaching.

He turned to Fanny, reaching out to grasp a fold of her gown, his voice a frantic, desperate whisper. “Don’t tell him! Please don’t tell him I was in the dirt!”

Without waiting for a response, Peter spun around and bolted into the deep shadows of the thick shrubbery, his small boots making no sound as he disappeared like a ghost into the woods.

Fanny slowly rose to her feet, her chest aching with a sudden, sharp pang as she watched the bushes settle.

“Are you plotting to run away?”

Lysander’s low, gravelly baritone sliced through the quiet garden, startling Fanny so sharply that her hand flew to her throat. She spun around, her heart hammering against her ribs as she caught her breath, watching him step completely clear of the clipped yew hedge.

A second later, Lysander stepped around the corner of the yew hedge.

He was as dark and imposing as he had been the day before, dressed in an impeccably tailored coat, his broad shoulders blocking the morning light. He had not seen the boy. His gray eyes swept the quiet garden path, coming to rest on Fanny, standing alone by the stone wall, her gown smudged with dirt at the knees.

Fanny smoothed the front of her gown, attempting to wipe the grass dust from her fingers against her skirts. She held his stare, refusing to look rattled. “Do you truly believe I even have that option, Your Grace?”

Lysander did not pause in his approach. He stopped three paces away, his heavy boots coming to rest on the damp gravel.

“I do not simply believe it, Lady Fanny,” he said, his voice flat and unyielding. “I know you do. Running is always an option. Many people spend their entire lives choosing never to leave their own personal labyrinths, circling the same dark walls simply because the cold certainty of a cage feels safer than the open field.”

Fanny’s jaw tightened. The sharp accuracy of his metaphor struck a raw nerve, echoing the suffocating feeling she had carried in her chest since Lord Bromley had torn her gown at Greystone Manor.

“So,” Fanny murmured, her amber eyes narrowing slightly, “you assume I am standing here today merely because I have reached a dead end? Because I am cornered, and you are the only door left unlocked?”

“I assume nothing about your sentiment, only your intelligence,” Lysander replied, his expression an impenetrable mask of stone. “We would both do well to leave the past where it belongs: behind us. I am not here to analyze your motives, nor do I expect you to dissect mine. My requirements are precise. I require a stable, orderly environment for my children. Nothing more. That is the sole purpose of this arrangement.”

He took a half-step closer, his broad frame blocking out the pale morning sun, casting a long, dark shadow over the garden path.

“Let us be entirely transparent so there are no lingering illusions between us,” Lysander continued, each word measured and stark. “There will be nothing between us. No romance. No soft declarations. No unnecessary social obligations—no endless rounds of Mayfair balls, no frivolous country house parties, and no performative displays for the town gossips. You will have your position, your independence from financial ruin, and the full authority of a duchess over this household. In return, I require only your shared responsibility in raising my children and restoring order to their lives.”

The words hung in the crisp morning air like heavy iron weights.

Fanny stared up at him, a sudden, cold shock surging through her veins. It was not that she had expected poetry from him. She was not a starry-eyed girl dreaming of a knight; she had spent four years watching her family’s social standing crumble into dust under the weight of her father’s disgrace. She knew the world was harsh.

Yet, hearing it spoken so plainly, so clinically, felt like a physical door slamming shut in a dark room.

Never.

The realization settled into her chest with a quiet, devastating weight. She was asked to sign away every tender hope she had ever harbored. She would never know the warmth of a genuine embrace, never feel a husband’s gentle hand in the dark, never experience the sweet, terrifying thrill of being truly cherished by the man whose name she bore. She was stepping directly from a cold spinsterhood into a grand, gilded tomb.