Page 42 of The Feared Duke’s Found Family

The study door was open an inch. A sliver of candlelight sliced across the dark runner in the hall. Fanny shoved the oak panel open without touching the knocker.

Lysander sat behind his broad mahogany desk, a quill pinned between his fingers. To anyone else, he was the picture of unyielding composure, surrounded by estate ledgers and the sharp black scratch of ink. But Fanny saw the rigid tension in his broad shoulders, the heavy, uneven rise and fall of his chest, and the way his knuckles flashed white against the feather.

He didn't look up as she crossed the threshold, but the rhythm of his writing hitched, the nib digging a fraction too deep into the parchment.

“You cannot kiss me like that in the dark, Lysander, and then hide behind your ledgers as if nothing happened,” Fanny said, her voice ringing clear and fearless through the quiet room.

Lysander’s jaw set hard, a muscle flexing along his temple, but he kept his eyes fixed on the ink. “I am not hiding, Fanny. I am attending to the estate.”

“You are running,” she countered smoothly, stepping right up to the edge of the desk. The wide plane of mahogany felt like a battlefield between them, but she refused to step back. “You built walls around this house to keep the world out, but you are using them to keep your own children at a distance. If we are to make a true life here, if this house is ever to know warmth again, that changes tonight.”

Lysander slowly set the quill into its stand. He lifted his head, his dark gray eyes locking onto hers with a heavy, simmering intensity that made her pulse leap.

“And what, precisely, do you demand?” he rumbled, his voice low and scraped raw.

“One meal,” Fanny declared, holding his fierce gaze without flinching. “Together. Daily. No ledgers, no tutors, and no hiding. A family sits at the same table, Your Grace.”

Lysander did not lift his quill, though the rhythm of his writing hitched for a fraction of a second. “The children take their meals in the nursery at hours suited to their instruction. My schedule does not accommodate early dining.”

“Then we alter the schedule.” She stepped closer to the edge of the desk, meeting his dark, unreadable gaze as he finally looked up. “A family does not exist solely in passed notes and empty corridors, Lysander. They need to see you sitting at the head of the table. They need to see that you do not view them as a chore.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed, sharp and tight. “They require order, Fanny. Order and predictable boundaries. Sitting at a formal table while Michael twitches at every shadow and Emily stares at her plate does not serve them.”

“It serves to remind them they have a father,” she countered, her tone dipping low. “They are terrified of the silence you leave in every room you walk out of. Let them sit with you. Let them learn the sound of your voice when you aren’t issuing directives.”

Lysander dipped his pen into the inkpot with deliberate, controlled precision. He stared at her for a long moment, measuring her resistance. “Breakfast,” he conceded, the word dropping like a cold coin onto stone. “Seven o’clock. If any of them make a scene, they return to the nursery.”

“Agreed.” Fanny didn’t smile; she knew better than to claim a victory in front of a man who viewed every conversation as a siege. “There is one more thing. I want my sister and her daughter to visit. Anastasia is eight. Emily has no female company her own age, and she carries the weight of a grown woman on her shoulders. Anastasia’s presence would⁠—”

“No.” The refusal was immediate.

Fanny blinked, caught off guard by the sudden wall in his voice. “Lysander, it is merely my sister⁠—”

“I will not have strangers in this house.” He set the quill down, leaning back into his high-backed chair, his broad shoulders casting a long shadow across the map pinned behind him. “Hilgrove Manor is not a salon for the Waldron family. It is a home that requires discretion.”

“She is my sister,” Fanny said, her breath catching in her throat as a flare of heat pressed behind her ribs. “She is not a stranger, and neither is her daughter. You speak as though my family carries a contagion.”

“Your family carries chaos, Duchess,” he replied quietly, the title sounding more like a barrier than a union. “Your mother’s theatrics and your family’s public entanglements are precisely what this household does not need. The children are fragile. I will not have external noise disrupting the balance I have spent years maintaining.”

Fanny’s fingers curled into her palms, her nails biting into her skin. “Balance? Is that what you call this tomb? You didn’t marry a governess, Lysander. You married me. If I am to be a mother to those children, I will not do it locked away from everyone I love while you treat my family like trespassers.”

“You agreed to the terms of this arrangement,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You wanted a purpose. You wanted a home. I gave you both. Do not mistake my compliance on nursery matters for an invitation to remodel my life.”

The silence that fell between them was suffocating. Fanny held his gaze, her chest rising and falling sharply, realizing with terrible clarity the height of the walls he had built around himself. Without another word, she turned on her heel and walked out, the heavy oak door closing behind her with a finality that echoed down the dark hallway.

The carriage ride to Blanche’s estate two days later was cold, but the grounds of Woodrey were bright under the thin autumn sun.

In the high-walled garden, eight-year-old Anastasia chased a hoop along the gravel path, her bright yellow ribbons fluttering in the breeze. Fanny sat on the stone bench, her coat pulled tight around her, watching her niece with an ache in her chest that felt far too heavy to carry alone.

“You’re watching her the way a starved woman looks at a feast, Fanny,” Blanche said softly, stepping up beside the bench and setting a warm cup of tea into Fanny’s hands.

Fanny looked down at the dark liquid, watching her own reflection tremble in the porcelain cup. “She is so light, Blanche. She laughs without looking behind her to see if anyone is angry.”

Blanche sat down beside her, the silk of her cloak rustling. “And Lysander’s children do not?”

“They watch the doors,” Fanny murmured, staring back out at Anastasia, who had dropped her hoop to examine a butterfly on a rosebush. “Emily acts as though every word out of my mouth is a trap. Michael flinches if a floorboard creaks too loudly. And Peter… Peter tried to hide a dirty pebble in his pocket yesterday because he thought his father would banish him for having mud on his coat.”

“And the Duke?” Blanche asked, her voice dropping, sharp and protective. “How does he treat the woman who took on his broken house?”