“Your mother,” she echoed before she shook her head. “Of course, it was her room before. I think that your mother must’ve been a remarkable woman to raise such a son.”
“Careful, Duchess,” he said. “That sounds dangerously like a compliment. I thought I was a bounder.”
She laughed. “You still are a bounder. You’ve made it clear that you are; but you’re also interesting and kind, and if you are kind, that means your mother was an excellent woman, and that she raised you carefully.”
“How can you be so certain?” he queried, tensing. His entire body seemed to freeze in anticipation of her answer. “Perhaps it was my nanny that raised me excellently,” he challenged.
“Was it?” she asked, clearly having none of his contrariness.
In general, people did not ask about his personal life. No, they accepted his behavior without a second thought. Yet here she was asking about his childhood. “My nanny was an excellent woman,” he supplied before he smiled gently. “But you are correct. It was my mother who raised me thus. And I miss her every day.”
But his mother was someone that he did not wish to discuss. Not in any particular deep capacity. He loved her dearly, and he missed her dearly; but it was also his vow and devotion to her that had put him on this particular path. The one that would keep him alone for the rest of his life, even if he was married.
“I’m sorry for it,” she said. “It must be hard. I miss my mother, too.”
He clung to this. If he could swiftly move to discourse about her loss, he would consider it a vital success. “I, too, am sorry. It is a painful thing for a child.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Was your father adrift without her, as mine is?” she asked.
His throat tightened. Again, the conversation kept swinging back to him. Somehow, he had to end that. He’d thought himself a master of distraction and evasion. But his wife was not easily distracted or evaded.
“Not exactly,” he conceded slowly, weighing his words. “My father was a complicated man, as all dukes are.”
She cocked her head to the side, which sent coils of her red hair sliding over her neck. How he longed to be the coils of her hair caressing her skin.
He jolted.
He was not supposed to think thus about her. He attempted to casually fold his hand into a fist, digging his fingers into his palm lest his mind wander to what else he might caress.
“That is a good way to describe you,” she ventured, leaning back against the door in a completely shocking display of ease. “Complicated.” She pursed her lips and nodded, confirming her summation to herself. “Not simple, not easy.”
His brain hummed at her words. At the way her plain gown slid easily over her form as she pressed herself against the door.
“Are you saying I’m difficult?” he teased, desperate to discuss anything but his past.
“Of course not.” She scoffed. “But you are…”
Oh God, what was he? Did he wish to know? He swallowed, desperate to get away. Desperate to remove himself from the suddenly dangerous sensations running through him.
He bowed. “If you require anything, it will be provided immediately.”
Her brows lifted in surprise at his abruptness.
“You’re certain you wouldn’t come in for a moment?” she asked, her cheeks flushing red. She bit her lower lip, which immediately turned it ruby and plumped it. “Oh, not for anything connubial, but I find that it is a rather large house. And you’re the only person that I know in it. I’ve…I’ve never been away from my family.”
He swallowed. He did not wish to be alone with his wife on his wedding night, their wedding night. It was the last thing that he wished.
He did not desire her. The very idea was absurd.
It was why he had chosen her, but still being alone with her seemed, well, it seemed…
His breath came in slow, shallow takes now. Her scent, lavender and clean soap, surrounded him. There was a hint of something else, too. Ink.
It was a heady aroma.
He swayed toward her slightly, then jerked back.
He should go. It would be the wise thing to do.