“There are no congratulations to give.” He didn’t raise his voice, yet the words left no room for argument. “And matters concerning my household do not require… external interpretation.”
Lady Portwell blanched at the last word. “Oh—yes—well, of course, how right you are.” She dropped into a curtsey that jerked one of her hatpins. “I see that I may—I may have misread the situation.”
Edward didn’t speak. He simply looked at her.
“I shall take my leave. Yes. Immediately,” she spluttered, already stepping backward. “Terribly sorry. Forgive the intrusion. Good day—Your Grace, Your Grace?—”
She backed so quickly toward the door that she nearly collided with the footman hovering outside. He jumped aside to savehimself, and she swept past him in a cloud of ruffled feathers and wounded pride.
The footman stared after her as though witnessing a minor natural disaster. He opened his mouth, likely to apologize again, but Edward gave a small nod, dismissing him.
And only then did Beatrice realize she had been holding her breath.
The door clicked shut, and she sent up a quick, desperate little prayer of gratitude—mostly that Lady Portwell hadn’t made it to the nursery.
She turned toward Edward, aware of his proximity. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
His mouth twitched. “For what? Preventing a catastrophe of epic proportions, or removing an intruder from my house?”
“Both.” She exhaled, a shaky breath she hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Another minute, and she would have been in the nursery, naming the child herself.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “She might have tried to christen her on the spot. That woman looks capable of performing the ceremony herself if someone handed her a basin of water.”
Beatrice pressed a hand to her forehead. “Good Lord.”
Edward studied her—really studied her. She felt it, the way his gaze bored into her, tracing the tense line of her shoulders.
He held her gaze longer than necessary. “People like Lady Portwell take as much ground as they are given. You don’t owe them anything simply because they expect it.”
Beatrice looked down, smoothing an imaginary crease on her sleeve. “I know.”
“Do you?” His voice softened. “Because she walked in here as if she owned the place, and you let her go farther than she should have.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. He wasn’t wrong.
“You cannot let people like that trample all over you.” His voice was threaded with something almost protective. “Not even members of theton.”
She blinked, taken aback by the gentleness beneath the reprimand.
“And I won’t have anyone speaking to you—or about you—as though they have the right. I will not allow anyone to walk over you, not while you are under my roof.”
“Under your roof,” she repeated softly, trying to keep her voice even. “Not because—” She stopped.
She didn’t know what she meant to say. Or perhaps she did and couldn’t bear to hear it aloud.
Edward’s gaze didn’t waver. “Because you are my wife.”
The way he said it caught her off guard. And when she met his eyes, something inside her went unexpectedly still.
He looked… steady. Not triumphant, not irritated, but simply present. As though standing up for her had cost him nothing at all. As though it had been the most natural thing in the world.
And for a moment—just a moment—Beatrice saw what she had carefully avoided seeing since the wedding: a man who had stood at her side without question. A man who had claimed her as his wife with a certainty that made the title feel suddenly, dangerously real.
The realization startled her so sharply that she almost staggered backward. Because it felt like he defended her not as his Duchess, not as his duty, but asherself. Not in the cold, contractual sense she had braced herself for, but in the warm, solid way she had never allowed herself to hope for.
She pushed the feeling away immediately.
This marriage was not real; Edward’s protection didn’t change that.
