"On the contrary." The words were out before he could stop them. "I find myself....Curious."
Miss Whitcombe's eyebrows rose slightly—the first unguarded reaction he had seen from her. It lasted only a moment before her expression smoothed back into its customary serenity, but Daniel felt a small, inexplicable thrill of triumph at having surprised her.
"Curious?" she repeated.
"You have declined to marry, despite being of an age where most young women have accepted, or at least actively sought, a suitable match. That suggests either an unusual level of discernment or an unusual set of priorities." He paused, aware that he was being more direct than was strictly polite. "I am curious which it is."
"Perhaps it is both."
"That is not an answer."
"No," she agreed. "It is not."
They looked at each other across the space of the sitting room; the duke in his chair, rigid and watchful; the country girl on the settee, calm and unmoved by his scrutiny. Rosanne glanced between them with an expression that Daniel could not quite identify.
"I believe," Miss Whitcombe said finally, "that marriage should be a partnership of equals. A meeting of minds and hearts. Not merely an arrangement of convenience or a transaction of social capital." Her gaze was steady on his. "I shall not accept anything less."
"That is idealistic."
"Perhaps."
"Most would say it is unrealistic."
"Most would say a great many things." She smiled; that small, serene smile again. "I have never been particularly concerned with what most would say."
Daniel felt something shift in his chest; a crack in the wall he had so carefully constructed, small but undeniable. He did not like it. He did not like it at all.
"Idealism," he said, his voice colder than he had intended, "is a luxury of the young. Reality has a way of tempering such notions."
"Perhaps." Miss Whitcombe did not look offended by his tone. If anything, she looked... thoughtful. "Or perhaps reality is simply what we choose to accept. Perhaps there are those who settle for less because they have been convinced they do not deserve more."
The words landed like a blow; soft, precise, and devastating in their accuracy. Daniel felt his jaw tighten, his hands curling involuntarily around his teacup.
She does not know, he told himself.She cannot know. She is simply speaking in generalities, as young women often do.
But the steadiness of her gaze suggested otherwise.
"I should return to my work," he said abruptly, setting down his teacup with more force than necessary. "Ladies."
He stood and bowed and walked out of the room without looking back.
It was only when he had reached the safety of his study, the door firmly closed behind him, that he allowed himself to breathe.
***
Lillian watched the duke's retreating figure with a mixture of curiosity and something that might have been sympathy.
She had struck a nerve. She had not meant to, she had simply been answering his question with the honesty it seemed to demand, but somewhere in her words, she had touched something raw. The way his expression had shuttered, the abrupt coldness in his voice, the rigid set of his shoulders as he left...
He was not simply cold, she realized. He waswounded.
The observation settled into her mind alongside Rosanne's whispered confession:I think he is simply afraid.
"I apologise for my brother," Rosanne said, her voice a careful balance of mortification and resignation. "He is not…..He does not..."
"You need not apologise." Lillian turned away from the door and offered Rosanne a reassuring smile. "He was not unkind. Merely... uncomfortable."
"He is always uncomfortable." Rosanne sighed, reaching for her tea as though it might provide some form of fortification. "I had hoped…...But no. That was foolish of me."
