CHAPTER19
The library at Hargate House had always felt too large.
A cavern of unread books and legacy, where his father’s voice seemed to linger in the corners like dust, and his own footsteps echoed with guilt. As a boy, Johnathan had hated it. As a young man, he had avoided it. And as a duke, he had ignored it altogether.
Until now.
Now, sunlight spilled across the carpet. Frances sat by the open window, her legs curled beneath her, a book open in her lap and one hand absently stroking the ears of a small, scruffy terrier she had insisted they rescue from the street the week prior.
Johnathan stood in the doorway and watched her for a long moment.
She looked up and smiled, catching him staring. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said, crossing the room. “Just enjoying the view.”
She patted the seat beside her, and he sank into it, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
Outside, summer had begun to spread across the gardens. The rose bushes his mother once tended were open, and the wind smelled of earth and possibility.
“I never thought this place could feel like home,” he murmured.
“And now?”
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Now it is you.”
She closed her book and leaned into him, the dog sighing and rolling onto its back between them.
“Do you miss it?” she asked softly. “The chaos? The night’s carousing? The freedom of bachelorhood?”
He tilted his head, considering. “No. Though I do miss having excuses to carry you off into the night.”
She smiled. “We can still do that. Just with better boots, fresh stockings, and a proper coach.”
They laughed together, the sound bouncing against the shelves like music.
It had been a month since their return.
A month of sideways glances and sly commentary from society. Of invitations—some eager, some icy. A month of Frances walking into rooms like she owned them, and Johnathan walking beside her with the look of a man who knew exactly what he had.
They danced in ballrooms and strolled through the streets, heads high and hands clasped, never once offering excuses.
And, surprisingly, the world had begun to adjust.
Their marriage no longer drew gasps—only curiosity. Admiration, even, from those who had not expected the scandalous Duke of Hargate to turn respectable.
Only, he had not turned respectable.
He had simply stopped pretending not to care.
Because now, he did.
About the land. The people on it. The household that bore his name. The woman who had changed everything.
He was no longer a duke in name only.
He was becoming the man he should have always been.
That afternoon, their closest friends arrived.
