“I have not decided anything,” Madeline said, and her voice came out sharper than she intended.
The Duke’s gaze held hers, unwavering. “Then tell me what it is.”
Madeline’s fingers clenched. She could feel her mother in the back of her mind, could hear her voice, could feel the familiar shame pressing against her skin as if it lived there.
Do not eat like that. Do not chew so eagerly. Do not look as though you enjoy anything. Men do not like women who indulge.
It had been drilled into her so thoroughly that she hardly knew where the lesson ended and her own instincts began.
“I was taught,” she said finally, and her throat tightened around the words, “that it is unseemly to eat much in front of men.”
The Duke blinked, genuinely taken aback. “Unseemly?”
Madeline tried to shrug as if it did not matter. “It is… common advice.”
“For whom?” he demanded.
“For women,” she replied, and the bitterness in her voice surprised her.
His jaw flexed. “Why?”
Madeline’s pulse hammered. She did not want to say it. She did not want to let those words exist in this room, in this house, under his gaze, because if she said it, she would have to admit she still believed it enough to obey.
Her silence was not enough to deter the Duke. “Miss Watton,” he said again, low and insistent. “Why?”
Madeline’s throat burned. She forced the truth out, because something in him would not let her hide behind politeness.
“Because of my body,” she said, and the words came out almost like a confession.
The Duke went still.
Madeline’s cheeks flushed hot, humiliation flooding her so quickly she could hardly breathe. “I was told,” she continued, voice trembling now despite her efforts, “that it would be unbecoming to indulge when my figure is already… not what it ought to be.”
Silence reigned. The fire cracked softly in the grate, the only sound in the room, and Madeline stood there feeling as though she had torn her own skin open and let him see what lived underneath.
’The Duke’s expression changed in increments, shock first, then something heavier emerged. He took another step closer. Madeline’s breath caught, instinct screaming at her to retreat, but she did not move, because some stubborn part of her refused to be chased into a corner by shame.
His voice, when it came, was low and measured. “Who told you that?”
Madeline swallowed. “It does not matter.”
“It matters,” he said quietly.
She flinched slightly, then lifted her chin again. “It was… my mother.”
The words seemed to still him. Wilhelm leaned back, one hand rising to his brow as he closed his eyes briefly in weary understanding.
“I see,” he said at last.
Madeline’s hands shook slightly now, though she kept them clasped. She hated that this was what he saw when he looked at her, hated that she had given him this ugly piece of herself, and yet another part of her, quieter and far more dangerous, felt a strange relief at having said it aloud at all.
Wilhelm noticed. After a moment’s hesitation, he leaned forward, and slowly, as though giving her time to pull away if she wished, he reached out and covered her hands with his own.
“And you believed her,” he said with a quiet sorrow that made her chest ache.
Madeline’s throat tightened. “I did not have much choice. I was young, and she was my mother.”
His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly, warm and steady.
