“I am not strong,” he laughed quietly, his gaze dropping to her lips. “It is all show, I assure you.”
Then, the clock on the mantel chimed, and Ambrose pulled his hand back as if burned. He straightened his spine, his shoulders squaring until the exhausted man vanished and was replaced by the Duke of Welton.
“He is truly out of danger, then,” Ambrose said.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she replied. She stepped back, putting the width of the rug between them, and sank into a deep, formal curtsy. “The wheezing has subsided, and the lungs are clear, as Dr. Gump will inform you. I believe he was looking for you.”
“Very well. See that he is kept quiet,” he commanded, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere above her head. “I shall be in my study. There is much correspondence to attend to now that things are returning to normal. And to that end, let’s ensure Arthur returns to his studies. His education has been neglected long enough by this… distraction.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
So much for sleep, she cursed to herself as she trudged toward her quarters to freshen herself up for the day of learning ahead. She looked down the hall with longing, his boots striking the floorboards.
The long hallway felt like an accordion, stretching and contracting with the rhythm of his departing footsteps. Imogen leaned her forehead against the cool wood of the doorframe, her eyes closing as the adrenaline of the Duke’s presence finally began to drain away, leaving a hollow, aching void in its wake.Distraction.The word echoed in her mind, sharp and sterile. It was a cold bucket of water thrown over the embers of the intimacy they had shared in the dark.
She turned toward her own small chamber, her legs feeling like heavy pillars of salt. The morning light was now fully assertive, pouring through the tall windows of the gallery in unforgivingshafts that exposed every speck of dust dancing in the air. As she passed a gilded pier glass, she caught a glimpse of herself and stopped. She was a ruin. Her hair was a wild nest of chestnut tangles, her collar was wilted and stained with the yellow of the valerian tea, and her skin possessed a waxy, translucent quality that made her look like a saint on the verge of martyrdom—or a woman who had been thoroughly undone.
Normal,he had said.
The word was a lie, a beautiful, gilded lie designed to keep the walls of Welton House from crumbling. How could anything be normal when she still felt the ghost of his gaze on her lips? How could she return to conjugating French verbs and correcting penmanship when she had seen the Duke of Welton—the man the world thought was made of sin—caring so dutifully alongside her for his sick nephew in those moments?
She reached her room and slumped against the door. The small space was freezing. The fire had long since died, and the air smelled only of lye soap and old lavender. It was the room of a servant, albeit a genuinely nice one. She crossed to the washstand, her hands shaking so violently that the ceramic pitcher rattled against the basin.
“You are a governess,” she whispered to her reflection, her voice cracking. “You are the help. Pull it together, Miss Lewis.”
She poured the icy water and splashed it onto her face. The shock of it forced a gasp from her throat, but it didn’t wash away the heat of his arm beneath her fingers or the way his muscleshad jolted at her touch. He was afraid of her. That was the realization that made her breath hitch. He wasn’t just avoiding the scandal or acting with propriety. She knew in her heart that he was fleeing the way she made himfeel. He was terrified of the man he became when the library doors were closed, a man who did not care about vintages or correspondence or even the Presholms of the world.
She began to strip off her soiled gown, her fingers fumbling with the tiny buttons. Every movement was a struggle against the gravity of her own exhaustion. She thought of Philip, finally breathing easily, and then she thought of Arthur, who was now expected to return to his books as if his world had not just tilted on its axis.
His education has been neglected long enough.
The Duke was retreating into the only fortress he knew, which was duty. Imogen knew he would bury himself in ledgers and invitations to balls he did not want to attend. He would stand at the head of the table and discuss the hunt, and he would look through her as if she were made of glass. And she? She would continue to play along. She would be the perfect, silent shadow. She would teach Arthur about the fall of Rome while her own heart lay in ruins at the foot of the nursery bed.
She pulled a fresh, stiffly starched chemise over her head, the fabric feeling like a suit of armor. The clean clothes did her well. She began to braid her hair, yanking it back so tightly it pulled at her scalp, pinning it into a severe, sensible knot. There would be no more loose curls, no more lingering glances, no moreAmbrosewhispered in the dark. He wasHis Grace,the Duke of Welton.
She sat on the edge of her narrow bed for a moment, her head bowed. The house was moving by now. Below, she could hear the muffled thud of shutters being opened and the distant clatter of the coal scuttle. The machine of Welton House was grinding back into gear, demanding order, demanding the status quo.
She stood up, smoothing her skirts with trembling palms. Her body screamed for sleep, for a thousand years of dreamless rest, but the Duke had issued his command. She walked back to the mirror, wiped a stray tear from her cheek, and straightened her spine until she felt it might snap.
“I am the governess,” she told the empty room, her jaw set in a line of defiance that mirrored his own.
She opened her door and stepped back into the hallway. The scent of vinegar was fading, replaced by the smell of beeswax and floor polish. The crisis was over, the boy was saved, and the Duke was back to business. But as she walked toward the schoolroom to begin the day’s lessons, Imogen knew that the silence now settling over the house was far more dangerous than the fever had ever been.
Chapter Nineteen
The nursery vigil had been a fever dream of intimacy for Ambrose, a blurring of boundaries under the flickering glow of a single candle. Yet, with the boy’s recovery came a distance so cold it felt structural.
In the days that followed, as Philip’s health improved and the frantic pulse of the household slowed into a predictable rhythm, the Duke did not merely avoid Imogen.
He reconstructed himself. The wall he built between them was a masterwork of aristocratic engineering, crafted from absolute silence and the gleaming, impenetrable surface of his polished mahogany door. It was as if he were attempting to exhume the man who had knelt on the floor beside her and replace him with a statue of cold, unyielding marble.
When he passed her in the long gallery, the air seemed to drop ten degrees, the temperature plunging the moment their shadows brushed. But he did not look at her.
He could not.
His gaze had become a fixed, scholarly thing, a desperate anchor in a sea of forbidden impulses. Instead of letting himself react to the heat of her proximity or the haunting allure of her lavender scent, a scent that now lived in the very lining of his lungs, he would feign a sudden, intense interest in the dusty oil portraits of ancestors long dead.
Yes, that is a laugh, he thought.
