“Why would I do that?”
Melanie frowned. “You’re going to just send them away, then? Banish your own son?” It felt like every time she started to soften toward him, he managed to say or do something that snatched the feeling away.
She didn’t expect the dark look he sent her in response.
“Not that it’s your business,” he said. “But Ernestisn’tmine.”
Melanie rolled her eyes and scoffed. Of course Ernest was his, why else would that woman leave him at Preston Hall? “Right.”
“You think I’d bother to lie? For the sake of, what, my reputation? People can believe whatever they like, it makes no difference to me.”
That could not possibly be true, but then… Melanie bit her lip, recalling the way he’d walked into that ballroom earlier, expression stoic, almost cold, unbothered and utterly confident. All those guests knew only what the papers had written, along with what they saw during his brief appearance tonight.
They whispered, they judged—as they always did—and yet, none of it seemed to have bothered him.
His title and his sheer presence demanded some measure of respect, deference even, but did he truly not care about the rest of it?
And if he didn’t, if Ernest really wasn’t his… “Why would she leave him with you, then?”
“I don’t know,” he said simply, his tone devoid of emotion, but his gaze flickered—just for a moment—betraying the slightest hint of something else.
“You are caring for him now, though. You’ve hired a nursemaid.”
He cocked one brow. “What else am I supposed to do?”
She pondered his question in silence, until his voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Why is it,” he asked, his tone soft yet insistent, “that you can converse with me—rather freely, in fact…” He paused, waiting until her eyes lifted to meet his. “…but not with anyone else?”
His gaze, holding hers, made her heart stutter. The silence demanded an answer, and yet… “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded small, uncertain, and she doubted she appeared as composed as he did. But it was the truth. Wasn’t it?
Why could she speak to him, when her own family’s kindness left her practically mute?
Her thoughts spiraled, as though the question had been asked not by him, but by her mother, by Josie, by Caroline, by Reed—all of them echoing the same unspoken inquiry.
And this problem… It was so much more than an inconvenience. It was creating an almost insurmountable wedge between her and the people who loved her.
If she could uncover what it was about Malum—and perhaps the baby—that made her words come so easily, she would gladly seize it.
Yet, no answer came.
His silver eyes, piercing and searching, refused to release her.
Her breath hitched, and for a mad moment, she wondered if the duke could hear her heart beating.
But then, faintly at first, she registered the distant sounds of the ballroom—laughter, music, the hum of overlapping conversations—creeping back into her awareness.
They’d been away for too long.
No one would noticeherabsence; she might as well be invisible. But the Duke of Malum? That was another matter entirely.
Debutantes and their mothers, having had a taste of his rare presence, would soon begin tracking him down. And if they found her alone with him?
Her stomach twisted. His reputation would hardly suffer. As a duke—and a man—he would always be forgiven, tonight’s reception was proof enough of that. But hers? Hers would be another story entirely, and the scandal would taint not just her, but Josie, Reed… her entire family.
She shifted in her seat, fingers gripping the armrest in an effort to steady herself. In the time she’d been gone, her mother could have offended dozens of people.
“I need to go back to the ballroom…” she murmured, her voice quiet but resolute. There wasn’t enough time in the world—let alone this night—to delve into all the possible reasons behind her speech troubles—why they seemed to vanish around him.
