None of it mattered, except for keeping her safe.
In the end, the tipping point wasn’t that Clio decided one way or another how she felt about Helen’s advice. It was simply that she ran out of patience.
She’d never been very good at waiting.
“So,” she said, letting herself into Hector’s study without knocking, because she feared that, if she did, she would lose her nerve. “Have you made up your mind?”
He looked up from a desk full of papers—she really had never met a man so diligent in her life; the other dukes of thetoncould likely learn something from the likes of Hector Ferrars—and she thought he seemed pleased to see her, though he quickly hid the emotion behind a mask of impassivity.
“Made up my mind?” he echoed. “About what?”
He gave her his full attention. She noticed that. He put down his pen in its holder and moved the papers to the side.
He always focused on her so intently. Even when they were arguing. She ignored the flutter in her belly. It was time to stop messing about. If he was going to wound her, better now than later.
“About returning North.” She forced the words through clenched teeth. “You said that you were going to wait until gossip had died down, and then you wanted to return North. We haven’t been in the papers for weeks. You’ve married, which should settle your case. So. When are you going?”
His jaw worked as he thought something over. He gestured to the chair in front of his desk.
“I think you should sit,” he said.
She scoffed. “I’d rather stand.”
“Very well.” He sighed. “I cannot leave until we have conceived an heir.”
Clio sat. She didn’t even decide to do it. Her legs decided for her.
It was no wonder, either. How was she meant to control her body when she was so busy feeling every emotion ever created? She was stunned, of course. And, to her irritation, she was aroused, which was rapidly becoming a familiar combination. She was confused, certainly.
And beneath it all, pleased. Maybe even a little hopeful.
And those last two made her feel quite afraid.
“I don’t understand,” she said after a moment. “I … thought you had abandoned that idea.”
Something dark flashed in his eyes as he shook his head at her.
“No, not abandoned,” he said, not quite meeting her eye.
She was so sick of this talking around one another. This was a business arrangement between them, wasn’t it? That was what it had been from the start, and that was what it would be now.
She folded her hands in her lap as primly as she’d ever done.
“Let me be frank,” she said, knowing she sounded terribly priggish but too busy with other concerns to truly care. “You do realize that we have not yet made any efforts to produce an heir, and that this refusal has been on your part?”
She thought of the house party, when she had reached for him, and he’d pushed her away. She thought of Helen and Xander’s house, when he’d been so firm that they would not consummate their marriage.
“I do,” he said, and Clio tried not to flinch at the echo of the marital vows.
“You are … capable?” she asked delicately as the idea occurred to her.
He looked downright shocked, and despite the complete awkwardness of their situation, it was rather funny.
“I—good God, Clio!Yes, I amcapable.” He shook his head at her. “Of all the things to ask.”
She wasnotgoing to apologize.
“I did think so,” she said, which was as much as she could offer his wounded masculine pride. “But it does always help to be certain. Which leads me to my point: why not then? And why now?”
