The memory returned with humiliating clarity: Eleanor’s lips, soft and unsure at first, then steadier when he drew her close. The slight sound she had made, half breath, half surrender was small enough that she might not have meant it, and still it had struck him like a hand to the chest.
James set the glass down with more force than necessary.
Thomas watched him with the quiet patience of someone who had witnessed far worse than desire.
“You meant to keep distance,” Thomas said at last.
James’s jaw flexed. “I did.”
“And yet you did not.”
James’s gaze sharpened. “Be careful.”
Thomas nodded once, accepting the warning without fear. “Yes, Your Grace.”
The title sounded formal on Thomas’s tongue, not deferential. It was a reminder. A boundary. A way of saying:I know you are not merely a man.
James turned away, pacing once, only once, before stopping near the window. The night outside was cold and still, the grounds dark beyond the faint reflections in the glass.
“She asked me something,” James said. He paused, then added, “About an heir.”
Thomas’s brows lifted slightly. “That was bold.”
“She is bold,” James replied, then immediately regretted the admission.
Thomas pretended not to notice. “And what did you say?”
“No,” James said flatly.
Silence followed. Not shock, not disapproval – only the quiet in which Thomas always weighed the truth of James’s decisions. Society liked to pretend succession was romantic and every mother’s daughter was expecting for it to be the only outcome of a marriage. James knew better.
He continued, as if reciting a list he had already rehearsed in his own mind. “A ducal marriage is meant to secure succession. I am not ignorant of that.”
“No, Your Grace,” Thomas said quietly. “You are rarely ignorant of anything.”
James’s mouth tightened. “If I do not produce an heir, the line fractures. The title passes beyond the reach of anyone I know.”
Thomas inclined his head. “Then you are accepting that risk.”
James’s fingers curled against the windowsill. “I am acknowledging it.”
“That is not the same thing, Your Grace,” Thomas said gently.
James turned slightly. “What would you have me do? Marry for the sole purpose of producing a child I would barely know? With so much work to do?”
Thomas did not answer at once. “Well, what do you believe will take the place of an heir, Your Grace?”
James stilled.
“The estate cannot run on principle alone,” Thomas continued. “Nor can a title endure on intention.”
James exhaled sharply. “Ashbourne is solvent. The land is well managed. I have secured its future in every way that can be measured.”
“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “Except the one that cannot.”
James closed his eyes briefly.
“I am not built for the sort of marriage that treats a wife as insurance,” he said at last. “Nor a child as obligation.”
