“It is not about marriage or love.” She sniffed as her throat became clogged. “It is about what comes after. To marry is to have children, and to have children is to invite death.”
“Miss Norleigh…”
“That too is why I am so good with the orphans who come to my father’s parish. I will never have children of my own, so in them I am able to… to live the life that I am too scared to have for myself.”
“But you want to have children?”
“I do,” she admitted. “I just don’t want to do what is necessary to have one.” She laughed as if she had said something funny. “For a time there, my father tried to find me a husband, and I constantly found excuses as to why each one was not for me. Not that there was anything wrong with them. Not that I even gave it a chance. I was afraid, is why.”
“It is natural to be afraid.”
“The truth is…” Her heart still raced, and her body still shook, and when the Duke found her eyes, she had to force herself not to look away; that was despite the shame that she felt in the pit of her soul. “I do want that for myself. I do want to find someone to fall in love with. I just don’t know if I can.”
“That is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Who says that I am ashamed?”
His smile was earnest. “You did. At least you look as if you are.”
She laughed. “True enough.”
“I know a little of fear…” He went back to examining her ankle with renewed determination. “I told you of my father already.”
“You did.”
“He is why I have never wished to marry. The way he treated me was one thing, but the way he treated my mother…” He sighed and shook his head. “In my mind, marriage is akin to torment, and I never wanted to do to a child as he did to me. “
“You are not your father.”
He shrugged. “And just because your mother died in childbirth does not mean you will.”
She did not know what to say to that. It was a truth too loud to deny, and one that she had dealt with her entire life. The knowledge that if she ever wanted to be happy, she had to take such a risk, paired with the knowledge that she was too afraid to do so.
Committing myself to be unhappy, and all because I am too afraid…
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” the Duke continued, his voice soft and reflective. “How we let these falsities control us. Things that may never come to pass, that cannot be proven to happen… we latch onto them like armor, and we convince ourselves that they are our protection. I wonder sometimes if they do us more harm than good.”
“You… you regret not marrying?”
“No.” His head snapped up, and his expression cut right through her. “What I regret is not giving myself a chance in the first place.”
There was no need to say anything else, because the Duke’s words were enough. Alone as they were, sitting so close, Yvette felt utterly exposed and vulnerable like she never had before. But she also felt safe and understood, as if the Duke alone knew what she was going through.
The room around them vanished. His final words rang so loudly that it was as if he screamed their truth. For so long, she and the Duke had danced around the obvious, ignored it, denied its existence. But it felt now, at this moment, that such a truth could be denied no longer.
He was talking about her. She knew that for fact. And while Yvette still feared marriage and childbirth both, she started to wonder what the true reason was.
Of all the men she had ever met, the Duke made her feel safe like nobody else had; he made her feel seen and heard. He would protect her, he would care for her, and he alone might give her a reason to no longer be afraid.
Had she wasted her life? Or had she just been waiting for the right man to come along and save her?
Her heart thumped. Her leg trembled. Her lips moistened. She glanced at his lips, she felt her heart swell, and slowly, surely, she started to lean forward as the Duke tilted his head and licked his lips…
“We’re back!” Carrowell strode into the room.
Yvette’s eyes widened and she lurched back, just as the Duke did the same. He looked away, cleared his throat, and turned his back on her as much as he could.
“How is the ankle?” Carrowell had a small container that she saw was filled with a white cream; a salve of some kind.
