“I find candor saves a great deal of time.”
“It does,” he agreed, in a tone that suggested he found this genuinely interesting rather than offensive, which was not the response she had expected and was therefore slightly disorienting. “Continue.”
“I will not be a wife to you in the truest sense of the word. I will not share your rooms. I will perform whatever social duties are required of a duchess—the dinners, the appearances, the necessary pretences—but I will not pretend beyond what the situation demands.” She held his gaze. “And I will not bear you an heir. That is not a negotiation. That is a condition.”
She waited.
He studied her for a long moment. His green eyes trailed across her face with a thoroughness that was not rude but was extremely, distractingly thorough. She had the sudden,uncomfortable feeling of being read—of having a page turned without her permission.
She kept perfectly still and let him look, because looking away would mean something, and she refused to let it mean anything.
And then, slowly, the corner of his mouth lifted. Not a smirk—or not only a smirk. Something warmer than that, more genuine, and entirely unexpected. It began at the corner of his mouth and moved by degrees until it had reached his eyes.
Its effect on his face was the kind of thing that ought to come with some kind of warning, because it transformed his composure and deliberation into something considerably more… morepresent. More real.
He laughed.
It was a quiet sound. Low and unhurried, the laugh of a man who had found something genuinely amusing rather than performing the impression of it. She felt it, inconveniently, somewhere in her sternum.
“Lady Cecily,” he said, “we are in perfect agreement.”
She blinked. Of all the responses she had anticipated and prepared for, this was not among them. “I beg your pardon?”
“I have no wish to rush into fatherhood,” he said lightly, easily, with the comfortable candor of a man who had longsince stopped pretending his opinions were other than they were. “I already carry more responsibilities than most men my age would stomach—my sisters, the estate, approximately forty tenants who send me letters about drainage with a frequency I find both touching and exhausting.” The amusement in his eyes grew slightly. “I’d rather not add an heir to that list until I have substantially more of my life in order. So that particular concern, at least, you may set entirely aside.”
Cecily looked at him. “You are serious.”
“Entirely.”
“You truly have no objection to a marriage without–”
“I have no objection to any of your terms,” he said simply. “I intend to be a husband in name and in public and in whatever legal capacity is required. But beyond that–” He paused, and something moved briefly across his expression, something lighter. “Beyond that, Lady Cecily, I intend to enjoy my life. So you see, your conditions and my intentions are very neatly aligned.”
She heard it.Enjoy my life.
She knew what that meant. She was not naive, and she was not a child. She understood perfectly well what a man like William Whitmore meant when he spoke of enjoying his life.
Other parties. Other women. The same charming, careless existence he had been living before a Brighton shore had inconveniently complicated things. Simply resumed once she had served her purpose as a reputational shield and they had gone their separate ways.
The thought came with a sharp, hot sensation in her chest that she identified approximately two seconds later as jealousy, which made absolutely no sense, which she was going to ignore completely.
She did not even know this man.
“I see. I am glad we are agreed on that point,” she said, in a voice that was admirably level. “However.” She straightened slightly. “I do have other conditions.”
He inclined his head. “I expected nothing less.”
“You will respect me,” she said. “Not only in private, where there is no audience to observe the absence of it, but also publicly. Visibly. I will not be made to look foolish in front of the same society that is currently discussing me in unflattering terms. I will not be the wife who cannot hold her husband’s attention. I will not be a punchline, or an afterthought, or the last to know something that everyone else already knows.” She met his eyes without flinching. “Whatever you were before this arrangement, and whatever you intend to be after it, while we share a roof and a name, you will conduct yourself with discretion. Those are not suggestions. They are requirements.”
He had listened to all of this without interrupting, which she noted and appreciated more than she intended to. When she finished, the amusement in his expression had turned into something more somber.
He was looking at her carefully now, in a way that felt different from before, attentive in a way that had less to do with charm and more to do with something she couldn’t quite name.
“I respect you.” The simplicity of it was somehow more convincing than any elaborate declaration would have been. “I want that to be clearly understood before I say anything else. I respected you when you were a stranger kneeling in wet sand on a beach at five in the morning, and I have not revised that opinion since.” He paused. “And I would never, ever dishonor my wife while we share a roof. You have my word.”
The certainty of it moved through her chest in a way she hadn’t expected. She looked at him carefully.
“While we share a roof,” she echoed. “You have used that phrase twice now. I want to make sure I understand what you mean by it.”
