After a moment or two, he released her, pulling back as though he required the space in order to breathe.
She recognised the retreat for what it was—a necessary distance to maintain the boundaries they’d agreed to. “Goodnight, husband.”
“Goodnight.”
She reached the door, then paused and looked back.
“The locked door,” she said softly. “It is as much for your protection as for mine, isn’t it?”
He hesitated. “Perhaps more.”
“Then keep it locked,” she said. “Until you’re ready.”
“And if I never am?”
“Then we shall make do with a very unusual marriage.”
She left him then, climbing the stairs to her chambers—to the locked door and everything it symbolised.
But as she readied herself for bed, she found her thoughts returning not to that locked door, but to theunlockedone they had opened together. The one filled with old ghosts and new truths.
Some doors, she thought, were meant to be opened slowly. With care. With time.
But oh, how she ached to pick the lock and discover what waited on the other side.
Chapter Eight
“You are fidgeting.”
The Duke’s observation cut through the gentle quiet of the breakfast room. Celine stilled her fingers—traitorous things tapping against her teacup—and met his gaze across the table.
“I do not fidget,” she said.
“You have done nothingbutfidget since you sat down. You have rearranged your silverware three times, adjusted your napkin twice, and you have stirred your tea so vigorously I am astonished the bottom of the cup remains intact.”
She set down her spoon with precise deliberation. “Perhaps I am merely ensuring everything is in proper order. You appreciate order, do you not?”
“I appreciate honesty more.” He leaned back, studying her with that focused attention that always made her feel as though she were a specimen under glass. “What troubles you?”
The truth was that everything about this morning felt… altered. Yesterday, they had opened his father’s study together, faced twenty-year-old ghosts, and shared a kiss that had nothing to do with performance and everything to do with desire. Yet here they sat, in the bright propriety of breakfast, as though intimacy were something that could be folded away like linen.
“I am wondering what happens now,” she admitted.
“Now we eat breakfast. Then I have estate business to attend to, and you have whatever pursuits occupy a lady’s morning.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” He took a sip of his black coffee. “But I find the quotidian far easier to discuss than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“That we opened doors yesterday that perhaps ought to have remained closed.”
“The study? Or something else?”
His eyes darkened slightly. “Both.”
Before she could respond, Morrison appeared in the doorway. “Your Grace, the morning post.”
