Page 44 of The Feared Duke’s Found Family

“And then Fanny cornered me in my study,” Lysander growled, his jaw clenching like stone. “She stood before my desk, looked me in the eye, and somehow delivered an entire sermon on moral duty, paternal discipline, and childhood fortitude—all centered on a three-inch box of dandelions.”

Horace let out a sharp bark of laughter, drawing a disapproving glance from an elderly viscount reading a gazette two tables away. “She did not.”

“She did,” Lysander snapped, glowering into his whiskey. “Before I could even review the tenant accounts, she had convinced me that casting the beast out would permanently scar the boy’s character. Now Peter has named the damned thing Pickles, and I am obligated to spend twenty minutes every afternoon in the herb garden inspecting cabbage leaves to ensure my son does not consider me a tyrant.”

“Pickles!” Horace wheezed, wiping a tear of genuine merriment from the corner of his eye. “The formidable, ruthless Duke of Hilgrove—a man who terrifies half the House of Lords and silences ballrooms with a single scowl—is being ordered about by a woman and a tortoise named Pickles! By God, Lysander, I must ride out to Hilgrove tomorrow just to witness you inspecting dandelions.”

“You will stay in London,” Lysander warned darkly.

“Oh, come now, my friend,” Horace chuckled, leaning forward onto the table and tapping his glass lightly against Lysander’s untouched tumbler. “You are wound tighter than a clockwork watch. If your new duchess is causing you this much violent frustration, perhaps you should relieve some of that ferocious energy where gentlemen normally do.”

Horace gave a wicked, knowing wink. “Take her to bed, Lysander. A little vigor between the sheets works wonders for domestic harmony.”

Lysander went utterly rigid.

The memory of Fanny pinned against the mahogany bedpost in the moonlight, her lips parted and swollen, the broken gasps of his name, the hot, soaking silk of her skin beneath his hand ripped through his mind like a flash fire. A dark, suffocating heat flared behind his ribs.

“We do not share a bed,” Lysander said, his voice dropping into a register so cold and hard it instantly cut through the room’s warmth.

Horace’s smile faded, replaced by genuine bewilderment. “You have been married for over a week, Lysander. She is a remarkably handsome woman. You made her your duchess; you are legally and socially entitled to consummate the union.”

“It was an agreement of convenience,” Lysander said flatly, keeping his gaze pinned to the dark liquor in his glass. “Not a love match. I brought her to Hilgrove to provide a mother for the triplets, not to satisfy base impulses. To drag desire and intimacy into a business arrangement is sheer lunacy. It complicates duty, clouds judgment, and breeds nothing but chaos.”

“Or…” Horace countered gently, his flippant tone softening to something quiet and perceptive, “perhaps intimacy would simply help you both get along. You are treating a marriage like a military garrison, Lysander. You cannot live alongside a woman as warm and spirited as Lady Fanny without eventually giving in to human nature.”

“The suggestion is ridiculous,” Lysander dismissed sharply, though the lie tasted like ashes in his mouth. He had already failed. He had crossed that boundary hours earlier in the dark, and the guilt was eating him alive.

Silence settled over the table, heavy with the clink of glasses and the distant murmur of conversation from the front parlor.

Horace studied his friend’s severe, shadowed profile for a long moment before speaking again, his voice devoid of teasing. “Are you truly that miserable with her, Lysander?”

Lysander stared down at the glass, his fingers tightening around the heavy crystal.

He thought of the way Fanny had knelt in the damp dirt without hesitation to soothe Peter’s tears. He thought of how she had recognized Emily’s silent, crushing burden and lifted it with a clever, gentle bargain. He thought of the fierce, unyielding fury in her eyes as she defended the children’s right to be loved.

“No,” Lysander admitted softly, the truth dragged from his chest with absolute reluctance. He lifted his dark gray eyes, meeting Horace’s steady gaze with stark, unvarnished honesty. “In truth… she is nothing like Cecily,” Lysander murmured. “Cecily looked at the triplets and saw only chains. She saw inconvenient creatures that ruined her waistline and trapped her in the country. But Fanny…”

Lysander swallowed hard, his throat tight.

“Fanny looks at them and sees children,” he said quietly. “She genuinely cares for them, Horace. She listens to their little grievances, protects their pride, and fights me at every turn to ensure they do not grow up feeling unloved. She truly, fiercely wants to be their mother.”

He took a slow, deep breath, the lingering weight of his dark past hanging in the quiet space.

“And for that,” Lysander said, his voice barely more than a gravelly whisper, “I would endure a hundred tortoises.”

Seventeen

Fanny walked with purposeful, measured strides, her rich plum woolen skirts rustling softly against the heavy wainscoting in the morning light. Two weeks had passed since she spoke her vows in the quiet chapel, and she had spent enough time treading lightly through Hilgrove Manor’s quiet shadows.

She had allowed herself to be guided by polite hesitations, had accepted the careful boundaries drawn by Lysander, and had listened to endless, smooth excuses at nursery doors.

That deference ended today.

The light filtered through the high arched windows of the long gallery, casting pale golden squares across the polished floorboards as she reached the east wing and paused before the heavy oak door to Michael’s chamber.

For fourteen days, every attempt to sit with the boy had been neatly turned aside by Veronica’s quiet, watchful presence. The boy was always resting, always recovering from a fitful night, or too delicate for company. Yet each evening, Fanny saw Peter and Emily growing bolder in the gardens, while Michael remained hidden behind drawn curtains like a forgotten secret.

Fanny did not knock. She reached directly for the brass latch, turned it with a firm, decisive twist, and pushed the heavy door inward.