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“He did this for you, Your Grace. I am sure if you want something else, we can get it for you.”

“Oh no,” Laura said, not wanting to seem ungrateful. “It is just a lot to take in.”

“I understand, Your Grace. Now, let me help you. How about you wear the green gown for this evening? It’ll bring out your eyes.”

She nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.”

She let herself be bathed, dressed, and coiffed, and had only just been laced into the green silk when a knock sounded at the door. She realized quickly that it was not the main door, but the smaller one set into the far wall between her chambers and the next.

It was the one Sarah had mentioned in passing while dressing her. The one that led to the Duke’s chambers.

“That’ll be His Grace,” Sarah murmured, already gathering her things. “I’ll leave you, Your Grace. Please ring if you need anything at all. At any hour,” she added with a curtsy.

Laura crossed the room, her pulse quickening in a way she couldn’t attribute to nerves alone.

She pushed away the thought and opened the door to reveal the Duke.

He had changed out of the formal black attire he’d worn for the wedding. Now he was wearing shirtsleeves, with no coat, waistcoat, or cravat. His open collar revealed a triangle of pale skin and a trail of dark hair that became thicker the further down it went.

Seeing him alone like this, the informality of it, stripped away the last of the careful distance he’d kept all day. It left him looking rawer, realer.

Laura found herself staring longer than propriety allowed before she recovered her voice.

“Your Grace,” she said, licking her dry lips.

“Nathaniel,” he corrected, his eyes following the movement. “You needn’t stand on ceremony with me in private.”

“Of course. Nathaniel.”

“I’d hoped for a word, if you can spare one.”

“Of course.” She stepped back to let him enter. “I can spare several.”

He closed the door behind him with a soft click that seemed to seal the room off from the rest of the castle.

“I know you resent what happened at that auction,” he began. “Believe it or not, I do as well. I also imagine that you resent me for… claiming you there, whatever the alternative might have been. We are where we are. Yes?”

Of course I recall the moment you bought me on the auction block. I knew then that you were not quite like the other men, who were all circling the stage like vultures, but I still cannot shake the fact that you bought me.

“Yes.” She nodded, unable to articulate her inner conflict, nor did she want to.

“I want to be plain with you,” he continued. “So there’s no confusion about the matter. You deserve that. I told you in Alden’s office, but I will tell you again: no harm will come to you. Not from the staff, not from anyone who crosses this threshold. I’ll see to it personally.”

“And from you?” The question left her lips before she’d fully decided to ask it. She bit her bottom lip nervously.

His spine stiffened. He did not look offended, but caught off guard. It was as if her question had landed somewhere he hadn’t expected.

He looked at her intently. “I will never harm you,” he vowed. “Not by my hands. Not by my word. Never.”

Laura searched his face for the lie and found none. Instead, she found a raw earnestness in his gaze that flustered her more than any threat could have.

She gulped. The air between them seemed to draw tight, charged with something she could not name. She let out a slow breath and made herself look away, unwilling to be the first to be entirely undone by a man she had been married to for less than a day.

“I’m going to set three rules for this marriage, however,” Nathaniel added once she looked back at him. “I’ll ask nothing else of you beyond keeping them.”

Laura raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“First, you’ll care for Iris. Not as a governess cares for a charge; I hired Miss Borden for her lessons. I’m asking you to care for her as family does. She has no mother, but I want her to know what it is like to have one.”