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“No!” The sharpness in his own tone startled him. Julius winced. He was meant to be charming, unflappable, yet since that fateful day he had set out with Audrey, he seemed to have mislaid his very nature. “No, I would not hear any of that. As my wife, you would have independence. You should never want for funds. You would be a future countess. None would dare slight you. Even Lady Astley must eat her words once the world knows we are wed. I … wish this, Audrey.”

She turned her face aside, studying her fingernails with deliberate care. “So, you wish to wed me … yet you do not wish to be my husband.”

Gadzooks, that sounds terrible!

But it was true.

He was a childish clot who resisted maturity at every turn. Any one of his friends would have agreed without hesitation. They would chuckle and say it with fondness, but say it nonetheless.

“Perhaps … a babe would be possible?”

He had not planned to say it. Certainly had not thought it through. But the moment the words left his mouth, he saw her expression shift. The cool mask cracked ever so slightly. Something soft and unspoken glimmered in her gaze.

A babe.

A child.

His child?

Julius twisted the signet ring on his finger, suddenly unsure of the shape of his own desires. He did not know what he wanted from Audrey, only that he was not ready to lose her. He needed distance and time to wrestle with the unrecognizable chaos she had stirred in him. If she left, she would take that possibility with her, and he would be left with nothing but regret.

But a babe?

He felt the words echo in his own mind. It was a foreign concept. He had always assumed he would die without heirs. He had sworn never to marry, and therefore issue had never been a matter of concern.

Issue?

What a strange word. What a terrifying, luminous possibility.

Julius curled his lip in faint disgust, unable to prevent the visceral reaction.

Deuce it, he had been reading far too much of Debrett’s. Next, he would be referring to matrimony as “alliances” and women as “prospects.” This was precisely the sort of ghastly propriety he had long scorned, the festering rot of polite society that wormed into a man’s vocabulary and settled into his bones like structural rot. And yet here he was, using that same language to propose an arrangement of marriage to the only woman who had ever made him forget to sneer at the institution.

Audrey remained silent, caught in thought. She nibbled at her lower lip, a habit he had found endearing, though just now it seemed fraught with tension. She looked too pale, her lashes casting soft shadows over her cheekbones as she stared somewhere just beyond him. He could almost see the calculations behind her gaze, weighing sacrifice against survival, pride against ruin.

At last, she exhaled.

“I shall accept those terms,” she said, each word measured like a physician dispensing an unpleasant but necessary treatment. “But I do not agree to you parading through London with your paramours without my approval. If the terms of our agreement change, I expect to be informed. And if they do …” Her silver gaze found his. “Then I shall not wish to see you again. If you find the need to pursue other women, I will raise our child alone, and you will stay far from Stirling.”

Her words stunned him. Calm. Cold. Conditional. And entirely justified.

Julius’s breath caught in his chest. Was it relief he felt? Or a pang of something deeper? Something that twisted uncomfortably beneath his ribs and defied easy categorization.

You are a irredeemable cad, he thought. But at least she will be safe.

He nodded slowly, the weight of her terms settling around his shoulders like a cloak he had no business wearing. There would be time later, he hoped, to sort through his discomfort, to unpack the strange mix of duty, guilt, and a growing tenderness that felt dangerously like affection. For now, her agreement was a lifeline, and he grasped it with both hands.

Audrey gestured at the crumpled letter with a frown of distaste. “What do I do about … this?” She spoke the word as if the page were a viper, coiled and ready to strike.

Julius straightened. “Brendan has asked the duke to procure a special license. We should be married before the week is out. I shall arrange for announcements to appear in the news sheets.”

He crossed the room and picked up the letter between two fingers, as one might remove an insect from a tablecloth. “As for Lady Astley … ignore her. The woman thrives on outrage. We shall remain here under guard until the matter with Scott is resolved. Thereafter, we depart for Stirling. I will call upon your vicar and set his qualms to rest.”

“As you wish,” Audrey replied, her tone cool, measured, and void of any warmth.

The words ought to have settled matters, yet Julius found they twisted like thorns in his chest. He hated this distance between them. The strained civility, the quiet ache that echoed with everything unspoken. The contrast between her earlier laughter, her ardor, her teasing intelligence and this bleak acquiescence was nearly intolerable.

Stuff it. I ought to have spoken to her last night.