Page 23 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
“When have you ever been wrong?” Theodore remarked.
“Rarely,” Julia said. She was sitting forward now, both hands wrapped around her teacup, her eyes bright. “I saw it the moment she walked into that room. The way you looked at her.”
“I looked at her the way I look at everyone.”
“You looked at her the way you look at no one else,” Julia said firmly.
Theodore sat up. He was happy that Julia was buying his act, but he was starting to make things up himself, and he didn’t want to stand for it. “Perhaps what you saw in the way I looked at her was rage, because I assure you, Emily enrages me... I mean, before I started to find her charming, of course.”
“I know you, Theodore. I know the difference.” She shook her head, still smiling. “I cannot tell you what a relief this is. Truly. I have been watching you for years, waiting for something to reach you, waiting for one person to get through all of that...” she gestured at him, vaguely but comprehensively. “... and I had begun to wonder if it would ever happen.”
“Little faith,” Theodore said pleasantly.
“Oh, and Emily Pierce, of all people. She is wonderful. She is exactly what you need, Your Grace.”
“I am glad you approve,” Theodore said.
“I more than approve.” Julia reached across and patted his hand. “I am proud of you. Do you know that? I am genuinely proud of you for allowing yourself to feel something.”
Theodore looked at his godmother's hand on his and felt, somewhere in his chest, the small and inconvenient flicker of something that was not entirely comfortable.
But he had to remind himself that he was doing this because Julia needed to understand, once and for all, that she couldnot use his love for her as leverage, could not arrange his life like furniture and expect him to simply be grateful for the new configuration. He was making a point. It was a very good point.
He cleared his throat.
“There is something else,” he said.
Julia looked at him expectantly.
He took a small, considered breath. Then he looked at her with the expression he had been saving, the one that was earnest and slightly overwhelmed and carried just enough vulnerability to be entirely convincing.
“I find...” he said slowly. “... that when you feel something genuine, the things that might have mattered before simply...” he searched for the word, let the pause breathe. “...stop mattering.”
Julia tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Complications,” Theodore said simply.
Julia looked at him. “What kind of complications?”
“The kind that society tends to have opinions about,” he said pleasantly.
“Theodore,” Julia said carefully. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying,” he continued, holding her gaze. “I am certain enough about her that none of it changes anything for me.” He smiled. “That is all.”
Julia stared at him. Her teacup had stopped moving entirely. Behind her eyes, something was working, turning the words over, looking at them from every angle, trying to find the shape of what he was not saying.
But he gave her nothing further.
“Well,” he said, rising from the chair and straightening his coat. “I intend to call on her this afternoon.”
Julia set her teacup down. “Your Grace, you will sit back down and finish that sentence.”
“I finished it perfectly well,” he said.
“You finished nothing. You implied something and dressed it up as a finished sentence, and you know it.” She rose from her chair, which meant things were serious. “What complications? What are you not telling me?”
Theodore looked at her. At the sharpness that had replaced the warmth in her expression, the slight color that had risen in her cheeks, and the way her hands had clasped themselves together in front of her.
