Page 70 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
Theodore and Emily sprang apart as if the room had caught fire. Emily stumbled back against the table, her face flushing a deep, hot crimson as she smoothed her silk robe with trembling hands. Theodore frantically raked a hand through his hair, his expression shifting back to normal.
“Your Grace!” Peggy said to Theodore, as she came into view, shocked to find him in the room.
Frederick stood in front of her, rubbing his sleepy eyes and clutching a small wooden horse. He blinked, looking from Theodore’s half-unbuttoned shirt to Emily’s disheveled waves.
Then he walked over to Theodore’s side and hugged his leg.
“Why are you still awake, Frederick?” Theodore asked before scooping him up into his arms.
“I could not sleep,” Frederick said. “There’s a frog in my head.”
Theodore chuckled. “There is a frog in your head?”
Frederick nodded.
“All right. I think I can help get it out,” he said. Then he stopped and looked to Emily, who looked away immediately. “I will take him to bed. Good night.”
Theodore’s voice was steady, but there was a strained edge to it that Emily felt deep in her bones. As he led Frederick away, the silence of the library rushed back in, but it no longer felt intimate; it felt like a cold reminder of the lines they had nearly crossed.
Peggy, sensing the sudden drop in temperature, immediately hurried to Emily’s side. “Oh, heavens, Your Grace, I am so sorry!” she whispered, her voice tripping over itself in her haste to apologize. “I truly had no idea His Grace was in here. I wouldn't have dreamed of barging in if I’d known. I just thought you were still up brooding over those awful rumors, and Frederick was so upset and... can you ever forgive me?”
“It is fine, Peggy,” Emily said, though her heart was still hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She couldn't even look her maid in the eye, her gaze fixed instead on the spot where Theodore had been standing moments before. “I’ll return to my chambers for the night. It seems Frederick would much rather prefer His Grace’s company.”
As she walked toward her own chambers, panic began to swell in her chest, a cold tide that drowned out the lingering warmth of his touch.
What were you thinking, Emily? Where did you even learn to do that?
Her breath hitched. She couldn't understand how she had allowed herself to forget the rules they had established. Thevulnerability he had shown about his father had invited her in, and she had walked through that door without a second thought.
Had she taken advantage of the situation?
Emily dug her fingers into her hair and pulled as she walked. By the time she reached her bed, she was shivering. She tucked the covers tightly around herself, staring up into the darkness of the ceiling, convinced that the tormenting thoughts were a divine punishment for daring to want something that wasn't part of the bargain.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"Ineed your help with something."
Peggy turned from the window where she had been arranging the curtain. She looked at Theodore. Her eyes widened. Theodore adjusted his cuffs, his reflection in the hallway mirror as cold and polished as a marble bust. He had stayed up all night thinking. He had to do something. The rumors regarding Emily were gaining a jagged edge that could draw blood if left unchecked.
“My help, Your Grace?” Peggy asked, with her eyes still very much widened.
. "I have heard a great deal about your particular set of skills,” Theodore explained. “They say that if a secret exists in London, you’ve heard it."
Peggy’s mouth opened slightly, a flush creeping up her neck. "Your Grace, I... I wouldn't call it gossip."
"I would," Theodore said. "I mean it as a compliment. There is a rumor about the Duchess. I imagine you have heard it. This particular one suggests that Frederick is not my ward but the Duchess's own child from before our marriage." He said it plainly, without any drama around it. "It is false. You know it is false. I know it is false. The people saying it do not know what Frederick actually is, and I intend to change that."
Peggy’s eyes went wide, her pupils dilating until they were nearly all black. She let out a small, strangled gasp, her hand flying to her throat.
Theodore had thought about this. He had thought about it for several days, since the ball. He had considered his options with the thoroughness he brought to anything that required a solution.
His first instinct had been to handle it the way he handled most threats to things that mattered to him, which was directly, loudly, and with the full weight of his name and his connections brought to bear on it until the thing in question simply ceased to exist. He had contacts in the important drawing rooms in London. He had favors owed to him by people whose opinions shaped the ton's collective understanding of events. He could, if he chose to, make the rumor disappear with a few well-placed conversations, and it would be gone within a fortnight, and nobody would be able to say exactly how.
But that approach had a cost. It drew attention to the thing it was trying to extinguish. People noticed when powerful menmoved to silence something. They asked why, and the asking was sometimes more damaging than the original rumor itself.
The best way to kill a rumor, he had concluded, was not to silence it but to replace it. To give people something else to say. Something true. Something that left no room for the other version because the other version had nowhere left to stand.
For that, he needed someone who understood how information moved through a household and out into the wider world.
