Page 72 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
He set Frederick back on his feet, watching him scurrying back toward his new friends, before he felt a presence at his elbow. Alistair stood there, nursing a glass of sherry and wearing a look of amused curiosity.
"You look remarkably cozy, Theodore," Alistair remarked, glancing from Theodore to the retreating boy. "One might almost think you were changing your mind about the merits of fatherhood."
Theodore scoffed and shook his head. "Absolutely not. My stance on children remains unchanged."
Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Yet, you seem quite taken with that one."
"Frederick is an exception," Theodore replied firmly. "I adore him, certainly, but children of my own? No. I was not raised in a house that modeled such things. Who could expect me to know how to be a father when I never truly had one myself?"
Alistair opened his mouth to respond. Then his gaze moved. Just slightly. Past Theodore's shoulder to something behind him.
Theodore turned.
He drew a short breath, caught off guard by the fact that Emily was standing only a foot away. He took in another sharp, jagged breath as their eyes locked.
She was in the pale green gown with her hair up, and she was looking at him with an expression he felt rather than read. She looked shocked, her eyes wide and clouded with a sudden, sharp hurt. Before Theodore could even part his lips to speak her name, the expression hardened into something cold and brittle.
Then she turned and walked away. Smoothly. Composedly. Into the group near the window where Yvette and Rose were standing, as though she had simply been passing through and had somewhere else to be.
Theodore watched her go.
"Theodore," Alistair said.
“Yes?”
“How are things with you and Emily?”
Why did she look at me like that?
He replayed the last few minutes, but his mind bypassed his own words entirely, landing instead on the tension that hadbeen simmering between them for days. He wondered if she was still reeling from that night in the library; perhaps she was humiliated by how close they had come to a mistake. Or, more likely, she was furious that he had spent the last five days acting like a coward, keeping a cold, calculated distance when they had explicitly agreed to speak more openly. He had broken the fragile peace they had built, and now, seeing that flash of pain on her face, he feared his tactical retreat had finally pushed her too far. He had intended to protect himself from his own lack of control, but looking at her now, he realized he might have traded his composure for her trust.
“Things are good,” Theodore answered, the lie tasting smooth and familiar. “We have reached a level of mutual respect and understanding that I didn't think possible when we first began this arrangement. We are doing a commendable job of raising Frederick together, and quite honestly, I am glad we made the decision to marry. I find that I am never bored.”
Alistair looked at him for a moment longer than the answer required. "Good," he said simply.
Theodore was glad of it because the honest answer was considerably more complicated than the one he had given, and he was not ready to give it to Alistair.
Before either of them could say anything further, Christopher appeared at Alistair's shoulder, suggesting that someone had found a set of cards. There was talk of a game before dinner, and the conversation dissolved naturally into a more easy setting.
They played Speculation for an hour. It became loud within the first fifteen minutes, which was entirely expected… and argumentative within twenty, which was also entirely expected. By the halfway point, Alistair was disputing the value of a trump card, Christopher was outbidding everyone at the table with a serenity that suggested either exceptional cards or exceptional bluffing, and Rose had accused him of the latter twice already.
When the party transitioned to the dining room, Emily didn't take her customary place at his right hand. Instead, with a brief, tight smile that didn't reach her eyes, she slipped into the chair beside Yvette.
Throughout the meal, Theodore found himself unable to focus on his own plate. He watched her from across the table as she chatted animatedly with Alistair, her laughter ringing out at intervals that felt like sharp stabs to his pride. She didn't look at him once. Not a single glance to check if he was listening, not a single shared smile over an inside joke.
A heavy, prickling heat settled in his chest. It wasn't just that she was ignoring him; it was the way she seemed to be intentionally carving out a space where he didn't exist. He felt a sudden, irrational resentment toward Yvette for occupying the space that belonged to him, and a sharp hunger to be the one making Emily laugh like that. He told himself it was merely the annoyance of a disrupted routine, but the way his grip tightened on his wine glass suggested something much more primitive.
By the time the night drew to a close, the children had long since fallen asleep in the nursery, and the guests were beginning toretreat to their own chambers. Yet, Emily still hadn't spoken a single word to him. She moved toward the stairs, her silhouette disappearing into the shadows of the upper landing before he could find his voice.
Theodore stood in the darkening hallway, the silence of the house pressing in on him. He had wanted this gathering to be an olive branch, a way for her to find joy amidst the rumors, but he had waited too long to bridge the gap between them. He feared that the awkwardness he had allowed to fester for five days had finally hardened into something permanent, leaving him on the outside of a life they were supposed to be building together.
"I think I’ve figured it out."
Theodore nearly jumped, spinning around to find Alistair leaning against the doorframe of the smoking room, a half-empty glass of brandy in his hand. He hadn't heard the man approach, a lapse in awareness that felt like a personal failure.
"Figured what out?" Theodore asked, his voice sharp with the remnants of his frustration.
"The frost in the air," Alistair said, stepping into the dim light of the hallway. "Tell me, did you ever explicitly tell Emily that you have no intention of ever having children of your own?"
