Page 30 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
“I had begun to suspect as much,” he said.
The admission settled between them, quiet but undeniable.
Arabella drew in a breath, steadying herself once more, though the tension had shifted into something unfamiliar, something that coiled rather than pressed.
Outside, the house had gone still. The corridors silent. The night fully settled around them.
Inside, neither of them moved.
And as the quiet stretched, thick with everything that had been said and everything that had not, Arabella became acutely aware of the distance between them.
“Haveyoubeen enduringmethis entire time?” Arabella heard the sharpness in her own voice the moment the words left her, though she did not attempt to soften them. The question lingered between them, carried on the quiet crackle of the fire and the steady tick of cooling embers in the grate.
“I have not in any way, Miss Barker.”
He stood where he had been, only a few paces from her, his gaze steady, unreadable in the shifting light. The shadows cast by the fire moved across the planes of his face, catching briefly at the edge of his jaw, the line of his mouth, the faint rise and fall of his breath.
Arabella let out a short, disbelieving scoff when the silence stretched. “You speak as though you have been suffering some great trial,” she continued, folding her arms lightly across herself, though the gesture did little to steady her. “If there is anything else you would like to add to your list of terms, Your Grace, I suggest you do so now.”
Maxwell’s gaze shifted slightly, not away from her, but inward, as though he were considering something more carefully than before.
“There is one more matter,” he said at last.
Arabella lifted her chin. “Of course there is.”
“There will be no kissing.”
For a moment, she simply stared at him.
The words were so unexpected, so entirely at odds with everything she had braced herself for, that they took a moment to settle into meaning.
“No… kissing,” she repeated slowly. The certainty of it only made it more absurd. Arabella blinked, then frowned. “But… is that not required?”
Maxwell’s brows drew together slightly. “Required? For an heir?”
“For children,” she said, as though clarifying something obvious. “I was under the impression that it was… part of it.”
There was a pause. Then, quite unexpectedly, a quiet sound escaped him. It took her a moment to realize that he had actually laughed at her.
Arabella felt heat rush to her face at once, her eyes widening slightly as she stared at him. “You find me amusing?”
Maxwell’s expression shifted, though only slightly, the faintest trace of something lighter passing through it before it was gone again. “No,” he said, though the remnants of it lingered in his tone. “Only… slightly misinformed.”
Arabella’s flush deepened. “I am not misinformed,” she said quickly. “I am simply… less experienced in such matters thanyouappear to be.”
“That is evident.”
Her mouth fell open slightly at that, then closed again as she drew herself up. “You are utterly insufferable.”
“And yet,” he replied evenly, “you married me.”
“You gave me little choice!”
“I hardly held you at knifepoint to do so. You proposed the idea at the start. You had a choice to walk away.”
The words landed with quiet precision.
Arabella huffed softly, turning her head away for a moment before looking back at him again. “Then enlighten me,” she said. “If kissing is not required, what is?”
