Page 70 of A Duke to Reclaim Her
Now, midafternoon, the clouds had parted, and the nursery windows were bright with spring sunlight. Rose drank it in as if she could multiply the hope, at least enough for Lizzie to feel it as well. She smoothed the wisp of hair that curled over her daughter’s brow, marveling at how the child could sleep so soundly after such a hard illness.
At intervals, Lizzie would rouse and gurgle, then lift the rattle and whack it against the bars of her cot with a strength that seemed almost defiant.
The sound was ugly, metallic. Rose adored it.
She was so focused on this small, shattering miracle that she barely registered the soft tap at the nursery door or the way the nurse straightened, her spine aligning with years of drilled obedience.
“Rose?” The voice was lower than usual, quieter.
It was Felix, and the effect of hearing him addressed by that title, so soon after the vigil, nearly undid her again.
She did not look at him, not at first. Instead, she ran her hand down Lizzie’s arm, felt the coolness there, the blessed return of ordinary temperature.
Rose allowed herself to meet Felix’s gaze. He was different. Not in dress, as he wore his usual black, crisp linen and silkwaistcoat, nothing out of place, but in the set of his jaw, the softness around his eyes.
He looked as if he’d fought a war and barely survived.
“May I?” he asked, voice so careful it sounded as though someone else was speaking through him.
Rose nodded, and he crossed the room to stand at the foot of the cot. For a moment, he simply watched Lizzie, lips pressed thin, hands behind his back in a way that seemed designed to keep them from trembling.
“She’s a stubborn thing,” he said. “I admire it.”
Rose wondered if he meant the child or herself. “She takes after her father’s line,” she replied, unable to summon any malice. “And her mother, I suppose.”
They stood in a silence that felt heavy enough to bruise. All the things they had left unsaid over the past weeks seemed to crowd the room, vibrating between them like a held breath that neither was brave enough to release.
At last, Felix cleared his throat. “I would like to speak with you,” he said, glancing at the nursemaid, who stood quietly at the corner of the room. “Alone, if you can spare the time.”
Rose’s first impulse was to say no. She had given him everything, and in return, he had left her to the wolves. But then she lookedat him and saw that he was as ragged as she was, his composure held together by nothing but habit and need.
“Very well,” she said. “Five minutes, then I must return to her.”
Felix nodded, as if accepting terms in a negotiation.
After Rose had handed the child to the nursemaid, he gestured for her to precede him from the room. As she passed, he lingered, watching Lizzie with a tenderness he would never admit to possessing.
They made their way down the corridor, the hush following them, until they reached Felix’s study. Rose tensed. She had not been in this room since before her confession, and the thought of returning to a space so fullyhismade her throat close.
Felix must have sensed it. “It’s neutral ground,” he said, apologetically. “I thought you would prefer it to my rooms.”
Rose said nothing, but she followed him inside.
The study was unchanged, with its books stacked like barricades along the walls, the smell of ink and old tobacco clinging to the upholstery. A decanter of sherry gleamed on the sideboard, untouched. Felix moved to the hearth, stoked the fire though they did not need it, then poured two small glasses. He handed one to her but did not sit. Instead, he paced before the empty grate, as if gathering the fragments of himself before laying them at her feet.
Rose watched him, waiting for the performance to begin. She had seen him do this before: the careful arrangement of facts, the manipulation of mood. This time, though, he seemed unable to summon the usual artifice belonging to his bloodline.
Every line of his body was as raw and unguarded as an open wound.
He did not drink. He set the glass on the mantel and turned to face her.
“I have been,” he began, then stopped. He tried again. “When I was a child, I used to count the hours until my father left for London. The house would go quiet, but it was a kind of peace. My mother would bake tarts with the cook, and sometimes she would let me stay up late, and for a few days, it almost felt like a real family.”
Rose listened, unsure where this was leading.
“But then he would return,” Felix continued, “and everything would break. There was a tension, like a bowstring drawn too tight. My mother…she became someone else. Not sad, but brittle. She stopped looking at me, even when I was in the room. It was as if he took the air with him, wherever he went, and the rest of us had to learn to breathe something else.”
He stared at the fire; his eyes gone distant. “She loved him,” Felix said. “More than anything. Even when he ruined her. I watched it happen. I watched her go from loving him to hatinghim, and then to nothing at all. She died when I was seventeen, but really, she was gone long before that.”
