Page 69 of The Lion Duke's Proposal
Leander was never more than twenty feet away.
He was talking to his own political set, performing his own rigid social obligations, but there was a consistency in his position that was entirely intentional.
He was an anchor.
When a gentleman she did not know approached her near the punch bowl with rather more enthusiasm than the occasion warranted, Leander was at her elbow within sixty seconds, his shadow enveloping them both.
"Lord Ashby," Leander said. It was a greeting that was also a clear, dangerous boundary, delivered without a single raised note.
Lord Ashby took one look at the Duke's eyes, paled, and took his leave immediately.
"Thank you," Julia said, letting out a small breath as the man retreated into the crowd.
"Think nothing of it," Leander said softly.
His eyes lingered on her face for a fraction of a second too long before he turned back to his conversation, leaving her with the lingering heat of his presence.
The carriage home was quiet in a separate way from the carriage there.
She sat across from him in the dark plush interior, looking down at the pale silk of her gloves while the distant streetlamps moved in rhythmic bars of gold light across her lap.
Her mind remained entirely fixed on the single word he had used on the dance floor. It was not just the word itself, but the complete absence of drama in his delivery. He had spoken it as though it was a mathematical certainty, a fact so plain and true that he saw no earthly reason to frame it otherwise.
Mine.
She looked up, the motion catching the light, and found his heavy gaze already waiting for her through the shadows.
"Thank you," she said softly, her voice carrying over the rumble of the iron-shod wheels. "For tonight."
"You required nothing to thank me for," he said.
She watched him for a long moment, the passing carriage torches catching the sharp profile of his nose and the hard set of his mouth.
"You know that is not true," she said, her voice dropping lower. "You know exactly what you did out there. You walked into that room, and you made certain every person in it understood that I was your wife. Not an arrangement. Not a convenience. You put your hand over mine on that railing, and you saidmineloud enough for Lord Ashford and both Pembury sisters to hear, and by tomorrow morning, there will not be a drawing room in London that does not know it." She held his gaze steadily. "You gave me back my standing. You did not have to do that."
He said nothing. He simply turned his head back to the glass, his jaw tight as he tracked the dark London storefronts slipping past.
The carriage finally groaned to a halt outside the townhouse, and the silence stretched between them until the footman opened the door, letting in the cool night air.
He walked her upstairs, and she was acutely aware of the shift as their boots clicked in unison along the carpeted corridor.
The house around them was dead silent, the wall lamps already turned low for the night. He came to a halt right at her chamber door, his tall frame blocking the dim light.
She turned, her back pressing lightly against the dark wood of the doorframe.
"Goodnight," he said.
She looked up at him, her chest rising and falling with a breath she did not realize she was holding.
"Sleep well, Julia."
He turned to go.
The movement was sharp, decisive, and entirely familiar. The lingering warmth of the ball, the heat of the dance floor, theechoing weight of his declaration—all of it was still vibrating in the space between them. And yet he was walking away down the corridor with the exact same steady composure that had been keeping her at an agonizing distance since their wedding dinner.
Something in her chest shifted, and she realized she was tired.
She was tired of the careful distance, tired of the silence that neither of them broke even when it was costing them both something visible, tired of watching him do considerate things without comment and pretending she had not noticed, tired of lying in a room on the other side of a wall from a man who had called herminein front of all of London and still came no closer.
