Unavoidable.” He laughed bitterly. “But not wanted.”
She opened her mouth, but Alastair shook his head. “No. You did not need to say it. Your face when I leaned in spoke volumes.” He turned to look out his own window. “You need not worry, Miss Hart—” He corrected himself. “Your Grace. I have no intention of forcing my attentions on an unwilling wife. You will have your separate rooms, your separate life, exactly as promised.”
“That was not—” Penelope’s hands clenched in her lap. “I was not rejecting you specifically. I was simply?—”
“Terrified.” He said it flat. “Yes. I noticed.”
The words stung. Because he was right, and because the distance in his voice suggested he had already decided what her reaction meant.
“Your Grace,” she tried again. “I apologize if I?—”
“Do not apologize.” He turned back to her sharply. There was something fierce in his expression now. “You have done nothing wrong. If anything, you have shown remarkable composure. You agreed to marry a stranger to protect a child. You are enduring scandal and a husband you clearly find repulsive. Apologizing is the last thing you should be doing.”
“I do not find you repulsive,” Penelope said quietly.
He looked surprised. “No?”
“No.” She met his gaze. “I find this situation overwhelming. I find myself unprepared and uncertain and afraid of making everything worse. But you, specifically?” She shook her head. “You have been kinder than you needed to be. More patient than I had any right to expect.”
The quiet that followed felt different. Less hostile. More uncertain.
“Well then,” Alastair said, softer than before. “Perhaps we are both simply terrified and trying not to show it.”
The admission surprised a small sound from her that was almost a laugh. “Perhaps.”
His mouth curved, not quite a smile but approaching it. “What a pair we make. The reluctant Duke and the frightened bride, bound together by scandal and an infant neither of us knows how to raise.”
“When you phrase it like that, it sounds rather hopeless.”
“Does it?” He tilted his head. “I was thinking it sounded like the beginning of either a tragedy or a farce. I suppose we shall have to wait and see which.”
It was still raining outside and Penelope found herself studying her new husband with different attention. Not the man at the ball who had teased her until she’d wanted to slap him. Not the rake society whispered about in scandalized tones. But this—a person as uncertain and unprepared as she was, hiding it beneath charm and distance the way she hid hers beneath composure and duty.
He had nice hands, she noticed absently. Long fingers. The knuckles on his right hand looked slightly swollen, probably from that boxing habit he thought was so terribly clandestine. She’d heard about it from her brother-in-law. Apparently everyone knew the Duke frequented some questionable establishment in the East End, trading punches with working men.
“How long until we reach the estate?” she asked.
“Four hours. Perhaps five in this weather.” Alastair gestured at the rain. “We will arrive after dark. But the house has been prepared. Your rooms are ready, the nursery established. You will want for nothing.”
Except understanding. Except choice.
But Penelope did not say those things. Instead, she nodded and turned back to the window, watching the unfamiliar landscape roll past.
Alastair fell quiet as well.
The miles passed slowly. The rain continued. And somewhere ahead, in a house Penelope had never seen, a baby waited—the tiny catalyst who had upended both their lives.
The carriage hit a rut. Penelope’s hand shot out to brace against the seat, and found Alastair’s fingers there instead.
They both froze.
His hand was warm beneath hers. She could feel his pulse. For a moment, neither of them moved. The accidental touch felt more intimate than the attempted kiss had been.
Then Alastair withdrew his hand, folding it back into his lap.
“Forgive me,” he murmured.
“It was an accident,” Penelope managed.