The morning after her wedding night, Livia woke to the unfamiliar sensation of a man’s arm draped over her waist.
Sunlight, pale and thin, slipped around the curtains. The fire had burned low, the room cooler.
Rowan’s breath was warm against the back of her neck.
She lay very still, startled to discover that the first feeling that rose was not panic.
It was… comfort.
A foreign word, attached to another body.
She shifted slightly; his arm tightened instinctively, drawing her back against his chest.
“Don’t run,” he mumbled into her hair.
“I am merely reaching for the blanket,” she said.
“Oh.” He loosened his hold a fraction, then slid his hand down anyway to pull the coverlet higher over them both.
His palm rested, broad and splayed, over her stomach.
Her skin tingled.
“You snore,” she said, because she could not think of anything less dangerous to say.
“I warned you I might,” he murmured, still half asleep. “You talk in your sleep. Something about… grain yields.”
She flushed. “You are inventing that.”
“I most certainly am not,” he said. “It was… distressingly arousing.”
What air had been in her lungs fled.
“You are deranged,” she said weakly.
He chuckled, a rumble against her spine. “Possibly.”
They lay in companionable silence for a few long moments.
“I have to get up,” she said at last.
“Why?” he asked, clearly appalled.
“Because I am expected to appear at breakfast,” she said. “Preferably dressed. There will be people. Your aunt. My father. Whitlow, probably, with a sheaf of papers.”
“That last is a strong argument for staying in bed,” he muttered.
“Rowan,” she said.
He sighed heavily and released her.
“Very well,” he said. “Go. Leave me here to face the cruel morning alone.”
“You are absurd,” she said, swinging her feet to the floor.
“Duchess,” he said, and when she glanced back, his expression was more serious. “I meant what I said last night. About there being no… ledger.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
“But for the sake of your… accounting soul,” he added, “you may consider today’s balance between us entirely even.”
Her cheeks heated, memory flooding back in vivid waves.
“I shall… keep that in mind,” she muttered, and fled to the adjoining dressing-room.
***
Breakfast at Harcourt House—now, temporarily, Merrow House—was a curious affair.
Harcourt sat at the table with his usual plate of ham and eggs, glowering at a newspaper. Lady Agnes occupied the other end, drinking coffee that could have removed paint. Whitlow had, as predicted, a folder of papers, though he had the sense to keep them closed.
They all looked up when Livia entered.
“Ah,” Harcourt grunted. “The married lady. Still walking, I see.”
“Father,” Livia said, scandalized.
Lady Agnes snorted. “Oh, let him. It will worry your husband, which is a healthy pastime for any father-in-law.”
“I am enjoying tremendous support this morning,” Rowan said dryly, entering behind Livia, fully dressed but with a faint limp that might have been theatrical. “Good morning.”
Harcourt eyed him. “You look tired.”
“Your daughter is very demanding,” Rowan said solemnly, taking his seat beside Livia.
Livia nearly inhaled her tea.
Harcourt’s brows shot up. Then, slowly, he grinned.
“Good,” he said.
Whitlow coughed into his napkin.
Lady Agnes’s feathers quivered with suppressed laughter.
Livia stared at her plate.
“Can we… not,” she said faintly, “discuss this over kippers?”
“No one is discussing anything,” Lady Agnes said benignly. “We are merely… observing. And enjoying.”
“Like the rest of London,” Whitlow muttered, then froze as three sets of sharp eyes fixed on him.
“Explain yourself, Mr. Whitlow,” Harcourt said.
Whitlow winced. “Only that there’s been… considerable talk, sir. About the match. The church was full of half the *ton.* And a few pamphleteers. They will all have… opinions.”
“Let them,” Harcourt said. “I’ve yet to see an opinion turn a profit.”
Rowan glanced at Livia.
She lifted her chin slightly. “We knew this would happen,” she said. “We chose it anyway.”
“Yes,” Rowan said quietly.
Lady Agnes nodded, satisfied.
“Very well,” she said. “We have established that you are both stubborn. Good. Now, to practical matters. When do you go down to Merrow Park?”
“In a fortnight,” Rowan said. “We must stay in town long enough to fulfill basic duties. Appearances. And to sign the remainder of the legal papers.”
“After that,” Livia added, “I wish to see the Derby manufactory before we commit more capital.”
Harcourt groaned. “Can’t you see it from here?”
“No,” she said. “I must speak with the manager. And see the machines.”
“You are not climbing into any machinery,” Rowan said, alarmed.
“I said see, not ride,” she retorted.
Lady Agnes smirked. “You married her, boy. Do not complain now that she wishes to inspect the goods.”
His eyes darkened. “Oh, I have no complaints about her inspecting my goods.”
“Rowan,” Livia hissed.
Harcourt thumped the table, laughing.
Breakfast, somehow, did not collapse under this assault of innuendo and affection.
It… settled.
By the time Whitlow timidly produced his sheaf, the mood had steadied.
“We have received revised terms from the Derby manufactory owners,” Whitlow said, clearing his throat. “I thought—”
“After breakfast,” Rowan said firmly. “At least let us digest the kippers before the numbers.”
Whitlow subsided.
Livia glanced at Rowan.
“You do realize,” she murmured, “that by postponing the discussion of figures, you are making yourself more appealing to me.”
He raised a brow. “My delaying gratification skills are very strong, as you saw last night.”
Her face flamed.
Lady Agnes, at the far end of the table, choked on her coffee.
“I am leaving,” Livia announced.
“No, you’re not,” Agnes wheezed. “You’re married. You don’t get to flee conversations anymore. You must suffer with the rest of us.”
Livia dropped her forehead briefly to her hand.
Rowan laughed, reaching under the table to brush his fingers lightly against her knee.
It felt like a promise.
***
The days that followed fell into a rhythm that was at once exhausting and oddly thrilling.
In the mornings, they met with Channing and Whitlow, reviewing investments, signing documents, discussing how Livia’s existing holdings would be structured within the new reality of her duchesshood.
“You may keep Harcourt Trading under your sole authority,” Channing said. “So long as Mr. Harcourt retains his controlling share. There is nothing in the law that forbids a duchess from owning such property, though there are many in society who would prefer to believe it impossible.”
“Let them prefer,” Livia said crisply. “We shall not enlighten them.”
Rowan smiled, watching her.
“And Merrow Park’s accounts,” she said, scanning a page, “will continue to list me as co-signatory.”
“Yes,” Channing confirmed. “That has been written into the documents. No major expenditure, sale, or purchase can be made without your knowledge.”
Rowan nodded. “Good.”
Channing hesitated. “It is… unusual, Your Grace.”
“So is my wife,” Rowan said. “And so am I, apparently.”
In the afternoons, they appeared in society.
Dinners. Calls. Walks in Hyde Park with the world’s eyes on them.
It was… work.
“Smile,” Rowan murmured one day as they turned down Rotten Row, the carriage rolling at a sedate pace.
“I am smiling,” Livia said, lips tight.
“You are baring your teeth.”
“Same thing,” she muttered.
He huffed a breath of laughter.
“Look at it this way,” he said. “Every time Lady Tansley’s lip curls, some other wall between trade and title crumbles.”
“You make it sound like a war,” she said.
“It is,” he replied. “One we are winning.”
He did not say: And if we win, I keep you. I keep this. I keep the part of myself that feels clean when I ride my own fields and think of you.
He did not need to.
At night, they learned each other.
They did not rush to full consummation. Not that first week. Nor the second.
They explored.
Livia discovered that Rowan’s back was surprisingly sensitive, that a slow scratch along the muscles near his shoulder blades could render him almost incoherent. Rowan discovered that Livia’s knees were ticklish but her inner thighs were not.
They laughed. Often.
She had not expected that.
She had thought intimacy would be solemn, perhaps painful, imbued with meaning and obligation.
It was all of that, at times.
But it was also ridiculous.
When Rowan tangled himself in his own shirt one evening in his haste, nearly falling off the bed, she laughed so hard she had to clutch her stomach.
“Do not mock a man in distress,” he muttered, flushing.
“You put your head through the sleeve,” she gasped. “You resembled a disgruntled chicken.”
He lunged for her; she shrieked, curling away, ending up sprawled across his chest. Which, of course, ended with his hands on her hips and other, far less ridiculous things happening.
It was… not simple.
There were moments when her old walls slammed up, when his mouth on her breast or hand between her thighs triggered instinctive panic.
He stopped, every time, instantly.
“Talk to me,” he would say, lying on his back, hands flat on the coverlet, as if restraining himself from reaching for her.
She would.
Slowly, she mapped the terrain of her own fear.
He mapped it with her.
And when, at last, one rain-lashed night two weeks into their marriage, she pushed him back on the bed, stripped off her own chemise without prompting, and said, voice shaking, “Now,” he went very still.
“You are certain?” he asked, jaw clenched.
“Yes,” she said. “I am tired of standing on the edge and staring down. I wish to jump.”
His eyes burned.
“Then,” he said huskily, “I am honored to catch you.”
It was not perfect.
There was pain.
There was clumsiness.
There was, briefly, something like fear when the reality of his body inside hers overrode her abstract knowledge.
He held, then. Waited. Whispered nonsense and reassurances into her hair.
When her body adjusted, when her breath evened, when a flicker of pleasure threaded through the discomfort, he moved again, slow and careful.
After, when she lay with her head on his chest and their legs tangled, she felt… different.
Not because some mythical veil of virtue had been pierced. Not because she was now a “real woman,” as some matrons might claim.
But because she had done something terrifying and vulnerable and found, in the doing, that she did not disappear.
She was still herself.
Just… more.
“You are thinking very hard,” Rowan murmured, fingers tracing idle patterns on her shoulder.
“I am always thinking,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “It is one of the things I love about you.”
Her heart stumbled.
She lifted her head, staring at him.
“You said—” She broke off.
His brows drew together. “What?”
“You said… *love,*” she whispered.
He stilled.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I did.”
“At the church,” she said slowly, “I told you I did not love you. That I did not know you well enough.”
“I remember,” he said. “I agreed.”
“And now?” she asked. “You… do?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
It hit her like a physical blow.
“How?” she asked, the word almost a protest.
He smiled faintly, rueful. “I did not wake one morning with angels singing and your face painted on the ceiling. It… crept. You were there, in my thoughts, when I signed papers. When I rode out. When I looked at a leaking roof and thought, *Livia will murder me if I ignore that.* When you laughed at me with Mrs. Barstow. When you glared down an entire ballroom. When you let me touch you and told me, honestly, when you were afraid.”
He cupped her cheek. “Every time you refused to be less. Every time you called me back to *more.* It… accumulated. Like interest.”
Her breath hitched. “You are comparing love to interest.”
“I am speaking in a language I know you understand,” he said. “I will gladly also compare it to tides, or stars, or anything else if you prefer. But the truth is: it grew. Over time. It is still growing. It may always be.”
Her eyes burned.
“I do not know yet,” she whispered, “if I… love… you.”
“I know,” he said gently. “You told me. You owe me no change in that yet.”
“But,” she said, heart racing, “I… feel… something. When you are not in the room. When you walk in. When I see you with your tenants. When you make my father laugh. When you say ridiculous things at breakfast.”
“Annoyance?” he suggested.
“Yes,” she said, choking on a laugh. “And… more. I do not have the word yet. Perhaps it is… growing. Like your interest.”
He smiled, relief and something raw in it.
“Then,” he said softly, “I will wait. I am patient. When it comes to you.”
She believed him.
She also knew, with the cold, clear certainty that came with any risk worth taking, that she might break his heart.
She could only, at this point, promise not to do so carelessly.
“I will try,” she whispered.
He pulled her back down, his arms closing around her.
“That,” he said into her hair, “is all I ask.”
***