He hadn’t remembered you ever looking as good as you did now. Your nightgown wrapped around your figure, hair free from the confines of ribbons or buns as it lay down. Your face was just as exquisite, he thought, though at the moment he couldn’t see it himself.

He leaned against the doorframe as you went about your nightly rituals, his dark eyes watching your every move in a new light than what he previously viewed you as.

The marriage had been one of strict convenience. You fit all of his qualifications: pleasing face, an acceptable wit, genteel manners enough to credit a viscountess, and childbearing hips that would be suitable for what he needed them for. And, luck for him, you happened to have a steady head on your shoulders which was more than what he could ask for.

He didn’t love you though. From the beginning he had made that fact exceedingly clear—that the marriage was of convenience and not the bittersweet dream of romance as some would have hoped. You didn’t absolutely despise each other, though a few times. you had been quite close to snapping at his, sometimes, harsh stoicism.

The relationship was more of distant friends—no, distant acquaintances that happened to be wed. But at the end of the day, the impregnating process sometimes felt like it was just an excuse for pleasure between the both of you instead of what its suitable duty was made for.

This afternoon when Daphne snd Simon had visited with their little tike you had shown Anthony a side of you, which he had never seen—a sweet, caring, loving person who cared for young ones such as August. He had been feeling it more often lately, but the attraction he felt towards you was more than just something of convenience.

He was certain it wasn’t love. Anthony had a tendency to lie to himself though. And even if it was love, he wasn’t sure he’d want to figure out the complexities of it. Furthermore…you had signed up for a marriage of convenience not love, the feelings might not even be reciprocated.