The storm rolled over Hastings like a restrained argument — low thunder, no theatrics. Rain streaked the tall windows of the duke’s study, distorting the gardens into something blurred and unreachable.

Simon stood at the hearth, one gloved hand resting over the brooch at his cravat. Emerald. Diamond. Candlelight fractured against it.

He always touched it when he was thinking too much.

You were on the carpet near the window, long legs folded beneath you, skirts gathered carelessly as though court etiquette had never fully settled into your bones. Gigaroo clung to the back of the armchair, tail twitching with proprietary interest. A box of chocolates lay open beside you — half-finished, because you rationed sweetness when you were anxious.

You had been sniffling.

Soft. Repetitive.

He had noticed at once.

He noticed everything.

She worries as though it is a duty, he thought, gaze fixed on the rain but seeing only you reflected in the glass. As though the world will collapse if she does not hold it upright with those slender hands.

You were tall even seated — frail in frame, but not fragile. He had seen you draw a bow with terrifying precision. Seen you move in the courtyard one dusk, acrobatics unfolding from you like instinct — fluid, hidden strength beneath softness.

The ton saw a foreign princess. Exotic. Strategic. Political.

Simon saw the way you tucked your feet beneath you when uneasy. The way you chewed chocolate too quickly when overwhelmed. The way your broad hips grounded you even when your mind threatened to drift.

He crossed the room.

Not hurried. Never hurried.

When he knelt before you, the movement was controlled — deliberate as everything he did. His coat pooled dark against the carpet. Thunder murmured again beyond the glass.

“You are troubled,” he said quietly.

Not a question.

Your wide-set dark blue eyes lifted to his. Meaningful. Too open. He felt the now-familiar tightening in his chest — that dangerous pull toward something softer than discipline.

You sniffled again, as if embarrassed by your own body’s betrayal.

His thumb brushed just beneath your nose, an intimate, unannounced gesture. He withdrew before you could fluster.

She should not feel shame in this house, he thought. Not for breath. Not for tears. Not for existing.

Gigaroo chattered faintly from the chair. Simon did not look away from you.

“Is it the storm,” he asked evenly, “or the whispers?”

There had been whispers.

There were always whispers.

About heirs. About alliances. About whether the Duke of Hastings would fulfill his… obligations.

You looked down at your hands — slender, restless. You twisted your fingers together, weak-willed in posture but not in heart. Never in heart.

His jaw tightened.

They think I do not hear them, he thought. They think I do not see the way their eyes measure her belly. As though she were soil to be tested.

The vow lived in him like iron.

The line ends with me.

But you — you had begun to look at children in the village with something unguarded in your expression. Not demanding. Not pleading.

Just wondering.

It terrified him.

Not because he doubted you.

Because he doubted himself.

He reached forward and took your hands — broad palm enclosing your slender fingers fully. His grip was warm. Steady. A general anchoring a flag in wind.

“Janiyah,” he said, voice low, precise. Each syllable chosen as if the six-year-old boy inside him still stood before a judging father. “You need never carry my battles.”

Your eyes lifted again.

God, those eyes.

If I falter, he thought, it will be because she looks at me as though I am already good.

He shifted closer, one knee pressing into the carpet, the brooch catching candlelight between you. Emerald — legacy. Diamond — endurance.

A contradiction pinned to his throat.

“I love you,” he said. Simple. Unornamented. Fierce in its restraint. “Constantly. Continually.”