It was also the low-murmured conversations they had in the dark, about nothing much, just the day’s events and stray thoughts and plans. He listened, really listened.

And she’d miss waking up in the night and feeling his big warm body lying spooned around her on chilly nights, or sprawled in relaxed abandon just a fingertip away. And the scent of him, not just his cologne, or his fresh-pressed linen, but the intoxicating man smell of him, like nobody else, unique and himself.

The duke. Others saw his pride, his arrogance, his cold control—the man she’d imagined he was when she first met him. But now she knew the real man beneath the stern facade, the man who cold-bloodedly entrapped her and proceeded to seduce her—and not just in the bedchamber.

He was a man who took his responsibilities seriously, who valued honor and honesty, who would put off a much desired honeymoon in Venice to search for a small lost boy he hardly knew. And then take in that boy and his illegitimate half brother as his own responsibilities. And teach them how to be men.

A man who would take a half-wild, prickly, suspicious, difficult, contrary, lanky, flat-chested, boyish female, put up with her wild starts and even try to understand them—and then marry her and cherish her as nobody ever in her life had cherished her.

She dashed the tears from her eyes. She would not become a watering pot. All his life, his mother had tried to manipulate him with emotion. George would not do the same. She would honor the agreement she’d so foolishly made. Calmly, reasonably and without fuss.

And if he wanted her out of his way, living in the country as they’d agreed, while he did whatever he did in London—and she would not even mind if he wanted to see those dreadful women who pursued him so shamelessly—well, yes, she did mind, she wanted to wring their scrawny, bejeweled necks!—but she would try not to show it. She would try to be dignified, as a duchess should. At least while he was watching.

She would remain in the country with the boys. It wouldn’t be a hardship—she loved the countryside.

And if she missed him, as she would—terribly—well, who was it who’d made that stupid condition in the first place? What was that saying? Be careful what you wish for.

This was what he’d wanted, what they’d agreed to, after all. And though it would half kill her to let him go, she would do it. Because she loved him, and wanted him to have everything he wanted. And she refused to be a millstone around his neck.