He stared at that hand a moment. It felt so different than nearly any other greeting that he’d had since becoming Duke of Blackheath. It was earnest. Sincere. As if she was seeing him and not his title.
He had not felt that in years, and it felt…so good. He could not describe it. And as he reached out his hand and took hers, the world spun about him. Their palms clasped, warm, electric.
He swallowed and felt his heart hammer. Then he looked at her, not with the power and authority of a duke but as a man who was so very happy to be seen for just himself.
That? That jarred him in a way he’d not expected. And as he let his hand slip away, he knew he was going to have to be damned certain that liking never turned to love.
Chapter Ten
Beatrice did not know entirely what was happening, but whatever it was, it had completely shaken her. She had assumed the duke was coming here for a boxing lesson, not for a revelation.
No. Not the duke.
William.
And it was indeed a revelation, for not only was he about to give his support to the Ladies’ League of Rights—and who knew what else—she had just discovered him as a person, not only a duke.
As William, she could not hold him to quite such disdain as perhaps she might’ve in the past. Oh, she’d still be able to criticize him as the duke for certain, but now, she felt as if she was seeing a window into his life and his feelings, and there was not that wall, that guard, that had been there just a moment before.
How could something so small do such a thing?
Could her blunt honesty have allowed it?
It had.
Or so he said.
She gazed at him for a moment, her hand still warm with his touch. The feeling was exquisite, perfect, strange.
’Twas as if she was meeting her best friend.
All her life, she’d had love. First from her wonderful parents. Then, after their tragic deaths, from Margaret and her uncle. She’d had friendly acquaintances from many people.
But so often, she’d felt alone because her ideas about the world were so different than so many others’. Her passions often drove people away, though she did not mean them to. She was too blunt. Too fierce. Too much.
While people enjoyed her company over tea, they often could not meet her in her deep need to make changes in an unjust world.
But standing here in silence, she felt William truly was her friend and someone who perhaps understood her in a way that no one else did. For he, too, felt passionately about the world and thought on the way he could change it.
She blinked quickly, the reverie breaking. She could not allow herself to linger too long in such thoughts, thoughts that might lead to silliness, and silliness was not for them.
A man like William? He could never give her the great love her father had given her mother. It required too much sacrifice. Too much fearlessness.
And much to her amazement, she knew without a doubt his heart was locked up so entirely, the key could never be found.
She wouldn’t be fool enough to try to find it.
“So,” she said quickly, “my lesson. Shall we proceed forthwith?”
He inclined his head. “Forthwith, indeed, Lady Beatrice.”
She folded her hands before her. “You must not call me Lady Beatrice if I am to call you William. Please call me Beatrice.”
“As you wish…Beatrice,” he said.
That voice. It caressed and coaxed and tempted.
“Now,” he said, taking on the role of instructor, “we cannot go into this abruptly. We must loosen ourselves up a bit, or else we risk injury.”