A Lady for a Duke

by Alexis Hall

“What other options? Men and women are permitted to interact in three ways: marriage, ruination, and polite indifference.”

“This friend of yours does not seem like a very good influence on you.” His eyes met hers. Memory had not done their blue justice, nor the warmth that lay beneath their beauty, like some undersea garden. “He was the joy of my life.”

Oh God, this was a torment. Wanting so terribly to be seen, and terrified of what it might mean if she was.

“The world teaches men to listen only to what they want to hear and women to tell it to them.”

He wanted to look at her like he wanted to breathe, like she was breath and he was drowning, and every moment of his not looking was a struggle towards the thing he most needed.

“Forgive my language, but”—his eyes were as steady on hers as the clasp upon her wrist, his mouth suddenly full of smiles—“fuck the world. I will change it for you if I have to.”

“I am—I have always been—a woman. I feel as a woman. I desire as a woman. I… I could not bear being thought otherwise.” He

“And I chose myself. Over… everything. Everyone.” “Oh, Viola.” Now a tug on her hair, and Viola lifted her head to find Louise peering up at her with sudden ferocity. “Sometimes it is the most vital thing in the world to be selfish.”

My soul calls to yours and yours to mine, and that will never change.”

“I am not sure love unshown is really love at all. What good does caring for a person do if you’re never there when they need you?”

I love you. I love you when you’re arrogant. And I love you when you’re kind. And I love you when you’re both at the same time.”

“It was not a betrayal of me for you to do what you needed to save yourself.”

“You are who you are.” His eyes did not stray from hers. “I’m not going to apologise.”

“This body can fight. And ride. And sew. And play the pianoforte badly. It is mine. It deserves any carnal acts I want to indulge with it. And if you want to find it beautiful, Gracewood, I will let you. Because I don’t see why it can’t be.”

So instead let me simply tell you that I love you. I love you with the unfading flame of my friendship. With every drop of ardour in my blood. I love you with my soul, as some reserve their faith for absent gods. I love you as I believe in what is right and hope for what is good. I love you with everything I am and ever was—and if you will only let me, with every day that comes, and every self that I could ever be.”