The Duke Who Didn't (Wedgeford Trials, #1)

by Courtney Milan

Was there anything in life more pleasurable than the sensation of striking a dark line through an item on one’s list with a pencil? Yes. There was the visceral sensation of taking out one’s pencil and striking a dark line through the last item on one’s daily list. Finishing a list had an almost talismanic quality, as if the act of turning intentions into words, then words into deeds, carried a subtle magic.

He looked the way laughter sounded; he was tapping his lips with one finger and smiling down at her with unholy glee. He had always looked like he was laughing at her.

He’d told her how he felt; but somehow whenever he looked at her, his thoughts never came out as something sober and intellectual like I respect the things that matter to you. No. Instead, everything he felt got tied up and turned around into I genuflect to the sovereignty of your list.

His cooking had always been excellent, but the addition of spite to every recipe had brought an extra level of brilliance.

“Chloe,” he said again. “It’s your decision. But please. Please never kiss a man who doesn’t think you deserve his effort.”

“I want my wife to intimidate me. I want to know that her enemies will all fall before her. That’s the kind of woman I want by my side. She had better be intimidating.”

“You must know—I may not be serious about anything, but about you? I am.”

“The place you are,” Mr. Fong said, “is not permanent. Stop waiting. Work with what you have and who you are to make what you want to be. I am waiting to see what you will discover.”

So he said nothing. The Duke Who Didn’t—it was a more fitting appellation for him than any of them actually knew.

“It’s absolutely not that I don’t want you,” he said. “It’s that I want you so much I can scarcely stay in my own skin.”

“If I’m serious, I’m scared. I’m scared because…you’re you. You’re the brightest light I’ve ever met. You’re sweet and perfect and lovely and…” He moved closer to her, holding onto his towel. “And you have this freckle right here.” He

I could only say that you make me feel like the home I want to live in.”

She imagined her fears of frailty and abandonment as a heavy, spiked ball deep inside her. But she’d dealt with fears before. She thanked them for keeping her safe, acknowledged them for the work they had done in bringing her to this moment. And then she imagined taking that spiked ball out of her, holding it out as if it were a dandelion puff…and blowing all that fear away, to scatter in the wind.

“It’s not foreign. That sauce was fermented here, with yeasts found in Wedgeford. The idea came from here. It was made here. If tea is British, this sauce is British. If this sauce is British, I am British, and my wife is British, and my children will be British. I need not change myself to belong. I already belong; it is the rest of England that is out of step.”

“Maybe I’ll have a full century with you, and then some. Maybe it won’t be enough.”

“A century definitely wouldn’t be enough.”