Page 117 of Married to a Frozen Duke
"It was worth it."
"Was it? We've made serious enemies tonight. Harrington won't forget this humiliation, and neither will the others."
"Would you do it differently if you could?"
He considered this, taking another drink. "No. The looks on those families' faces when they realised they were safe... that was worth seven thousand pounds. That was worth making enemies." He paused. "You've done something to my priorities, and I'm not sure if I should thank you or blame you."
"Both, probably." She sipped her brandy more carefully this time, enjoying the warmth it spread through her chest. "You know what surprised me most tonight?"
"What?"
"When you defended me. Really defended me, not just from duty or propriety but because you were genuinely angry at how they spoke to me."
"Of course I was angry. Harrington's a simpleton who wouldn't recognize real nobility if it introduced itself formally at a ball." He poured himself another brandy, his movements already slightly less precise than usual. "Do you know what real nobility looks like?"
"Enlighten me."
"It looks like a woman in silk kneeling in the mud to comfort crying children. It looks like someone organizing communitysupport while their husband plays power games with bloated aristocrats. It looks like..." he gestured vaguely at her with his glass, "you."
"I think you're a little drunk."
"I'm definitely a little drunk. Maybe more than a little. This brandy is excellent. Have I mentioned this brandy is excellent?"
Ophelia laughed, and he smiled at the sound. "You're much more talkative when you're drunk."
"I'm much more everything when I'm drunk. It's why I rarely drink. Alcohol makes me forget to maintain proper barriers and appropriate distance and all those things that keep me from saying what I'm actually thinking."
"And what are you actually thinking?"
"That you look beautiful in firelight. That your hair has bits of gold in it I never noticed before. That when you laugh, you do this little snorting thing that should be unattractive but is actually adorable." He paused, seeming to realize what he was saying. "I should stop drinking now."
"Don't you dare." Ophelia poured him another brandy herself. "This is the most honest you've been since I met you."
"Honesty is dangerous."
"Why?"
"Because if I'm honest, I have to admit things. Difficult things. Impossible things." He was definitely drunk now, his usual careful articulation becoming looser, more natural. "Do you know what the worst part is?"
"What?"
"I don't want to not feel things anymore. You've ruined my perfectly functional emotional suppression with your kindness and your compassion and your foolish, beautiful, snorting laugh."
"It's not foolish," Ophelia protested, though she was smiling.
"It's completely stupid. It makes me want to make you laugh just to hear it. I've actually thought of jests—me! Thinking of jests!—just to see if I could make you laugh." He seemed appalled by his own admission. "This is your fault."
"My fault?"
"Entirely. You and your Coleridge chaos magic or whatever it is that makes you impossible to ignore." He stood, swaying slightly, and moved to pour another brandy. "I tried so hard to ignore you. To put you in a box marked 'wife: do not engage emotionally' and just coexist. But you wouldn't stay in the box. You kept being interesting and infuriating and kind and beautiful..."
"You think I'm beautiful?" Ophelia interrupted, her own head fuzzy from the brandy.
"I think you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I hate you a little bit for it."
"You hate me for being beautiful?"
"I hate you for making me notice. I wasn't supposed to notice. Noticing leads to wanting, and wanting leads to caring, and caring leads to..." he gestured wildly with his glass, spilling a bit, "this. Whatever this is."
