Updated Apr 18, 2026 • ~14 min read
Chapter 20: Breaking Point
Emmeline
Emmy spends the next three weeks preparing for the annulment hearing—meeting with solicitors, gathering evidence of their growing partnership, arranging witnesses who can testify about their marriage being genuine—and throughout it all she watches the Duke struggle visibly with pressure to consummate their marriage before the court date while also being terrified of what consummation might mean.
He tries.
She can see him trying—lingering at her chamber door each evening like he’s building courage to cross the threshold, touching her more frequently in small ways that suggest growing comfort with physical contact, spending more time with her instead of hiding in his study—but three weeks pass without him actually making the final step toward intimacy, and Emmy is starting to panic that he won’t be ready before their time runs out.
The breaking point comes on a rainy evening in late May—two weeks before the scheduled hearing, time running desperately short—when Emmy finds the Duke in his study staring at correspondence from their solicitor about the weakness of their case without consummation, and when she enters he looks up with an expression so devastated that Emmy’s chest aches just seeing it.
“We’re going to lose,” the Duke says without preamble, his voice flat with defeated certainty. “The solicitor says without consummation our case is weak. Cordelia has too much evidence of separate chambers and limited contact. The courts will likely grant annulment unless we can prove the marriage has been consummated.”
“Then we consummate it,” Emmy says, trying to sound more confident than she feels. “Tonight. Now. Before you have time to talk yourself out of it again.”
The Duke looks at her with an expression that’s half tempted and half terrified, and Emmy sees him struggling with the same fear that’s kept him distant for their entire marriage.
“I can’t,” the Duke says, and he sounds broken. “I’ve tried. I’ve spent weeks trying to overcome my fear enough to actually do this. But every time I think about crossing that threshold into your chambers, every time I imagine actually being intimate with you, all I can see is Caroline dying in childbirth and I panic and I can’t—I can’t do it, Emmy. I’m going to lose you because I’m too broken to be your husband.”
Emmy crosses the room and settles into the chair beside the Duke’s desk, and she takes his clenched hands in hers while trying to find words that will help instead of just making things worse.
“You’re not broken,” Emmy says gently. “You’re traumatized. There’s a difference. And trauma doesn’t just disappear because a court deadline requires it.”
“But it might cost us our marriage,” the Duke argues. “If I can’t overcome this in the next two weeks, Cordelia wins. The courts annul our marriage. And I lose you forever because I couldn’t be brave enough to actually want you more than I fear losing you.”
“I don’t want you forcing yourself,” Emmy says, even though the pragmatic part of her desperately wants him to just push through his fear before it’s too late. “I want you actually wanting me. Actually ready. Not just performing intimacy out of legal desperation.”
“I do want you,” the Duke insists, and his voice is rough with frustration. “That’s not the problem. The problem is every time I let myself want you, my brain immediately jumps to worst-case scenarios—you getting pregnant, you dying like Caroline, me losing another wife because I wanted an heir badly enough to risk your life. The wanting is there, Emmy. It’s the terror that’s preventing me from acting on it.”
Emmy understands suddenly that they’re approaching this wrong—trying to force consummation when what the Duke actually needs is permission to want her without the weight of potential pregnancy and loss attached.
“What if we separated the wanting from the consequences?” Emmy suggests carefully. “What if we were intimate without the goal of producing an heir? Just… being together because we want to be close. Not because courts require it or because we need an heir. Just because we care about each other and want that connection.”
The Duke looks at Emmy with surprise that quickly shifts to something that might be cautious hope.
“Is that possible?” the Duke asks. “Can we be intimate without the pregnancy risk that terrifies me?”
“There are ways,” Emmy says, blushing despite herself because discussing this is mortifying but necessary. “Methods to prevent conception while still being together. It’s not perfect protection, but it would reduce the risk significantly. Give you space to actually want me without the immediate terror of repeating Caroline’s tragedy.”
The Duke stares at her like she’s offered him something impossibly precious, and Emmy sees the exact moment his careful control starts to crack.
“You would do that?” the Duke asks. “Risk the courts still annulling our marriage because we haven’t properly consummated it—haven’t attempted to conceive an heir—just to make me more comfortable with intimacy?”
“I want you to want me,” Emmy says honestly. “Not just force yourself through something that terrifies you. If preventing pregnancy makes you comfortable enough to actually be close to me, then yes. I’d rather have that than watch you suffer through fear-driven intimacy that damages us both.”
The Duke’s hands tighten around Emmy’s, and when he speaks his voice is rough with emotion she’s only glimpsed in their most vulnerable moments.
“I love you,” the Duke says, and Emmy’s breath catches because he’s never said those words before, never admitted to loving her even when he’s admitted to caring. “I’m in love with you, Emmy. Not conveniently. Not dutifully. Desperately and completely and in ways that terrify me because I don’t know how to love someone without being destroyed when I lose them. But I do love you. And I’m so tired of letting fear prevent me from showing you that.”
Emmy’s eyes are burning with tears she’s trying not to shed, and she moves from her chair to kneel beside the Duke’s so she can cup his scarred face in her hands.
“I love you too,” Emmy admits, finally saying the words she’s been holding back. “I’ve loved you for weeks. Maybe months. I just didn’t know if saying it would make you retreat further or if you’d ever be ready to hear it.”
The Duke pulls Emmy into his lap with surprising strength—the closest they’ve been since that desperate kiss in the carriage—and when his arms wrap around her Emmy can feel him shaking with emotion or fear or both.
“I’m ready now,” the Duke says against Emmy’s hair. “I’m ready to stop letting Caroline’s death control my future. I’m ready to actually be your husband instead of just a ghost living in my own house. I’m ready to risk being happy even knowing happiness can be taken away. I’m just—I’m terrified, Emmy. And I don’t know how to do this without the terror consuming me.”
“Then be terrified and do it anyway,” Emmy suggests, using her own words from weeks ago. “Be afraid but choose me anyway. Choose us. Choose the possibility of happiness over the guarantee of empty safety.”
The Duke lifts his head to look at Emmy with red-rimmed eyes, and she sees raw vulnerability in his expression—all his walls finally down, all his careful control finally shattered, just the damaged man who loves her and is terrified of what that love might cost.
“Come to bed with me,” the Duke says quietly. “Not to my bed or your bed. To our bed. In chambers we share instead of keeping locked between us. I want to fall asleep holding you. I want to wake up with you beside me. I want to stop maintaining distance that’s killing us both. Even if I’m not ready for full intimacy yet—even if we need to wait for that—I want to at least be close to you. Is that enough for now?”
“That’s perfect for now,” Emmy agrees, her chest aching with love for this impossible man who’s finally trying to be vulnerable despite his terror. “We don’t have to rush. We just have to be together. However that looks.”
The Duke stands—lifting Emmy with him in a gesture that’s surprisingly romantic—and for a moment Emmy thinks he’s going to carry her somewhere, but instead he just holds her while they both breathe through the enormity of what they’ve just admitted to each other.
“I want to show you something,” the Duke says finally, setting Emmy down and taking her hand. “Something I haven’t been able to face in five years. But I think—I think maybe it’s time.”
He leads Emmy through the house toward the west wing, and Emmy realizes with shock that the Duke is finally ready to enter the forbidden chambers, ready to confront his grief instead of just locking it away.
“You don’t have to do this tonight,” Emmy says as they approach the locked door. “We can wait until you’re truly ready.”
“I’ll never be truly ready,” the Duke admits. “But I need to do this anyway. I need to stop letting these rooms have power over me. I need to face what I lost so I can finally move forward with what I have.”
He unlocks the door with hands that shake slightly, and when they enter the dusty stale air of the west wing Emmy can feel the Duke’s entire body tense with trauma response.
But he doesn’t retreat.
Just holds Emmy’s hand tighter and leads her toward the nursery.
They stand in the doorway together—Emmy having already seen this room during her trespass, the Duke seeing it for the first time in five years—and Emmy watches the Duke stare at the empty cradle with an expression of such profound grief that Emmy wants to pull him away before it destroys him.
“This is where he was supposed to sleep,” the Duke says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Thomas. Our son. I had this cradle specially made. Commissioned the best craftsmen. Made sure everything was perfect for when he arrived. And then he lived for one hour and all of this preparation became meaningless.”
“It’s not meaningless,” Emmy argues gently. “It shows how much you wanted him. How much you loved him before you even met him. That’s not meaningless.”
The Duke is quiet for a long moment, and Emmy sees him struggling with how to process being in this room after avoiding it for so long.
“I used to imagine what he’d be like,” the Duke admits. “Whether he’d have Caroline’s blonde hair or my dark coloring. Whether he’d be serious like me or sweet like her. All these dreams about who he’d become. And then he died and all those dreams died with him.”
“I’m so sorry,” Emmy says, because what else is there to say when someone is grieving the future they lost.
“I think—” the Duke stops, his voice breaking. “I think part of why I can’t imagine having another child is because it feels like betraying Thomas. Like trying to replace him instead of honoring that he existed.”
“You’re not replacing him,” Emmy says firmly. “If we eventually have children, they won’t be replacements. They’ll just be… new people to love. Thomas will always be your first child. Always be part of your family. Having other children doesn’t erase that.”
The Duke turns to look at Emmy with something that might be desperate hope.
“Do you really believe that?” the Duke asks. “That I can love you and potential future children without betraying Caroline and Thomas?”
“I know it,” Emmy confirms. “Love isn’t finite. You can honor who you lost while still building something new. They’re not in competition.”
The Duke pulls Emmy into his arms and holds her while he cries in the nursery where his son was supposed to sleep, and Emmy just stands there supporting him through grief he’s been containing for five years, letting him finally express the pain he’s kept locked away.
When he finally stops crying, the Duke leads Emmy to Caroline’s sitting room where the portrait hangs, and this time when he looks at his first wife’s painted face Emmy sees something different in his expression—love yes, but also acceptance, also peace, also permission to move forward.
“She told me to be happy,” the Duke says, looking at Caroline’s portrait. “Right before she died. She made me promise I’d find happiness after she was gone. And I spent five years breaking that promise because I thought being happy meant forgetting her. But standing here with you—loving you, wanting to build a future with you—I don’t think I’m forgetting Caroline. I think I’m finally honoring what she asked of me.”
“She’d approve of me?” Emmy asks, half teasing but also genuinely curious.
“She’d love you,” the Duke says with surprising certainty. “She always said I needed someone stubborn enough to challenge me. Someone who wouldn’t let me hide from difficult things. Someone brave enough to force me into growth even when I resist. That’s you, Emmy. Exactly you.”
They leave the west wing together—the Duke locking the door behind them but with less finality than before, like maybe eventually he’ll be ready to actually clear out those rooms instead of just keeping them frozen—and when they reach the main floor the Duke surprises Emmy by leading her to his chambers instead of walking her to her own.
“Stay with me tonight,” the Duke requests. “Not for intimacy necessarily. Just for closeness. I want to fall asleep holding you. I want to prove to myself that I can share space with you without panicking about pregnancy and loss. I want to actually be married to you instead of just living separate lives under the same roof.”
“Yes,” Emmy agrees immediately. “I want that too.”
The Duke’s chambers are beautiful—larger than Emmy’s, decorated in rich dark colors that somehow feel warm instead of cold, clearly the rooms where he actually lives instead of just performs—and when the Duke helps Emmy out of her complicated dress with surprising gentleness Emmy realizes this is actually happening, they’re actually going to share a bed even if they’re not ready for full intimacy.
She’s nervous and excited and terrified in equal measure, and when they finally settle into the Duke’s massive bed wearing only nightclothes the intimacy of it feels overwhelming despite being entirely appropriate.
“Come here,” the Duke says, opening his arms in invitation, and Emmy moves into his embrace while her heart races at being this close to him, feeling his warmth through thin fabric, breathing in the sandalwood scent that’s uniquely his.
They lie like that for a long time—just holding each other, existing in shared space, getting comfortable with physical closeness they’ve avoided for their entire marriage—and Emmy is starting to drift toward sleep when the Duke speaks quietly in the darkness.
“Thank you,” the Duke says. “For being patient with me. For not giving up when I made our marriage nearly impossible. For loving me despite all the reasons you shouldn’t. For being exactly who you are.”
“Always,” Emmy promises. “However long it takes. I’m not going anywhere.”
She falls asleep in the Duke’s arms feeling safer and more hopeful than she has since they married, and when she wakes in the morning to find him still holding her—his face peaceful in sleep, his arms secure around her waist—Emmy knows with absolute certainty that their marriage will survive whatever Cordelia throws at them.
Because they love each other.
Actually genuinely love each other.
And love is stronger than fear.
Even if it takes time to prove it.
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