She Thought She Took My Place as the Duchess… But She Only Inherited My Nightmare

Chapter 2

For three weeks, hope was a strange new visitor in Theodosia’s chest, and she fed it in secret.

Every morning, before the servants arrived, she pressed her palms flat against her belly and whispered to the child only she knew existed. She told it about the garden in spring. She told it about the little window in her sitting room where the light came in gold and honey-colored. She told it not to be afraid, that its mother would protect it, that everything would be different once it arrived.

She did not tell Ambrose.

Not yet. She wanted the moment to be perfect. She had built a whole little dream around it — the way his face might soften, the way his voice might drop, the way he might finally look at her the way he looked at the kingdom. She imagined him kneeling beside her, pressing his ear to her stomach, becoming the man he pretended to be in public. Becoming a father. Becoming kind.