I watched from afar as my mother ordered the Winterbourne servants around as comfortably as she did her own, informing one of the footmen that he needed to raise the floral arrangement he was holding so that it was even with the others. I'd been watching her and Lady Winterbourne decorate the gardens of the estate for a good hour now, being shooed away any time I tried to help. So now I stood watching from afar, arms crossed across my chest and wondering how similar this wedding might look to my own.

"You've been avoiding me," someone spoke suddenly and I jumped before turning to find Victor watching me, a smile on his face. I relaxed and turned back just in time to watch my mother move a serving tray that a maid had just sat down from one place to another.

"I'm not avoiding you," I told him. "Just your office."

He raised a brow.

"We've seen each other plenty the last few days," I reminded him, thinking of all of the dinners and chats in the drawing room with the others. "But you're right. I have been avoiding bumping into you alone recently."

"Might I ask why?"

My cheeks burned but I cleared my throat to answer anyway.

"The last time we were alone together," I answered. "Things between us progressed in a way that I fear to see them progress again."

"You fear it?" he asked, raising a brow.

"Just the implications," I assured him, smiling over my shoulder.

"That bodes well, Miss Harrington," he told me with a chuckle as he turned to stride away, presumably back to his office and the work which awaited him. "That bodes very well, indeed."

Cheeks still blazing, I turned on my heel once he was gone, and walked briskly with purpose all the way to the drawing room. As expected, Madison was the only one inside, sitting on the sofa and stitching what would become her wedding gift to Emily.

"I just can't get these darned stitches to line up," she was muttering, reaching to pull them out and start over again. "I want them to be perfect for Emily but-"

"Tell me about sex," I interrupted.

She actually dropped her embroidery, jaw dropping with it. I rushed over and sat down beside her, eyes pleading her to do as I asked.

"Where is this coming from, Ella?" she inquired after a moment of regaining her composure after her shock. "Did the Duke-"

"No," I assured her before she could accuse him of anything unsavory. "I just... think it's time I knew."

"Why now? Emily's the one getting married, not you, and as far as I'm concerned, she hasn't asked-"

"Please, Madison."

She watched me for a moment as if trying to figure out whether I was serious or not. Then, finally, her shoulders fell and she relented.

"Oh, alright," she agreed and then scooched forward on the sofa. With one hand against her cheek to cover her mouth, she leaned forward and whispered into my ear. I sat listening for a time, eyes growing wider and wider as she explained. Then, finally, I shot away from her with a gasp.

"Truly?" I asked, staring back at her.

She shrugged.

"At least, that's how it is with Benthem and I," she explained. "I've heard every man is different."

I leaned forward, placing my head in my hands between my knees, and took a deep breath. No wonder my mother had never told me any of this before. It wasn't frightening, not like I had expected, but it was... a lot. Madison seemed to understand that. She placed a comforting hand on my back and waited for me to come to terms with all that she had told me.

"I can't do this, Madison," I told her after a while of silence.

"It's actually pretty wonderful once you-"

"Not that," I sighed, sitting up and facing her again. "That's... well, that's not bad at all."

I blushed. She grinned.

"This," I explained, exasperated as I gestured grandly at everything around us. "This house, this estate, these duties. I- I can't be a Duchess. Can I?"

"Of course you can! Ella, you're precisely the sort of person who should be a Duchess," she told me. I wasn't certain what she meant by that but I wasn't convinced. I just fell back against the back of the sofa, miserably. She watched me for a moment and then sat up further, turning to face me, tone becoming serious. "Did I ever tell you about the periwinkle?"

"The periwinkle?" I asked, raising a brow.

"When Benthem and I were first married, Victor gifted us this house just outside of the city. Benthem had been doing some work for him for some time and I supposed he thought it was an appropriate gift in exchange. It was beautiful. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. But it wasn't ours, not yet. It was old, antiquated. The previous owners had let it fall to some disrepair, dust all over the furniture, wallpaper stripping off the walls. So Benthem said that I could redesign it, that he would spare no expense until I was satisfied, until it felt like home. I was so excited. I talked to everyone in town, asking their opinions on how best to remodel. I sent away for French and Swiss design books. I even commissioned some architects to come and take a look at the property. Somehow, in the midst of the process, I got it in my mind that it would be so stylish for me to paint every single room in the house periwinkle. They call it monochrome, just one color for everything, a modern look. I was obsessed. And periwinkle is my absolute favorite color. So it seemed the obvious choice."

I couldn't help the grin growing on my lips as I forecast where this story was going.

"So I ordered it," she said. "The servants spent a week painting the whole house periwinkle and when they had finally finished, I did a walkthrough. And I absolutely hated it. The whole place looked like an unripe blueberry."

I giggled.

"I went to Benthem in tears, telling him how I'd spent all that money just to ruin our home. He was with Victor at the time. That's actually how we met. Not the best introduction, a hysterical wife, but still. Benthem calmed me down, told me it could all be redone. But here was the thing. I didn't know how to redo it. I'd spent months just deciding on periwinkle. How was I to suddenly turn around and come up with an all new plan all over again? It was a failure, a complete and utter disaster. And I came to see those periwinkle walls as a manifestation of myself, of who I was as a wife, of the fact that I hadn't the slightest clue how to be married, how to remodel a house to make it a home, how to manage a manor."

I frowned but Madison gave me a sad smile and patted me on the knee.

"But I didn't give up. I started making changes, here or there as I made decisions on how to do so. I painted the bathroom yellow, that was the first. And then I found some tile I liked and had that added as well. Some decorative detail, new linens, a curtain imported from Germany. And suddenly, one room was done. Then I started on another. And every time I finished one, I would show Benthem and he would smile and hug me and tell me it was exquisite. Every room that got repainted was another time when Benthem would tell me well done and our relationship would grow that much stronger for the mutual respect and the patience he'd shown me. He wouldn't let me repaint a few rooms though. To this day, his office is still periwinkle and he says it reminds him of our newlywed days so I can never repaint it."

Madison was smiling by the end of her story, chuckling at the mental image of that ridiculous periwinkle office of Benthem's. Ella could see the love in her eyes at the mere mention of her husband and wondered if she looked anything like that herself when speaking of the Duke.

"You don't love someone because they're perfect, Ella. That would be too easy," Madison finished, looking back at me meaningfully as she did. "The beauty of love is that you love someone despite their imperfections or perhaps even because of them."