Page 10 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

“Your brother hates a great many things that are good for him. I have made a study of them over the past three days. The list is long and continues to grow.”

The girl remained quiet for some time. A blackbird worked at the wet lawn, hauled up a worm, then appeared to think better of it. In the house, one shutter opened and then another. Beyond the stable arch, a housemaid began beating a rug from an upper window, and the day commenced without them.

“You truly will not tell Nathaniel?” Georgiana moved round to stand directly before Selina, blocking the path.

“I shall tell your brother that you have a correspondent of whom he would not approve and that I am managing the matter. I shall not give him the gentleman’s name.” Selina drew the shawl more closely about her shoulders. “If I do, he will take precisely the wrong course. You will run directly to Mr Rowland merely to defy him, and I shall have lost your trust for the sake of proving a point. I have no interest in points. I am interested in keeping you out of the mews.”

The tension which had held Georgiana rigid since the second stair finally eased. She did not thank Selina. Instead, she slipped her arm through hers as they walked back towards the house. Neither of them remarked upon it, and neither withdrew.

***

Selina found the Duke in his study an hour later. He rose when she entered, though he need not have done so for a companion, and made no remark upon the courtesy. Several letters lay open upon the desk before him. He turned two of them face down without appearing conscious of the movement.

“Your sister,” Selina began, “has a correspondent for whom I do not care. I am managing the matter. I wished you to know of it so that you would not be taken by surprise, and I wished to tell you plainly that I shall not give you his name.”

Stillness descended over him at once; the same disciplined stillness she had observed before. “You will give me his name.”

“I shall not. If I do, you will confront her. She will defend him, and every doubt I planted this morning will be torn up by the roots the moment you make him a martyr. She is already half persuaded that your disapproval is the strongest evidence of his merit. Do not provide her with further proof.”

“Has she been meeting this man in secret?” The Duke’s hand flattened upon the desk between them.

“She has given me her word that she will not meet him again without telling me first. I believe her because I did not shame her into making that promise; I secured it through a bargain. A promise extracted through shame would have been quicker to obtain and unlikely to last a week.”

“You place a great deal of faith in a girl who has lied to me all season,” he said.

“She lied because you left her no honest means of making herself heard.” Selina remained on the far side of the desk, her hands quiet at her sides. “She gave me his name in the garden this morning when she had every reason to withhold it. She did so because I asked without pressing her and allowed her the silence in which to answer. You have never allowed her that silence.”

He crossed to the window and stood with his back to her, his shoulders set in the rigid line of a man mastering an instinct at considerable cost. When he turned, the anger had been folded away; not extinguished, but contained.

“Three days,” he said. “You have been in my house for three days, and twice you have told me that the thing I most wish to do is precisely what I must not do. Twice, you have been right. I do not enjoy being managed in my own study by a woman whom I employ to manage my sister.”

“Then dismiss me, Your Grace. Confront her yourself and observe how the Season ends.” Selina made no move towards the door. “You may even give me a character, or I can draft it for you. I write an excellent hand.”

He was silent for a moment. “Is that a threat?”

“It is an offer to resign. You are not accustomed to trusting another person’s judgement, but you must learn to trust mine in this. Otherwise, you will drive your sister further into the confidence of the very man you wish to remove from it. I did not create those alternatives. I merely refuse to pretend that a third exists.”

A muscle shifted in his jaw. Then, stiffly, in the voice of a man to whom the words came with difficulty, he said, “I apologise.”

He stopped and began again.

“You are protecting her better than my temper would. I dislike your method.” Another pause followed, this one longer. “I trust the result.”

“That is nearer to an apology than most men manage in an entire day.” Selina allowed her hands to relax. “I accept it.”

He fell silent once more. When he spoke again, his voice had changed; it had laid down its armour somewhere along the way.

“You have taken a book from the library every night since your arrival. Bassett tells me that you return each one before breakfast, in perfect order, with the markers removed and its spine aligned precisely with the others.”

Selina said nothing. Any answer she might have made would have cost more than she was willing to spend.

“Which did you take last night?”

“The Cowper, Your Grace. The volume with the water stain upon the frontispiece. It appears not to have been opened since the stain was made.”

“I did not know that I owned a Cowper.”

“You own a great many things of which you are unaware.” She smoothed the darned wrist of her glove with two fingers. “I have been arranging your library in my head each night, which is a liberty. I return the books early so that no one may accuse the murderer’s daughter of pocketing the volumes along with her salary.”