Page 20 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

“It was not my fault, you know. What happened to the family. People look at me as though I had done it myself. I was in Lisbon. I have said so a hundred times, but it makes no difference. They hear Calvert and see the rope.”

Rowland remained where he had sat for the past hour, one boot crossed over the other. He did not look up.

“Then it is fortunate for you that your cousin has married a duke.”

“Fortunate.” Giles gave an unconvincing laugh. “Where was that good fortune when I went to my uncle in ’08 and was turned away by a footman? A footman, Rowland, in my own family’s house. They shut me out, every one of them. Now the girl reappears in silk, and I am expected to call it fortunate.”

“She did not reappear in silk. I found her dressed in grey and seeking employment at a hiring assembly. Sit down.”

“I am only saying that a man might expect some consideration from his own blood…”

“You have said it. Now sit down. You are making the floorboards creak, and the woman below us listens.”

Giles sat. He filled his glass but did not drink. Instead, he turned it slowly by the foot.

“A companion possesses nothing,” he said more quietly, searching for the thread of his argument. “That was always the difficulty. I said so at the time, but you insisted that she was worth finding regardless. Well, a duchess has a duke, and a duke will pay to keep his wife’s history quiet once he has been fool enough to marry her.” His confidence grew as he continued. “We have not lost the girl, Rowland. We have watched her become a prize worth taking. If you will only be patient and refrain from forcing matters as you did at Mrs Ottley’s…”

“I am aware of what a duke will pay.”

“Yes. Well.” Giles raised his glass, discovered that his hand was not entirely steady, set it down and picked it up again. “Then we are agreed. To the Duchess of Wexford. May her happiness prove brief.”

Rowland rose, put on his hat and let himself out without touching his glass.

Giles regarded the abandoned drink for a while. Then he emptied his own, drank Rowland’s as well and sat listening to the sound of his boots descending the stairs.

Chapter Six

The fire in the study had gone out an hour before, and Nathaniel had let it. The claret at his elbow stood where the footman had put it, untouched, with a fine skin of dust already on the surface of it, and the window had gone from black to the first grey of morning while he sat, and his wedding night had passed in precisely the manner he had arranged. Alone. At a desk in a cold room, with his wife asleep two floors above behind a door he had promised not to open without invitation.

He had told himself a dozen times through the small hours that he had done the honourable thing. He had told himself so in the steady internal voice he kept for accounts, and the account had balanced every time he ran it, and every time it balanced he had run it again.

Petherick’s copy of the settlement lay beneath Nathaniel’s hand. He had read the clause securing Selina’s income to her separate use perhaps twenty times. Each reading returned him to the same moment: a woman seated across from him, accepting rather too quickly and reaching for a milk jug she did not want.

He had not asked why the provision mattered so much to her. At the time, his restraint had seemed a kindness. Now their promise of no lies made him wonder how long a significant silence could remain merely a silence. He turned the document face down, which improved nothing.

Nathaniel did not hear Bassett approach. His butler appeared in the doorway carrying a candle and wearing the dressing gown in which no other servant would have dared present himself, having served the family long enough to claim certain liberties.

“You have not been to bed, Your Grace. Shall I have the fire made up again?”

“Leave it. It is nearly morning. Lighting it now would amount to an admission.”

“Very good, Your Grace. Lady Helena has already enquired whether you are in the study.”

Nathaniel looked at him. “What did you tell her?”

“That Your Grace had not yet rung.”

“Diplomatic.”

“I have found it necessary. She has been awake since five and has twice requested the good coffee.”

“She has also informed Cook that breakfast is to be served an hour early because, and I quote her precisely, ‘A marriage entered into hastily should at least be breakfasted upon promptly.’”

Nathaniel covered his eyes with one hand. “She left yesterday.”

“She returned before midnight, took possession of the blue suite and announced her intention to remain for a se’nnight. To observe. Her word, Your Grace.”

Thus the day would begin with observation, which was the last thing Nathaniel’s sleepless night had left him fit to endure.