Page 34 of The Duchess’ Little Miracle

William shook his head. “No. We must return to the main estate tonight.”

He looked around the room one last time, noting how the ghosts of his father’s life hung in every corner. He had no desire to spend a night under this roof.

“We understand, Your Grace. Please... try to visit us again soon. When times are much lighter.”

“I shall make the time,” William promised, before turning toward the door.

The ride back to the Norwyn estate was in near-total silence. Beside him, Anthony remained lost in his own thoughts, occasionally glancing over at William but keeping his mouth shut.

William’s mind was miles ahead, already inside the walls of his own study. He had set out four days ago hoping to return to her with a name, a culprit, and a resolution. Instead, he was returning with nothing more than a ghost from his father’s past, and the realization that their enemy was far more methodical than he had feared.

He knew he had to tell her what he had discovered. He had promised her transparency in the arrangement, and she was far too intelligent to be placated by half-truths. But as his horse carried him closer to home, the knot in his chest only tightened.

Facing a blackmailer in the dark was one thing. Facing Seraphina without an answer was quite another.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Would you believe me, Alice, if I told you that London’s streets are about to be lit by a fire no hand ever need touch?”

Alice did not answer, but the small doll in her lap slipped lower against her knees as her head tilted slightly to the left. She remained motionless on the window seat, her large eyes fixed on Seraphina’s face, focused.

For five consecutive mornings, this had become their unwritten ritual. Somewhere around ten of the clock, the brass latch of the library door would click softly, and Alice would drift into the room like a draft of cool air. She never asked permission, nor did she offer a greeting. She simply crossed the room, settled herself into the alcove overlooking the south gardens, and sat with Seraphina.

Seraphina adjusted her quill, dipping it lightly into the inkwell without breaking her gaze from the girl.

Even before the wedding, back when she had first arrived at the estate, Seraphina had spoken to Alice about science. She hadn’t known any other way to be. Luckily, it had drawn a spark of curiosity into Alice’s eyes from the very start.

The night of her arrival was the only night Seraphina had actually slept in her own bedchamber. She remembered the morning after, when Alice had failed to appear for breakfast. After speaking to the housekeeper, she found out that it was because she was still exhausted and asleep, worn out after fighting a night terror in the hours before dawn.

Every night since, Seraphina had abandoned her own room to sleep in Alice’s.

She slept by her side, listening for the shallow gasps or frantic shifts in the bedsheets that signaled a nightmare, stepping in before the panic could fully take hold.

The night terrors were far less frequent now, and when one did strike, Seraphina found that no soft soothing or motherly cooing could reach the child. Instead, all she had to do was begin reciting facts, stories of mechanics, bizarre phenomena of nature, or the ways of how the physical world worked.

Seraphina was entirely unsure whether she was fascinating the girl or merely boring her to sleep with lectures on atmospheric pressure and planetary orbits, but the strategy worked, and in science, a proven result could not be disputed; if a hypothesis yielded consistent data, one did not alter the experiment.

She would keep at it.

She could admit that she was tired, but watching Alice sit so serenely in the morning light made the exhaustion feel inconsequential.

Alice didn’t throw tantrums. She didn’t scream or demand things. In Seraphina’s presence, she was remarkably calm.

Seraphina believed this meant she was handling the girl well. That despite her total lack of traditional maternal instinct, her practical, unfiltered approach was working. Talking to Alice, even without receiving a word in return, functioned like thinking aloud to herself. It allowed Seraphina to organize complex political arguments in the air before committing them to paper, even while holding the sincere belief that the intellectual company was benefiting the girl.

Seraphina leaned forward, resting her forearms on the blotter and gesturing with her quill toward a series of detailed technical diagrams spread across her desk.

“It isn’t magic, mind you,” Seraphina continued. “Though I am certain the speculators in Mayfair will attempt to sell it as such to the credulous. It is pure, ruthless chemistry. They take common bituminous coal, lock it tightly into a cast-iron furnace where no air can enter, and bake it under intense heat.”

Alice shifted on the window seat. She didn’t speak, but her back straightened, her chin lifting as her gaze tracked the movement of Seraphina’s hand.

“Instead of burning to ash immediately, as it would in an open grate...” Seraphina explained. “...the coal breaks apart and releases a thick vapor. A hidden gas. They capture that gas, run it through lime-water to strip away the foulest of the sulfurous stink, and force it through narrow iron pipes laid deep beneath the flagstones of the city.”

She picked up a draft page, turning it toward the light. “Frederick Winsor demonstrated the scheme along Pall Mall not long ago. A single central furnace, sending invisible fire through fitted iron tubes to illuminate an entire street of glass lanterns at the turn of a brass cock. No tallow, no lamp-wick, no boy running with a torch from post to post.”

Alice slowly slid off the cushion. Her small footfalls made no sound as she crossed the rug, coming to stand right at the edge of the desk. She placed two small hands flat on the wood, leaning her upper body forward to peer at the ink-drawn schematics of the gas retorts.

“It is a brilliant feat of engineering, certainly,” Seraphina mused, her tone sharpening as her mind pivoted to her actual column. She was writing under her usual pseudonym, preparing a scathing piece for the morning papers. “The gentlemen in Parliament are falling over themselves with awe, declaring that we are burning the air itself to banish the night. But they are missing the entire point, as gentlemen so frequently do.”