Page 101 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

Claire tilted her head. "I didn't hear anything."

Nothing now. The corridor had gone quiet in the way corridors do when they are being quiet on purpose.

I watched the door another moment, then let it go.

Chapter

Thirty-Six

A Lady Calls on Business

Milford came into the study at twenty minutes past ten wearing the manner he reserves for the most illustrious of guests and said that Lady Petunia Rosehaven was in the hall and desired to know whether I was at home.

"Alone?" I dared to hope she had brought her sister.

"Alone, Your Grace.”

"Show her ladyship in."

After three hours on estate matters, I welcomed the diversion, especially since it was Petunia. She could always bring a smile to my face.

She came in perfectly groomed, hat straight, gloves on, and made me a curtsy fit for a king. "Your Grace."

I stood and bowed. "Lady Petunia."

"I hope I am not disturbing you."

"You are not." The stack of papers on my desk to the contrary. "Please, take a seat."

She considered the settee where she had sat before, where a child sits with her feet short of the carpet and a plate of biscuits within reach. She chose instead the chair across my desk—the one where a person sits when they have come about something important. Something in me turned over and settled.

I offered her chocolate. Biscuits. Then, in some desperation, lemonade.

"No, thank you," said Lady Petunia Rosehaven. "I have come on business."

"Very well." I retook my chair and waited for her to state it.

She drew off her gloves a finger at a time and laid them across her knee. Then she took a folded paper from her pocket, opened it, and consulted it.

"You love Rosie." A statement, not a question.

I did not try to deny it. Neither did I confirm it. "That is a large thing to say."

"It is large. It is also true." She folded her hands on top of the paper. "And, just as important, Rosie loves you."

"Does she." Of course she did. I had it from a wrecked launch on the Thames with her heart going against my ribs. But I was not about to concede it to her sister. In my study. At a quarter past ten in the morning.

"And you are both being very silly about it. Nobody has ever explained to me why grown-up people are allowed to be silly when I am not. And I have asked."

"Why are we being silly?" I asked, before I could stop myself.

"You refuse to marry. Both of you. You need to ask her to marry you."

"I am afraid it is rather more complicated than that."

"No, it is not. When two people love each other, they marry. That is what Claire and Cosmos did. And he had been in jail." She let the fact sit, the way a barrister lets a fact sit. "Claire married him because she loved him. So that is what you need to do. Ask Rosie to marry you, Duke."

The ‘Your Grace’ had lasted rather less than five minutes. It generally did.