Page 53 of The Duke’s Suspicion

So, what sort of future did she imagine for herself? Quite possibly a lonely one. She would leave here with her reputation in tatters, after all. Even her family might disown her.

But she would also leave with a journal full of sketches of plants she had only dreamed of seeing. She would leave with newfound knowledge about herself. And she would leave with the memory of one night in Tristan’s arms.

Almost automatically, her chin tilted upward. She had a world to see, didn’t she? She curled her journal against her breast, thinking of the carefully drawn map within its pages. She couldn’t bear it if all she had for the rest of her life were the rugged landscape of Westmorland and the conservatory at Hawesdale Chase.

Could she?

The tears filling her eyes and coursing down her cheeks she at first mistook for rain. But the day had dawned fair at last. While she had been ruminating, the sun had risen enough to lend its color to the red bricks of the house. The windows of the west wing, including the glasshouse, blazed with reflected light, and already the puddles on the flagstone terrace had shrunk.

With a determined nod, she turned away from the window, swiped away her tears, and laid her journal on her dressing table. After a quarter hour’s largely failed effort at taming her tangled hair and her tangled thoughts, she rose again, this time leaving her journal where it lay.

She found Mr. Remington seated at the table in the servants’ dining hall, alone. “Do you suppose this change in the weather will alter my sister’s travel plans?” she asked.

In the rooms and corridors all around them bustled footmen and maids readying the house for another day. Occasionally she heard the sharper notes of Mrs. Dean’s voice above the fray. “Well, Miss Erica,” he said after he had contemplated both the question and his cup of coffee. “A sunny day will do wonders for the roads, it’s true. But I don’t believe Lord Ashborough will be in any hurry to set out until he’s certain they’re safe. He’s got Lady Ashborough’s health to consider too.”

Erica’s jerk of alarm rattled the dishes on the table and nearly upset his cup. Drops of dark liquid leaped into the air; three landed in the saucer, but the fourth settled on the tablecloth and began to spread. “Is my sister ill?”

With calm, deliberate motions, he reached for his cup and used his napkin to blot the stain before taking a sip. She was almost willing to swear his mouth had curved into a grin around the rim. “Mostly just in the mornings,” he said as he returned his cup carefully to its saucer.

“I don’t understand. What sort of illness would—?”

He cocked one grizzled brow.

“Oh. You mean…you mean she’s…”

“In a delicate condition is the phrase you’re seeking, I believe.” Definitely a grin.

Feeling her cheeks pink, she busied herself with squaring the handle of her own coffee cup, the one Remington had insisted upon filling, though she had not yet taken a drink. When she’d told Tristan she would have nieces and nephews on which to dote, she had not anticipated any arriving quite so soon. Truth be told, she’d never even been sure Cami liked children—certainly not the messes and noise they tended to make. Always firm with herself, Cami had expected her younger siblings—her sisters especially—to exercise a similar degree of self-restraint. And Erica, at least, had been disappointing her all her life.

Still, it was clear Cami liked her husband a great deal and…well, they who dance must pay the music, as the saying went. So—

Beneath the table, her fingers curled in her napkin. Oh, dear. Only just this moment had it occurred to her that after last night, she too might be…

Her mind shied from even the polite euphemism. No. Impossible. Well, not impossible. But unlikely, surely?

“I shouldn’t worry if I were you, Miss Erica. It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

Erica jumped up from the table before realizing that of course he spoke of her sister’s condition, not her own. To cover her reaction, she wandered to the window and discovered it too high in the wall for her to see out. Her heart was racing. A child. Tristan’s child.

Was she really fool enough to hope?

“Are you all right, Miss Erica?”

She nodded, a shade too quickly, and her eyes darted toward the door. “Never better,” she insisted, before remembering that she’d spoken those same words to him as he’d… Oh, dear. At what point did the heat in her cheeks put her at risk for going up in flames?

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the rumors I heard yesterday, would it? About you and the Duke of Raynham?”

With anyone else, she might have demurred. But thanks to his notorious employer, Remy had seen a deal too much of the world to be put off. “Yes and no,” she explained, dropping her voice and returning to her place at the table. “Captain Whitby, another of the guests, believes there’s a spy at Hawesdale Chase. The fact that I am a stranger here, combined with my…family connections”—Remington gave a knowing nod—“rendered me an object of suspicion at first. The duke, however, was persuaded that the contents of my journal would prove my innocence. Believing—rightly—I would be reluctant to show it to him, he came to my room the night before last looking for it.”

“Ah.” His voice held the merest hint of skepticism. “And did you give him what he wanted?”

“Mr. Remington!” she gasped. But her affront did not budge the questioning look from his face. With trembling fingers, she picked up his discarded napkin and began to pleat it. “Yes.”

If he suspected the weight of meaning behind that simple word, his face did not immediately show it. He drained his cup and rose to pour another from an urn on the otherwise empty sideboard. The servants would eat later. “I understand he offered you marriage. And you refused.”

“If you’re going to tell me that I ought to have accepted him—”

“It wouldn’t be my place. Though as a general principle, I see no harm in changing your mind.”