Page 38 of The Duke’s Caught Bride

The retired naval captain had resumed his monologue on coastal defenses, and Alice listened or pretended to listen, which amounted to the same thing.

Kenneth sat four seats away. She could feel his presence in the room without looking, the way one felt a hearth fire from across a cold parlor.

“Your Grace.”

The voice came from her left. She turned. An elderly woman in plum-colored silk leaned toward her from across the table. Alice recognized her vaguely—the Dowager Viscountess Hargrove, who had been introduced before dinner and had offered a handshake of surprising vigor for a woman of her years. Her eyes were sharp and bright, blue as the sky.

“I have been meaning to ask all evening.” Lady Hargrove smiled brightly. “When might we expect to hear happy news from Bearmoor? The nursery must be due for a new arrival by now. A duke ought to have spares beyond the existing set.”

The table, which had been operating at the pleasant hum of post-dinner ease, went quiet in increments. Heads turned. The naval captain’s monologue died mid-sentence, its subject abandoned like a ship run aground.

Alice opened her mouth, but no sound emerged.

Four seats away, Kenneth had set his glass down. She did not need to look at him to register the change in the air around him.

Before either of them could speak, Lady Ashton filled the silence.

“One does wonder,” she said brightly, “whether the Duchess has found the existing arrangements quite manageable. The Duke’s boys are famously spirited. One hears stories from the staff, of course. I understand the previous governess resigned within a fortnight.” She paused for a sip of wine that served no purpose except to let the words settle over the table. “Perhaps a new baby would be a lot to ask of a woman still finding her feet as a stepmother. One would hate to see the poor dear overwhelmed.”

The silence that followed had a different quality than the one Mrs. Forsythe’s words had brought about. Faces arranged themselves into expressions of polite interest that concealed the sharper appetite beneath.

Alice immediately understood that she was being watched not because these people cared about her answer, but because the spectacle of a new duchess fumbling under fire was the most entertaining thing Harcourt Hall had offered since the ram-and-drainage-ditch anecdote.

She set her glass down. The crystal clinked softly against the table.

“Lady Ashton.” Her voice came out steady, clearer than she had expected. “You are kind to concern yourself. But I must correct a misapprehension.” She straightened in her chair. “Frederick and Charles are not at all difficult children. They are bright, curious, and occasionally inventive in ways that test the patience of adults who have forgotten what it was like to be seven years old. They are also loyal, honest, and capable of a kindness that would put many grown members of this table to shame.”

Lady Ashton’s wineglass paused halfway to her lips.

“I have been a duchess for a matter of weeks,” Alice continued. “I am still learning; I will readily admit that. But no one at this table, or any other, has the right to speak ill of those boys. They are the sons of the Duke of Bearmoor. They are my stepsons. And I will not sit here and listen to their characters reduced to gossip and dinner-party entertainment by people who have never troubled themselves to learn which one is which.”

The room went quiet.

Alice could feel her pulse in her fingertips, in her throat, in her cheeks. She had not planned the words. She was afraid to glance at her husband after having made such a spectacle of herself.

Kenneth’s voice came from four seats away, low, controlled, carrying the weight of absolute authority delivered at conversational volume.

“My wife speaks for our family.” His gaze moved from Lady Ashton to Lady Hargrove and back, encompassing every face at the table without haste. “The boys. The household. The nursery. These are not subjects for public speculation. They never have been, and they never will be. If anyone at this table harbors further opinions about my sons, my wife, or my household, I invite them to keep those opinions precisely where they belong—which is nowhere.”

Harcourt cleared his throat. The sound was heroic in its transparency, the desperate intervention of a host who could see his dinner party sliding toward the kind of incident that would be recounted in drawing rooms for the next three Seasons.

“I believe,” he said, rising, “that Lady Harcourt has arranged entertainment in the music room. Shall we?”

Chairs scraped as the guests rose.

Alice stood up and smoothed her skirts. She did not look at Kenneth. She did not need to. She could feel his gaze on her across the room as they moved.

When Lord Harcourt shook Kenneth’s hand and wished them a good night, she found herself breathing more easily.

The carriage door closed, before the vehicle lurched forward. Darkness swallowed Harcourt Hall, and Alice leaned her head against the glass and let the tension drain from her body in slow, aching increments.

They rode in silence for several minutes. The springs creaked beneath them. Hedgerows blurred past the windows, dark against a darker sky.

“Thank you,” Alice murmured, staring at her reflection in the glass. “For defending me at dinner. You did not have to.”

“I did.”

She turned. Kenneth sat across from her, one arm resting on the sill, his profile cut sharp by the lamplight. He was watching the road ahead, or the darkness that stood in for it.