Page 60 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

She gathered her ledger and turned toward the door. “Think about London.”

“I have thought about it.”

“Then think again.”

She went out without waiting for an answer.

Leopold remained seated long after she had gone, staring at the closed door and wishing, with no particular dignity, that she had simply shouted at him instead. Shouting was easier and could be answered. His mother’s calm certainty was worse because it came wrapped in reason, and the distinct feeling that he would ultimately have no say in the matter.

***

By evening, Leopold had not entirely recovered from the conversation with his mother. He left the study and went out onto the terrace outside the library. The air had turned cooler, and the garden beyond the stone rail lay in a dark wash of shadow. Behind him, the house was lit in warm bands across the windows, but the terrace itself was still and dim.

He had not intended to linger; he had only meant to walk off the last of his irritation before he retired. Instead, he found Phoebe standing at the railing, looking out over the garden.

She did not hear him come out. Her hands rested lightly on the stone, and her face was turned toward the darkness as though something in it had drawn her outside. She wore a simple muslin dress and had no shawl over her shoulders despite the chill. A breeze stirred a strand of auburn hair loose near her cheek.

Leopold stopped a few paces away and said nothing.

She remained in place for another moment before she spoke.

“The garden is different at night.”

Her voice was quiet, and there was no sign in it that she had heard him until she chose to turn.

He stepped to the railing beside her. “Is it?”

Phoebe glanced at him. “It is. It is quieter at night. It feels less managed.”

Leopold turned his head toward her. “You make the estate sound as though it is under surveillance.”

“Is it not?”

He looked at her for a beat. “I suppose you could say it is.”

Phoebe did not answer that immediately.

He looked out over the dark beds and the path beyond the hedge, then back at her. “I come here to think.”

Her mouth moved slightly. “That sounds like an arrangement you are in need of.”

He almost smiled. “It is.”

There was another silence before she spoke again. “What do you think about when you come here?”

He leaned his forearms on the stone rail and looked out into the garden. “Lately?”

“Yes.”

He was quiet long enough that he could feel her waiting.

“Things I did not expect,” he said at last.

Phoebe turned fully to him then.

Leopold glanced back at her, and the conversation seemed to stop.

The house glowed behind them, warm and distant, the garden dark beyond the terrace. Phoebe’s face was half-lit by the spill of light from the library windows, and he could see the faint tension in it.