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“Yes. An almond biscuit.”

“But you must have eaten earlier.”

“I…” Why was it so difficult to think? “I had some tea?” She hadn’t been able to swallow any of the breakfast that had been brought up that morning—not even the toast.

“For heaven’s…” He rang the bell. “Bring some sandwiches for Lady March, please. And tea. And anything else cook can have ready in a few minutes.”

“Yes, your grace.” The footman disappeared.

“You seem scarcely able to say more than ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ It is quite unlike you.” He peered into her face. “Pomona? You have gone white as paper.” He left for a moment and reappeared. “Here.” He wrapped something soft and quilted and far too large about her shoulders.

“What is it?”

“My banyan.” He carried two wooden chairs across the room. “I apologize for the lack of armchairs.” He held one of the chairs. “Now, come and sit by the fire. Please.”

She pulled the banyan closer about her. It smelled like him… like the faint bergamot scent of his shaving soap, and cedar, and his skin. That shouldn’t have been comforting, but it was. West set a Pembroke table between the chairs. A pair of footmen—she hadn’t yet learned their names—arrived a few minutes later with a tea tray holding cold meat sandwiches and some slices of cake. She took a quarter of one of the sandwiches and discovered that it was delicious, and that she was ravenously hungry. She ate the whole sandwich, and then another, and had some hot tea…

Her mind seemed to clear and her mood became a little less bleak. She looked around the room. “What is wrong with that billiard table?”

He glanced at it. “Oh. The baize was ripped when I found it. The slate beneath the cloth is sound enough. I should know—I had to sleep on the thing when I first arrived here.”

“You slept on it? Why?”

He shrugged. “I did not wish to go to a hotel.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I… I did not wish everyone to know that I had arrived in town.”

“Everyone. I see. Meaning me?”

“You?” He blinked at her. “I did not dare think of you at all. In fact, I was thinking of the people who had been very happy to see me lose my political career, when I…” He stopped and cleared his throat, as though he’d almost told her something that he didn’t wish to tell her. “Well. I had made enemies. Townley amongst them. And also—well, I simply wished for a few days of quiet in which to make the mental adjustment to being a duke.”

Was he telling the truth? “What do you mean that you did not dare think of me?”

“I assumed that you would already have married someone that your parents deemed suitable.”

She frowned. “But you must have known that my mother sent me away to live with Lady Theodosia.”

“No. I had no news of you. It was as though you had vanished.”

“But you know about—well, about my father? Charles must have told you.”

“Your brother mentioned that the estate had been left in a precarious position. However, that is your family’s private financial information.”

“Oh, everyone knows—believe me. And there was the incident at my come-out ball—or at least, Mr. Townley’s version of it, which is when he began his campaign of publicly humiliating me. Everywhere I go there is someone whispering about me—whether it is things that they have heard, or things that they invent on the spot.”

“Pomona, I…” He rose and paced to the window. “Well, you are a duchess now. People will not dare to gossip about you. Everything that I have done, I did because it was best for you.”

“Yes. You seem to have a habit of deciding what is best for me without asking me first. But then, so does everyone else.”

Her words came out sounding sharper than she’d intended them to. But they were also true. And it was annoying to see West leaning against the wall, gazing calmly out the window at the snow, as though nothing was wrong.

Because for him, nothing was. Now that he had a title and required an heir, he assumed that she would simply fit neatly into the empty place in his life marked “wife.” He couldn't possibly understand that after he’d left her, everything had changed. Draft after painstaking draft, she’d begun to build an escape route from the gossip and the scandal. And then, just when she’d dared to hope that her plan might actually work, in a few nightmarish moments that hope had been taken away.

She rose. “I must go and check that everything I will want has been packed.”

He turned, his eyebrows raised. “Lady Theodosia told me that most of your trunks have already been taken to the dock.”