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Lady Alford rolled her eyes. "Well, this is a setback! Since the war, one cannot find English oak at any price. Monsieur Mazarine must see this room next. He will know what is to be done. Where on earth have you been sitting?”

At her desk. “I… I suppose that I do not.”

“Do not sit? How ridiculous. And yet until I arrived, you had done nothing at all to refurbish the house! No wonder the duke went to Shropshire. I would too if my house were this uncomfortable.”

Pomona was at the end of a tiring week of work. And she didn’t want to live in this house at all, let alone live in it during its refurbishment. And most of all, she didn’t want to be subjected to the barbed remarks of her mother during the process. “Perhaps all of this could wait? The season is over. I thought to go to the country.” She hadn’t thought this at all. But she had to find some way to end this nightmare before it got worse.

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “To join the duke.” It wasn’t a question.

“No, I... To… to visit Charles and Celia at Laversham Court.”

Lady Alford snorted. “Really? Whatever for? Celia is such a spiritless little thing. Charles is become so dull since he married her! A handsome young viscount! He could have had anyone! Anyone at all! Including the heiress to that soap fortune! Yet he chose a governess with no breeding whatsoever.”

“She is the granddaughter of a baronet. Not that that makes any difference.”

Lady Alford cocked her head to one side and studied her. “Apparently I must remind you that you are but recently married. You cannot simply do as you please. Once you have given the duke children you may enjoy more freedom. The duke will be pursuing his own interests then, of course. But a young bride spending months on end away from her husband will cause scandal.”

Pomona's face was heating. “That is not what I said.”

“Really? I certainly hope that it was not. You find yourself in a very fortunate position, Pomona. You would do well to remember that. If it is not clear to you, your responsibility is here, overseeing the refurbishment, so that the duke will have a home suitable to his position next season.”

Was her entire life to be governed by the fear of what people would think or say? Was she never to be permitted to work in peace, without West snooping through her papers? Everything that her mother had said was true, of course. It was just that it made her feel that she was not even a... a person.

“Now. As you will, of course, entertain your afternoon callers here, this room must be one of the first to be refurbished. Paint, paper, curtains, a fine silk carpet woven to order, two settees, four fauteuils, two wing chairs, mirrors... There are a great many decisions to be made. I hope that you at least bought some mirrors in Venice?”

Before Pomona could answer, a tremendous crash shook the house.

Even Lady Alford looked aghast. Pomona rushed out of the room—and found herself disoriented in brilliant light. At the head of the stairs, two workmen coated head to foot in white plaster dust were standing amidst smashed plaster. The floor and stairs were also covered in smashed plaster.

“My apologies, your grace.” Monsieur Mazarine materialized from the dust cloud, smiling serenely and brushing a tiny smudge of white plaster off one sleeve. “Unexpectedly, the whole of it came down in one piece.”

Pomona followed his gaze upward. Above the staircase was a skylight that had been concealed by a false ceiling. The ceiling's removal had left jagged plaster around the edges of a large hole. Sunlight poured into the house, illuminating the corridor and staircase and streaming down into the entrance hall, where alarmed servants had rushed out to see what had happened.

The house was gloomy no more. And it was too late to call off the project.

"Now." Lady Alford folded her arms. “It is time that you got to work.”

Chapter Eighteen

The sun was sinking behind the western hills as the carriage and four thundered down a wide drive toward the castle. West saw the ancient curtain wall looming ahead. They crossed a short causeway that spanned the remains of an old motte, passed through a portico in the wall, and entered a courtyard.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” The carriage came to a stop. After hours of the horse's hooves and the rumble of the wheels over every type of road, the sudden silence was deafening. He absorbed it for a moment, then leaned forward, opened the door, and stepped out.

On three sides of the large courtyard—or, he supposed, the bailey—medieval walls towered above him. On the fourth, just in front of him, was a modern house with large windows. He took a deep lungful of fresh evening air and stretched his stiff back. Every mile that had passed had taken him farther from Pomona... farther from any chance of making amends. Not that he thought that she would grant him that chance—or that he deserved one. But her cold expression the last time that he'd seen her, on the gloomy staircase in March House, had haunted him all the way here.

Someone threw open half of the large double doors of the house and began wrestling with a bolt on the other half. Light spilled out of the hall and onto the front steps. He heard a shout somewhere inside. “The duke! The duke is here!”

The coachman climbed off the box. Footmen rushed out of the house carrying lanterns. Tompkins began issuing orders about luggage. The moment of silence was here.

Everyone he saw bowed. "Your grace. Your grace. Your grace." He nodded pleasantly left and right—or so he hoped, anyway—and strolled into his castle

He found himself in a huge, wood-beamed entry hall where suits of armor stood along the walls. The last faint light in the western sky was still visible through a tall window opposite the entrance. A pennant displaying the March coat of arms hung from one of the ceiling beams. He gazed up the roaring silver bear, standing on its hind legs on a black background. Hic Defendat, read the motto embroidered beneath it. I defend.

Who would have thought that the little boy who’d been so impressed by that bear all those years ago would have inherited all this? Not he. But he almost hoped that wherever the old duke was now—and it was not likely heaven—he was fuming to see West standing here.

“Your grace!” A middle aged man—surely the butler—rushed into the hall, nearly skidding on the black and white marble floor in his haste. He came to a halt and bowed. “I beg your pardon, your grace! We had no idea…”

“You must be Mr. Parry. It is good to put a face to the name.” He wished to set the man at ease. “My journey from London was undertaken in haste, or I should have sent word ahead.”