Chapter 3
E dward had expected fear. Revulsion, maybe. A polite request to leave. He had prepared for all of it on the ride over.
He had not expected her to hold his gaze.
She was shaking. He could see it in her fingers. Her face had gone pale except for two spots of color high on her cheekbones. Her eyes were blue and wide. Not from terror, but from nerve. He knew the difference.
She was not what Nathaniel had described. A quiet young widow, his brother said. Lovely. Fragile. Edward had pictured someone delicate. Instead, he was looking at a woman with a killer in her entrance hall who looked like she was deciding whether to hit him or feed him.
She had impressed him already. That was a problem. He had come here to find a wife the way one found a good horse. Check the teeth, test the temperament, and make sure it did not kick.
Being impressed was not part of the plan. Being impressed made you slow. Slow got you killed. He had learned that in enough cities to fill a map.
But she was looking at him. Not away from him, but at him.
And the part of his brain that was supposed to be calculating exits and threats and contingencies was instead noticing that her eyes were the blue of the harbor in Dubrovnik at dawn, which was a comparison he had no business making and which he filed away in the part of his mind he did not talk about.
He nodded at the maid already on her knees with a cloth, mopping tea off the marble.
“Ye do recognize the name, then, Duchess,” he said.
She nodded. Then she stuck out her hand. Not the limp hand of a society lady. She held it out straight.
“I do. As long as you don’t plan to use your… less common… skills to cheat, you’re welcome to play,” she said, raising one eyebrow.
He took her hand. It was small. Cold. Rough at the fingertips. He turned it over and kissed her knuckles, because he was a killer but not an animal. When he looked up, the color in her face had spread down her neck. Her pulse fluttered at her wrist. Fast.
She turned back to the hall and smiled. He knew that smile. He had worn it a hundred times. She was terrified but refused to show it.
“Gentlemen, supper is through the corridor to your left.” She paused. “You will find that I have not assigned the seats.”
Polite murmurs rose from the crowd.
“Your first challenge is to sit down without causing a scene.”
A stout man near the back scoffed. “Surely you cannot expect us to scramble for chairs like schoolboys at a–”
“I need a gentle husband,” Valeria interrupted. She walked toward the dining hall. “If you can’t handle that, then quit.”
The stout man went purple.
Edward watched two dozen men shuffle after her. He did not follow.
The dining hall was long and warm. A table for thirty occupied the center, adorned with candles. Trays of roast meat lay on the sideboard.
At present, it was a battlefield.
Edward leaned against the oak tree outside the dining hall windows and watched the carnage unfold through the glass.
Lord Barton lunged for the chair to Valeria’s right and got there first, or thought he did until Sir Marcus appeared out of nowhere and sat directly on top of him.
Lord Barton made a noise that was not quite a word.
Sir Marcus did not move. The young Viscount took one look at the scene and retreated to the far end of the table, where the competition was less violent.
Near the middle, two men Edward did not know were having a silent tug-of-war over a chair.
Neither of them was willing to let go, and neither was willing to make a scene, so they stood there, each with one hand on the chair’s back, smiling at each other with the desperate courtesy of men who wanted to commit murder but had been raised not to.
A footman stood nearby with a look on his face that said he had not been trained for this.
Mr. Ashworth had somehow gotten wedged between two chairs that were clearly too close together. He was stuck at the hip and trying to free himself without drawing attention, but was failing. The red-haired gentleman beside him was pretending not to notice, which was charitable.
Sir Humphrey Dalton had solved the entire problem by sitting down immediately, pouring himself a very large glass of wine, and watching the proceedings with the expression of a man at the theatre.
Valeria sat at the head of the table. She was watching the riot she had caused and trying not to smile.
Her sister was sitting beside her, whispering something behind her hand.
Her brother had found a seat nearby and was grinning without bothering to hide it.
A footman holding a soup tureen was attempting to skirt around Sir Marcus, who was now standing and straightening his waistcoat with the aggressive dignity of a man who had absolutely not just been sitting on another man’s lap.
Lord Barton had retreated to the far end of the table and was nursing his pride with wine.
The red-haired gentleman had freed himself from between the two chairs and was now sitting at an angle, with one leg sticking out, pretending this was intentional.
Mr. Ashworth had produced his notebook and was writing furiously.
Edward suspected it was another poem. He hoped it was not about him.
Valeria caught him watching from the window. Her eyes met his from across the room. She raised one eyebrow. He did not look away, and neither did she.
The moment lasted exactly two seconds longer than it should have, before she turned back to her sister and said something that made her press both hands to her mouth and shake with silent laughter.
Edward stayed where he was. He was good at waiting. He had spent four days in a cellar in Vienna once, waiting for a man to come home. Stale bread. Water from a cracked jug. Rats in the corner that he named after members of Parliament to keep himself amused. He had not minded.
He could sit still longer than most people could stay awake. It was a talent born of necessity, and it had saved his life more often than his fists, which was saying something because his fists had saved his life quite a lot.
He leaned there and took it all in. Roast lamb.
Warm room. Candlelight. He had not sat down to a proper English supper in over a decade.
The last one was at Nathaniel’s, Christmas of 1807.
He had stood by the door the whole time.
Old habits. Nathaniel’s wife asked him twice to sit. He said no. She stopped inviting him.
He knew why he was here. Nathaniel had told him straight to get a wife, or the title would mean nothing. Marry well, and the doors open. Stay alone, and you stay the Hound. For the rest of his life.
That should not have sounded like a prison, but it did.
Valeria glanced at him again casually, as though she were scanning the room. Her brow furrowed. He was not sitting. Not scrambling. Just standing there.
He caught her eye and let the corner of his mouth lift.
She turned away fast. But not fast enough.
The table was settling. Sir Marcus had secured the spot beside her. Lord Barton sat at the far end with his wine. The chair to her right was empty.
Edward watched from where he stood.
A footman offered him wine. He shook his head. He did not drink when he was on duty, and he was always on duty.
The older gentleman at the far end raised his glass in Edward’s direction. Sir Humphrey Dalton. The man had the look of someone who had seen enough of life to stop being afraid of it. Edward liked him on instinct.
Then he watched Valeria. She was talking to Sir Marcus, or rather, Sir Marcus was talking to her. The man was leaning forward, eager, using his hands too much. Valeria was nodding now and then. Her smile was fixed, but her eyes were somewhere else.
Edward recognized that, too. The art of being present without being there. He had perfected it in a dozen courts across Europe.
“You’re staring,” said a voice to his left.
It was John Hughes, Valeria’s brother. Or rather, one of them. He had crossed the room to stand beside Edward, which was either very brave or very stupid.
“Just observing,” Edward countered, not looking at him.
“Is that what they call it these days?”
“In my line of business, aye,” Edward said.
John looked at him. Not afraid, but wary. “She has been through enough. If you are here to cause trouble, I will make your life very difficult.”
“With respect, ye weigh about twelve stone, and I killed a man in Prague with a soup spoon.”
“Is that true?”
“No. It was a bread knife. But the point stands.”
John stared at him for a long moment. Then, against what was clearly his better judgment, he almost smiled. “Just don’t hurt her.”
“That,” Edward said, “is the one thing I can promise.”
He pushed off the tree and walked inside.
The two men nearest the empty chair saw him coming and stood so fast that one of them knocked his wine over. A third man quietly put his bread back down.
Edward pulled out the chair beside Valeria. She was looking at her plate. She had not seen him approach, or she was pretending she hadn’t. She was eating soup in small, careful spoonfuls, and the candlelight was doing something to her hair that he needed to stop noticing.
He did not sit. Rather, he leaned close. Close enough that only she could hear. Without looking at her, he reached across and put a piece of bread on her plate. Casually. The way one would do it for someone one had known for years. He did not say a word about it.
She smelled of lavender and clean linen and something else, something warm underneath. He cataloged that information and put it in the same locked room in his brain where he kept the color of her eyes.
“Were you hoping I’d chop off a hand or two, Duchess?” he murmured. “I can oblige, if you wish.”
She looked up at him. “It does sound like you, Duke.”
“Luckily for me, I don’t need a weapon to beat these poor men.” He met her gaze. “The sooner you realize that, the sooner we can come to an agreement.”
He took her hand and kissed her knuckles again. Held it a beat too long. Her breath caught. Her fingers tensed, then relaxed.
Sir Marcus had gone still. John, who had returned to his seat, was leaning forward.. Caroline had clapped her hand over her mouth.
“I’ll expect you in my chambers after the feast, Duchess,” Edward murmured against Valeria’s knuckles. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
He let go and sat down. Then he tore off a piece of bread and ate it. He could feel her looking at him.
Focus, he told himself. She’s a means to an end.
He did not believe a word of it.
From her other side, Sir Marcus cleared his throat. “Your Grace, might I have the pleasure of a tour of the grounds tomorrow? My own gardens at Hale Park are rather well-known, and I believe I could make some suggestions about the south lawn that would?—”
“I will take that under consideration, Sir Marcus,” Valeria said, cutting him off at the knees without raising her voice.
Edward tore off another piece of bread. He could get used to watching her do that.
Across the table, Lord Barton was trying to catch Valeria’s eye. Mr. Ashworth was writing something on his napkin. Caroline was whispering to John, who was watching Edward with the focus of a man who had just been told a story about a bread knife and could not decide if it was funny.
Edward ate his bread. He did not look at Valeria again. He did not need to. He could feel exactly where she was in the room, the way he could feel a draft or a loaded weapon. It was instinct.
He did not trust instinct. It had saved his life a hundred times and ruined it twice.
She’s a means to an end, he told himself again.
The bread tasted better than anything he had eaten in years. That was also a problem.
His eyes strayed to Valeria. She was laughing at something her sister whispered, one hand over her mouth, the candlelight catching the column of her throat.
He put the bread down. Picked up his water. Drank it slowly.
You are in trouble, man . And you rode straight into it.