Chapter 7
Your Grace,
I have considered your proposal and find myself unable to identify an adequate alternative. Consequently, I accept with the understanding that the arrangement will be executed with mutual respect and that you will not anticipate from me more than what the situation warrants.
Sincerely,
Lady Frances Pembroke
Alexander read it once, set it on the desk, and read it again. Unable to identify an adequate alternative. He supposed he ought not to have expected anything warmer given that his own proposal had not exactly been constructed for warmth.
She had accepted, which was the operative fact, and she had set her terms plainly, which was, he had to admit, consistent with everything he had observed of her so far.
He folded the letter and set it aside.
His thoughts went, without his permission, to the gardens.
To the moment of catching her, the sudden weight of her against his arm, the way she had gone still almost immediately.
And then the mask coming away, and the look in her eyes, which had been frightened and braced and underneath both of those things entirely, stubbornly present.
He pushed the thought aside and reached for the next letter in the pile which was considerably more straightforward—an inquiry from his steward at Whitestone about the drainage on the south field—and he applied himself to it with more concentration than the drainage on the south field strictly required.
There was a knock at the study door.
“Come.”
Graves entered with the expression he wore when he had something to report that he anticipated would require a response. “Mr. Holt has arrived, Your Grace.”
“Send him in.”
Reginald Holt was not the sort of man who looked impressive which was exactly why Alexander hired him.
He was small, middle-aged, and unremarkable in appearance with a special talent for finding people who wanted to stay hidden—an ability Alexander had relied on twice before.
He entered quietly, standing across the desk with his hat in his hands.
“Holt,” Alexander said. “I have a matter that requires your particular skills. My sister, Lady Eleanor, left London three nights ago with a man named Malcolm Fraser. They are traveling north. I want to know where they are.”
Holt nodded once. “Scotland, Your Grace?”
“In all likelihood. Gretna, possibly, or further north if he has family there.” Alexander paused. “I want her location. I want it within the week.”
“And when I have found her, Your Grace?”
Alexander looked at him steadily. There was a version of this in which he said, “Bring her back,” and he had been intending to say it since the night he read Eleanor’s letter.
He opened his mouth. “Report to me directly,” he said instead.
“Do not approach her. Find where she is and come back to me.”
Holt nodded again, replaced his hat, and left.
Alexander sat for a moment after the door closed.
I am not going after her. He had reasons—legitimate, practical reasons: the scandal, the wedding to arrange, and the fact that he could not leave London at the moment without it being noticed and added to the ongoing commentary on the papers.
All of this was true, but none of it was entirely why.
He was self-aware enough to realize that, but he was not ready to examine the rest of it closely.
“Graves, I need Whitmore here this afternoon.”
“Your solicitor, Your Grace?”
“I need the paperwork for a special license to begin today. The Archbishop’s office will need to be contacted.
I will write the letter myself.” He was already reaching for a fresh sheet.
“I also need Whitmore to draw up the marriage settlement. Quickly and correctly. Tell him I do not expect it to take more than a day.”
“Very good, Your Grace. And the date of the ceremony?”
“End of the week.” Alexander was already writing. “Friday, if the license can be secured by Thursday. Saturday at the latest.”
“Shall I notify the household staff?”
“Yes. Quietly. I do not want this in the papers before the ceremony.” He paused then added, without looking up, “Ensure the Duchess’ rooms are prepared. Fresh linens, flowers, whatever is appropriate. Ask Mrs. Wells what is required and ensure she has what she needs.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And Graves, there is the other matter.” He set down his quill.
This was the part he had been turning over all morning, the part that sat alongside the wedding arrangements and the solicitor and the letters to Scotland with a different kind of weight.
“I will need to write to Mrs. Hartley as well. In Wiltshire.” He paused.
“Tell her that circumstances have changed and that I am making new arrangements. She will understand.”
Graves’s expression did not alter. “Shall I have the letter sent express, Your Grace?”
“Yes.”
When Graves had gone, Alexander sat for a moment with the quill in his hand and thought about Wiltshire and about a child he had not seen since Christmas and about what it meant that he was now making arrangements that would change the shape of everything.
She needs a home, a father, his mother had said, more than once, with the patience of a woman who believed repetition would eventually accomplish what directness had not.
He was not certain what kind of father he would make.
He was not certain he was capable of being the sort of man a child needed.
But he was beginning to think, with the particular discomfort of a conclusion he had been resisting for some time, that satisfactory was not a sufficient answer to that question.
He wrote the letter to Mrs. Hartley, sealed it, and set it aside for Graves.
Then he turned to the next problem.
Madame Leclerc was the finest dressmaker in London; he knew this because his sister had told him so on approximately forty separate occasions and because every woman of consequence in his acquaintance went to her and had done so for twenty years.
Madame Leclerc arrived at Whitestone House at two o’clock with two assistants, a great many fabric samples, and opinions.
“Your Grace.” She was a small woman, French, somewhere between fifty and seventy, with the air of someone who had long ago decided that her expertise entitled her to a frankness that other people were not permitted. “You wish for a wedding dress.”
“I do.”
“For whom?”
“For my future duchess.”
Madame Leclerc smiled as though she might know the reason for his taking a duchess. “And she is not present, Your Grace?”
“She is not.”
“Her measurements—”
“I do not have them.” He had anticipated this objection and had an answer. “She is of moderate height. Slender. Her coloring is fair, golden-brown hair.” He paused, because the next part required him to have been paying more attention than he had intended to admit to. “Blue eyes.”
Madame Leclerc’s expression shifted by a fraction. “You know the color of her eyes at least, Your Grace.”
“I am observant.”
“Mm.” She turned to her assistants and said something rapid and quiet in French that Alexander did not entirely catch though he was fairly certain the word romantique appeared in it which was both inaccurate and beside the point. She turned back to him. “I will need to see her for the fitting.”
Alexander thought of Lady Montfort. If anyone was familiar with Lady Frances’ measurements, it would be her. Certainly, it would be easier to send Madame Leclerc to Lady Frances, but he was hesitant to do that, given how much she was resisting this marriage.
“I will have her measurements sent to you. The dress itself, however, I want to begin today. Ivory, I think. The finest silk you have. Whatever trimming you consider appropriate for a duchess. I trust your judgment on the details, Madame Leclerc; you know your work better than I do. But it must be ready by Thursday.”
She stared at him. “Thursday?”
“Yes.”
“Your Grace. A dress of this quality requires—”
“Additional seamstresses,” he said. “Hire them. Whatever the cost is, it will be met. Thursday.”
Madame Leclerc looked at him for a long moment, as if deciding whether her professional pride was more offended by the timeline or appeased by the budget, then she turned to her assistants, issued a series of instructions at a pace that suggested the decision had been made, and began laying out fabric samples on the chaise.
“The ivory is an option,” she said, holding up a length of silk that caught the afternoon light with the particular quality of something very expensive. “Or there is a white with a silver thread—very fine, very delicate, appropriate for a winter duchess.” She paused. “Which does she prefer?”
Alexander looked at the fabric samples and thought about Lady Frances Pembroke sitting across from him in her sister’s drawing room, with her spine very straight and her eyes bright.
“Both,” he said. “Make dresses with both and let her choose.”
Madame Leclerc turned to look at him. Something in her expression had shifted, not warmth exactly—she did not appear to be a woman who trafficked heavily in warmth—but something that was a degree or two less brisk than it had been.
“You are providing the dress yourself,” she said. “Without consulting her.”
“She will have the final choice,” Alexander said. “I am simply ensuring that the choices are worth having.”
Madame Leclerc looked at him for another moment then she said something to her assistant in French, and this time Alexander was quite certain he caught the word bien which he took as a professional endorsement and moved on.
By five o’clock, the solicitor had been, the legal papers were underway, and the letter to the Archbishop’s office had been dispatched by hand. The household had been notified. The letter to Wiltshire was on its way.
Alexander sat in his study with a glass of brandy he had not poured for pleasure and looked at the list of things that had been accomplished today and the list of things that still remained.
He was in control but felt uneasy. And that was a very unusual thing.