Chapter 15
“Hawkins, will you please bring my breakfast in here?” Leonard asked the following morning.
“Are you certain, Your Grace?” the butler asked.
Leonard looked up from the papers he had been studying. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s just that I believe the Duchess is waiting to break her fast with you, Hawkins explained. “She’s in the breakfast room right now, and she hasn’t begun to eat.”
Leonard pushed aside the twinge of guilt that news made him feel. “You know as well as anyone how common it is for me to take my meals in my study,” he said. “I’m a very busy man. I cannot afford to stop what I’m doing to go break my fast in another room.”
The truth, uncomfortably, was that he probably could have afforded to.
The work he was doing this morning was not particularly important, and if he was honest with himself, he’d have had to admit that he was only doing it to take up some time.
But that’s my business, he reminded himself firmly.
I am under no obligation to explain myself to anyone at all.
If I’m only here because I prefer the decor in this room, that is perfectly valid, and there is nothing to argue with.
Hawkins went away, and Leonard returned his attention to what he had been reviewing.
He was going over the household ledgers, trying to get a good understanding of where money had been going since Prudence had become duchess.
The longer he looked, the more frustrated he felt because he was forced to concede that nothing he could disapprove of was happening.
Unless he was to nitpick every expenditure, she wasn’t doing anything she shouldn’t.
There had been no further increases to staff pay since the argument they’d had about that.
She had maintained the one small increase she had made, but because he had told her that would be all right, he knew he couldn’t issue any complaints about it.
Money had been put into one-time expenditures like new furnishings for a few of the rooms, but that was within her purview as duchess.
And besides, though he hated to admit it, Leonard actually liked the changes she had made.
The sitting room looked much nicer these days—like a place a person might actually want to spend some time.
He hadn’t wanted her to know it, but he had gone in there a few times when she hadn’t been around to sit on the new furniture and had found it as comfortable as it was attractive.
With a heavy sigh he closed the book he was looking through. What was going on here? Why did he want her to be doing something inappropriate?
If she was, I would have to cancel my plans to go to the country.
She’s already done enough to show me that she’s willing to break any and all conventions, that she lives by her own rules.
It might be foolhardy to leave her on her own even if she is spending money wisely!
So maybe I’m just looking for something to help me make a decision that I already know I might have to make.
He winced at the thought of what Gabriel would have to say if he discovered that Leonard had changed his plans and decided to stay in London with Prudence.
He’d take it to mean something completely different from what it did mean.
And he would feel even more sure of himself if he were to learn that Leonard had spent all this time combing over the finances and looking for reasons not to trust his wife.
There was a knock at the door.
“Yes, just bring it in, Hawkins,” Leonard said, opening the book again, though mostly for the sake of appearances. He didn’t want any more comments from his butler about how maybe if he was finished with his work, he might like to go to the breakfast room after all.
The door opened.
He knew immediately that it wasn’t Hawkins.
Before he even understood how he knew, he could tell that it was Prudence.
He kept his head down for a moment, wondering at how certain he was, and then it hit him—it was her scent.
Lavender. When had he become aware that she smelled of lavender?
He couldn’t remember ever having noticed this for the first time, but the aroma was definitely familiar to him now.
He looked up.
She had the breakfast tray in her hands. “Where do you want this?” she asked him.
“You aren’t Hawkins,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows. “Well, you’ve got me there.”
“Why are you bringing me my breakfast? I asked Hawkins to bring it.”
“He was going to. Don’t blame him. I told him I would do it instead. I actually forced him to give me the tray.” She smiled slightly. “He would have had to fight me to hold on to it, and of course, he wasn’t going to do that.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I thought it would be nice for the two of us to eat breakfast together.” She put the tray down on the side of his desk, and for the first time, he realized that it had been arranged with enough food for two people.
“I added my own plate,” she explained, seeing him noticing.
“When I realized that you weren’t coming to the table, I thought I would come to you instead. ”
“I’m not coming to the table because I’m busy,” he told her. “I’m working. I don’t have time to stop and socialize.”
“Well, what are you working on? Maybe I could be of some help to you?”
The funny thing was that if she knew what he was doing, she would certainly be able to help. She’d be able to explain to him exactly where every dollar had gone and why. But he couldn’t tell his wife that he was auditing her expenses, especially since he had been able to find nothing wrong.
“I don’t require any help,” he told her.
She sat down in the chair opposite his. “Well, maybe you could tell me about what you’re working on?”
“Why do you want to know about that?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly taken an interest in finance.”
“I’ve always found finance interesting,” she said. “But no, what I’m really interested in is you, Leonard.”
“Me,” he repeated.
“You know something about me now,” she pointed out. “I’d like to get to know you a little bit better in return; that’s all.” She picked up a piece of toast and began to spread butter on it.
“Don’t do that,” he told her.
“Butter my bread? This is the way I like it.”
“Don’t act as if you’re staying. You’re not staying,” he said. “You’re going back to finish eating in the breakfast room. I need to be left in peace so that I can finish what I’m doing here which isn’t a matter I’m going to be discussing with you.”
She leaned over and tried to read the ledger. He slammed it closed.
“You can tell me,” she insisted. “If it’s about the affairs of the dukedom, you know, I’m going to have to oversee those things once you’re gone, so it’s for the best that I understand them, isn’t it?”
Was she kidding? “You’re not going to be overseeing anything,” he told her. “I’ll be managing my own affairs, just as I do now, but from my home in the country. You don’t need to learn how to tend to anything, Prudence. In fact, my study will be sealed against you once I’ve left the house.”
She stared at him. “You’re going to lock me out?”
“Well, I can’t imagine that asking nicely would have much affect with you, would it?”
“There’s no way you’d know,” she shot back, standing up.
“You’ve never once asked me nicely for anything.
All you do is give orders and then act surprised when they aren’t obeyed.
You treat people like… like chess pieces you can move around.
It’s like you have no understanding of the fact that a person might have desires independent of what you think is best.”
“Is this why you came to my study today?” he asked her. “You wanted to tell me all the flaws you find in my character?”
“I told you why I came here,” she said. “I wanted to get to know you a little better. I suppose that was foolish of me though. I shouldn’t have expected anything as simple as human decency. Not from you.”
She turned and hurried from the study, leaving both his breakfast and her own unfinished one on the desk in front of him.
Leonard felt a brief stab of guilt—had she really only intended to get to know him better? Had he driven her out over something as simple as that?
Why do I keep pushing her away?
But no. She shouldn’t have come into his study in the first place. A man had to have a place that was all his own, a place where no one else would disturb him.
That was why he was going to the country in the first place. He had to remember that. No matter what she did in the meantime, no matter how troubling her behavior was to him, he had made arrangements to leave so that he would have the comfort of solitude.
“Mrs. Mills, what on Earth is that unholy squawking sound?”
The housekeeper smiled faintly. “The Duchess is practicing her violin.”
“Practicing her what?” This was the first Leonard had heard about any such thing. “Where did she acquire a violin?”
“She purchased it a few days ago. It arrived at the house just this morning,” Mrs. Mills explained. “I think she was eager to get started with it because the moment it was delivered, she went straight to the conservatory—Your Grace?”
Leonard had turned and stalked off toward the conservatory, leaving Mrs. Mills behind. As he got closer, the sound of the violin grew louder. It was clear to him that Prudence was holding the instrument for the first time. She obviously had no skill or experience with it.
He threw open the door to find her sawing away at the strings. She beamed when she noticed him and, mercifully, stopped what she was doing, holding up the bow.
“What do you think?” she asked him. “I thought it might be nice to learn something new.”
“What do I think?” he repeated. “I think you did this deliberately to vex me; that’s what I think.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“You couldn’t wait until I leave for the country to take up your new hobby? You’re doing this to punish me, to make me regret the fact that I told you not to sneak out again. And I’ll tell you here and now that it isn’t going to work.”
Prudence laughed. “I didn’t take up the violin to punish you,” she told him. “But I won’t be at all surprised if you force me to send it back and forbid me from playing any instrument at all. Do you want to know what I think?”
“Please, enlighten me.” This was going to be good, he could tell.
“I think you’d have left for the country already if it weren’t for you desire to control everything I do,” she said.
“You disguise it well—as being worried about your reputation and mine—but in reality, I think you’re just afraid of anything happening that isn’t strictly under your control.
You don’t want me to make any decisions for myself, not because you’re worried they might be the wrong ones but because they wouldn’t be your decisions.
You can’t stand the idea of anyone other than you being in charge of anything, can you? ”
Leonard felt as if he was about to boil over. “Well, I can control one thing,” he said. “I won’t have that instrument played in the house for the rest of my time here. If I hear it again, I’ll take it away and have it sent back to wherever it came from.”
Prudence glared at him. “In that case,” she said, her voice tight, “you really can’t leave soon enough.”
“Well, on that, at least, you and I are in agreement,” Leonard assured her and turned and left the room before his temper could get the better of him.