Chapter 11 #2
They turned their mounts toward the house, the horses falling into a steady canter. The sky darkened above them, but neither hurried; their pace was easy, almost reluctant, as though stretching the moment before the storm broke.
By the time they sat for supper, the rain had claimed the evening in full. Candlelight flickered on porcelain, thunder muttered somewhere beyond the glass. Her seat was now close to his, close enough to catch the faint spice of his cologne each time he moved.
Sebastian poured wine into his glass, then into hers without asking, as if it had become the natural order of things.
“You enjoyed the ride,” he said, and though the words were delivered with the same easy lilt, his body betrayed more with the proud lift of his shoulders, the faint tilt of his chin, as though he’d been the one to carve the path or set the tree line in its place.
A glint warmed his gaze, quiet satisfaction at seeing her keep pace where he had not expected it.
“I did,” she replied, breaking a bit of bread between her fingers. “Your Bramble is a handsome creature.”
A flicker—pride perhaps—crossed his face. “He’s worth the trouble.”
She reached for her glass, tilting it slightly to watch the wine catch the candlelight. “Trouble? I thought he was serious.”
“One does not keep a horse like Bramble without earning a few bruises.”
Margaret glanced up, curious. “You make it sound like a battle.”
His mouth tugged in the faintest half-smile. “In the beginning, it was. He arrived with a temper that could shame a courtier. In the first week, he threw me into a water trough. In front of an audience.”
Her brows rose. “An audience?”
“Mrs. Fowler. Parsons. The groom. Two stable boys. And a delivery cart from the fishmonger.” He paused, as if reliving the humiliation. “I believe the fishmonger still greets me as ‘Your Grace the Eel.’”
Margaret bit back a laugh but failed. “You’re inventing that.”
“I assure you, I am not. The man finds it hilarious.”
The image of him—drenched, sputtering, and furious—was far too delicious to keep from smiling at. “And yet you kept Bramble?”
He reached for his knife, slicing neatly through a piece of lamb. “I’ve never been in the habit of giving up on creatures with too much spirit. Even when they bite.”
She arched a brow, tearing her bread in two. “And do you extend that philosophy to people, Your Grace, or only to horses?”
He huffed silently as the thunder rolled, the sound almost lost beneath the rain, though the faint curve at his mouth betrayed him.
When the last spoon clinked against her dish and the candles burned lower, the staff moved with their usual quiet efficiency, clearing plates and replacing them with nothing more than the faint fragrance of roasted lamb and rain-washed air drifting in from the windows.
Margaret sat back, letting her fingers smooth the napkin into a precise fold. She wasn’t sure why she lingered—habit, perhaps, or the faint sense that the evening wasn’t quite finished. The rain’s steady patter filled the pause between them, unhurried and companionable.
Her gaze flicked to the decanter, to the glass before her, to the faint arch of his brow as if waiting for something unspoken.
She cleared her throat. “We never finished our last game.”
Sebastian’s mouth twitched, the ghost of a smirk framing his mouth. “I believe I was winning.”
She gave him a look that might once have cut him in two—at least, it had worked on others before. “You had a rook cornered. Do not pretend you had a strategy.”
“Cornered rooks are the soul of strategy, Madam.” He rose, pushing his chair back with a fluid ease that made something in her chest tighten in a way she chose not to examine. “Come then. Let us see how merciless Your Grace intends to be tonight.”
She stood as well, smoothing her skirts with a practiced flick of her wrist. He was watching—she knew he was—though he would never admit it.
In the library, the chessboard was already set, a quiet courtesy that had become a part of their evenings without either of them remarking on it. Margaret settled into her chair, the firelight catching in the polished bone of the pieces. She slid her pawn forward, meeting his eyes.
“You cheat,” she said as he mirrored her move.
“I never cheat,” he replied mildly. “I strategize. Entirely different crime.”
She narrowed her eyes at the board. “Mm. Is it a strategy when you knock the piece with your elbow?”
He lifted a brow, feigning scandal. “Slander. I shall add it to your next letter to Cecily.”
Her laugh escaped before she could smother it, warm in the space between them.
It startled her a little at how easily it came now, how quickly he could coax it without trying.
And beneath that was a quieter, far more dangerous thought: that she had begun to look forward to this hour, to this strange, private companionship they never spoke of but always seemed to keep.
Two moves later, she hesitated, her fingers hovering above the knight.
The piece itself was secondary—what mattered was the line she was trying to see, the trap she was hoping to spring.
She sensed rather than saw his gaze, that faint weight of attention he thought himself clever enough to disguise.
She shifted the knight into place, satisfied, and then looked up—directly into his eyes. He didn’t quite have the time to glance away.
“Your Grace?” she asked, letting just enough arch amusement curl through her tone to make it a challenge.
The faintest expression crossed his face, not quite embarrassment but something close to being caught in a thought he had no intention of sharing.
He cleared his throat, dropping his eyes to the board. “Forgive me. I was considering my next retreat.”
“Coward,” she said, soft, amused.
He let out a low huff that might once have been laughter. “Undoubtedly.”
Their game went on, pieces knocking gently, firelight glinting off carved bone and polished dark wood. Outside, the rain softened. Inside, the air felt almost companionable. She would not name it comfort, but it was perilously near.
She told herself she would retire after this match.
She always told herself that. And yet, every night, she lingered too long in this chair across from him, bound by this strange, unspoken treaty they kept over a chessboard.
The rain, the firelight, the easy rhythm between them, all of it felt borrowed, fragile.
She knew it could not last. And perhaps that was why she held on to it all the more fiercely while it was hers.
Margaret had taken to walking the south terrace before supper each evening. It gave her an excuse to breathe, to remind herself she still could, and to watch the lamplight come alive in the long windows, catching glimpses of her own figure reflected back.
This evening, a fine mist clung to the hedges. A soft rain had left the garden paths gleaming like ribbons of ink. Jenny trailed behind her with a small lantern, careful not to let the flame gutter out in the breeze.
“You’ll catch a chill, Your Grace,” Jenny ventured as they paused by the rose arches. Her voice was low but carried in the stillness of the damp dusk. “Shall I fetch your shawl?”
Margaret pressed her hand to a wet stone pillar, drawing in the smell of green things and fresh earth. She liked this hour best, the privacy before the household gathered, the quiet before conversation. Before, they pretended they were something like husband and wife.
“No, Jenny. Just a minute longer. It’s only water.”
The maid hovered, fussing with the lantern’s handle. “Mrs. Fowler says Cook’s laid out the supper. Roast duck and a pudding; Mr. Parsons says His Grace will join you.”
Margaret let out a small breath, which was not quite a laugh. “Parsons always says that.”
She tilted her chin, half-smiling at the thin glimmer of candlelight inside the house.
Sebastian had been there each evening since the chessboard was brought out, a quiet sort of companion, always half-amused at her feints and flusters.
She’d grown used to the sound of him breathing opposite her at the table, the dry scrape of his spoon against his plate, the flicker of a look when she teased him about his wine or his dreadful sense of tactics.
When she eventually sat down to supper, the hour drifted by without a sign of him.
The clock on the mantel ticked out each minute in patient scolds while Mrs. Fowler’s staff brought in dishes and cleared them half-full again.
Margaret made some small show of eating, but her appetite had long since gone cold.
He had not appeared. The hall had stayed still and empty but for Mrs. Fowler’s discreet cough and the silver gleaming on the sideboard.
He was busy. Men like him always were; there were a thousand bills and letters to sign, tenants with grumbles and lands to see to.
She should be glad of it. She was glad of it.
She told herself it was no concern of hers if the Duke chose to vanish behind stacks of letters till he forgot the taste of warm food.
He was a grown man. He needed no tending.
And yet, as Jenny set the lantern on the step, Margaret heard herself murmur, “Someone ought to see he’s eaten.”
She turned before the girl could answer, her skirts brushing rain-dark gravel. A duke needed no nursemaid. He certainly needed no wife to hover. Still, her feet found the west corridor of their own accord.
She paused outside the wide oak door, listening for the faint crinkle of paper and the scratch of a quill, one palm braced flat against the panels.
The faint flicker of firelight bled through the crack beneath.
She could almost imagine him on the other side—coat thrown aside, hair mussed, brows drawn tight over some crumpled bill or half-finished letter.
All she had to do was knock. Say Come to supper, Your Grace. Eat something before you forget what warm bread tastes like. So simple.
And yet her knuckles hovered there, the distance between wood and pulse stretching thin.
She eased the door open instead.
Inside, the hearth glowed low and sullen.
Papers sprawled like careless drifts of snow across the table.
A glass sat near the arm of a deep chair, and there he was.
Sebastian, her husband. His boots were braced wide, head tipped back in unguarded sleep.
His coat was unbuttoned at the throat, one hand half-curled in his lap, the other draped over a sheaf of neglected reports.
The glass, half-drained, caught the glow of the coals where it rested by his elbow.
She took one step inside, then another. The air here was different.
His lashes cast small shadows on sharp cheekbones. His hair, always so precise, fell slightly forward at his temple. His lips, half-parted, no longer wore that wry slant that made her throat tighten and her heart argue with her mind.
Margaret stood so still she felt the tick of her own pulse in her teeth. She had not expected that the Duke of Ravenscourt would be undone by his own exhaustion, all the cold polish stripped away by sleep.
For a heartbeat more, she watched him. She did not let herself wonder what softness might lie behind that sharp mouth or whether he dreamed of battles long finished or battles yet to come.
She could have left him. Should have. Instead, her eyes found the shawl draped over the arm of the settee, half-forgotten. She caught it up gently in both hands, careful not to rustle the papers. The cloth was warm where it had rested by the fire.
He would wake chilled and cross if she left him like this.
That was the excuse she chose as she eased closer, careful not to wake him.
She draped the soft wool over his shoulders, smoothing it across the slope of his arm.
Close enough to catch the faintest scent of ink and brandy and that spice she’d grown used to in the hallways he’d just left.
She did not linger. Her heart rattled like a startled bird as she stepped back. For a moment, her fingertips hovered near his hair, one soft lock that might have needed tucking aside. But she dropped her hand. He would not want that. She did not want that.
It was only kindness. A human kindness. She told herself so again as she eased the door shut behind her and stole back into the corridor.
Someone ought to see that he ate, she thought again, but perhaps tonight, sleep would do him better.
By the time she reached her room, she had already told herself three times that it meant nothing at all.