Chapter 15
Margaret had not expected to find the morning so soft. The sky was pearled over with a shy sun, the breeze mild enough to lift the edge of her bonnet as she followed Sebastian through a gate half-swallowed by blooming dog rose.
Mrs. Fowler stood in the hall with Margaret’s gloves neatly folded across her palms. “The tenants will be pleased to see you, Your Grace,” she said with a brisk dip of the head. “Best to be properly turned out.”
Margaret accepted the gloves with a faint smile. “Do they truly care for muslin cuffs and silk ribbons, Mrs. Fowler? Or more for sound roofs and full storehouses?”
The housekeeper’s lips twitched, the closest thing to a smile Margaret had yet seen from her. “Both, if I may say so, Your Grace. One feeds the body, the other the pride.”
Before Margaret could answer, Sebastian appeared, hat in hand. “If you are ready, Duchess?”
She slipped her gloves on as she crossed to him. “Where are we bound first?”
“The North Meadow,” he replied, offering his arm. “There is a tenant there with a new lambing pen and a boy who believes himself faster than my sheepdog.”
Sebastian had offered his arm, and she had taken it lightly, yet the small, bracing contact felt dangerously natural, the sort of thing she could grow used to if she were not careful.
They crossed the inner court together, gravel crunching underfoot. At the meadow gate, a freckled child burst from behind a ewe and shouted, “Good day, Your Grace!” before ducking behind his mother’s skirts.
Margaret laughed softly and bent a little toward the boy. “And good day to you, sir.”
Now, with her shoes damp from the dew and the hem of her pale gown brushing the briar edge of the lane, she matched her pace to Sebastian’s longer stride.
Sebastian gestured to the fields beyond. “That corner will be drained before the season turns. And here—” He pointed to a hedge line alive with sparrows. “We’ll let this parcel lie fallow till next year.”
She listened, storing every word as though committing a new language to memory.
The warmth in his voice when he spoke of yields and hedge lines was not the voice of a distant duke but rather was that of a man rooted to this land.
She liked to see it spark in him. She liked to watch it spark, this proof that under the cold title was a man who knew the shape of every hedge and the name of every steward’s child.
“You have walked these fields often,” she observed quietly.
“Every inch of them,” he replied. “A man ought to know what he is responsible for.”
“And you do,” she murmured, almost to herself.
His mouth curved slightly. “For as long as you are here, you shall know them too.”
She glanced up at him, meaning to answer lightly, but found the words faltering.
It was far too easy, this pleasure in his nearness.
Far too easy to imagine herself a part of it when she had already learned what came of loving too closely: loss, ruin, and the cold ash left behind.
Yet even as she told herself to keep the line drawn, a quiet dread stirred beneath her ribs.
She pressed her fingers lightly against his arm, not sure whether it was to steady herself or to let go before she forgot why she should.
“Mrs. Penner’s boy there,” Sebastian said, nodding to a squat cottage by the ash grove. “Hard worker. Stubborn as a mule. He’ll have this land after his father if he keeps his nose clean and his back strong.”
Margaret tucked her hands tighter in her gloves. “And do you trust him to do it?”
He glanced sidelong at her, that fleeting grin that slipped out when he thought she couldn’t see. “Not entirely. But it’s a finer gamble than some lords in Parliament.”
She surprised herself with a small laugh. “Low praise indeed.”
They passed under a flowering hawthorn, its scent drifting soft and green. Margaret slowed her step as she caught sight of something through the pale tangle of boughs—a squat building of stone and lime wash, half-hidden by the hedge. It looked too neat for a barn. Too humble for a steward’s house.
“What is that?” she asked, tipping her chin toward it.
Sebastian followed her gaze, then made a sound in his throat, half fond, half resigned. “The parish schoolhouse. If it still stands. The roof’s a patchwork, but the mistress inside could teach half of London their letters and break up a fight with her slipper.”
Margaret’s pulse lifted oddly. A school. She had not seen a village classroom since she was a girl herself… before the fire that took her parents and before the silence that always followed her into every room.
She stepped closer to the gate. “May we go in?”
Sebastian paused, boots crunching on the path. He tilted his head, studying her as if weighing something. Then he lifted the latch himself, pushing the gate open wide enough for her to pass through first.
“Lead on, Duchess,” he said, voice pitched softer than the wind. “Mind your hem; the gravel’s a villain.”
Inside, the air smelled of chalk dust and peat smoke. A single iron stove rattled in the corner while half a dozen children bent over slates at two long tables, heads bobbing as they copied crooked letters.
Margaret paused just inside the door, her fingers brushing the edge of her shawl. She felt Sebastian’s warmth at her back, though he did not crowd her. For once, his nearness did not make the pressure worse; it held it at bay.
The schoolmistress, a wiry woman in a severe gray gown and a cap so crisp it looked starched with iron, caught sight of them and dipped a quick curtsey.
“Your Grace,” she said first to Sebastian, then her gaze shifted, and her brows rose. “And Your Grace.”
Margaret managed a small, genuine smile. “Good morning. Please, don’t let us disturb you.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all.” The mistress rapped a knuckle on the edge of the table, and the children froze, eyes wide at the sight of the Duke and his new Duchess. One small girl near the front had a nose quite black with slate dust and regarded Margaret as if she’d walked out of a fairytale.
Sebastian stepped closer, folding his arms with an ease that said he knew this room and was known here, too.
“Is Miss Pritchard behaving herself?” he asked dryly.
The mistress snorted an unladylike sound that made one of the boys snicker into his sleeve. “Miss Pritchard is learning to mind her sums,” she said. “A miracle in three parts, I might add.”
Margaret hid a laugh behind her glove. “Might I…?” She gestured delicately to the slates.
“By all means, Your Grace,” the mistress said with a spark of approval. “They’re to write the sums twice if they miss a figure.”
Margaret stepped forward, skirts rustling, and bent to look at the nearest boy’s slate. His letters wobbled like a drunk fence, but the numbers were sound enough. He ducked his head shyly when she praised him, the tips of his ears pink.
Behind her, Sebastian’s voice drifted softer. “You’re good with them.”
Margaret glanced back over her shoulder. “They’re honest. I like honest creatures.”
He tilted his head, one brow lifted just so. “Including black cats…and me?”
She shot him a look that made his grin flash quickly and unguarded.
As she moved down the table, she caught her fingers against the cuff of her glove, and it slipped. She fumbled to pull it back—but small, sticky hands were quicker. The little girl with the slate-smudged nose peered up at her, clutching Margaret’s hand in both her tiny palms.
“Pretty ring,” the child whispered, pointing at Margaret’s wedding band. Her voice was so small it made Margaret’s heart tip oddly.
Sebastian, beside her now, murmured something she didn’t quite catch, only that his voice was warm, and she felt it settle at her collarbone in a way she didn’t mind.
When she rose, her skirts brushed his boot. He didn’t step back.
Margaret dipped her head politely to the mistress. “You do good work here. If there’s anything you require…”
The woman gave a brisk nod, eyes glancing to Sebastian and back again. “A new roof before winter, Your Graces. And a few more candles for the dark days. I’ll make do with the rest.”
Sebastian’s voice came low at her side. “Done.”
Margaret looked up at him, startled. He caught her gaze—steady, certain.
“One roof, one winter saved,” he said, too quiet for the children to hear. “Seems worth it, doesn’t it?”
She found herself smiling, the kind that started deep and warmed her whole face.
When they stepped out into the pale noon light, the little door swung shut behind them with a soft click. For a moment, neither of them moved; they only stood side by side on the narrow lane, the cottage roofs tumbling away to the fields beyond.
Margaret breathed in the fresh air, sharper here than in the gardens at Ravenscourt. She felt the pressure settle on her shoulders again, but this time, it did not weigh so heavily.
Sebastian’s coat brushed her sleeve as he shifted. “You’ve a knack for that,” he said after a moment.
“For what?” She glanced up, the wind tugging loose a wisp of hair at her temple.
He half smiled. “For making a thing feel… lighter. Less grim than it is.”
Margaret laughed softly, surprised at the warmth that spilled out of her. “Hardly. You did most of the talking.”
“True,” he allowed. “But you listened. It’s a talent few possess.”
She dipped her head, the corner of her mouth lifting. “I suspect you’re dreadful company in London clubs, then. No one to listen?”
Sebastian made a low noise in his throat—almost a laugh, almost not. “Plenty of ears but very few that hear.”
Their eyes met. The wind rustled the hem of her gown and carried a loose petal from a hedge rose across the path between them.
Margaret tucked her hands together at her waist. “Thank you for today. It means more to them and to me than you think.”
He tilted his head, the faintest glint in his eye. “I should be worried then. Gratitude from you usually precedes trouble.”
Her mouth curved. “Only if you deserve it.”
“Which, apparently, I do not,” he returned, starting up the path.