Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“You do realize...” Magnus Fitzgerald drawled, easing his horse into a lazy trot beside Rowan’s. “... that the Ton will expire of shock if it learns you have hired a woman to find you a wife.”
Rowan did not look at him. He kept his gaze fixed on the stretch of winter-dulled grass ahead, jaw set in the way his friends had come to recognize as a warning. “I had no choice,” he replied coolly. “Besides, I see no reason for alarm.”
They rode along the upper stretch of the Walford estate where the land dipped gently toward a line of bare-limbed oaks and the morning mist still clung stubbornly to the grass.
Magnus, Duke of Walford, set an unhurried pace, clearly in no hurry to spare Rowan the inevitable interrogation, while Valentine, Duke of Ashbourne, followed them closely.
Rowan himself had insisted upon the outing under the pretext of exercise, yet the truth pressed more insistently than the cold air.
Too much had unsettled him in the past few days.
His household felt altered, his sons unusually animated, his temper unaccountably frayed, and for the first time in a long time, the order of his life no longer felt entirely within his grasp.
He had called for his friends not only for diversion but because he needed witnesses to his confusion, men who knew him well enough to name it, even if he could not.
Valentine laughed, the sound bright. “You see no reason because you are already beyond reason, Rowan. A duke employing a matchmaker—” He shook his head.
“Not a mother, not an aunt, not a battalion of well-meaning dowagers, but a stranger whose profession is arranging other people’s hearts.
I would pay handsomely to hear how you explained that decision to yourself. ”
Rowan’s mouth tightened. “I did not explain it to myself. I made it. There is a difference.”
Magnus leaned forward in his saddle, eyes gleaming. “Ah. Spoken like a man who has lost a battle and insists he merely chose a different field.”
They rode on for a moment, hooves thudding. Rowan had known this was coming. He had known the moment he agreed to meet them that the subject would be dragged into the open, prodded, examined, and mocked with the merciless affection of long acquaintance.
“In truth,” Valentine said more mildly, “we are only surprised it has taken you this long. Three sons, a household in permanent uproar, and not a governess or tutor who lasts longer than a season. One might think desperation had finally won.”
Rowan exhaled through his nose. “Desperation suggests panic. I am not panicked. Like I said, I had no say in this.”
“What even is your goal, Rowan?” Magnus asked with squinted eyes. “You constantly insist that you have no interest in romance, attachment, or domestic harmony. So why agree to this?”
Rowan hesitated, only a fraction, only long enough for both men to notice. “For the family. It is deeply complicated.”
Rowan’s thoughts churned as steadily as the horses beneath him, a turmoil he had not yet allowed to surface.
He could not quite understand how Lucy, and, more astonishingly, his eldest son, had persuaded him to let her into the heart of his household.
The more he considered it, the clearer it became.
She was the first stranger to whom he had granted such unspoken permission, the first woman to occupy that space without title or obligation.
He was not a man given to longing or romance; such indulgences were frivolous distractions from the management of estates, the care of children, and the preservation of propriety.
So, on paper, Lucy’s presence was meant to serve a singular purpose: to find him a suitable duchess, to secure him a wife, nothing more.
Yet, despite the clarity of her role, he could not deny the effect she had already wrought.
She had insinuated herself into the household in ways no outsider had any right to, winning the trust of his sons, navigating their moods, and somehow embedding herself into the rhythm of their lives.
It was unsettling, perplexing, and, though he would not admit it, entirely unlike anything he had anticipated when he agreed to employ her.
For all his planning and pragmatism, he found himself wondering how she had managed to claim so much space in the lives of those he most cared for and what that meant for him.
“You look troubled, Rowan,” Magnus said and sighed. “What is it?”
Rowan exhaled sharply. “What troubles me most is the matchmaker herself,” he admitted. “She is only meant to find me a wife, yet my eldest takes to her as if she were family. Anthony... he likes her. Already. I fear she may prove a poor influence on him.”
Magnus let out a low, amused whistle. “You sound as if she has taken to corrupting him with scandal and vice,” he said, riding closer.
“While I do not know the lady that well, my wife, her cousin, adores her. Dorothy would swear she could charm the birds from the trees and still leave the sparrows morally intact.”
Valentine nodded, a smile tugging at his lips. “Indeed. My own wife, Cecilia, is equally fond. The girl has her eccentricities, heaven knows that, but she is of a kind heart.”
Rowan’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Perhaps,” he conceded slowly before shaking his head. “But they are children. A boy can be impressionable, and she is… unusual. She does not fit any pattern I have encountered. That unsettles me.”
Magnus leaned in. “Ah, truly, this is a rare spectacle. I have never seen you so rattled.”
Rowan shot him a look. “Rattled is not the word,” he said firmly.
“Concerned. I am concerned. That is different. Nothing she does would unseat me entirely. But I cannot deny my unease. I have had more than a few encounters with her alone, and she is… unpredictable. Her words, her manner, entirely charming, yes, but occasionally questionable. I cannot decide if I wish such influence on Anthony.”
Valentine chuckled softly. “You make her sound like a firebrand.”
Rowan’s lips pressed into a line. “She once rolled in the garden with my youngest, mud and all, while laughing as though propriety were a ridiculous invention. She ran through the hallways with Anthony, shrieking with delight.”
Magnus laughed, leaning back in his saddle. “I am surprised you have not chased her away yourself, given your—how shall I put it—most exquisite sense of humor. You know, the one that usually leaves an unsuspecting audience both uncomfortable and perplexed?”
Rowan’s jaw twitched, though he fought a smile. “That sense of humor is highly refined and rarely fails to educate those who require it.”
Valentine snorted. “Educate or terrify?”
Magnus grinned. “Precisely. I cannot imagine what she must think of you, Duke. Perhaps she fears for her life, or perhaps she is plotting to make a match of you just to test your wit.”
Rowan’s eyes flicked toward the misty hedgerows, though his thoughts remained firmly on Lucy. “She is clever,” he admitted. “Too clever, and somehow, she has wormed herself into my household. It is unlike anything I have permitted before. I am not frightened; I am wary. That is all.”
Valentine laughed outright this time. “She seeks only to find a wife for you, Rowan. Just let her fulfill her duties, and she’ll be out of your estate in no time.
From what I hear, she has no intentions to marry, so you need not worry about her influencing your sons.
She won’t be around long enough to do that. ”
Rowan let Valentine’s words drift past him, though they did little to ease the tight knot in his chest. Deep down, he found himself watching his sons in a new light.
Anthony, so careful, so eager to please, now laughed with abandon.
Daniel, who had always clung to order and routine, was suddenly daring, chasing a stick or a butterfly as though he had discovered some hidden delight.
He had not yet allowed himself to consider what it meant that he felt this way. He was not a man given to sentiment nor one inclined to dwell on the subtleties of affection. Yet the sight of his children playing freely with someone outside the family stirred something unfamiliar within him.
He still did not fully trust Lucy. Her manner was too bold, her wit too sharp, her jokes too reckless. She was a stranger, after all, with intentions that were neither his nor the household’s. But he could not deny that she had drawn something out of the boys, something he had not expected.
Rowan tightened his reins, forcing his thoughts back into order. Perhaps she was not the danger he feared. Perhaps she was, in some inscrutable way, good for them. But that did not mean he was ready to admit it. Not aloud, not even to himself. For now, he would observe.
He would remain cautious.
“I know it is supposed to remain in my head…” Anthony muttered, glaring at the open book as though it had personally offended him. “… but it refuses to stay there.”
Lucy had been searching for the Rowan for several minutes, moving through the different wings of the house with growing certainty that he had deliberately chosen to vanish, so he wouldn’t have to deal with her.
She had decided to retreat when she reached the south wing study, but paused at the sound of a sigh coming from behind the desk.
At the small writing desk by the window sat Anthony, his shoulders hunched, a book spread open before him with wrinkled pages.
His quill lay abandoned beside the inkpot, and his fingers pressed against his temples.
Lucy slowed, curiosity overtaking her original purpose, and she took a step closer to ask why he looked so upset.
“You find it hard to understand what you’re reading?” Lucy asked.
Anthony sighed, long and weary for someone his age, and pressed his fingers flat against the page. “I keep thinking if I stare at it long enough, it will surrender.”
Lucy smiled. “Has it shown any signs of weakness?”