Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“I’m beginning to think you’re having a passionate affair with that tankard,” Adrian remarked, his voice cutting through the ambient clamor of the Fox and Hound. “You’ve been contemplating its depths with such intensity that I half expect it to blush under your attention.”
The tavern’s evening congregation had settled into its customary patterns, with farmers occupying the benches nearest the hearth and village tradesmen gathering around tables where dice occasionally tumbled across scarred wood.
Meanwhile, at the edges, those with pretensions to gentility maintained a careful distance from both.
The air was heavy with pipe smoke and the stench of ale, comforts that had once provided Leo with a welcome sanctuary from ducal obligations.
Tonight, however, the familiar pleasures felt oddly hollow.
“I’m considering the timber contracts for the eastern estate,” Leo replied, the lie forming with practiced ease. “The steward believes we might command a better price if we delay until spring.”
“Timber contracts.” Adrian’s tone dripped with theatrical disbelief. “How marvelously convenient that such riveting matters would occupy your thoughts at this exact moment.”
He leaned forward and planted his elbows firmly on the table’s scarred surface.
“You know, I’ve been observing a curious phenomenon these past weeks. The mighty Duke of Stagmore, a man who once declared he would sooner shackle himself to Newgate’s walls than to matrimony, now sits in a country tavern, discussing lumber with the enthusiasm of a man awaiting execution.”
Leo shot him a warning look, but Adrian, a marquess used to such mischief and immune to such deterrents after decades of friendship, merely grinned.
“Did you read old Claverton’s latest pamphlet on agricultural innovations? Quite revolutionary, his thoughts on crop rotation.” Adrian adopted a tone of exaggerated scholarly interest. “Perhaps we might discuss the optimal depth for turnip planting next? Or the finer points of manure distribution?”
“Your mockery grows tedious,” Leo muttered, though the corner of his mouth betrayed a reluctant twitch of amusement.
“Not half as tedious as your avoidance of any topic remotely connected to your marriage,” Adrian countered. “Parliament is abuzz with speculation, you know. Lord Melbourne himself inquired about your sudden transformation from sworn bachelor to devoted husband.”
“Melbourne should attend to matters of state rather than the personal business of others.”
“Oh, but you’ve provided such delicious fodder for speculation!
The notorious Duke of Stagmore, long thought impervious to anything but claret and mischief, suddenly undone by a proper lady of the ton?
” Adrian’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “It’s positively Byronic.
Several ladies of my acquaintance have taken to sighing dramatically whenever your name arises in conversation. ”
Leo’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. “Society’s romantic fantasies are no concern of mine.”
“Perhaps not, but they’ve proven remarkably beneficial to your new Duchess, have they not?
The narrative of love at first sight has transformed what might have been a devastating scandal into a romantic triumph.
” Adrian paused, studying him with sudden perspicacity.
“Though I note you’ve done precious little to nurture this fiction. ”
“The Duchess and I will make a public appearance in due time. As our arrangement requires,” Leo replied, the words emerging more stiffly than intended.
“Arrangement,” Adrian echoed, rolling the word around his tongue as though sampling a questionable vintage. “How delightfully clinical. And how is this ‘arrangement’ progressing? I gather from your increasingly irascible temper that marital bliss remains elusive.”
Leo’s fingers tightened around his tankard. “The Duchess conducts herself with impeccable propriety.”
“High praise, indeed,” Adrian remarked drily. “One might almost mistake it for a description of a particularly efficient housekeeper rather than a bride of two weeks.”
Leo’s eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to reply, but their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Miss Sarah Miller, the innkeeper’s niece, bearing fresh tankards. She placed them on the table with practiced efficiency, her smile warming considerably as she turned toward Leo.
“Good evening, Your Grace, Lord Tillfield,” she greeted, her curtsy slightly deeper than required. “I trust you find the ale to your satisfaction? We’ve just tapped a new barrel from the Burton brewery. A special order Uncle Thomas arranged with your preferences in mind.”
“Thank you, Miss Miller. It’s excellent,” Leo replied with automatic courtesy, noting the way her fingers lingered near his as she removed the empty tankard.
“We’ve missed your regular visits these past weeks,” she continued, a hint of invitation warming her tone. “The evenings grow colder, and good company becomes all the more precious.”
Two months earlier, such an overture would have been met with calculated interest. The rules of such encounters were well-established, in Leo’s experience. Brief, mutually satisfying arrangements conducted with discretion and terminated without complications.
Tonight, however, the prospect piqued no flicker of interest. Instead, his thoughts strayed unbidden to the woman he had married and left behind in his estate at this very moment.
Damnation.
“His Grace has been occupied with his new Duchess, my dear,” Adrian interjected smoothly, his eyes glinting with poorly concealed amusement. “Marriage, it seems, demands considerable attention. Even from those previously devoted to more diverse pursuits.”
Miss Miller’s expression faltered momentarily before composure reasserted itself. “Of course. We were all surprised by the suddenness of Your Grace’s marriage, though they say it was quite the romantic tale. Love at first sight, wasn’t it?”
“Exactly right,” Leo replied, allowing a smile to curve his lips.
A meaningful glance passed between Miss Miller and a young woman serving a nearby table. Miss Clara Wilkins, if Leo recalled correctly. A farmer’s daughter with whom he had enjoyed a brief dalliance the previous autumn.
The silent exchange did not escape his notice, nor did the subsequent approach of Miss Wilkins to their table, bearing what appeared to be a plate of the tavern’s specialty meat pies.
“Compliments of the house, Your Grace,” Miss Wilkins announced, setting the plate before him with a smile that held familiar warmth. “I recalled how you enjoyed these during your last visit.”
Adrian watched this exchange with undisguised fascination, his eyes darting between the two women and Leo with the keen interest of a naturalist observing an unusual species in its habitat.
“Most thoughtful,” Leo acknowledged, though he made no move to accept the offering.
Miss Wilkins lingered, her hand coming to rest lightly on the back of his chair.
“Some of us were planning a small gathering later this evening. Nothing elaborate, just music and perhaps some dancing in the back garden. Uncle Thomas has hung lanterns in the apple trees.” Her voice lowered slightly.
“You and Lord Tillfield would be most welcome to join us… after the tavern closes to regular patrons, of course.”
The invitation hung in the air, its implications clear. Once, such an offer would have been very tempting—the prospect of uncomplicated pleasure weighed against the minimal risk of discovery.
Tonight, however, Leo found himself strangely unmoved by the proposition.
“I fear we must decline,” he replied smoothly. “My wife expects me at the manor this evening.”
The words were meant as a convenient excuse, yet something in them rang disconcertingly true.
Twin expressions of disappointment flickered across the young women’s faces.
“We understand, Your Grace,” Miss Miller said, and they bid their goodnights before moving away.
As they departed, Adrian leaned forward, his expression transformed by genuine astonishment.
“Well, well,” he murmured, pitching his voice below the tavern’s ambient noise. “The Duke who made it a pastime to vanish with widows for days at a time, leaving the ton whispering, now rejects an invitation that once would have been accepted without hesitation.”
“The circumstances differ,” Leo replied tersely.
“Indeed, they do,” Adrian agreed, his initial surprise giving way to analytical interest. “The question becomes: what precisely has changed? From what you claim, your marriage was arranged as one of convenience, with mutual independence established as a founding principle. Yet here you are, acting with the restraint of a newly reformed libertine.”
Leo stared into the depths of his untouched ale, unwilling to acknowledge the accuracy of his friend’s assessment. He couldn’t examine what had prompted his refusal, either.
The prospect of a dalliance with either young woman—or both, as the exchange had subtly suggested—stirred no interest in him. Instead, his thoughts circled back to Stagmore Manor, to the new duchess who maintained a maddening distance from its master.
“Perhaps,” Adrian ventured, his voice softening slightly, any hint of mockery from earlier vanishing, “you find yourself intrigued by your wife?”
Leo stilled. He had entered marriage as one might approach a business transaction—a necessary inconvenience undertaken for social expediency, and to cleanse his cousin’s failings from his name. He had not anticipated finding himself… curious about the woman who now bore his name.
“The Duchess remains something of an enigma,” he admitted finally, the confession emerging reluctantly. “She has reorganized the household with remarkable efficiency, while maintaining a distance that would satisfy every standard of propriety.”
“How perfectly dreadful,” Adrian remarked. “A duchess who performs her duties with exemplary skill while respecting the boundaries you yourself established. One can see why you find the situation so vexing.”
“She avoids me as though I were a distant relation come to visit rather than her husband,” Leo continued, irritation evident in the precise articulation of each word. “Yet somehow she does it with perfect courtesy.”
“And this troubles you because…?”
Leo fell silent, unwilling to articulate the peculiar sense of exclusion he felt in his own home—the irrational resentment at being held at arm’s length by a woman who had every reason to maintain such distance, given the terms he himself had dictated.
“I see,” Adrian said. “You find yourself in the unprecedented position of being perfectly irrelevant to a woman’s contentment.
A novel experience, I’m sure, for the irresistible Duke of Stagmore, whose arrival in a ballroom once sent ripples of anticipation through the widows and lightskirts across London. ”
Leo scowled. “You oversimplify the matter.”
“Do I? You explicitly told her about mutual independence. Your Duchess has taken you at your word, conducting herself precisely as agreed. Yet, instead of satisfaction with this perfect adherence, you are… discontented.” Adrian raised an eyebrow.
“One might almost suspect you of having… expectations.”
Leo flinched. He felt an inexplicable sense of… loss. As though in gaining a wife who demanded nothing of him, he had somehow been deprived of something essential.
“I must return to the manor,” he announced abruptly, rising from his seat. “There are matters requiring my attention.”
Adrian’s eyebrows rose in eloquent skepticism. “So the search for Philip continues?”
“It is a priority, as you know. Good night, Tillfield,” Leo replied, tossing several coins onto the table.
As he strode toward the door, Adrian called after him, his voice pitched high enough to carry, “Very well. Do let me know if you need any help in locating him. And please, do give my regards to the Duchess, won’t you?
I’m quite eager to get to know a woman capable of accomplishing what the combined efforts of London’s most determined mamas failed to achieve for over a decade. ”
The night air struck Leo’s face with bracing clarity as he mounted his horse.
The comfortable predictability of his old routine—the tavern, the willing company, the temporary gratification—suddenly seemed hollow, like a melody played so often it had lost all meaning.
His thoughts, frustratingly, remained fixed on his wife. Not as a means to an end that he had initially considered her, but as something… else.
Something that made him want to cross his own boundaries.
The manor came into view, its windows glowing amber against the darkened landscape. Leo dismounted in the stable yard, handing the reins to a startled groom who clearly had not expected his master’s return before the small hours.
“Is the Duchess still awake?” he asked while removing his gloves.
“I believe Her Grace retired to the library after dinner, Your Grace,” the groom replied. “Mrs. Fairchild mentioned she was reviewing household accounts.”
Leo nodded, his feet already carrying him toward the manor with unexpected urgency. He entered through the side door near his study, avoiding the main hall, where servants might still be doing their evening chores.
As he approached the library, soft lamplight spilled from beneath the door, confirming what the groom had told him.
Beatrice was still in there, working away, no doubt content with being left alone.
And he didn’t like that. Not one bit.