Chapter 11
“Imust say, I am rather impressed. The house looks positively respectable.”
Alastair glanced up from the correspondence he had been pretending to read as his sister-in-law swept into the drawing room with all the subtle grace of a small hurricane.
Caroline—his closest friend’s wife and, by unfortunate extension, Penelope’s elder sister—paused in the doorway, her sharp eyes cataloguing every detail of the room with the efficiency of a general surveying a battlefield.
“Thank you, Lady Caroline,” he said dryly, setting aside the letter he had not absorbed a single word of. “Your faith in my ability to maintain basic standards of civilisation is truly heartwarming.”
“Oh, do not take offense.” She crossed to him, pressing a kiss to his cheek with practiced affection before settling into the chair opposite.
“You must admit, given your reputation, I half expected to find the place in shambles. Empty bottles scattered about, perhaps a scandalous painting or two adorning the walls.”
“I keep those in my private chambers.”
Her laugh rang out, bright and genuine. “There is the daring duke I know. I was beginning to worry marriage had completely reformed you.”
Marriage. He shifted at the use of the word.
“I assure you, I remain thoroughly unreformed.” He leaned back, affecting his usual careless posture despite the tension gathering between his shoulder blades. “Though I suspect Penelope would argue I could benefit from significantly more reformation than I am willing to entertain.”
“Where is my sister?” Caroline glanced toward the doorway, as though Penelope might materialise on cue. “I do hope she is not hiding from me. I promise I came with only moderately invasive questions about her new situation.”
“She is upstairs with Rose. The baby was fussy this morning.”
“Rose.” Caroline’s expression softened in that strange way women seemed to adopt when discussing infants. “What a lovely name. May I see her?”
“Of course. Though I should warn you, she has developed rather strong opinions about strangers. And nap schedules. And most things, really, for someone who cannot yet speak.”
Caroline studied him with unsettling focus. “You sound almost fond.”
“Fond is a strong word. I merely observe facts.”
“Hmm.” The laughter was evident in his tone. “And here I thought the notorious Duke of Blackmere had no patience for children.”
He had thought the same thing himself, once. Before midnight vigils in the nursery, before the weight of a tiny body against his chest, before Penelope’s voice soft in the darkness as she sang Rose back to sleep.
Before everything had become so damnably complicated.
“The Duke of Blackmere,” he said lightly, “contains multitudes.”
“Clearly.” Caroline rose, smoothing her skirts. “Well then, shall we go find my sister and this opinionated infant? William is meeting with your steward about those boundary concerns, so I find myself with time to thoroughly interrogate Penelope about married life.”
“How fortunate for her.”
They climbed the stairs together, Caroline maintaining a steady stream of commentary about London gossip—who was courting whom, which scandals had replaced his own in the public consciousness, the general state of society’s collective conscience.
Alastair responded with appropriate noises of interest whilst his mind wandered to far more dangerous territory.
The nursery door stood ajar. Through it, he could hear Penelope’s voice, low and soothing as she spoke to Rose. Something about the quality of that sound—intimate, unguarded—made him pause.
Caroline, naturally, noticed nothing and sailed straight through.
“Penelope! There you are. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
Alastair followed more slowly, watching as his wife turned from the cradle with Rose bundled in her arms. The afternoon light streaming through the windows caught in her hair, turning it warm and golden.
She wore a simple day dress in soft blue, her expression shifting from surprise to genuine pleasure as she registered her sister’s presence.
“Caroline.” Penelope crossed to embrace her sister as best she could whilst managing the baby. “I did not realise you were coming today.”
“William had business with Alastair’s steward, so I insisted on accompanying him. I simply had to see how you were settling in.” Caroline’s gaze dropped to Rose, her entire face transforming. “Oh, she is beautiful. May I?”
Penelope transferred the baby with practiced ease, and Alastair found himself cataloguing the movement—the gentle support of Rose’s head, the careful positioning, the complete comfort with which she managed the exchange. When had she become so competent at this? When had any of them?
“She looks well-cared for,” Caroline observed, bouncing Rose gently. “Happy, even. You have done well, sister.”
“We both have.” Penelope’s gaze flickered to him, brief and uncertain. “His Grace has been... surprisingly helpful.”
“Helpful.” He lifted a brow. “Such effusive praise. I may swoon from the flattery.”
“Do not fish for compliments, husband. It is unbecoming.”
Caroline’s eyes widened at the exchange—the easy banter, the casual use of ‘husband,’ the hint of warmth beneath Penelope’s teasing reproof. Alastair recognised that look. His sister-in-law was drawing conclusions, constructing narratives, preparing to meddle.
Wonderful.
“The household appears very well-managed,” Caroline said now, her attention ostensibly on Rose but her awareness clearly fixed on them both. “Everything so proper and organised. One would almost think you had been married for years rather than mere weeks.”
“Penelope has a talent for creating order from chaos.” He said before thinking further. “I merely try not to undo her efforts too thoroughly.”
Penelope’s cheeks coloured. “You exaggerate my influence.”
“I rarely exaggerate. Embellish, perhaps. But not exaggerate.”
Caroline made that noise again—the knowing hum that meant she was storing information for future use. “You seem to suit one another well. Better than I dared hope, given the... circumstances.”
The circumstances. A polite euphemism for scandal, forced marriage, and a foundling baby that had upended all their lives.
“We manage,” Penelope said quietly, her gaze fixed on Rose rather than either of them.
“You do more than manage.” Caroline’s voice gentled. “You look good, Pen. Both of you. Different than I expected.”
The observation landed with uncomfortable accuracy. Alastair felt the weight of it settle into his chest, pressing against truths he had no intention of examining.
“Marriage agrees with us,” he said smoothly, deploying charm like armour. “Though I suspect that surprises you as much as it surprises... well… everyone.”
“It does rather.” Caroline handed Rose back to Penelope with visible reluctance. “I shall leave you both to your domestic bliss. William will be wondering where I have gone.”
She embraced Penelope again, whispered something Alastair could not hear, then swept toward the door. She paused beside him, her expression turning serious.
“Take care of her,” she said quietly. “She deserves that much.”
“I am aware.”
Caroline studied him for a long moment. “I rather think you are. Which is more than I expected from London’s most notorious rake.”
She left before he could formulate a response, her footsteps echoing down the corridor. Alastair remained frozen, painfully aware of Penelope standing mere feet away with Rose cradled against her shoulder.
“Your sister,” he said eventually, “is alarmingly perceptive.”
“She always has been.” Penelope’s voice sounded different, as though she was trying without success to hide what she felt. “It is rather inconvenient.”
“Quite.”
* * *
By the time Alastair reached his club that evening, he had convinced himself that Caroline’s observations meant nothing. That the comfortable domesticity she had witnessed was merely the natural result of two reasonable people making the best of an impossible situation.
That he felt nothing beyond basic decency toward the woman he had married.
He almost believed it, too. Right up until William and Edward cornered him with matching expressions of unholy amusement.
“There he is,” Edward announced loudly enough to draw attention from half the room. “The Duke of Blackmere himself. Returned from his country estate and his wife.”
Alastair accepted the brandy William pressed into his hand, ignoring the emphasis Edward placed on the last word. “Good evening to you as well.”
“How do you find domestic life?” William settled into the chair beside him, his grin positively wicked. “Caroline returned with the most fascinating observations about your household.”
“Did she now?”
“Very organised, apparently. Respectable even.” Edward leaned forward conspiratorially. “She claims you looked almost... settled.”
“Your wife,” Alastair told William coolly, “has a vivid imagination.”
“Does she?” William swirled his brandy, his expression too knowing by half. “I must say, she seemed quite convinced that you and the Duchess—are getting along remarkably well.”
“We maintain a civil arrangement. Nothing more.”
“Civil.” Edward snorted. “Is that what we are calling it now?”
“What exactly are you implying?”
“Only that marriage seems to suit you.” William’s tone remained light, but his eyes held genuine curiosity. “You look different, Blackmere. More... I do not know. Present, perhaps?”
“Present.” Alastair tasted the word, found it bitter. “What an extraordinary observation.”
“Come now, you must admit the transformation is remarkable.” William gestured expansively. “The notorious rake, settled in the country with a wife and child. Playing house like some respectable gentleman.”
“I am not playing house.” The words came out sharply.
Both men went silent. Alastair felt their attention sharpen, felt the weight of their speculation pressing against the careful facade he maintained.
“No one is suggesting there is anything wrong with it,” William said, raising his hands. “If you have found some measure of contentment—”
“I have not found anything. This is a practical arrangement made necessary by scandal. Nothing has changed.”
“Has it not?” William tilted his head. “Because Caroline said—”
“Caroline said what she wanted to see.” Alastair drained his brandy in one burning swallow. “I am managing an inconvenient situation with as much grace as circumstances allow. That is all.”
“If you say so.” Edward did not sound convinced.
“I do say so.”
The conversation moved to safer topics—racing, politics, the general failures of their peers. But Alastair felt the lie settle into his bones, heavy and undeniable.
Because the truth was worse than whatever Caroline had observed or William had implied.
The truth was that he had watched Penelope with Rose this afternoon and felt something fracture in his neatly constructed defences. Had seen the gentle competence of her movements, the soft affection in her voice, the way the light turned her profile luminous.
Perhaps she was not merely the frustrating woman he had thought her to be. Perhaps it wouldn’t be entirely unbearable to live with her.
He found her in the nursery again that evening. Of course she was. Where else would she be?
Alastair paused in the doorway, unnoticed, watching as she settled Rose into the cradle with practiced tenderness. The baby fussed briefly, and Penelope hummed something low and wordless until Rose quieted, her tiny fist curling around Penelope’s finger.
“Sleep, darling,” Penelope whispered. “You are safe. I promise.”
He watched her silently, as she smiled down at Rose.Penelope straightened, turning toward the door, and froze when she saw him standing there.
“I did not hear you,” she said softly, as though afraid of waking Rose despite the baby’s obvious comfort.
“I did not mean to intrude.”
“You are not intruding. This is your home.”
Is it? he wanted to ask. Because it felt less like his home and more like something they were building together. And it was fragile and terrifying and impossibly real.
“She settled easily tonight,” he observed instead, moving into the room with careful quiet.
“She did. I think she is finally growing accustomed to the routine.” Penelope brushed her fingers across Rose’s forehead, tender and protective. “Or perhaps she is simply learning to trust that we will be here.”
“Penelope—”
“Yes?”
He looked at her then—truly looked at her in the candlelight, this woman who had become his wife through scandal and necessity, who managed their household with quiet competence, who cared for a child not her own with the devotion of a mother.
This woman he was absolutely not supposed to think about.
“Nothing,” he said roughly. “I merely wanted to ensure Rose was well.”
Her expression softened. “She is. Thanks in no small part to you.”
The praise should not affect him. Yet it did, settling warm and unwelcome into the spaces he had spent years keeping empty.
He needed to leave. Needed to retreat before she saw too much, before his face betrayed the riot of emotion he could barely contain.
“Goodnight, Penelope.”
He turned toward the door, desperate for escape, for distance, for anything that might restore the careful equilibrium he had maintained.
“Alastair?”
Her voice stopped him. He glanced back despite every instinct screaming at him to keep walking.
Penelope stood beside the cradle, backlit by candlelight, her expression uncertain and hopeful and far too nerve-wracking for his peace of mind.
“Caroline was right,” she said quietly. “We do understand one another well. Better than I expected.”
The confession hung between them, honest and terrifying.
And Alastair realised with devastating clarity that he had been lying to everyone—William, Edward, Caroline.
Most of all, to himself.
Because somewhere between midnight vigils and whispered arguments, between shared meals and accidental tenderness, he had stopped simply managing an inconvenient arrangement. He had started caring.