Chapter Six
The fire in the study had gone out an hour before, and Nathaniel had let it.
The claret at his elbow stood where the footman had put it, untouched, with a fine skin of dust already on the surface of it, and the window had gone from black to the first grey of morning while he sat, and his wedding night had passed in precisely the manner he had arranged.
Alone. At a desk in a cold room, with his wife asleep two floors above behind a door he had promised not to open without invitation.
He had told himself a dozen times through the small hours that he had done the honourable thing. He had told himself so in the steady internal voice he kept for accounts, and the account had balanced every time he ran it, and every time it balanced he had run it again.
Petherick’s copy of the settlement lay beneath Nathaniel’s hand.
He had read the clause securing Selina’s income to her separate use perhaps twenty times.
Each reading returned him to the same moment: a woman seated across from him, accepting rather too quickly and reaching for a milk jug she did not want.
He had not asked why the provision mattered so much to her. At the time, his restraint had seemed a kindness. Now their promise of no lies made him wonder how long a significant silence could remain merely a silence. He turned the document face down, which improved nothing.
Nathaniel did not hear Bassett approach. His butler appeared in the doorway carrying a candle and wearing the dressing gown in which no other servant would have dared present himself, having served the family long enough to claim certain liberties.
“You have not been to bed, Your Grace. Shall I have the fire made up again?”
“Leave it. It is nearly morning. Lighting it now would amount to an admission.”
“Very good, Your Grace. Lady Helena has already enquired whether you are in the study.”
Nathaniel looked at him. “What did you tell her?”
“That Your Grace had not yet rung.”
“Diplomatic.”
“I have found it necessary. She has been awake since five and has twice requested the good coffee.”
“She has also informed Cook that breakfast is to be served an hour early because, and I quote her precisely, ‘A marriage entered into hastily should at least be breakfasted upon promptly.’”
Nathaniel covered his eyes with one hand. “She left yesterday.”
“She returned before midnight, took possession of the blue suite and announced her intention to remain for a se’nnight. To observe. Her word, Your Grace.”
Thus the day would begin with observation, which was the last thing Nathaniel’s sleepless night had left him fit to endure.
He went upstairs to change. In the grey morning light, he passed Selina’s door on the way to his own and neither slowed nor looked towards it.
Behind that door, his wife slept, or did not.
Their arrangement rested upon his never presuming to enter without invitation.
He had given that promise freely; now he carried it past her door without testing its weight.
He changed his clothes and returned downstairs to be observed.
***
Lady Helena was already seated at the breakfast table, upright as a fire iron, with the good coffee at her right hand. Georgiana sat beside her, subdued but hopeful, casting frequent glances towards the door.
The door opened, and Selina entered wearing a morning gown which was not grey. It was the first colour Nathaniel had seen upon her: a soft, unadorned blue which Georgiana had almost certainly pressed upon her. She faltered by half a step at the sight of the assembled table, then continued.
“Good morning, Lady Helena. Georgiana. Your Grace.”
“Duchess,” Lady Helena returned. “I trust we have not deprived you of sleep.”
“Only of a private breakfast. I had not expected company.”
“Nor had I expected a wedding.”
Selina accepted the correction with a slight inclination of her head and took the empty chair beside Georgiana.
Nathaniel reached for the coffee before the footman could do so and filled Selina’s cup. The gesture was instinctive. He became aware of it only when his aunt’s gaze moved from the pot to his hand.
Once the dishes had been arranged, Lady Helena dismissed the servants. The door had scarcely closed before she turned to Nathaniel.
“Why did you marry, nephew?”
He had expected the question, though not quite so early. “Because I judged the marriage right for us both.”
“That is a conclusion, not a reason.”
“Then you must be content with the conclusion.”
Lady Helena regarded him over the rim of her cup. “Was it duty?”
“Duty formed part of it.”
“On both sides,” Selina said. “We understood the nature of the arrangement before entering it, Lady Helena. Neither of us was deceived, and neither was compelled.”
Lady Helena transferred her attention to Selina. “You answer readily for a bride of one day.”
“I have discovered that hesitation is often mistaken for uncertainty.”
“And are you not uncertain?”
Selina glanced once towards Nathaniel. “I am, about many things. Not about having given my word.”
The answer produced a brief silence. Nathaniel raised his coffee, partly to conceal the movement at the corner of his mouth. His aunt observed it but declined to comment.
“You possess some composure, Duchess,” she said.
“It has been useful to me.”
“Hmm.”
Lady Helena buttered her toast with exacting care.
Georgiana, who had been holding her breath for several minutes, set down her fork. “If my opinion is of any consequence, Aunt, I am glad Nathaniel married her.”
Lady Helena turned to her. “That is an expression of affection, not evidence of good judgement.”
“Perhaps not. But you asked what we thought of the marriage, and that is what I think.”
Lady Helena regarded her for a moment. “Very well.”
Georgiana picked up her fork again, still subdued but no longer shrinking beneath the older woman’s attention.
“You do not defend the match, Wexford,” Lady Helena said.
“I did not realise that my wife required a defence.”
“Every unexpected marriage requires some explanation. A younger man would offer me love at first sight or another convenient fiction.”
“And you would despise him for expecting you to believe it.”
“Certainly. But I should know what manner of fool I was dealing with.”
Nathaniel set down his cup. “It was a considered decision, freely made by us both. That is all the explanation I intend to provide.”
Lady Helena looked from him to Selina. “And you are content with that, Duchess?”
“I am content that my husband does not embellish the truth merely to make it more palatable.”
“Hmm.” Lady Helena placed her knife beside her plate. “I shall remain for a se’nnight. The family will have questions, and I prefer not to answer from ignorance. I will observe, form my own judgement and give it to you plainly.”
“I had supposed you might,” Nathaniel said.
“Neither of you need perform domestic happiness for my benefit. I have no patience for tableaux.”
“We shall endeavour to disappoint you honestly,” Selina said.
Lady Helena’s expression remained unchanged, but she gave the slightest inclination of her head before reaching for the coffee.
***
After breakfast, Nathaniel found Selina in the small parlour and carried out a decision he had reached during the sleepless hours in his study.
“The household is yours,” he said. “The accounts, the appointment and dismissal of servants, and every decision ordinarily belonging to its mistress. Bassett and the senior servants have managed between them in the absence of one, and Bassett will be relieved to surrender the responsibility. He has informed me twice this year that a house requires a woman at its head and that a duke is a poor substitute.” He paused, then made himself finish plainly.
“You need not preserve an arrangement merely because it was mine, nor seek my approval before changing it. If you find something wanting, alter it.”
Selina regarded him across the parlour. An expression he had not seen before crossed her face: surprise, plain and entirely unarranged. One hand rested upon the back of a chair. She removed it, then appeared uncertain what to do with it.
“You are giving me the management of your house.”
“Our house,” he corrected. “And yes. You have already demonstrated a distressing aptitude for discovering what everyone else has neglected. I should like to see what you make of the linen accounts. They have outlasted three housekeepers and baffled one duke.”
Selina laughed.
It was nothing like the brief, unwilling sound which had escaped her at the hiring assembly and been immediately suppressed.
This laugh was full and unguarded, surprised out of her by the linen accounts of all things.
It transformed her face and passed through Nathaniel with a force entirely disproportionate to a jest about household linen.
“The linen accounts,” she repeated when she had recovered. “You surrender the fortress and name the linen as the prize. You have no notion how to tempt a woman.”
“None whatsoever.”
“I accept, naturally. I would have accepted the authority alone, but I am glad that you included the linen. It is the first genuinely foolish thing I have known you to do, and I find it reassuring.”
He possessed no answer which did not risk saying more than the terms of their marriage permitted. A footman spared him the attempt by appearing with a question concerning the dinner arrangements, and Selina turned to address the matter in her new capacity.
Nathaniel took the rear passage towards his study. It passed behind the stillroom and the servants’ workrooms. As he approached the half-open kitchen door, he heard a low voice, pleased with itself.
“…married her. The murderer’s daughter, in this very house.
I had it from the Ottleys’ second footman.
He was standing there when the gentleman said the name aloud.
Calvert, it was… the man who was hanged.
Now she is a duchess, and we are expected to curtsey and call her Your Grace as though her father never swung for it. ”
Nathaniel stopped in the passage.