Chapter 17
It had been three quiet days since the Ravenscourts’ carriage had rolled down the drive, three days without Sebastian’s relentless prodding or Margaret’s gentle observations that somehow struck closer to the truth than any man would like.
Edward was certain he didn’t miss Sebastian’s needling in the slightest. But he was sure Beatrice missed Margaret’s company, because she had taken to writing letters—several, in fact—each one sealed neatly and sent off to Ravenscourt House before noon.
The morning room was quiet, save for the soft ticking of the clock on the mantel and the clinking of china as a footman poured fresh tea.
Beatrice sat opposite Edward, a plate of toast before her, more arranged than eaten. She glanced over the household notices one last time, exhaled, and lifted her chin with quiet resolve.
She cleared her throat lightly. “We must be seen.”
Edward looked up from his newspaper. “Good morning to you, too.”
“I am very serious,” she pressed, ignoring his amusement. “We cannot remain tucked away like hermits. There is a charity ball at Lady Winthrop’s in two days.”
Edward lowered his newspaper an inch. “Mm.”
“That is not an answer,” she huffed.
“It was meant to be noncommittal,” he replied. “It works well during breakfast.”
Beatrice’s eyebrows rose. “Then let me be plain. We will attend.”
Edward folded the newspaper with deliberate care. “If attending a ball will put a stopper in the ton’s imagination, then yes, very well.” He paused, as though bracing himself. “I’ll send for a modiste at once.”
Beatrice blinked. “A modiste? Whatever for?”
“For a gown,” he replied, as though the matter were obvious. “If you must be paraded before the ton, you ought to be properly—”
“I own gowns, Edward,” she interrupted, lifting her teacup with enviable poise. “Several of them, in fact. Perfectly respectable ones. I do not require a new wardrobe simply to step into a ballroom.”
He studied her for a beat, then leaned back in his chair, conceding. “Very well. No modiste.”
“Good.” She set her cup down. Then, with a thoughtful tilt of her head, she added, “You, on the other hand…”
His eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon?”
“You should call for your tailor,” she said sweetly. “Your coats are quite…” She paused delicately, searching for the charitable word. “Spirited.”
Edward stared at her. “Spirited.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Decidedly so. A duke should not look as though he is about to leap onto a horse and gallop off with an opera singer. Your clothes seem far too rakish for a duke.”
The footman at the door coughed into his glove, either mortified or entertained.
“My clothes,” Edward echoed, incredulous, “are the height of gentlemanly respectability. They are perfectly suitable.”
“For a man avoiding creditors? Perhaps.” Beatrice reached for the marmalade. “For a duke at a charity ball? Not really.”
His jaw dropped, then snapped shut again. “You are impossible.”
“And you,” she said, spreading marmalade with delicate triumph, “need a tailor.”
He let out a long-suffering sigh and reached for his cup. “Very well, I’ll send for him.”
“Excellent.” Beatrice gave a small, decisive nod. “I shall inspect everything before you wear it.”
He choked on his tea. “Inspect? Beatrice, I am not a schoolboy being turned out for a recitation.”
“You may be a duke,” she replied, buttering another piece of toast, “but that does not mean you can be trusted with lapels.”
He took a very slow sip of his tea. “Women are simply tyrants in silk,” he muttered under his breath.
The tiniest smile tugged at Beatrice’s mouth. “Did you say something, Duke?”
“Nothing at all,” he replied quickly, schooling his features with great effort.
“Mm.” Beatrice took a bite of her toast, entirely satisfied.
Edward folded his newspaper a bit too abruptly. “You know,” he said after a moment’s silence, “most wives defer to their husbands’ confidence in their own tailoring.”
“Do they?” Beatrice took another thoughtful bite of toast. “So that is the source of all the tragedy immortalized in every family portrait in England.”
Edward’s brow creased. “Tragedy?”
“Yes. Half the gentlemen look as though their coats are plotting escape.”
A reluctant huff of laughter escaped him before he could stop it. He masked it behind his teacup, but she had already caught it.
Her lips curled into a smug smile. He tried to look offended but failed.
Edward set his cup down with exaggerated dignity. “If my tailor arrives in tears, I shall hold you personally responsible.”
“Nonsense. He will probably thank me. I’m improving his reputation.”
“He already has an excellent reputation.”
“For competence, certainly,” she allowed. “But not for reining in your… impulses.”
“Impulses?” he repeated, incredulous.
“Your fondness for dramatic waistcoats, for instance.”
“They are not dramatic.”
“One of them is embroidered with gryphons.”
“They are subtle.”
“They glow in candlelight.”
Edward pointed his fork at her. “I wear what I like.”
“And I,” she countered, lifting her teacup, “intend to keep you from frightening Lady Winthrop’s guests into thinking a mythological creature wandered into the ballroom.”
The footman by the door smothered another cough.
Edward leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes with theatrical forbearance. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you enjoy provoking me.”
“Of course I do,” she said lightly. “It’s the only amusement I have before breakfast.”
Beatrice reached for the silver jam spoon again, entirely absorbed in her toast, and Edward—fool that he was—found himself watching the curve of her mouth.
He had the good sense to keep his gaze down, as if considering the merits of toast versus jam, but his eyes kept drifting back to her anyway.
The small movements undid him more than they should have—the way her lips pressed together in thought, the faint crease between her eyebrows when she tasted something she liked. Ordinary gestures. Harmless ones.
And yet none of it felt harmless.
Beatrice lifted her toast, the faintest smear of jam shining at the corner of her mouth. Before he could look away—before he even thought to try—her tongue slipped out, quick and pink, catching the bit of jam with unthinking grace.
Edward stilled.
She looked up and caught him staring at her. A touch of color rose to her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze to her plate as though the pattern on the china suddenly required study.
He should have looked away too, but he didn’t.
The idea of kissing her took root before he could shove it away.
What would it feel like to lean across the table and kiss her?
He wanted to feel the softness of her mouth, the sound she would make, the way she might look at him afterward.
It startled him, how sharply the want hit. How unsteady it made him.
He had always told himself he respected her.
That was easy enough to admit; anyone with sense would.
And yes, he admired her—the way she spoke her mind even when every rule told her not to, the way she refused to be impressed, the way she tried so hard to pretend she wasn’t tired, or lonely, or steeling herself against the world.
But somewhere along the way, respect had turned into something he couldn’t quite say out loud. Something that made his chest tighten when she smiled without thinking, or when she stood her ground, her chin lifted just so.
He liked her. More than he meant to. More than he should.
Then clarity struck, cold and abrupt.
This was Beatrice. The woman who had once dissected him in newsprint with surgical precision, whose quill had flayed half the House of Lords and him along with them.
Miss Verity, sitting at his breakfast table, eating toast as though she had never brought the country to fits over her opinions.
The realization jarred him. Hard.
Edward blinked, straightened, and wrapped a hand around his cup as though anchoring himself with the china.
He focused on the steam rising from the tea, on anything that wasn’t the shape of her mouth or the very real possibility that he was beginning to lose his composure over a woman who had once called him unimaginative and worse in published essays.
He took a long, deliberate sip. But it did nothing to steady his racing heart.
The next afternoon found Edward in a mood that could only be described by those who valued understatement as sour.
It had begun the moment he stepped out of his study and found yet another note from Beatrice on the silver tray in the hall. Her handwriting was neat, decisive, and impossible to argue with.
The tailor will arrive at two.
Please make yourself available.
B.
He had stared at it for a full minute before muttering something unprintable. It felt suspiciously like being managed. By his own wife.
The worst part was that she did it rather well.
The morning did nothing to lift his spirits.
The steward arrived with a ledger large enough to stun an ox, the solicitor sent a packet of documents that required his signature on every page, and one of the footmen managed to drop an entire tray of polishing cloths at his feet in a tangle of mortified apologies.
By noon, Edward had begun to suspect the universe was conspiring to remind him that his life had become far too orderly for his liking.
Three hours after, he was ready to face anything other than an afternoon of fabric and needles. Anything except that.
But fate and Beatrice’s determination were aligned against him.
Edward had endured societal battlefields, the House of Lords, and—God help him—Sebastian in a sentimental mood. But nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared him for an afternoon with a tailor and a duchess who refused to yield.
He had even survived a decade of wearing coats that suited him perfectly well—even admirably, depending on which hostess one asked—and the idea that marriage somehow required a sudden transformation into a walking mannequin struck him as profoundly unreasonable.
Unfortunately, Beatrice did not share this view.