Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Andrew was at his writing table when the letter arrived.
It was brought in upon a silver tray by a footman who knew better than to speak unnecessarily when his master was at work. Yet something in the servant’s expression, perhaps a faint curiosity too well-bred to become impertinence, made Andrew look up before the tray had even been properly set down.
“A messenger from Keswick Manor, Your Grace.”
Andrew’s hand stilled over the estate papers spread before him.
He dismissed the footman with a nod and reached for the folded letter at once.
The seal belonged to Lord Keswick. For the briefest moment, he only looked at it, feeling an odd tightening in his chest, as though the wax itself contained more consequence than a dozen legal documents.
Then he broke it open. The hand was formal, exact, and entirely without flourish.
Your Grace,
After due consideration, my daughter has agreed to the proposal you laid before her this morning.
In the present circumstances, I believe it in the best interest of all parties that the marriage take place without delay and with as little public notice as propriety will allow. Lady Keswick joins me in the hope that the matter may thus be settled with dignity and dispatch.
You may call upon us at your convenience, should you wish to arrange particulars.
Lord Keswick
Andrew read it twice, then a third time, though not because the words were unclear. They were perfectly clear. It was the reality of them that resisted comprehension.
My daughter has agreed.
Only this morning, he had been a man managing a lie and the growing danger around it. By this afternoon, he was apparently to become a bridegroom.
He set the letter down very carefully upon the writing table.
For several moments, he did nothing at all.
The study was quiet, save for the faint ticking of the clock upon the mantel and the distant murmur of servants somewhere beyond the door.
Sunlight fell across the polished wood, across the open account books, across the letter that had just altered the course of his life with no more ceremony than a change in dinner plans.
Frances Norton had agreed.
He found that astonishing. The truth was, he never doubted her courage.
She possessed courage in excess, though often of the most inconvenient sort.
What astonished him was that she had submitted at all.
He had expected further resistance, sharper arguments, perhaps even outright war.
She had looked at him in the garden as though she would sooner set herself on fire than accept his logic.
And yet she had.
His mouth tightened. He could not flatter himself that the decision had anything to do with personal inclination. Frances Norton was not a woman likely to marry where she was not compelled either by affection or by necessity, and there had been very little sign of affection between them.
Necessity, then.
He leaned back in his chair and let out a long, measured breath.
If he had been a lesser man, he might have taken refuge in resentment.
He might have called the matter unfair, cursed the chain of gossip and misjudgment that had dragged them both into it, and told himself he was the injured party.
But resentment had never yet solved anything worth the solving.
The truth was plain enough. Whatever the original falsehood printed about him, the rest had become a tangle in which Miss Norton was now caught because she had chosen, rashly, generously and perhaps foolishly, to defend him.
Her name had been linked to his. Her family had been endangered by association with his scandal.
And whether he liked the shape of the remedy or not, it was his place to offer one. It was his place to see it through.
He looked again at Lord Keswick’s letter.
Duty had seldom arrived in his life wearing any softer face than this one.
It did not matter that the marriage would be hurried, unromantic, born not of courtship but of damage control.
It did not matter that the bride had likely accepted him with reluctance, perhaps with dread.
The thing was now in his hands. Therefore, he would carry it properly.
He rang the bell.
Carter appeared within moments, as steady and imperturbable as ever. “You rang, Your Grace?”
Andrew handed him the letter. The butler read only enough to understand its substance, then looked up. If he felt surprise, he concealed it well.
“It is settled, then, Your Grace?”
“It is.”
Carter inclined his head. “Very good, Your Grace.”
“The wedding will be held as soon as possible,” Andrew informed him. “Quietly. Small and simple. I want no spectacle made of it.”
“Of course.”
“Only immediate family, a handful of witnesses, and the necessary clergyman. No crowd, no delay, and no opportunity for society to turn it into entertainment.”
“I understand.”
Andrew rose from his chair and moved toward the hearth, with one hand resting briefly on the mantel as he considered the practicalities. “See that the house is prepared. The blue drawing room at the London house will do for breakfast afterward, if something modest is arranged. Nothing elaborate.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And instruct the housekeeper that rooms are to be made ready.”
Carter waited a fraction of a moment before asking. “For Her Grace?”
The title landed strangely.
Andrew’s expression did not alter, though he felt the shift of it somewhere inwardly, like the turning of a lock. “Yes.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
He gave further orders after that regarding notices, carriages, calls to be avoided, tailors to be summoned, licenses to be procured and through it all, Carter moved with efficient calm, receiving each instruction as though rushed marriages to strong-minded ladies in the midst of scandal were an ordinary inconvenience of aristocratic life.
At last, the butler withdrew and the study fell silent again.
Andrew stood quite still for a moment, then reached for Lord Keswick’s letter and folded it once more. He did not put it away. Instead, he left it on the writing table in plain view, as if some part of him still required the evidence of it.
My daughter has agreed.
The words remained improbable.
He left the study and went upstairs. The nursery was warm and dim, with the curtains half drawn against the afternoon light.
The faint scent of milk and lavender hung in the air.
Everything in the room was small: the cradle near the fire, the folded blankets, the tiny garments laid ready by patient hands.
Such things still possessed the power to arrest him, to call up memories he had long ago taught himself to master.
Yet he entered without hesitation. The nurse, seeing him, rose at once and curtsied.
“Your Grace.”
“Leave us a moment.”
She obeyed, placing the child carefully in his arms before she went.
Andrew looked down. The baby was awake, though drowsy. Her small face appeared soft with that solemn, unknowing expression infants wore when they had not yet learned the world could be cruel. One of her fists pressed against his coat.
She was so little. Always, each time he held her, he was struck anew by the weight and lightness of her together, how something could be so slight and yet seem to alter the whole balance of a man’s life.
He adjusted her more securely against him and sat in the chair by the hearth. For a while, he said nothing. He only watched the rise and fall of her breathing, the tiny movements of her mouth and the way her fingers opened and closed as though grasping at dreams.
“All this chaos,” he murmured at last, “and you know nothing of it.”
Her eyes blinked open, looking dark and unfocused. He kept his gaze focused on her.
“It is not your fault,” he assured her. “None of it.”
The words came quietly, but with more feeling than he would have shown another living soul. He brushed one thumb lightly over the blanket at her shoulder.
“No harm will come to you while I am here,” he whispered. “Do you hear me?”
The child shifted, giving a soft, sleepy sound. Andrew’s gaze did not leave her face.
“I gave my word,” he echoed. “And I will not break it.”
Outside the nursery, the house went on as houses always did, with doors opening and closing, with footsteps in distant passages and life arranging itself around new realities whether invited or not.
But within the warm stillness of that room, with the child against his chest and the future pressing nearer by the hour, Andrew felt not confusion, nor even reluctance, but resolve.
Whatever came of the marriage, whatever tension or awkwardness or resistance awaited him in Frances Norton, this much would remain fixed.
The child would be safe. She would be guarded, provided for, and kept from the reach of those who had already failed her.
If he had to build a new life out of scandal, secrecy, and necessity to ensure it, so be it.
He looked down once more at the baby in his arms.
“You will always be safe with me,” he promised softly.
And this, unlike so much else around him, he knew to be true.