Chapter 8 #2
The Duke cleared his throat and flicked his eyes over towards them, making it clear he had noticed them as well. "I suppose it’s only fair that we let them in on the terms of our arrangement, then," he said with a slow, amused smile.
She bobbed her head in agreement. “Naturally, we will need to tell others about our courtship.”
“Let us discuss the details in private later,” he said loudly to a chorus of hushed gasps and whispers. “I shall find you this evening.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Julia dipped into a curtsey as he tipped his hat and headed back inside.
Her eyes followed him as he left, both to solidify the impression of their ‘courtship’ to the assembled gossips, and simply because the image of him stepping out of the creek and flattening his hair with a wet hand still lingered in the back of her mind.
As disagreeable as he could be, she found him to be immensely attractive, and that fact rose unbidden to the forefront of her mind as she watched him walk away from her.
She only hoped all this would end up well.
Poppy’s face suddenly appeared out of nowhere right as the Duke disappeared from her view. “Well, sister, you’ve turned some heads.”
Julia smiled. “Good. That’s the point of all this, after all.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if most of Greater London is aware by nightfall,” Poppy teased with a giggle. “The way he just announced it in front of everyone! It almost makes me wish it was real.”
“Almost, but not quite.” Julia took her sister’s arm. “Come, let’s take a turn about the garden and leave them to their whispering.”
“I did feel so sorry for Lord Blackwell out there.” Poppy’s face creased with concern as they walked away. “I could see he was finding the course difficult. And he told me afterward that he felt ever so badly for letting you down in the tall grass.”
“You’ve spoken to him?” Julia was surprised. “Be careful, Poppy. I don’t want you to be led along.”
“Oh, it’s not like that,” her sister reassured her. “I know he can’t accept me without a dowry; he told me that today as well. Not that it isn’t a shame, but I’m determined not to dwell on it.”
“I’m so happy to hear you say that,” Julia smiled. “I was worried you might become caught up with him and not enjoy the party.”
“Yes, well, last night I was rather upset,” Poppy admitted, “but knowing what you’re putting yourself through with the Duke just for my sake…it really put things in perspective for me.”
Julia raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, Poppy. I’m sure you will find someone you like before the week is out.”
“Well, perhaps,” Poppy shrugged. “Honestly, at this point, I’m just tempted to say if anyone approached me with an offer that could secure us, I would take it. It would mean you could back out of your arrangement with the Duke, and all this nastiness with Father could just be over.”
“I know how you feel,” Julia replied, “but please don’t accept just anybody, Poppy. You’re worth more than that, and it’s not your place to have to make sacrifices for us. I’ve always looked after you, and that won’t change, no matter how old and gray we become.”
“But who’s looking after you, Julia?” Poppy asked.
She stopped, and her face became quite serious.
“I worry about you as well, you know, and I don’t like it when you keep secrets from me.
You might think you’re protecting me, but really, you’re only making things harder on yourself by bearing burdens all alone. It makes me worry.”
Julia felt ashamed. She hadn’t wanted to keep secrets from Poppy, but it had all been in the interest of keeping her nerves down for the party. “Listen, sometimes there are things that-”
“No,” Poppy interrupted. “Promise me that in the future you’ll share everything and we’ll work it out together. I’m not a child anymore, and I want to help look after you, too. All we have is each other.”
Julia swallowed. Her sister was right. Looking at her in her beautiful silk gown, hair elegantly pinned up, and powder applied to her cheeks, she looked every bit a noble and graceful young woman. Perhaps it was time she let her take on a bit more responsibility.
"Alright," she said quietly. "No more secrets. Not the deadline, not Uncle Michael's ultimatum, not the Duke's arrangement. You know all of it now, and I should have trusted you with it from the beginning."
Poppy held her gaze for a moment with an expression that was too steady for someone her age. She carried the look of a woman who had grown up faster than was strictly necessary. Then she reached over and squeezed Julia's hand once, firmly, and let it go.
"I know," she said simply. "And I know why you didn't. But I am not as breakable as you think I am, Julia."
"I know you're not."
"Do you?" Poppy tilted her head. "Because you have been managing me since I was six years old, and at some point, you are going to have to let me stand beside you rather than behind you."
Julia opened her mouth and closed it again.
"Besides," Poppy added, her tone lightening deliberately in the way she always did when she had made her point and decided that was enough, "I'm still not marrying Lord Cauley just for the sake of his estate in Bedfordshire."
Julia laughed despite herself. "I wasn't going to let you."
"Good," said Poppy. "Because I've seen him eat, and it is not a pretty sight."
“Your husband must be someone at least within two decades of your age, please,” Julia teased, resuming their walk. “Someone you like, of course. And with a tolerable mother. At least a few thousand a year would be nice. And a room for your aging spinster of a sister to spend her twilight years.”
“My, you’ve quite the list of demands there. I shall begin the search immediately.”
“And in the meantime…I’ll deal with the Duke.”
The afternoon light was still warm when Leander walked back across the estate grounds with his coat slung over one arm and his boots still damp from the stream.
He was, by any objective measure, in a good mood.
He understood why that was, on the surface. The game had gone exactly as he had planned — or near enough. He had won, Miss Norish had kept her word, and the arrangement was now in motion. Lord Norish would hear about it within days. Everything was proceeding precisely as he had intended.
What he could not account for was his good mood.
It was not the satisfaction of a well-executed plan.
He knew what that felt like — clean and contained, like a key turning smoothly in a lock.
This was something else. Untidier. It had something to do with the way she had walked up to him and said, ‘We have a deal,’ with the composure of a woman who had decided to walk into a lion's den and was not going to let the lion see that her hands were shaking.
He had taken her hand and felt, for one unguarded moment, that he was shaking hands with his equal.
He was still thinking about it.
Stop, he told himself.
"You're smiling."
Anthony fell into step beside him from somewhere to his left, Benjamin trotting alongside him with a wooden toy horse clutched in one fist and an expression of intense personal purpose on his face.
"I'm not," Leander said.
"You were." Anthony glanced at him sideways. "She agreed, then."
"She did."
"And the stream was strictly necessary?"
"The ball was in the stream."
"The ball," Anthony said, "was retrievable by any number of other means that did not involve you removing your coat in front of forty guests and climbing into the water."
"I won, didn't I?"
Anthony made a sound that conveyed both acknowledgment and deep personal suffering. They walked in silence for a moment, and Benjamin veered suddenly off the path toward a low stone wall, apparently having spotted something of interest on the other side of it.
"Ben." Anthony's voice was automatic and firm. "Stay where I can see you."
The boy stopped, turned, and fixed Anthony with the particular expression of a four-year-old who had not yet accepted that the word no applied to him specifically.
Leander crouched down to his level. "What did you find?"
Benjamin pointed over the wall with great solemnity. "A frog."
"A frog." Leander looked over the wall. There was, indeed, a frog sitting on the damp stone beside a small garden basin with the unbothered stillness of something that had nowhere to be. "That is an excellent frog."
"I want it."
"You cannot have it," Anthony said from above them.
"Why?" Benjamin asked Leander directly, having clearly identified the more sympathetic party.
"Because frogs," Leander said, "belong in gardens. If you take it inside, it will be unhappy. And an unhappy frog is no good to anyone."
Benjamin considered this with the gravity it apparently deserved. Then he nodded once, apparently satisfied, and turned back to the path.
Leander straightened.
Anthony was watching him with an expression he recognized and did not particularly welcome. "What?" Leander said.
"Nothing," Anthony said. "Only that you are very good at that."
"At what?"
"At making people feel that their concerns have been taken seriously." He paused. "Miss Norish agreed to your arrangement, didn't she? Despite having every reason not to trust you."
Leander said nothing.
"I'm simply observing," Anthony continued, "that the skills are related."
They resumed walking. The house was visible now through the trees, the warm stone of it catching the last of the afternoon light.
Somewhere inside, Miss Norish was presumably preparing for dinner, and the thought arrived before he could stop it — the image of her, loosening her hair perhaps, or standing at the window of her room with that particular stillness she had when she was thinking through something she hadn't decided yet.
He put it away firmly.
"She would have conditions," he said. "Rules she wants to set."
"Of course she would." Anthony sounded almost fond. "And will you keep them?"