Chapter 3
“Has Lord Talbot arrived?” Eric did not look up from the letter lying open before him.
“Not yet, Your Grace,” Abigail replied. “The porter has been instructed to admit him immediately upon arrival.”
“And Lady Adelaide?”
“The same, Your Grace.”
“Good, thank you,” he said and noticed that Abigail lingered for the briefest moment, perhaps expecting another instruction. Receiving none, she bowed and withdrew, the study door clicking shut behind her with quiet finality, and silence reclaimed the room.
Eric leaned back in his chair and stared instead at the rain tracing thin paths down the tall London windows. The weather had followed him from the country two days earlier.
He had always disliked London. The city asked too much of a man. There were always a flurry of invitations and with them came meaningless introductions and watchful eyes that expected conversation simply because one happened to occupy the same drawing room.
His fingers drifted unconsciously toward the pocket watch resting beside the correspondence tray.
Ten minutes.
Meeting Lady Adelaide Talbot ought to have differed little from interviewing a solicitor or receiving a neighboring landowner. But his mind refused to cooperate. She was not just anyone that would be seated opposite him but his wife.
“Wife?” he said aloud and rose before the thought could root itself, crossed to the fire, then almost immediately abandoned it in favor of the window.
Outside, a groom struggled to calm an impatient pair of carriage horses while a lady beneath an enormous green parasol scolded someone entirely hidden from view.
Eric caught himself watching the horses instead until a sharp burst of laughter echoed faintly somewhere down the corridor. He turned away from the window just as footsteps approached outside the study.
“At last…” he sighed and straightened almost instinctively.
The handle turned, and the door swung inward with startling confidence.
A young woman entered as though she had every right to do so, one gloved hand still resting on the brass handle while she surveyed the room with open curiosity instead of apology.
A pale blue pelisse clung damply to her skirts from the rain, and a cream bonnet framed features that would have drawn every gentleman’s eye in a ballroom, though there was remarkably little self-consciousness about the way she carried them.
Her gaze swept from his boots to his shoulders before returning to his face with what appeared to be mild disappointment.
“Hm…” she mused as she looked directly at him.
Eric blinked. “Yes?”
“I expected—never mind,” she said, assessing him.
He stared. “You are alone?“
One fair eyebrow lifted. “That is an unusual thing to ask a complete stranger.”
“It is an unusual thing for a complete stranger to walk into my study… alone.”
“Is it your study because you are currently occupying it?” She glanced about the room again, taking in the shelves, the globe near the fireplace, the maps spread across the desk. “I was informed the duke received visitors here.”
“He does.”
“Excellent,” she nodded once as though something had been confirmed. “Then I have not wandered entirely astray.”
Eric folded his arms. “You have neglected one rather important formality.”
“And what might that be?”
“Asking permission before entering.”
She considered him with infuriating seriousness. “Are you saying that I should have knocked?”
Eric shrugged easily. “You should have.”
“The footman pointed at the door and hurried away before I could.” A beat passed. “I suspect he assumed I knew how doors ordinarily function.”
Against all reason, the corner of Eric’s mouth threatened movement, and suppressed it immediately. “One generally announces oneself before opening them.”
“So I have been told.” She said as she removed one glove finger by finger while continuing to inspect the room. “Though I confess,” she said, “this room is not what I imagined.”
“What did you imagine?”
She gestured vaguely toward the shelves. “More marble.”
“There is marble.”
“Tell me, sir, does the duke like horses?”
Eric followed her gaze toward a bronze sculpture of a stallion that occupied the mantle. His eyes flashed toward one of the several framed sketches of thoroughbreds lined one wall, and then to his riding crop rested across a chair.
He had never noticed quite how obvious the collection appeared.
Before he was able to answer, she continued in her assessment. “I was also expecting the duke to possess less personality.”
Eric frowned. “You have not yet met him?”
“No.”
“So how have you reached that conclusion?”
She tilted her head. “Because you work for him.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, you must.” She spoke with complete confidence. “No gentleman receives callers himself. You’re probably his secretary.”
“Secretary?”
“Or perhaps his steward? No—” She studied his coat. “Far too well dressed.”
Eric felt an absurd urge to defend himself against an accusation that made no sense whatsoever. “I assure you, madam—”
“Oh, I am not criticizing. Merely observing.”
He found himself taking two steps toward her before realizing he’d moved, but she remained exactly where she was… chin raised righteously and far too close now to ignore.
One loose curl had escaped near her temple, refusing entirely to obey whatever careful arrangement had existed before the weather intervened.
She ought to have stepped back, but she did not. Instead she looked up at him with calm curiosity, entirely untroubled by the shortened distance. “I have offended you.”
“You have presumed a great deal, and yet you don’t appear especially apologetic.”
“I generally prefer certainty.”
His laugh escaped before he could prevent it, and then he shook his head. Who was this woman?
She possessed none of the polished caution expected of fashionable society. There was confidence without arrogance, frankness without deliberate insolence. Every reply arrived half a heartbeat sooner than propriety recommended, as though she trusted her own mind more than convention.
He ought to have found it exhausting, but instead he found himself wondering what she would say next.
It had been years since he’d held an ordinary conversation with any lady outside formal dinners. Novelty explained much that might otherwise appear distracting.
His gaze slipped, quite against his wishes, to the fine line of her jaw before he forced himself to look away.
Before either of them could speak again, hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Abigail appeared in the doorway looking considerably more alarmed than dignity usually permitted.
“Your Grace… my deepest apologies…”
His eyes darted between the housekeeper and the mysterious young woman.
Abigail turned. “Oh, there you are, my lady.”
The words landed with all the subtlety of a pistol shot.
And Eric now watched as the woman’s features shifted, and for perhaps the first time since entering the room, uncertainty crossed her face. “You—”
She looked from Abigail to him again.
“You are the duke?”
For one suspended heartbeat, no one moved.
Eric watched with growing amusement as the unmistakable sign of embarrassment colored her cheeks before she gathered herself with remarkable speed, lifting her chin as though dignity could simply be reclaimed through determination.
“I see,” she said at last, and the corners of his mouth curled up, betraying him easily.
She narrowed her eyes. “You are laughing at me.”
“I am making a respectable attempt not to.”
“You are failing to do so.”
The laugh escaped him then, quiet but genuine, surprising himself nearly as much as everyone else in the room.
“I owe Your Grace an apology… I mistook you for your own secretary.”
“Indeed, Lady Adelaide.”
She drew a slow breath before inclining her head with admirable composure. “In my defense, you questioned me before introducing yourself.”
“In mine, you entered my study without knocking.”
Abigail, sensing the danger had dissolved into something considerably less alarming, stepped aside as Lord Talbot entered. “My dear,” the earl said, one glance at his daughter’s face telling him enough to pause. “Have I interrupted something?”
“No,” Adelaide answered immediately.
Lord Talbot’s eyes moved between them before settling on Eric. There was apology in his expression but also the faintest trace of amusement.
“I fear my daughter has inherited a habit of arriving before introductions.”
“I had noticed.”
Her father sighed toward the ceiling with the resignation of a man who had heard precisely that answer for most of her life.
Eric found himself smiling again and gestured toward the sitting area near the fire. “Please, Lord Talbot.”
They settled there instead of around his desk, the formality of ledgers giving way to tea that had fortunately arrived before their guests.
Adelaide accepted a cup from the footman with quiet thanks before reaching automatically for the milk.
She waited until her father had added sugar to his own before preparing hers, a small courtesy so unconscious it escaped everyone except Eric.
The conversation began politely enough, touching on the journey from Hampshire and the disagreeable London weather before Lord Talbot asked after Wolverton’s tenants.
Eric answered, only for Adelaide to tilt her head thoughtfully. “Did the spring flooding reach the lower western meadows?”
He looked at her. “It did.”
“I wonder… whether you’d altered the drainage.”
“We’ve begun.”
She nodded once. “We should have.”
Something in her answer caught his attention. “You’ve dealt with similar flooding?”
“Yes, twice.”
Her father smiled into his tea. “My daughter helped. Though the tenants would tell you she reorganized half the estate.”
“I just made suggestions.”
Eric found himself leaning forward despite every intention of remaining detached. “What alteration did you make, Lady Adelaide?”
“The brook had been forced into too-narrow a channel decades ago.” She set her cup aside and reached for the folded county map resting on a nearby table without waiting for permission. “If you’ll forgive me—”
She spread it across her knees. “The water wants this course.”
His eyes followed her fingertip tracing a gentle curve as she continued. “Instead, someone insisted upon this one.”
She drew a straighter line. “So every heavy rain simply overwhelms the bank.”
Eric studied the map. “We widened ours last autumn,” he admitted.
“Then next spring should be kinder.” There was no triumph in her voice, only practical certainty. Her familiarity with estate management rather than accomplishments surprised him.
Across the conversation, he became aware of Lord Talbot watching him. His expression tugged unexpectedly at a memory.
His father had once worn that same quiet look whenever Eric solved a difficult breeding problem or negotiated successfully with a stubborn tenant. There had never been pride alone in it but trust. Confidence freely given before it had been fully earned.
The resemblance to his father unsettled him more than he cared to admit. The earl’s next cough interrupted the discussion and lingered, and his daughter stopped speaking immediately.
She reached for the water before her father asked, one hand resting lightly against the back of his chair until the fit subsided. Neither of them appeared conscious of the gesture. It belonged to long habit.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” the earl said once his breathing steadied.
“There is nothing to pardon,” Eric replied.
The older gentleman managed a weary smile. “I am afraid there is one matter that cannot wait.”
Adelaide looked at him sharply. “Papa.”
He shook his head gently. “My dear, please.”
Eric’s eyes flashed between them quickly.
Lady Adelaide’s face had twisted into concern and then anger and then settled.
Turning back to Eric, her father folded his hands over the head of his cane.
“My physicians are optimistic by profession. I find myself rather less so.” The room grew still.
“I should like the wedding to take place within the month.”
His daughter’s eyes dropped to her teacup, and Eric held the earl’s gaze. “If that is your wish,” he said quietly, “then it shall be so.”
Relief softened the older man’s face, and then his daughter excused herself a few minutes later. Lord Talbot remained seated, listening until the study door closed behind her.
“I owe you more thanks than I can properly express.”
“No thanks are necessary.”
“They are.” The earl regarded him for a long moment before speaking again. “Your father once told me that a man’s character revealed itself most clearly when duty asked more of him than comfort ever would.”
A faint smile touched his tired face. “He would have been very proud of the gentleman sitting before me today.”
Eric lowered his eyes to the cooling tea in his hands. For reasons he could not entirely explain, those words settled more heavily upon him than the promise of marriage ever had.