Chapter 8 #2
Genevieve clutched her book against her bodice, her color still heightened, and turned toward the door. “Thank you, Your Grace. I apologize for the intrusion.” She managed the sentence with dignity but moved with the haste of someone who wished to be elsewhere.
“Genevieve.”
She paused, glancing back with wary eyes.
“You are welcome in the library at any time. You need not wait for it to be empty.” He kept his tone mild, conscious that she startled when addressed too directly. “This is your home. And my name is Alistair.”
Her expression softened. Not quite a smile, but the faintest easing of the vigilance that seemed to live permanently behind her features.
Living under her grandmother’s reign had left its mark in the rigid set of her shoulders and the careful manner with which she rationed her words in front of Beckwith.
She dipped her head and slipped through the door, her slippers whispering on the stone floor.
He listened until the sound disappeared entirely, conscious of how accustomed the women of this household were to making themselves small. Even their departures were practiced in silence.
Alistair stood alone in the library, listening to the rain and the crackle of the fire and the settling solitude. He returned to the desk where Beckwith’s notes lay in a neat hand, lists of repairs and tenant grievances that would consume months of attention and capital he could scarcely spare.
He thought of his mill. Of the contract waiting in London.
Of the looms that needed his oversight and the workers who depended on his judgment.
He thought of Franklin holding the negotiations together by charm and competence, and of Benedict and Gregory managing the daily operations with a carelessness that concealed surprising capability.
His brothers would manage. They always had.
Then he thought of Josephine.
The library felt larger without company, the silence pressing in where conversation had been. Rain could not fill that void. He pressed his palms flat on the desk and stared at the ledger without seeing it. The columns of figures blurred into a single truth he had been circling for two days.
He thought of the scent of chamomile and mint that followed her through every room.
Of her cool gray eyes that soothed the relentless machinery of his thoughts whenever she turned them upon him.
Of the gentle curve of her belly beneath the black bombazine, and the courage it took to carry a dead man’s child while living under the roof of an old woman who would use that child as a weapon.
He thought of her standing in this very room two days earlier, asking for his help with an expression that contained equal measures of desperation and dignity, and the way he had sent her off with bruised feelings because her candor had struck too close to a vulnerability he refused to name.
He thought of leaving for London and returning to find her crushed beneath the dowager’s boot, the girls retreated into their silent obedience, and the fragile changes he had set in motion undone by weeks of his absence.
That was not going to happen.
He had spent fifteen years solving problems that others deemed impossible. A crumbling estate and a tyrannical old woman were obstacles, not verdicts.
He crossed to the bellpull and summoned a footman, instructing him to ask the dowager duchess the younger to attend him in the library at her earliest convenience. The servant departed with a bow, and Alistair returned to the window to wait.
The rain continued its assault. Beyond the gardens, the river would be rising. He could picture it swelling against its banks, brown and urgent, carrying debris from the hills above Irwyn. Another problem for another day.
He did not have to wait long. Footsteps approached within minutes, lighter than Beckwith’s measured tread but brisker than Genevieve’s cautious whisper, and then Josephine appeared in the doorway.
Her blonde hair was pinned beneath a simple cap, her mourning gown a study in restrained elegance, and her gray eyes carried the tentative expression of a woman summoned without explanation.
“You wished to see me, Your Grace?” Her voice was controlled, but he detected the faintest tremor beneath it. She clasped her hands before her, fingers laced, and remained just inside the threshold.
“Come in. Close the door.”
She obeyed, drawing the door shut with a quiet click and settling into the chair Beckwith had vacated.
She folded her hands in her lap with the practiced stillness of one who had learned that composure was the only armor available to her.
The firelight caught the side of her face, warming the pale skin and lending depth to the gray of her eyes, and Alistair found himself studying her for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.
She sat very straight, as if expecting bad news, and the firelight picked out the faint shadows beneath her eyes that spoke of too many sleepless nights.
He did not sit. Instead, he stood by the mantel, one arm resting against the carved stone surround, and regarded her with the directness that governed all his dealings.
Alistair had taken very little for himself in the past, but he found that there was something he desired now that it had been offered.
Something for him alone. Something selfish, but necessary.
For a man who was always considering the best course for all concerned, he had decided it was finally time to take care of his own needs.
Josephine, with her quiet grace, was a boon to a man who was always racing to his next goal.
She cooled his racing mind while heating his cold blood.
Made him notice the world around him. Made him aware of matters beyond work.
A man used to taking decisive action, Alistair had mulled this certain decision endlessly and finally reached a conclusion.
“I have decided we shall wed.”
Josephine’s brow immediately wrinkled. “Am I to have a say in the matter?”
“Do not be contrary. We both know that you want my protection. That you have hoped for a proposal. If the babe is a son, I shall have no legal standing to assist you unless we are married.”
She was silent for several seconds, clearly not having expected to have her proposal accepted.
“And the scandal? You are willing to wed your uncle’s widow?”