Chapter 3
“You will behave yourself, Louisa.”
“I always behave myself, Mother.”
“You have never once behaved yourself in your entire life, and I am rather fond of you for it, but a duke’s study is not the place to begin practicing.”
The carriage rolled to a stop outside Ashvale House, and Louisa allowed herself exactly one steadying breath before the footman opened the door.
Lady Henswick’s hand found hers briefly, a small squeeze of reassurance, before they were both handed down onto the pavement and shown through into an entrance hall so vast and so silent that Louisa’s footsteps sounded like a confession.
“Lady Henswick, if you would follow me to the drawing room.” The butler’s tone left no room for objection. “Lady Louisa, His Grace will receive you in his study.”
Lady Henswick’s eyes found Louisa’s for one last moment, saying something between are you certain and I am proud of you regardless, and then she was led away down one corridor while Louisa was led down another.
The study, when she was shown into it, told her a great deal before its owner ever appeared.
Every book on the shelves stood exactly flush with its neighbor.
The desk held a single blotter, a single inkstand, and nothing else.
No clutter of unanswered correspondence, no forgotten teacup gone cold.
Even the fire had been laid with a precision that suggested someone had considered the correct proportion of coal to flame rather than simply piling it on and hoping.
A man who does not tolerate disorder.
Louisa turned slowly on the spot to take in the rest of the room.
Or perhaps a man who has learned that disorder, once permitted, tends to spread into places he cannot afford to let it reach.
Either reading unsettled her, though she could not have said why.
The door opened.
“Lady Louisa. Thank you for coming.”
She turned, and whatever composure she had gathered while studying his bookshelves required a brief reassembly.
He was tall in a way that made the room feel smaller for his presence in it, broad through the shoulders without a hint of softness anywhere about him, and his coat fit as though it had been cut with the specific intention of proving that fact beyond doubt.
Dark hair, unfashionably plain, green eyes that settled on her with an attention so complete it felt almost like being assessed for purchase, and a face that would have been called merely handsome on a lesser man but on him was something closer to formidable, all sharp lines and unhurried authority. He did not smile in greeting.
Oddly, Louisa found that she did not mind it.
Well, she dipped into a curtsy with rather more care than she’d intended to give it. That partially explains why half of London’s matrons speak his name in that particular hushed tone.
“Your Grace.” She rose from her curtsy, meeting his eyes, refusing to let whatever her pulse was doing show anywhere on her face. “Thank you for receiving me.”
“Please. Sit.” He gestured toward the chair opposite his desk and waited until she had settled before taking his seat, which she noted as the sort of small courtesy a man performed either from genuine breeding or from having been drilled in it so thoroughly he no longer thought about it.
“You wrote that you have heard I am fluent in sign language,” she said, before he could claim the opening for himself.
“I should tell you plainly, before we go any further, that the answer is yes, and I would rather establish that fact now than have you spend the next quarter hour working your way toward the question.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Not quite a smile, but its distant cousin. “Direct.”
“I find it saves time. You strike me as a man who values his.”
“I do.” His gaze held hers a beat longer than strictly necessary. “Would you demonstrate? I am afraid I must ask. I have had two governesses claim fluency but who knew at most a dozen words.”
“A reasonable request.” Louisa’s hands rose without hesitation, moving through a short sequence, quick and sure.
She lowered them and translated without waiting to be asked.
“I said, a duke who does not trust easily is a duke who has likely been disappointed before. Which I offer as an observation, Your Grace, not an accusation.”
His eyebrows lifted fractionally. “You are quick.”
“A great deal of practice.” She folded her hands in her lap, willing them steady. “My grandmother was born unable to speak. I learned her language before I properly learned my letters.”
“Where is she now?”
“With the Lord.” A brief pause, then folded away before it could linger. “She would have found this conversation vastly entertaining, incidentally. She had strong opinions about dukes.”
“Favorable ones, I hope.”
“She reserved judgment until she’d met one properly. I find I am inclined to do the same.”
And so far, she thought, watching the faint, reluctant amusement move across that severe mouth, he is doing considerably better than I expected of a man whose reputation suggests he has never smiled in his life.
He rose then, crossed to the window, and turned back to face her fully, and whatever ease had crept into the room a moment before receded into something more careful.
“My ward is eight years old. His name is Christopher. Kit, to those who know him, though there are fewer of those than I would like.” His voice stayed even, controlled, the voice of a man accustomed to holding difficult things at arm’s length.
“His father was my closest friend. Three years ago, Kit watched him die in a riding accident. He has not spoken a single word since.”
“Three years is a long silence.”
“It is.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I have brought in physicians, tutors, two governesses who was recommended by three separate households. Every one of them has failed. My brother, who is a physician, mentioned that some children who stop speaking after severe shock have responded to sign language, given as an alternative until they are ready to use their voice again. It is not commonly practiced in England. When I heard there was a young woman fluent in it, I confess I did not expect much.” His eyes found hers again, unflinching. “I have learned not to.”
“And yet you wrote to me.”
“I had run out of better options.”
“That is the most honest thing anyone has said to me in a fortnight.” Something in her chest eased toward him, unwilling but genuine. “Thank you for not dressing it up as anything nobler.”
“I am not given to dressing things up, Lady Louisa. It wastes time, and I have very little patience for it.”
“Good. Neither have I.” She drew in a slow breath, and felt the whole shape of the next several minutes settle into place ahead of her, considered and unavoidable.
“Before I answer, Your Grace, I must tell you something about myself, because it bears directly on any arrangement you and I might make.”
“Go on.”
“I have a maid. Had a maid,” she corrected, and something sharp moved through her before she could stop it.
“Her name was Nell. She had been with me for four years, and in that time, she became more than a maid to me. A friend, though the word feels insufficient. She fell in love with a young gentleman who meant to marry her, but he died before the wedding. She discovered shortly after that she was carrying his child.”
He said nothing. He only watched her with an attention so complete she found herself absurdly grateful for it.
“When the child was born—a girl—Nell’s health quickly deteriorated.
There was nothing to be done. Before she died, she made me promise that her daughter would never be alone and would always be loved.
I gave my word.” Louisa lifted her chin.
“I have kept it. I intend to go on keeping it, whatever it costs me.”
“That is no small promise to make to a dying woman.”
“No, it is not.” She held his gaze. “But I made it, and I do not go back on my word, Your Grace, whatever inconvenience it causes. My father would prefer I did. He has pointed out, at some length, that an unmarried woman raising another woman’s child will find herself and the child both subject to a great deal of unkindness, and he is not wrong.
I need a husband. Not for love, I would like to clarify, since I imagine you are already forming opinions about a woman who arrives at a duke’s study discussing marriage within the first quarter hour of meeting him. ”
“I had begun to wonder where this was heading,” he admitted. “I confess I had not guessed correctly.”
“I do not require love, Your Grace. I require a name for Eleanor and a household in which no one will ask me to give her up or send her away, and I have no intention of finding either through the usual channels, since most gentlemen of my acquaintance are considerably more interested in my dowry than my opinions, and rather less interested still in inheriting another woman’s child along with a wife.
” She said it without bitterness, simply as fact.
“So I will tell you plainly what I told myself before I wrote back to you. If you want my help with Kit, truly want it, not as an experiment to be abandoned in a fortnight when it proves inconvenient, then marriage is what I require in return. Nothing more sentimental than that. A practical arrangement, built on mutual respect, in which you never ask me to give up the child I have sworn to protect, and I never ask more of you than you are willing to give.”
The study went quiet.
Say something, she thought, watching him, refusing to let the silence unsettle her outwardly, whatever it was doing beneath her ribs. Call me mad. Call me forward. Show me the door and be done with it, and I will have my answer and go home and think of another way to keep my word to Nell.
He did none of those things. He only studied her, that same complete, unhurried attention, as though she were a ledger he was determined to balance correctly before committing to a figure.
“You want me to marry you,” he said slowly, “in exchange for your help with my ward.”
“I want a great many things less than I want to keep my promise to Nell, Your Grace, and marriage happens to be the most efficient means of doing so. You require someone Kit will trust. I require a husband who will not trouble himself over a child who is not his own by blood. It seemed, when I considered it, a reasonably fair exchange.”
“Fair.” His voice was quieter, more careful. “I hope you are aware of what you are asking. Marriage is not a business arrangement one dissolves when it grows inconvenient.”
“I am entirely aware of what marriage is, Your Grace. I have refused four proposals already, from men who wanted a wife considerably quieter than I am inclined to be. I am not asking you for a love match. I am asking for a name, a household, and your word that Eleanor will never be treated as anything less than family under your roof. In return, I will do everything in my power to reach Kit, and I do not offer that lightly, because I do not know that I will succeed. I only know that I am willing to try properly, for as long as it takes, which is more than I understand anyone else has offered you.”
He studied her a moment longer, and she made herself hold still under his gaze, chin level, hands folded, refusing to let him see how much the stillness cost her.
“That is impossible,” he said.