Chapter Eight
The household noticed.
Servants always noticed everything; it was their job to be invisible and observant, to anticipate needs before they were voiced, to keep the great machinery of a noble house running smoothly.
And when the master of that house suddenly began behaving in ways that defied years of established pattern, they noticed immediately.
It started with breakfast.
For as long as anyone could remember, the Duke of Northmere had taken his morning meal alone in his study, a tray delivered by a footman and retrieved an hour later with the food barely touched.
It was understood that His Grace did not care for company before noon and that interrupting his morning routine was tantamount to professional suicide.
So, when the Duke appeared in the breakfast room on the morning after his conversation with Miss Harrow, the footman nearly dropped the coffee pot.
"Your Grace," James managed, recovering admirably. "Shall I... Shall I set another plate?"
"That would be the logical response to my presence, yes." But there was no bite in the Duke's voice. If anything, he sounded almost... amused. "And perhaps some of those pastries Henry seems to favour. The ones with the jam."
"The... The jam pastries. Yes, Your Grace. Right away, Your Grace."
James fled to the kitchen, where he informed the Cook that either he was losing his mind or the Duke had just requested jam pastries for breakfast. The Cook, who had been at Northmere Hall for thirty years and thought she had seen everything, sat down heavily on a stool and required a fortifying cup of tea.
"Jam pastries," she repeated. "His Grace. Jam pastries."
"And he smiled," James added, still looking slightly dazed. "At Lord Henry. He actually smiled."
"Perhaps he's ill," suggested Mary, the upstairs maid. "My gran used to say that when people start acting out of character, it means they're either sick or in love."
"His Grace is not in love," the Cook said firmly, though her eyes strayed toward the ceiling, toward the breakfast room where this unprecedented behaviour was occurring. "He doesn't believe in love. Everyone knows that."
"Maybe Miss Harrow changed his mind," Mary said dreamily. "She's ever so pretty, with that red hair. Like a princess in a story."
"Miss Harrow is a governess," the Cook reminded her. "And His Grace is a duke. Such things don't happen outside of novels."
But even as she said it, she remembered the way His Grace had looked at Miss Harrow the previous week, when he'd thought no one was watching. She remembered the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands had clenched at his sides, and the expression on his face that had looked almost like longing.
Perhaps, she thought, such things did happen outside of novels. Perhaps they happened right here, in this great old house, whether anyone believed in them or not.
The news spread through the servants' quarters like wildfire.
By luncheon, everyone from the scullery maid to Mr. Blackwood himself knew that something fundamental had shifted in the house.
By dinner, theories were being exchanged in hushed whispers with the most popular being that Miss Harrow had worked some kind of magic on His Grace, possibly involving witchcraft or, more scandalously, feminine wiles.
Thomas, the head groom, had his own theory, which he shared with anyone who would listen.
"It's the horse," he said sagely, leaning on his pitchfork in the stable yard. "She tamed Sovereign, didn't she? That blasted stallion that has bitten half the staff? She walked right up to him, and he nuzzled her like a lamb. If she can do that to a horse, imagine what she could do to a man."
"Are you comparing His Grace to a horse?" asked one of the stable boys.
"I'm comparing him to Sovereign," Thomas clarified. "Both of them are beautiful, powerful, mean as sin, and lonely beyond all reason. Both of them are just waiting for the right person to see past the teeth and the temper to the creature underneath."
It was, perhaps, the most poetic thing Thomas had ever said.
"Do you think she'll tame him, too? His Grace, I mean?"
Thomas looked toward the house, where a tall figure was just visible in an upper window. "I think she already has."
Mrs. Crawford, the housekeeper, put a stop to that particular line of speculation with a quelling look that could have frozen the Thames.
"Miss Harrow," she said firmly, "is a respectable young woman and an excellent governess.
If His Grace has chosen to take a more active interest in Lord Henry's upbringing, it is because he has recognised the value of her methods.
There will be no talk of witchcraft or... or anything else. Is that understood?"
It was understood. But that didn't stop the whispers entirely.
***
Eliza, for her part, was doing her best to adjust to this new reality.
It had been one thing to wish for the Duke's involvement in Henry's life, but it had been another thing entirely to have him actually present.
He was now sitting in on lessons, joining them for walks in the garden, appearing at mealtimes with that cautious, uncertain expression that made her heart do complicated things in her chest.
"He's trying," she told herself firmly, watching Alistair attempt to engage Henry in a discussion about Latin conjugations. "He's trying, and that's what matters."
But it was awkward. Painfully, excruciatingly awkward.
Alistair had spent years perfecting the art of emotional distance. He didn't know how to be casual or how to relax. Every interaction with Henry seemed to require enormous effort, as if he were translating from a foreign language in real time.
"So," he said, during their first lesson together, "you are learning about... plants?"
"Botany," Henry supplied helpfully. "Miss Harrow says it's important to understand the natural world."
"Indeed. The natural world." Alistair looked at the wildflowers spread across the nursery table as if they might bite him. "And what have you learned about... these?"
"That's clover, that's yarrow, and that one's called shepherd's purse, which is a funny name because shepherds don't have purses, they have crooks."
"I see."
The silence stretched. Alistair's hands flexed at his sides; that nervous tell Eliza had come to recognize. Henry looked between his brother and his governess with growing uncertainty.
"Perhaps," Eliza said gently, "His Grace might like to help us press some of these specimens? We're creating a nature journal."
"Press them?"
"Between the pages of a book. To preserve them." She demonstrated, placing a small sprig of yarrow between two sheets of paper. "It's quite simple, really."
"I... Yes. I could do that."
He sat down at the table and picked up a flower with the careful precision of a man handling something that might explode. Henry watched him with barely concealed delight.
"You have to be gentle," the boy advised. "Miss Harrow says flowers are like feelings: if you squeeze them too hard, they get crushed."
Alistair's gaze flicked to Eliza.
"I shall endeavour to be gentle," he said quietly.
They worked in silence for a while, pressing flowers between sheets of paper, labelling specimens in Henry's careful handwriting. It was stilted and strange, nothing like the easy comfort Eliza had built with Henry over the past weeks. But it was something. A start.
And when Henry reached over to adjust his brother's grip on a particularly delicate bloom, and Alistair let him, Eliza felt something warm bloom in her chest.
Progress. Slow, awkward, painful progress.
It was enough.
***
The days that followed established a new rhythm.
Alistair appeared at breakfast every morning, sitting beside Henry and asking about his plans for the day.
He joined them for lessons when his estate business permitted; not every day, but often enough that Henry stopped looking surprised when he walked through the nursery door.
He even, on one memorable occasion, accompanied them on a nature walk and allowed Henry to show him how to identify bird calls.
"That's a blackbird," Henry announced, pointing toward a nearby tree. "You can tell by the way the song goes up at the end. And that one…Can you hear it? That's a song thrush. They repeat everything three times."
"How do you know all this?"
"Miss Harrow taught me." Henry beamed at Eliza. "She knows everything about birds. She says her father used to take her birdwatching when she was little."
Alistair's gaze shifted to Eliza. "Your father was a naturalist?"
"A vicar. But he believed that understanding the wonders of creation was a form of worship." She smiled at the memory. "He used to say that every bird song was a prayer, and every flower was a sermon."
"He sounds like a remarkable man."
"He was." The past tense still hurt, even after all these years. "He died when I was seventeen. My mother had died a few years before that."
Something flickered in Alistair's expression—recognition, perhaps. Kinship. "I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago." She kept her voice light, though the sympathy in his eyes made her throat tight. "But I like to think he'd be pleased to know I'm passing on what he taught me."
"I think he would be more than pleased." Alistair's voice was soft. "I think he would be proud."
The moment stretched between them—weighted, intimate, full of things that couldn't be said in front of a child. Eliza felt heat rise in her cheeks and forced herself to look away.
"Henry, what's that bird? The one with the red breast?"
"A robin!" Henry dashed off to get a closer look, leaving Eliza and Alistair standing together in a silence that felt suddenly charged.
"Miss Harrow…"
"We should follow him. He'll fall into a rabbit hole if we're not careful."
She hurried after Henry before Alistair could finish whatever he'd been about to say. Her heart was pounding, and she couldn't quite shake the feeling that they had just crossed some invisible line again, and that each crossing made it harder to find their way back.
***
The awareness grew.