Chapter 5
News of the engagement spread through Yorkshire with a speed that felt almost unnatural, as though the countryside itself had been waiting for something scandalous enough to carry on the wind.
By morning, it was in the kitchens of every great house, murmured between servants folding linen and polishing silver.
By midday, it had reached the drawing rooms, carried in on tea trays and clipped conversations.
By evening, it had become something embellished, reshaped, and endlessly repeated until it bore only a passing resemblance to the truth.
Lady Anne Carlisle had married the Duke of Ashford. Or at least, she was going to. In any case, she had been seen riding alone to his estate at dusk, which, depending on who told the story, was either romantic, reckless, or deeply improper.
At Ashford Hall, the same news arrived and was in Dorian’s hand as he drank his tea at the stable gate.
The messenger had spoken quickly, too quickly, as though he did not want to be the one to inconvenience him.
Dorian, however, was not concerned at all.
He had seen it all coming and was more than prepared for it.
“Yorkshire is speaking of it already, Your Grace,” the messenger had said. “The marriage. The engagement. It has reached three estates before midday.”
Dorian did not respond at first. He only stared past the messenger toward the open stable doors. Behind him, Diamond shifted restlessly in his stall, sensing tension even if he could not name its cause.
“I see,” he said simply.
The messenger lingered a moment longer, uncertain whether dismissal had been implied. When Dorian did not elaborate, he bowed and left, his footsteps fading into the yard beyond.
A short while later, Tristan Vale, his friend and the Viscount Harrow, arrived.
He entered the stable with the ease of a man who treated other people’s problems as entertainment.
He was tall, sharply dressed, and carried an expression of amused curiosity that suggested he had already heard everything and intended to enjoy hearing it again.
Fortunately for him, Dorian needed someone to talk to about it all, and it so happened that Tristan was one of his closest friends.
“Well,” Tristan drawled, glancing around the stables, “I leave for a few days and return to find you have committed social chaos on a provincial scale.”
“Good morning to you as well.”
Tristan leaned lightly against a wooden post. “Is it true?”
“That entirely depends on what you are referring to.”
“Well,” Tristan asked, “are you engaged to Lady Anne Carlisle, or have you simply started a rumor so impressive that even I am struggling to keep up?”
“I do not start rumors. I simply have them start about me.”
“And…?”
There was a pause.
“Engaged.”
Tristan let out a quiet laugh. “Good God.”
“Is that all you can offer?”
“I am considering whether congratulations are appropriate or whether I should begin preparing for your funeral,” Tristan replied pleasantly. “Given your history, both feel equally plausible.”
“It is a practical arrangement.”
“That is what men say when they have done something entirely impractical,” Tristan said. “It is almost poetic.”
Dorian ignored that. “The estate requires stability, and this marriage secures it.”
“And Lady Anne?”
“She secures the horse.”
Tristan raised a brow. “Ah. Truly, such a beautiful romance.”
“Do not start.”
“I have barely begun,” Tristan replied, smiling now. “Tell me, does she know she is saving your reputation through a very stubborn animal?”
“She agreed to the terms.”
“Of course she did,” Tristan said lightly. “Women rarely refuse a man who can provide a life that you would. She would have been foolish not to.”
Dorian shot him a look. “You are enjoying this.”
“I am,” Tristan admitted. “Deeply. Now, when will I meet her?”
“If ever, it will be after the wedding.”
Tristan grinned, and despite everything that was happening around them, Dorian did too. At least he had a friend.
* * *
At Rosemere House, Anne heard none of the gossip at first. She remained where she always seemed to exist: on her morning walks and then handling brief correspondence.
She spent a good amount of time thinking of her dear friends, whom she was missing greatly and would not see again until the next season.
She would have to write to them, though she did not know what to say.
It was only when she entered the breakfast room and noticed her mother’s expression that she understood something had changed.
Lady Carlisle sat perfectly still at the table, a letter resting beside her untouched tea. She was a composed woman by habit, but that morning, her composure had an edge to it, as though it had been pressed too tightly.
Anne paused in the doorway. “Is something wrong?”
Her mother did not answer immediately. Instead, she lifted the letter slightly, studying it as though it might change meaning if examined long enough.
“It seems,” she replied carefully, “that your life has become a subject of conversation.”
“Who wrote it?” Anne asked.
Her mother hesitated just long enough to confirm what she already suspected.
“A neighbor. Two, actually, as well as someone from town who claims to have heard it from Ashford Hall.”
“I cannot believe that he has already told people. We were not supposed to announce anything yet, and—”
“I do not believe he needed to,” her mother cut in. “It seems people have decided the story on their own.”
Anne turned away slightly, as though the room had become too small. She had not told her mother, even though she knew she needed to. She had not told anyone, for she had not known what to say.
It had all been so sudden, and though she knew she would have to lie and say it was for love in order to save face, the thought of being so dishonest to the people she loved upset her greatly.
“There is no story.”
Her mother finally looked at her. “Then you should be prepared for the fact that everyone else has made one up anyway. They will not accept there being no truth to it at all, so find something to say.”
“Very well. I shall take some time to do so now.” Anne turned to leave.
Somehow, that made panic and then regret flash across her mother’s face.
Lady Carlisle had been so careless with what she had agreed to on Anne’s behalf, but she had not always been that way. She had been a loving mother once, and Anne had struggled to reconcile that person with the one standing before her.
Regardless, she knew what she had to do, and that meant leaving.
“You do not have to do this,” her mother said.
Anne paused. “It is already done. You chose this for me.”
When she climbed into the carriage, she did not look back at Rosemere House, because looking back would have made it harder to leave.
Ashford Hall came into view as it had the day before, and it was no less imposing.
It was larger than Rosemere, certainly taller, with grounds that stretched outward as though the estate had never stopped expanding.
There was order there, but it was a different kind than she was used to, more absolute.
The moment she arrived, she went into the stable yard. When Tempest saw her, he calmed down, his hooves no longer striking hard against the ground. The change was instant. It always was.
Anne stepped forward without hesitation.
“It is all right,” she murmured, resting a hand against his neck.
She noticed that the Duke was watching from a distance. He did not interrupt and did not approach. He simply observed the way the horse responded to her in a way no trainer had managed.
She wondered if he was hoping to copy her, even though she knew it would not be possible.
She did not look at him at first. When she finally did, it was only because she did not know what else to do. Their eyes met across the yard, but there was no warmth in her own.
“You told people about our agreement,” she said.
Dorian straightened slightly. “I did not.”
“Then they certainly invented it quickly.”
“It is how things are and how they have always been. Surely you knew that?”
“That does not make any of this easier.”
She turned back to Tempest as though deciding the conversation no longer required his participation.
“I am not here for stories,” she sighed. “I am also not here to decide how such gossip started, since it is not false.”
Dorian stepped closer, stopping just short of invading her space. “Then why are you here?”
She did not look at him when she answered. “For my horse.”
“And after that?” he asked.
Anne’s hand remained steady against Tempest’s neck. “There is no after that. We agreed to certain terms, and I have every intention of keeping to them.”
“We will see about that.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He simply chuckled, not elaborating.
She knew what he meant, though. There were moments when she considered that he was not so bad and that she might have misread him, but then he would say ridiculous things like that, and she would remember who he was.
He expected her to fall for him like she had no doubt that many other young ladies had, but she would not. She could not.
Within the hour, the atmosphere had shifted entirely. Servants whispered openly in corners. Footmen passed messages that were not quite messages, only speculation. Kitchen staff paused mid-task whenever Anne’s name was mentioned, as though it now carried weight beyond its usual meaning.
But it was not all bad.
From what she understood, and from what she was told in whispers by maids, racing investors who had previously treated Ashford Hall with polite distance suddenly reappeared with renewed interest, sending words of congratulations.
Neighboring families who had spent months questioning the stability of the Duke of Ashford’s estate sent calling cards and invitations, as though the situation had been resolved overnight simply by the presence of a bride.
Throughout the week, Anne felt all of it in the way doors opened slightly faster when she approached, in the way conversations stopped too quickly when she entered rooms, in the way people looked at her as though she had already become something she was still trying to understand.
Each day blurred into the next with unsettling speed.
She had expected adjustment, perhaps even difficulty, but not this immediate redefinition of her existence, especially not during her visits to Ashford Hall.
She was no longer simply a guest or even a temporary presence. She was the future Duchess.
The thought sat uneasily with her, for it implied permanence, expectation, and a life that other people now felt entitled to interpret on her behalf.
The Duke, for his part, appeared almost entirely unaffected by the chaos surrounding them. If anything, he seemed mildly entertained. He slipped back into his natural ease as though the engagement had simply provided him with a socially acceptable excuse to behave exactly as he pleased.
He teased her with a familiarity that made the servants exchange knowing glances. He commented on everything from the precision of her posture to the expression she wore when she was trying not to react to him, as though both were equally fascinating subjects of study.
Anne wanted to find it infuriating, and she might have had he not been so entirely earnest when he did it.
There was no cruelty in it, and it always ended with him inviting her somewhere. She always found a reason to decline, but eventually, she gave in and agreed to share a meal with him. However, she chose breakfast so that it was not too formal.
“You look better than I expected,” he said when she arrived.
“Am I supposed to be flattered by that?”
“I’m simply saying that you have outdone yourself,” he replied. “Make of it what you will.”
It was always like that with him. Not quite flirtation in the way she had once assumed it would be, but something less performative, as though he had stopped trying to convince her of anything and had started observing her instead.
He appeared in corridors without warning, always as if he had been heading somewhere important and simply happened to find her along the way.
When she spoke with the servants, she would occasionally sense his gaze on her long before she turned to confirm it, and every time she did, he would look away.
But she knew that he was doing it. He watched her constantly when he believed she could not see him, and not with the careless interest of a man amused by novelty, either.
Once, in the corridor outside the west drawing room, she paused without announcing herself.
The Duke stood a short distance away, speaking with a steward, but even from where she stood, she could tell his attention was not entirely focused on the man in front of him.
It kept drifting toward her, as though he could feel where she was without needing to see.
When the steward finished speaking and left, he did not immediately move. Instead, his gaze shifted toward where she stood half in shadow. Neither of them spoke, not at first. Then, as though the moment required no acknowledgment beyond its existence, he laughed.
“You are not very good at hiding.”
Anne stepped fully into view, eyeing him carefully. “I was not hiding.”
“No,” he agreed, after a brief pause. “Of course not.”
That should have irritated her, for they both knew that that was precisely what she had been doing and that she had not wanted to be caught. Instead, she could not help but once again notice his playful smile, as well as any real lack of attempt to get under her skin.
“I am still deciding what I think of this place,” she said.
“And me?” he asked lightly.
Anne hesitated a fraction too long, and he noticed.
“I am still deciding,” she replied. “Though you are not entirely awful, if that is anything.”
“Good.”
The conversation ended there, as easily as it began, but many unspoken things between them lingered longer than either of them acknowledged.
It was difficult to believe that she would soon become his wife, and she wondered why society had accepted it even before she had. There were, of course, people who disagreed with it all, but even they were aware that the match would go through.
Anne, on the other hand, still could not entirely believe it. She was to be a duchess, someone with remarkable influence, but she did not see it in herself. All she saw was Anne.
And she was terrified that that was all society would see, too.