Chapter Four
“The post has arrived, Your Grace.”
Dominic did not look up from the estate ledgers spread across his desk. The figures swam before his eyes—tenant rents, crop yields, repairs to the east cottages—but he kept his gaze fixed upon them as though they held meaning beyond the tedious machinery of an inheritance he had never asked for.
“Leave it on the sideboard, Graves.”
“There is a letter from India, Your Grace. From Mr Harding.”
That made him look up.
Graves stood in the doorway, his expression composed as ever, though something stirred beneath it—concern, perhaps. He advanced a step and offered a silver tray upon which lay a single envelope, its edges softened by its long passage across sea and continent.
Dominic took it. The hand was unfamiliar—neat, precise, the script of a man accustomed to formal correspondence. He broke the seal and read, his jaw tightening with each line.