Chapter 11
Leopold did not sleep restfully after watching Miss Redmond sing to Cecily, his dreams were peppered with the recollection of catching the two of them just before they slipped down the bank and holding the nursemaid inappropriately close to him.
That made it very difficult to have to spend the following morning with his mother reviewing estate accounts.
He had not thought of making a habit of mornings spent with his mother encroaching on his work, but his mother had a way of arriving at the study as though she always had an invitation.
That morning, she was sitting opposite him at the desk with one ledger open and another balanced against the arm of her chair, her spectacles low on her nose and her expression set in the severe calm she used whenever she meant to challenge him without appearing to.
Leopold turned a page. “The tenants on the south boundary are in better order than last quarter.”
“Hmm.”
“That is approval, I assume.”
“It is not disapproval.”
He looked up. “You are in a generous mood.”
She did not smile. “Do not be flippant when I am counting figures.”
Leopold leaned back slightly and closed the ledger. “Then why are you here rather than Sayer?”
“Because Sayer is not your mother.”
“That is the very reason why he is my steward.”
She gave him the sort of look that meant she had not come to be entertained.
“I came to ensure all is well with the estate.”
“I am sure that I, as a duke, am perfectly capable of handling the affairs of my estate.”
His mother glowered at him, but her eyes told him her intentions before she spoke them.
“The accounts are not the only reason I wanted to speak with you.”
Leopold’s expression cooled at once. “Of course they are not.”
His mother set down her pen. “The Season is approaching.”
He said nothing.
She continued. “You will need to be seen in London.”
He sneered, shaking his head.
“I attend the requisite dinners before and after the Season, and I am never absent from a mandatory meeting at Parliament. You cannot convince me that I owe society any more than that.”
His mother’s eyes narrowed until he could barely see what color they were.
“A duke who hides at his country estate with a foundling baby and a nursemaid of unknown origin is a duke who invites talk.”
Leopold nodded slowly, not hiding his sardonic attitude.
“I am aware.”
“Being aware is not the same as remedying the situation, which is far more important to everyone.”
Leopold looked up. “You make it sound worse than it is.”
“I make it sound accurate.”
“It is far from accurate,” he said. “And anyone who knows us already knows the exact situation.”
His mother pressed a dramatic hand to her forehead.
“And those who do not know us will not be satisfied with second-hand explanations. They will speak as they will on the matter.”
He gave a faint, tired exhale. “The talk will pass.”
“Only if you give it somewhere else to go.”
He held her gaze. “I am not sending Cecily away.”
“That was never my suggestion.”
“No,” he said, “but you are circling the subject with unusual enthusiasm.”
His mother’s mouth tightened, and Leopold noticed her abnormal pause.
“You are becoming more careless about what people will think,” she said.
“I care about honesty, not empty opinions.”
“Honesty is never what is viewed as truth.”
“Not in your experience, perhaps.”
Her eyes sharpened. “Leopold.”
He waited.
She leaned forward a little, her hands folded over the ledger. “You need to start thinking about a marriage match.”
The words made him glance at her a second time.
“A marriage match,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Now,” she said flatly, “is when your household is already the subject of unnecessary gossip.”
Leopold stared at her. “You think I should marry because someone left a baby on my doorstep.”
“You should be seen in London considering marriage because a duke cannot indefinitely remain at home with a mystery child and a young woman whose history no one can verify.”
His jaw tightened. “That is a vague assumption, at best.”
“It is the truth.”
Leopold looked down at the ledger and then back at her. “I am not interested in a match.”
His mother did not so much as blink. “Interest is a luxury.”
He lifted one brow. “That sounds like a sentence you have practiced.”
“It is a fact I have known for some time.”
He folded his arms. “I am still not interested.”
She lifted her chin. “And I maintain that interest is immaterial in this situation.”
He had the uncomfortable sense that she knew exactly how little difference there was between those two things in her mind.
His mother reached for the ledger beside her and touched the page lightly with one finger. “The families have been circling the idea for years.”
Leopold’s attention sharpened despite himself. “Which families?”
“The Carringtons, among others.”
He stared at her. “You mean Lord Penmere’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Lady Isolde Carrington?”
“She is exactly the age at which people begin to say sensible things about her future.”
Leopold’s mouth pursed. “You have been discussing this without me.”
She gave him a cool look. “You are not usually present when people discuss your future.”
“That is because I would not allow it.”
“It is because you avoid it.”
He ignored that. “I am not interested in Lady Isolde Carrington.”
His mother’s expression did not alter. “That is irrelevant.”
“It should not be.”
“Your preferences have little to do with what is required.”
Leopold stared at her as though she had grown an extra head. “Required by whom?”
“By reputation.”
He leaned forward, both hands on the desk now. “You cannot be serious.”
“I am entirely serious.”
“I have a child in the nursery, a nursemaid whose background you distrust, and your solution is to send me to London and make a respectable match?”
“My solution,” his mother said, with more patience than he felt, “is to stop allowing the county to imagine a scandal that will eventually become useful to no one.”
Leopold scoffed.
“That is precisely my point, Mother. This alleged scandal will eventually become nothing. Especially when the next scandal that can be proven arises.”
His mother sighed.
“You cannot rely on future scandals. It is up to you, as the patriarch of this family, to put an end to our current scandal.”
Leopold’s voice cooled. “And Lady Isolde is your answer.”
“She is one answer.”
“I am not marrying her.”
His mother folded her hands again. “You may find that less true than you think.”
He let out a breath through his nose. “You have already made up your mind.”
She rose. “I have made up nothing. I have only reminded you of what the world will demand if you continue pretending it will not notice the child in your house.”
“It is not pretending.”
“No,” she said, “it is postponing.”
“It is not caring,” he said. “I do not care whether they notice, or what they think.”
She gathered her ledger and turned toward the door. “Think about London.”
“I have thought about it.”
“Then think again.”
She went out without waiting for an answer.
Leopold remained seated long after she had gone, staring at the closed door and wishing, with no particular dignity, that she had simply shouted at him instead.
Shouting was easier and could be answered.
His mother’s calm certainty was worse because it came wrapped in reason, and the distinct feeling that he would ultimately have no say in the matter.
***
By evening, Leopold had not entirely recovered from the conversation with his mother.
He left the study and went out onto the terrace outside the library.
The air had turned cooler, and the garden beyond the stone rail lay in a dark wash of shadow.
Behind him, the house was lit in warm bands across the windows, but the terrace itself was still and dim.
He had not intended to linger; he had only meant to walk off the last of his irritation before he retired. Instead, he found Phoebe standing at the railing, looking out over the garden.
She did not hear him come out. Her hands rested lightly on the stone, and her face was turned toward the darkness as though something in it had drawn her outside.
She wore a simple muslin dress and had no shawl over her shoulders despite the chill.
A breeze stirred a strand of auburn hair loose near her cheek.
Leopold stopped a few paces away and said nothing.
She remained in place for another moment before she spoke.
“The garden is different at night.”
Her voice was quiet, and there was no sign in it that she had heard him until she chose to turn.
He stepped to the railing beside her. “Is it?”
Phoebe glanced at him. “It is. It is quieter at night. It feels less managed.”
Leopold turned his head toward her. “You make the estate sound as though it is under surveillance.”
“Is it not?”
He looked at her for a beat. “I suppose you could say it is.”
Phoebe did not answer that immediately.
He looked out over the dark beds and the path beyond the hedge, then back at her. “I come here to think.”
Her mouth moved slightly. “That sounds like an arrangement you are in need of.”
He almost smiled. “It is.”
There was another silence before she spoke again. “What do you think about when you come here?”
He leaned his forearms on the stone rail and looked out into the garden. “Lately?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet long enough that he could feel her waiting.
“Things I did not expect,” he said at last.
Phoebe turned fully to him then.
Leopold glanced back at her, and the conversation seemed to stop.
The house glowed behind them, warm and distant, the garden dark beyond the terrace. Phoebe’s face was half-lit by the spill of light from the library windows, and he could see the faint tension in it.