Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Kenneth paused at the turn of the east corridor, one hand resting on the carved newel post where the banister curved toward the landing.
The sound had drawn him: laughter, unmistakable and unfettered, carrying from the nursery with a brightness that belonged to no adult in his household.
He moved toward the nursery door. It stood ajar, the gap wide enough to admit a sliver of afternoon light and the full spectrum of the scene within.
He did not push it wider. He stood in the shadow of the corridor and observed.
The nursery table had been cleared of its usual detritus. In their place lay papers, dozens of them, spread across the polished surface in a pattern that suggested categories rather than chaos.
Alice sat at the head of the table, a pencil in her right hand, her left resting on an open ledger whose pages he could not read from this angle. The boys flanked her, both leaning forward slightly.
Afternoon light fell through the tall windows in a long golden bar that cut the room diagonally. It caught Alice’s hair and turned the copper strands to fire, illuminating the curve of her cheek and the soft line of her throat where her collar parted.
She laughed again. The sound traveled through the open door and struck him in the chest before sending warmth to the pit of his stomach.
She was beautiful.
Not beautiful like her sister, whose loveliness had been a public commodity discussed and assessed in drawing rooms with the casual authority of men ranking racehorses.
Her beauty was quieter. It resided in the warmth of her expression when she looked at his children, in the fullness of her lower lip when she smiled.
His hand tightened on the doorframe.
He wanted her. The want was not abstract. It lived in the tightening of his groin when she laughed, in the memory of her mouth against his, in the way his body responded to the mere sight of her.
He had never felt this way for a woman before. Certainly not for Theresa, who had been kind. There had been nothing more than duty between them. But Alice… Alice was an entirely different subject.
Freddie reached for a paper and knocked a pencil to the floor. Alice bent to retrieve it, and the motion pulled her gown taut across her back, outlining the curve of her spine and the generous swell of her hips beneath the fabric.
Kenneth felt his breath shorten, and he stepped back from the door.
This was not what he had bargained for. He had bargained for stability. For a wife who would monitor his children’s well-being as much as he did and keep the household accounts in order while he attended to the estate.
He had not bargained for whatever it was she awakened within him.
Discipline. Order. Control. These were the principles upon which he had built his life. They were the architecture that had kept Bearmoor functioning. Alice had arrived with a sledgehammer and begun knocking holes in that architecture with ease.
Kenneth let his hand drop to his side. Then he lifted his chin and opened the door.
All three faces turned toward him. Alice with expectation, Charlie with trepidation, and Freddie… Freddie’s face was unreadable.
“What do we have here?”
Alice rose, her eyes searching his. “Your Grace, we… The boys were helping me.”
“Helping you?”
She lifted her chin and faced him head-on, her eyes not leaving his. “Yes, helping me. We are planning a fair, and they have been rather reliable.”
“Well, I must admit…” He moved to where the boys sat frozen. “It has been rather quiet lately. The garden and ponds have all gone without an ambush from you for longer than ever before.”
Freddie regarded him with dark eyes. Charlie kept his eyes on his hands.
“You have been well-behaved, boys. Thus, I decided to… reduce your punishment.”
This time, both sets of eyes flickered toward him.
“A week,” he clarified. “But I do expect the good behavior to continue.”
Kenneth did not wait for a response. Instead, he walked away, his boots striking the runner with a cadence that sounded like retreat, even to his own ears.
In his study, he closed the door. The estate accounts waited on his desk. He picked up his pen and stared at the figures until they blurred into shapes that conveyed no meaning.
He would not think of his wife, or the gradual softening that tugged at his heart.
Harcourt Hall drowned in opulence. Kenneth handed Alice down from the carriage gently.
“You needn’t look so terrified,” he said, keeping his voice low as the footman accepted their outer garments.
“Harcourt is a bore. His wife is worse. The food will be adequate, and the conversation will revolve around drainage systems and the comparative merits of various root vegetables. I assure you, by the second course, you will be counting the minutes until we return home.”
“I am not terrified.” Alice straightened her spine and adjusted her gloves with a precision that suggested she had rehearsed the gesture in front of a mirror.
“I am merely apprehensive. This is my first appearance as your wife in company that extends beyond Bearmoor’s staff. I would prefer not to disgrace you.”
“You will not disgrace me. I have no doubt about that.” The words emerged before he could recall them, and he saw her eyes widen slightly. He cleared his throat. “Shall we?”
Lord Harcourt emerged from the drawing room with an enthusiastic grin. He was stout, pink-cheeked, and dressed in a waistcoat that looked as though it was about to burst at the seams.
“Your Grace! At last. And the new Duchess.” He bowed over Alice’s hand with a flourish. “A pleasure, Your Grace. A very great pleasure. The county has been agog with anticipation. Agog, I tell you.”
“How kind.” Alice’s smile achieved the remarkable feat of being both warm and entirely noncommittal.
Kenneth glanced at her, unable to suppress the pride swelling in his chest.
The drawing room held perhaps fifteen people. Local gentry, mostly.
They turned as one when Kenneth and Alice entered, and the conversation paused.
Kenneth guided Alice through introductions with the efficiency of a man navigating familiar terrain.
She curtsied where curtsies were due, offered her hand where hands were expected, and replied to questions about Bearmoor and the twins with a grace that suggested she had prepared for this interrogation and found it less daunting than anticipated.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye as they moved through the room. The green gown emphasized the curve of her waist, the fullness of her breasts, the way her body moved through space.
Kenneth, against his better judgment, could not look away from her. His gaze only strayed when a figure appeared in the doorway.
John Fletcher, the Baron Tidswell, entered with the pompous stride that he favored. Tall and thin, he could perhaps have been described as a man of class, were it not for the permanent expression of discontent on his face.
“Forgive my tardiness, Harcourt,” he announced as he approached the refreshments table. “I do apologize profusely.”
Harcourt nodded and gestured to Alice. “Your Grace, may I present the Baron Tidswell. Tidswell, this is the Duchess of Bearmoor.”
Tidswell nodded. His eyes were sharp, assessing, and they moved over Alice with a thoroughness that made Kenneth’s fingers tighten around his wineglass.
“Your Grace.” He bowed. “A very great pleasure. The county has been eager to make your acquaintance. The circumstances of your marriage have, if you will pardon the observation, generated no small amount of curiosity.”
Alice’s smile did not waver, but Kenneth saw the slight stiffening of her shoulders beneath the green silk. “How kind of you to take an interest, My Lord.”
“Interest is too modest a word. Fascination, perhaps. The story is the stuff of romance novels, is it not? A sister vanishes on her wedding morning. A duke, left at the altar, makes an offer to the remaining sister with a haste that suggests either remarkable pragmatism… or remarkable desperation. And here you stand, bearing the title that was meant for another.” Tidswell picked up a glass of wine and took a long sip.
“Society does so love a narrative with dramatic turns. I imagine the drawing rooms of London have scarcely discussed anything else this Season.”
Around them, conversation ceased, and eyes turned to the small group.
“I believe,” Alice said, her voice steady and clear in the hushed room, “that Society’s fascination says considerably more about Society than it does about my marriage, My Lord.”
Kenneth set down his glass. “Lord Tidswell has a gift for… dramatic narration,” he said, his voice clipped. “It is a talent he employs with remarkable consistency, regardless of the subject. Some men find that the stories they tell about others reveal more than they intend about themselves.”
Tidswell’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“You misunderstand me, Your Grace. I admire decisiveness. When a man knows what he wants and acts upon that knowledge without hesitation, it speaks to a clarity of purpose that this distracted age too often lacks.” He raised his glass toward Alice in a gesture that managed to be both courteous and vaguely proprietary.
“To the new Duchess. May your tenure be every bit as… substantial as your predecessor’s. ”
He let his eyes glide over Alice’s figure, a smirk curving his lips.
Kenneth did not raise his glass. He eyed Tidswell, allowing the silence to stretch until Harcourt cleared his throat and launched into an anecdote about a misadventure involving a prize ram and a drainage ditch that required no participation from anyone except its teller.
Alice turned to Kenneth and attempted a smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Kenneth’s hand found her arm and squeezed gently.
Tidswell’s eyes remained on them. “To new beginnings,” he said. “However they arrive.”
Kenneth drank. The wine burned down his throat, and he held Tidswell’s gaze over the rim of his glass and wondered, not for the first time, what exactly the Baron wanted from a family he had no legitimate claim to and showed no sign of releasing from his attention.