Chapter 10 #2
Hobbs appeared behind her, spectral and silent as ever. “Dinner is served, Your Grace.” The words went to the old woman alone, and the slight was every bit as calculated as it was customary by now.
The household arranged itself in the order the dowager had established long before Alistair’s arrival.
Margaret first, Josephine just behind her, the girls trailing by descending age.
Josephine had walked this procession so many times her feet knew the steps without needing instruction, the familiar choreography of deference worn smooth by repetition.
Alistair broke it without a word. He stepped past Margaret, offered Josephine his arm, and led her forward instead. Ahead of the dowager, ahead of the girls, ahead of the whole arrangement that had governed this household since before Josephine had ever married into it.
He glanced down at her as they left the room, and what showed in his eyes was not triumph but an assurance, a promise that this was simply how things stood from now on.
She felt the solid warmth of him through his coat’s wool, and her chest eased even as the sharp intake of breath behind them confirmed Margaret had understood exactly what had just taken place.
They entered the dining room in this new order, and the room itself proved no warmer than on any other evening, the fire in the great hearth still losing its nightly battle against the ancient walls.
But tonight the rain lent its own voice to the room, a muffled percussion against the high windows, and with Alistair’s arm still beneath her hand, the vast space felt closer and more intimate.
They took their seats, and the first course arrived, the same thin soup that seemed to appear at every meal now, steaming half-heartedly in its bowl.
Alistair waited until the servants had retreated to the edges of the room before speaking. “I have an announcement to make.”
Four pairs of young eyes swung toward him at once. The dowager went on sipping her soup as though he had said nothing at all.
“Josephine and I are to be married. I have secured a license, and we shall take our vows in a few days.”
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the distant murmur of rain and the faint clink of the dowager’s spoon set down, with great deliberateness, beside her bowl.
Genevieve reacted first, her large blue-green eyes flooding with undisguised delight. “Oh, how wonderful! It is just like—” She caught herself, glanced at the dowager, and swallowed whatever came next.
Seraphina’s eyes went from Alistair to Josephine and back again, her face unreadable for a long moment before the wariness in her expression softened, not quite trust yet, but the guarded recognition due an ally beginning to prove himself.
“Congratulations, cousin,” she said, and warmth ran through her voice, warmth that cost her something to speak aloud in the old woman’s presence, as Josephine well understood.
“And to you, Josephine. I am glad of it.”
“As am I,” Arabella put in, her posture as impeccable as ever though her eyes had gone bright. Beneath the table she found Josephine’s hand and squeezed it, the gesture hidden entirely from the dowager’s sight. “We wish you both every happiness.”
Juliet offered nothing aloud, but when Josephine’s eyes found hers, the quiet twin gave a small nod, a gesture so contained and yet so full of meaning that it carried more weight than either of her sisters’ words had.
The dowager remained fixed in place, unmoved.
She sat with her hands folded before her, soup abandoned entirely now, pale eyes fixed on Alistair with an expression that could have been chiseled from the very limestone of the cliffs outside. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the cold sound of a blade being drawn slowly from its sheath.
“You intend to marry your uncle’s widow. Barely two months after his death. In this house, which is still draped in mourning.”
“I do.”
“Ruin will follow such scandal. Every family of consequence in this county will shut their doors to this household entirely. You will turn these girls into pariahs before they have had the chance to become anything else at all.”
The girls went rigid where they sat. Josephine felt the old dread pool low in her stomach, the instinct to shrink down, to yield, to let the old woman’s authority wash over her the way the rain washed the windows outside, relentless and impossible to turn aside.
But Alistair did not shrink from it. He set his spoon down and studied the dowager with the patience of a man well used to facing down creditors, competitors, and machinery capable of taking off a limb without any warning at all.
“Mourning is a matter of etiquette. Not law. And this match serves the Oxley legacy exceedingly well. A union between the two branches of this family secures both stability and continuity for it.”
Josephine recognized the diplomacy for exactly what it was. She knew perfectly well Alistair cared nothing for the Oxley legacy. But he understood the language the dowager spoke fluently, the currency of lineage and propriety, and he wielded it with pragmatism.
The dowager’s thin mouth pressed into a line. “At the very least you shall take up your proper place here. Give up that mill and attend to the duties owed your station. Perhaps some good may yet come of this indecent haste.”
“I shall not be giving up the mill.”
The words dropped into the room like stones into still water. Josephine watched the ripples spread outward across the old woman’s face, her pale eyes narrowing, her jaw clenching, her white-knuckled grip tightening on the walking stick propped against her chair.
In that moment, Josephine felt something she had not expected to feel at all.
Beneath her relief, beneath her gratitude for Alistair’s strength, ran an unexpected thread of feeling for the dowager.
Not sympathy exactly, the old woman had earned none of that from her, but a shared disappointment reached from two opposite directions.
The dowager wanted him fixed at Fortunestone Hall because she believed a duke belonged on his own estate.
Josephine wanted him here because his presence made the cavernous rooms of this crumbling house feel, for the very first time, like somewhere she might genuinely belong.
“You refuse to give up trade.” The dowager’s voice dropped, far more menacing a register than her usual volume.
“Your grandfather, the eighth Duke of Oxley, disinherited his own son for contaminating this family’s name with commerce.
And here you sit at this very table, announcing you mean to carry that contamination forward.
That you will marry this woman.” She gestured toward Josephine without troubling to glance at her, as one might indicate a stain marring the tablecloth.
“And go on as a tradesman while holding one of the highest titles in this county.”
“I do.”