Chapter Three
There was nothing in the post.
Again.
Lydia stood at the front door, holding the brass handle of the mailbox as if staring hard enough might make a letter materialize. But the tiny compartment was empty, just as it had been yesterday, and the day before that, and every cursed day since she'd sent the letter to Hawthorne House.
One week. Seven days. Countless glances toward the street. All for nothing.
She closed the mailbox with a quiet click and turned back inside.
Emma was sitting in the parlour, curled sideways in an armchair with a sewing project in her lap. She wasn’t sewing. She was watching Lydia with that specific expression, part pity, part "I told you so."
“No letter?” Emma asked, too gently.
Lydia shook her head and removed her gloves. “Perhaps he’s traveling. Or indisposed.”
“Or he threw it into the fire the moment he saw the name Grantham on the seal,” Emma replied. “Which is what I said would happen.”
Lydia sat opposite her, smoothing her skirts as if the action could calm her. “It was a business letter. Calm. Professional. I phrased it as a matter of estate finances. Something any gentleman would be obliged to respond to.”
Emma gave a dry look. “You also left it unsigned.”
“Yes. For strategic reasons.”
Emma raised a brow.
Lydia exhaled sharply and stared at the cold fireplace. “I knew he wouldn’t answer a letter from me.”
“Because he’s a duke,” Emma said flatly. “And you’re the daughter of a disgraced merchant.”
Lydia flinched, only slightly. “Thank you for that delightful reminder.”
“I’m being realistic. You’ve always hated that about me.”
“No,” Lydia said. “I rely on that about you. But today, I’m not interested in realism.”
She stood and crossed to the writing desk in the corner, where her father’s old account books still sat in their brittle leather bindings. She ran a hand across their spines.
“You know he owed us a great deal,” she said softly. “Imported brocades. Indian silks. My father gave him months of credit, years, when he was still trying to restore Hawthorne House for some grand Society comeback. He made promises. They dined together.”
Emma looked up. “He was using your father, Lydia. You know that.”
“I know he never paid. And I know that money was part of what tipped us over.”
Emma set her sewing aside. “Even if he owes the debt, you can’t make him acknowledge it. You said it yourself: the order was years ago. The man probably doesn’t even remember it.”
“Then I’ll remind him,” Lydia said simply.
Emma blinked. “You mean, you’re going to write again?”
“No.” Lydia turned, chin high. “I’m going to call on him.”
Emma sat upright like she’d been stung. “What?”
“I’m going to his London house. This afternoon.”
“You most certainly are not!”
Lydia’s smile was faint and humourless. “Would you like to accompany me?”
“Lydia—have you gone mad?”
She didn’t answer. She had already begun moving toward the stairs, toward her coat and gloves and courage.
“You cannot call on a duke,” Emma said, following her. “You have no invitation. No chaperone and no standing. He won’t even see you.”
“Then he can refuse to see me to my face,” Lydia said. “But I won’t sit here waiting for a letter that will never come.”
Emma grabbed her arm. “This is humiliating. Please, think. What if he laughs? What if he calls the constable?”
Lydia looked at her, eyes sharp. “Then he proves himself exactly the sort of man I already suspect him to be.”
Emma hesitated, her voice softening. “You’re not doing this just for the money, are you?”
“No,” Lydia admitted. “I’m doing it for my name. For my future. And because I’m the only person left who remembers that he owes us anything at all.”
Emma exhaled. “Let me come with you, at least.”
“No. If he sees two merchant-class women demanding repayment on his doorstep, he’ll think we’re selling soap.”
She pulled on her coat, one of her better ones, though the stitching at the collar was beginning to fray. Her gloves were clean but plain, her hat modest. She didn’t look wealthy. She didn’t look poor. She looked like someone who was trying, and perhaps that was the most dangerous look of all.
She caught sight of herself in the hallway mirror. Her dark curls were pinned neatly, her face pale but composed. Her hazel eyes stared back at her with a gleam that made even her hesitate.
She looked like a woman who had nothing left to lose.
Emma leaned in the doorway. “What will you do if he refuses?”
“Then I will insist,” Lydia said. “Politely, of course.”
Emma shook her head. “You really are impossible.”
“Thank you.”
And with that, Lydia Grantham stepped into the grey London afternoon, chin high, skirts clean, heart hammering against her ribs, not with fear, but with purpose.
She was done waiting.
***
The Montclair townhouse rose above the street like a relic from a finer time, all white stone and wrought-iron balconies, its windows tall and tight-lipped. It was respectable, even elegant, though the brass knocker had dulled with age and the ivy around the columns was beginning to brown.
Lydia straightened her gloves, smoothed her coat, and gave the knocker a firm rap. One. Two. Three. No hesitation.
Her heart, however, gave a series of traitorous thuds.
She was still rehearsing what she might say, what tone of voice would best convey dignity without desperation, when the door opened.
But instead of a footman or stiff-lipped butler, it was a young woman, perhaps mid-twenties, with bright blue eyes and golden hair pinned loosely at her nape.
Her gown was fine but unadorned, the kind that whispered wealth without shouting it.
Her cheeks were flushed from activity, not rouge, and she held a book pressed absently to her side as if she'd only just been pulled from its pages.
“Good afternoon,” Lydia said, offering her most practiced smile. “I hope I’m not intruding. I was hoping to speak with His Grace, the Duke of Hawthorne.”
The young woman blinked at her, and Lydia watched for the subtle shift of judgment she’d grown used to seeing in the faces of nobility, the eyes that always seemed to say Other.
But instead, the woman tilted her head and smiled faintly, as though Lydia’s arrival was only mildly curious, not unwelcome.
“You’re here to see my brother?” she asked, a note of polite amusement in her voice.
Lydia froze, mid-curtsy. “Your brother?”
The woman extended her free hand. “Lady Charlotte Montclair.”
Lydia straightened abruptly, caught between surprise and mortification.
Lady Charlotte. The ghost of the ton. The subject of so many whispered speculations, delicate health, secret heartbreak, social defiance.
Not a single one of those rumours had prepared Lydia for the very real, very warm woman in front of her.
“Oh,” Lydia said. “I—oh. I’d heard…”
“That I was bedridden? Difficult? Possibly mad?” Charlotte's smile widened, wry and unapologetic. “Yes. I hear those too.”
Lydia flushed. “I meant no offense.”
“None taken. They needed a reason why I wasn’t dancing at every ball, and illness is more palatable than poverty.”
Lydia’s lips parted slightly, stunned by the honesty, but before she could respond, a voice cut through the moment, low and cold:
“I see we’ve taken to accepting door-to-door visitors now.”
Lydia turned, and there he was.
Nicholas Montclair, Duke of Hawthorne.
He filled the space like a storm cloud. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with that unmistakable tension in his frame that came from too many years spent holding everything.
His dark hair was just dishevelled enough to suggest he'd been pacing or brooding.
Likely both. The cut of his coat was impeccable, but the expression he wore was anything but welcoming. His blue eyes were as cold as stone.
Lydia’s breath caught. Not from fear, but something far more treacherous. Heat flushed her cheeks before she could stop it, a sudden rush of awareness low in her belly.
Good Lord, pull yourself together, she said to herself.
This was not the time to be noticing the length of a man’s thick lashes or the way his jaw clenched like a thunderclap waiting to happen.
She forced her spine straight and her face smooth, ruthlessly stamping out the flutter in her stomach. He might be handsome, but he was also the enemy, a man who owed her money, respect, and a meeting. Not admiration.
She had imagined this moment many times over the past week. Variations of his reaction. Surprise, perhaps, or scepticism. Maybe even polite irritation.
She had not imagined being looked at as though she were a tradeswoman hawking tin pots.
“I’m not a petitioner,” Lydia said coolly.
“Unannounced callers to a duke’s residence usually are,” Nicholas replied, his voice like cut glass. “Unless you’re delivering bread?”
Charlotte sighed. “Nicholas…”
Lydia stepped forward, matching his tone. “I’m here to speak with you, Your Grace. On a matter of business.”
“Is that so?” His eyes flicked over her. To her coat, gloves, and bonnet. His gaze both assistive and dismissive.
“It concerns a debt. One owed to my late father. I believe you may recall the name—John Grantham.”
His jaw shifted almost imperceptibly.
Lydia pressed on, voice even. “I requested a meeting by letter. When you did not respond, I chose to come myself.”
“I receive many letters,” he said. “I don’t make it a habit to answer unsigned ones from the dead.”
Charlotte’s brow knit slightly. “Wait, you’re John Grantham’s daughter?”
“I am,” Lydia said.
Charlotte’s tone softened. “He supplied the fabrics for the ballroom draperies at Hawthorne House. I remember the patterns. They were beautiful.”
“Imported silks,” Lydia said. “My father extended generous credit. It was never repaid.”
Nicholas’s face remained unreadable. “I’m not in the habit of conducting business in my front hall.”
“Then perhaps we could speak somewhere more appropriate,” Lydia said. “Alone.”
Charlotte’s eyebrows rose, impressed, if not a little intrigued.
Nicholas said nothing for a moment. The silence stretched, thick and humming.
Finally, he turned with a sharp motion. “Very well.”
He stalked toward the study.
Lydia followed, pulse hammering with something dangerously close to triumph.
Charlotte remained in the doorway, watching with a look that was half warning, half wonder.
And Lydia thought, No wonder they say he’s ruined, he has no idea what’s walking through his front door.