Chapter Five
The chandeliers had been dusted, and for the first time in over a year, the long dining table in the blue drawing room had been set with the good china.
The old butler, Mr. Cobb, had been coaxed out of reluctant retirement to supervise the housemaids, and someone had managed to polish the silver to a dull gleam that, in the candlelight, almost passed for brilliance.
Hawthorne House was trying to look alive.
Nicholas stood alone in the gallery above the entrance hall, one hand resting on the carved balustrade, and looked down at the flurry of movement below.
Servants he barely remembered hiring moved about with cautious efficiency. The house creaked with unfamiliar activity, fires being lit in rooms long shut, curtains thrown open, furniture shifted out of shadows and into polite use again.
The place felt... suspicious. As if it didn't trust this sudden revival.
Neither did Nicholas.
It had been a week since he’d agreed to marry Lydia Grantham. A week of silence, of correspondence handled through their solicitors, of avoiding questions from Charlotte and sideways glances from Sebastian. A week in which Nicholas had had far too much time to reflect on what he’d done.
Married her.
Or rather, agreed to marry her. The banns had been posted. A special license was arranged.
He hadn’t seen her since that day in his study.
He’d tried not to think about her and failed.
Nicholas couldn’t help but remember the way she looked at him. Not with awe or fawning flattery, but with cold calculation and undeniable intelligence. He remembered the way she blushed when he mentioned intimacy, how quickly she masked it, how stubbornly she held his gaze.
He had agreed to marry a woman who unnerved him.
And tonight, she would be introduced to the household. Officially. As the future Duchess of Hawthorne.
He turned from the railing and walked toward the stairs, boots echoing on marble. The portraits along the hallway watched him with judgmental silence, former dukes and duchesses, powdered and painted, all staring down from frames too elaborate for the peeling wallpaper behind them.
Your legacy is a merchant’s daughter, they seemed to sneer.
Nicholas ignored them.
The sound of carriage wheels crunching gravel carried up through the open drawing room window.
Nicholas looked out of the window. It was not the kind of hackney Lydia Grantham might arrive in, nor the slow plodding of delivery carts. This was a private coach, heavier. Familiar.
She had come.
The letter had been three lines, unsigned but unmistakably his hand. She’d replied with a single word.
Understood.
He crossed the hall and stepped outside just as the carriage came to a halt under the curved portico.
It was a grey day, the countryside outside of London still refusing to admit that spring had arrived. But the gravel was clean, the ivy had been trimmed from the stone pillars, and the brass lanterns flanking the entrance gleamed faintly in the thin light.
Hawthorne House, for all its age and private decay, still had dignity, at least from a distance.
The door of the carriage opened, and a gloved hand emerged, followed by a flash of deep green skirts, a feathered hat, and the sharp, appraising gaze of Lady Beatrice Ravenshaw, widow of the late Baron Ravenshaw, and more importantly, his father’s sister.
She looked the same as always. Impeccably dressed. Her walking dress was neat, tailored, and dark enough to suggest a lingering sense of mourning she would never admit to. Her dark auburn hair, streaked now with silver, was still twisted in the same no-nonsense knot at the nape of her neck.
Nicholas straightened as she stepped onto the drive, already bracing for impact.
Beatrice had always had a way of seeing too much, saying too little, and making him feel six years old and guilty about something. But she was more than a family watchdog. She had stepped in when no one else had.
After his father’s death, violent, disgraceful, and whispered about in every drawing room from Mayfair to Margate, Beatrice had been the one who came to Hawthorne House, not with tears or pity, but with a list of instructions and a carriage full of black crepe for Charlotte’s wardrobe.
She had organized the funeral. She had silenced the most vocal gossips.
And when Nicholas had been too proud to ask for help, she had given it anyway, with brandy, sharp advice, and the kind of loyalty that never came with conditions.
She had loved his father fiercely, even when he didn’t deserve it. And she loved Nicholas and Charlotte with the same ferocity. Not gently, but absolutely.
Beatrice had always been the closest thing to a mother Charlotte had, ever since their own mother, cold and distant, had retreated from the world after Nicholas’s birth and never quite returned.
For Nicholas, Beatrice had been something else entirely: a foil, a critic, a confidante when he allowed it, and the only person who could slap sense into him without being slapped back.
She was also the last Montclair who still walked into rooms without people whispering afterward.
And now, he’d summoned her into the middle of a scandal she didn’t yet know about.
Sharp grey eyes met his.
“Nicholas,” she said as she descended the carriage step. “You look thin.”
He smiled despite himself. “And you look exactly as I remembered, you haven’t aged a day.”
Aunt Beatrice chuckled dryly.
“You only say that because I know where the bodies are buried.”
“And I’m sure you haven’t forgotten how to dig.”
She chuckled as he offered her his arm.
He guided her up the steps, through the open door, and into the entrance hall. A footman moved quickly to take her cloak. She swept a glance around the space, nostrils flaring slightly at the fresh polish on the floor, the faint scent of beeswax.
“You’ve stirred the place,” she noted. “I take it something’s afoot.”
Nicholas led her into the smaller sitting room, a warmer space, all deep greens and wood panelling, with a fire already lit. He poured her a brandy without asking. She took it with a small nod of approval.
Beatrice didn’t sit. She never did, not until she was ready.
Instead, she walked slowly toward the hearth, eyes still scanning. “Charlotte wrote to me last month. She seemed... subdued.”
“She’s well,” Nicholas said, “as well as she can be under the circumstances.”
Beatrice hummed. “And you?” she asked. “How are you?”
“I am fine,” he replied, doing his best to keep his tone even.
She turned toward him now, eyes sharp.
“I confess,” she said, “I still don’t understand why you summoned me. You’ve written less in two years than it takes to order a cravat, and now suddenly I’m pulled from my countryside routine with a cryptic letter and no explanation.”
Nicholas leaned against the mantle. “I’m getting married.”
The silence that followed was immediate and profound.
“Married?” she repeated. “To whom?”
“Her name is Lydia Grantham.”
Beatrice stared at him. “Grantham. Grantham... the textile family?”
Nicholas gave a single nod.
Her brow twitched. “You’re marrying a merchant’s daughter?”
“She’s not just—”
“Oh, no,” she cut in, laughing once in disbelief. “Do not tell me she’s different, Nicholas. That is exactly what every man says before they destroy their reputation.”
“She’s intelligent. Grounded. More capable than half the women in the ton.”
Beatrice placed her brandy down, her movements sharp. “And that qualifies her to be Duchess of Hawthorne?”
“It qualifies her to be my wife.”
“For God’s sake, Nicholas,” she said, voice rising. “You are a duke. Your title is not just a courtesy; it is a responsibility. Your marriage is not a personal indulgence. It is the preservation of a name, an estate, and a bloodline.”
“I’m well aware,” he said coldly.
“Then how,” she snapped, “could you possibly think this is wise? You could marry anyone. You’ve avoided marriage for years, refused dozens of matches from well-bred families—”
“I didn’t want them,” he said flatly.
“No,” she said, standing now. “You didn’t want the pressure. The compromise. The duty.”
“And yet here I am, marrying someone I chose.”
“Choose?” She stared at him. “You’re telling me this wasn’t a transaction?”
He paused.
She scoffed. “I see. So, she is pretty, then.”
“She’s more than that.”
“Oh, forgive me. Is it love, then?” Her tone was mocking.
He held her gaze. “Yes.”
Nicholas had decided not to tell his aunt the truth about why he was marrying Lydia.
Because if he had, if he had said that he’d agreed to marry a merchant’s daughter in exchange for her dowry, that he’d signed away the last thread of Montclair pride to salvage what was left of their legacy, she would be furious.
Beatrice froze.
It was the first time she looked truly shaken.
“Love,” she said quietly. “You, of all people?”
Nicholas said nothing.
Beatrice’s voice softened, but not in comfort. “You’re telling me you love her truly, in the way that burns and bends you? Because that, I might’ve understood. I might’ve forgiven what it meant. But I do not see that in front of me.”
Nicholas said nothing for a moment. The truth was that he did not believe that he could ever possibly feel the way his aunt described. Not for Lydia, or for any woman.
“I do love her,” he said, quieter now, but firm. “It just doesn’t look the way you want it to.”
She studied him in silence. Then, slowly, she sat again.
“So you’ve made your choice.”
“I have.”
Beatrice reached for her brandy and sipped it carefully, though her hands were shaking. “Then you’d better hope she’s as capable as you claim.”
“She is.”
“And that she loves you back.”
He looked away. “That’s not required.”
Beatrice blinked once. “Nicholas…”
He cut her off. “It’s done, Aunt. I didn’t ask you here for permission. I asked for your presence. Because you’re family. Because I trust you.”
Beatrice pressed her lips together but said nothing.