The door opened.
It was a heavy door, dark oak with a brass knob the maids polished every Saturday, and it did not open quietly for anyone. Hester turned on her knees, the cloth still in her hand, and found the Duke of Ashcombe in the doorway.
He did not come to the nursery in the afternoon. He came at seven, most evenings now, for a quarter of an hour that had lately become half an hour, and he stood by the window while Rose showed him things. He did not come at half past two in his dark blue velvet coat with the gold chain of his watch across the pale yellow of his waistcoat, looking as if he had walked very fast from somewhere and then stopped himself at the door to walk the last of it like a gentleman.
His face was serious. It was usually serious. But there was something else in it this afternoon that Hester could not read, and she had become, over eleven months, rather good at reading it.
She began to rise.
Rose caught at her sleeve with her clean hand. Her voice came out high and sudden, as if it had been waiting behind her teeth.
"Mama, don't go."
The room went quite still. Even the dust in the sunlight seemed to stop.
Hester did not decide to put her arms around the child; they were simply there, one about her shoulders, one at the back of her head, Rose's face pressed into the muslin of Hester's gown. Her heart was going so hard she thought Rose must feel it through the cloth.
"Rose," she said, and kept her voice low and even, the voice she used for thunderstorms. "Rose. You know I am Miss Bennett."
Over the child's head she looked at the Duke, because she could not help it, and wished at once that she had not.
He had not moved from the door. His hand was still on the brass knob, and his knuckles had gone white around it.
"She has never called anyone that," he said.