"Yes."
"I haven't given you one."
"Then give me one."
She was silent. Then she said, "When our child is born, I stay."
Nathaniel stared at her.
She continued, "I don't mean for a week. I don't mean until the servants stop gossiping. I don't mean until you find a more suitable duchess." She stepped closer. "I stay."
Nathaniel's voice was quiet. "As my wife?"
"No." That surprised him. "As the mother of your child." She lifted her chin. "I will not give you an heir and then allow your family to erase me from his life."
Nathaniel considered her words. "And if I refuse?"
"Then you find another woman." She moved past him. "Good morning, Your Grace."
Nathaniel stopped. She had already taken three steps when he spoke: "How did you know?"
She turned. "That you were the Duke? Yes. You don't dress like a village gentleman."
"Neither do you."
"I dress like a woman who knows how to recognize expensive cloth."
Nathaniel stared at her.
She smiled. "Besides, Mr. Whitmore was standing outside the inn yesterday."
Nathaniel's eyebrows rose. "You know my solicitor?"
"No."
"You know his name?"
"No."
"Then how—"
"He called you 'Your Grace' when you arrived."
Nathaniel exhaled.
Evelyn gave him a small smile. "You really should be more careful when you travel anonymously." Then she walked away.
Nathaniel watched her go. He had spent his entire life surrounded by people who measured every word before speaking to him. Evelyn Bennett measured nothing. She simply said what she meant. And somehow, instead of making him want to dismiss her, it made him want to hear more.
By sunset, Nathaniel had made his decision: he would accept her condition. But he did not yet understand that the woman who had negotiated her place in his household had already negotiated something far more dangerous—a place in his thoughts, and soon, whether he liked it or not, in his heart.
The decision was made before Nathaniel could talk himself out of it. Evelyn did not celebrate. That surprised him. Most people who received an invitation to Blackwood Hall would have been unable to conceal their excitement. Evelyn simply stood in the village lane with her laundry basket and looked at him as though he had offered her a particularly inconvenient piece of furniture.
"You understand the terms?" he asked.
"I understand them better than you do."
"How?"
"You think this is about an heir."
"It is."
"No," she said. "It is about what happens after the heir arrives."
Nathaniel studied her. "You are determined to stay."
"I am determined not to be discarded."
"You would not be."
"You said that because I forced you to."
"That does not make the promise less genuine."
She gave him a skeptical look. "You're very certain for a man who only met me yesterday."
"I have discovered that uncertainty is expensive."
"That sounds like something a solicitor would say."
"My solicitor would be delighted."
"Then he has a very strange idea of entertainment."
Nathaniel almost smiled. "You have until tomorrow morning."
"I don't need until tomorrow."
"You're accepting?"
"I am."
His eyebrows lifted. "That quickly?"
"I have already considered what happens if I say no."
"And?"