“None of Them Will Be My Mother!” the Duke’s Son Declared — Until the Cook Brought an Apple Pie
Chapter 7
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The study was a long, cold room that smelled of leather and woodsmoke and ink, with a portrait of a laughing dark-haired woman hung above the mantel and a stuffed pheasant glaring from a corner. The Duke stood by the window, and in the daylight, she saw the shadows under his eyes."Please sit, Miss Vale.""I would rather stand, Your Grace.""Then I shall stand also, and we shall both be uncomfortable together." He did not smile; she thought strangely that he wanted to. "I have a proposal," said the Duke, "and I should like you to treat it as business, because it is. You may refuse it and remain exactly where you are at the wages you now receive, without reproach from me.""And if I do not refuse it?""Then I should like you to take tea with my son every afternoon at 4:00 in the library. Not as his nurse, not as his governess—he has defeated four—not as anything at all except Miss Vale, who bakes and says what she thinks. He has not spoken to a living soul in this house for two years, except Mrs. Hollis and a hedgehog, and yesterday he spoke to you for an hour.""A hedgehog?""I have been informed that I am not to know about the hedgehog.""Your Grace," said Rosamund carefully, "I do not wish to be paid for being liked.""You will not be. You will be paid for being present. Whether he likes you is his own affair. And I understand from the state of the pie dish that it is already in train. For the duty I propose, I will raise your wages to £60 a year.""That is far too much.""Sixty-five.""Your Grace, you have misunderstood the direction of the negotiation."The Duke considered this with grave attention. "I was told that was how it was done," he said."We shall say 55," said Rosamund, her lip betraying her. "And Sundays free to write my sister. And I will not be asked to pretend to anything. I shall not be his mother, Your Grace. I shall not be anyone's but my own.""I would think very little of you if you offered," said Theodore.She turned to go, and then saw it: small and unmistakable on his dark sleeve, a pale crumb of golden pastry."Your Grace," she said. "That is pie crust."The Duke looked down at his cuff. A long pause followed in which a man who had silenced the House of Lords met a flake of apple pastry and lost."I came down at midnight," he admitted, "and finished what was left. Cold. It was the finest thing I have eaten in two years. I would be obliged if you would not mention it to my aunt.""I never mention anything to your aunt, Your Grace," said Rosamund. "It has not worked out well for me."And as she went out, she heard behind her a sound that in any other man she would have called the beginning of a laugh.The first week of November brought rain, and the library at 4:00 smelled of wet wool, toast, and old books. Master Edmund took his first tea with her as a soldier takes a hill: wearily, with every gun trained.