"Because I cannot dismiss him. That is all you are getting on the subject. I wanted my answer, not your reasons."
"You have my answer."
"Then here is mine. I will work at it in the evenings, after the household work is done. I will need a lamp that is not counted. I will need the door open and nobody at my shoulder."
"Granted."
"And my name goes on it."
The Duke looked at her properly for the first time.
"A housemaid's name," he said, "on the Duke of Kestrel Mere's stone."
"The true name, your grace. You may put your own beneath it, if you like. I will not be a hand that cleans the thing while another man signs it."
"I could give you £100 instead. I know it would be considerably more than 11."
"It would be a price," said Hester. "I have been priced. I would prefer to be paid."
He was quiet again.
She could not read him. She had read a stone in 3 days and could not read a man in as many minutes.
"I will not pretend I am pleased," he said at last. "I do not like being at anyone's mercy. I am at yours."
"I did not ask you to be pleased."
"No."
Something shifted in his shoulders, as if a weight had moved from one side to the other.
"You did not."
"And I will not pretend I trust you."
"Good," said the Duke. "I have no use for it."
It was the most honest conversation she had held in a year. They both seemed relieved.
He went to the door and stopped with his hand on it.
"Larkin."
"Yes?"
"3 weeks. Not more."
"It will not take 3 weeks."
"Then do not waste them being modest."
He left. Judge did not.
Hester stood alone with the fire and the stone and the quiet. She had a partner and did not know his reasons. She had a deadline, and no idea how much of the language she had left to learn.
* * *
The ladies were in the east passage at noon.
There were three of them, bright as a jar of sweets, and Miss Delamir led. She was 22 and carried an ivory fan she had not once used to cool herself.
"Mrs. Larkin," she said, in the passage, before a footman and two housemaids, "how restful it must be to have found a post so exactly suited to your station."
The passage went quiet.
Hester set down her pail.