"Send the Plain One, He'll Reject Her," They Laughed — But the Duke Could Not Take His Eyes Off Her
Chapter 9
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Useful. Of course. That was what she had always been: useful to her grandfather, useful to her aunt, and now useful to a duke who needed eyes. How foolish she had been to sit knee-to-knee with him in the candlelight and let herself believe for one moment that he saw anything more.She would not be married for her eyes. She would not.But she would not abandon him either—not before Sunday. She would see him through the reading, and then she would go home with her aunt and never think of Halsingham again. Or try not to.Harvest Sunday dawned golden and still. St. Michael's Church stood at the bottom of the village, and it had been dressed for the harvest as only an English country church can be.There were sheaves of wheat tied with red ribbon at the end of every pew. There were fat marrows and polished apples heaped along the windowsills. Upon the altar sat a great loaf baked in the shape of a wheatsheaf, and the whole church smelled of fresh bread and autumn flowers and old stone.Every pew was full: farmers in their Sunday coats, their wives in their best bonnets, children holding apples they had been told not to eat. Three hundred faces, and all of them turned to watch the Duke of Halsingham walk up the aisle on his mother's arm and take his seat in the front pew.Hester sat three rows behind, beside her aunt, with her hands clenched so tightly in her lap that her nails left marks.The hymns were sung; the prayers were said. Then the old vicar climbed into the pulpit and beamed at his congregation."And now, as has been our custom for 200 years, His Grace the Duke will read the harvest lesson." He paused and smiled. "Though this year, at the kind suggestion of Mr. Rupert Vere, we shall depart a little from tradition. Instead of the 65th Psalm, His Grace will read for us from the Book of Ruth, Chapter 1."Hester's blood ran cold.In the front pew, Rupert Vere sat back, folded his arms, and smiled.And the Duke rose and walked alone to the great brass eagle of the lectern, where the old Bible lay open at a page he had never seen, in tiny faded print, in the dim October light. He placed both his hands upon the book, and the church waited.The silence went on: ten seconds, twenty. Somewhere at the back, a child dropped an apple, and it rolled all the way down the stone aisle, and nobody moved to stop it.The Duke stood with his hands on the Bible, staring down at a page he could not see. Hester watched his shoulders, and she knew—the way she had always known with her grandfather—the exact moment he decided.He lifted his head and spoke. Not loudly, but the church was so quiet that every soul in it heard."I will not pretend," said the Duke of Halsingham, "to read what I cannot see."A ripple went through the pews.