“Where did you obtain this?”
“Mrs. Beale sent it to me.”
“And you came here because of a rent notice?”
“I came because a widow and her children believe I have decided they are an inconvenience.”
Julian looked at her.
There was no theatrical indignation in her expression.
No attempt to shame him.
Only a quiet, unmistakable anger.
“Your Grace,” she said, “I am prepared to forgive a gentleman who believes me unbearable. I am less prepared to forgive someone who uses my name to frighten children.”
The words struck him with far greater force than any accusation of discourtesy.
For a long moment he said nothing.
Then he reached for the bell.
Mrs. Hartley moved toward the door.
“Your Grace?”
“Send for Mr. Vane.”
Clara rose.
“Not yet.”
Julian turned.
“I beg your pardon?”
“If your steward is responsible, sending for him will accomplish nothing except warning him that we have begun to ask questions.”
“And if he is innocent?”
“Then there is no reason to trouble him before we understand the matter.”
Julian studied her.
“You seem remarkably certain of what ought to be done.”
“Not at all. I am uncertain of nearly everything.”
“Yet you presume to direct my household.”
She glanced at the discarded cap upon the mantel.
“I believe we have already established that I am quite capable of making a poor entrance.”
He could not help it.
This time, he smiled.
A proper smile, brief but unmistakable.
Clara noticed the transformation.
The severity of his face softened, revealing something unexpectedly youthful beneath the years of responsibility and habitual restraint.
For one foolish instant, she understood why her aunt had once described the Duke of Alderwick as dangerously attractive.
Then Julian spoke.
“Very well. What do you propose?”
“I should like to meet Mrs. Beale.”
“At once?”
“Today.”
“The roads are muddy.”
“I have boots.”
“You have only just arrived.”
“I have also survived the journey.”
“The village lies nearly two miles away.”
“Then I suggest we take a carriage.”
Julian looked toward Mrs. Hartley, who had turned her face discreetly toward the window.
“Miss Langley,” he said, “do you always answer every objection?”
“No, Your Grace.”
He waited.
She added, “Only the unpersuasive ones.”
And for the third time that morning, the Duke of Alderwick laughed.
Mereford was the sort of English village that appeared charming from the windows of a traveling carriage.
Its cottages clustered around an old stone church. A narrow stream crossed beneath a little bridge, and apple trees leaned over garden walls where late summer roses clung stubbornly to their stems.
The houses nearest the green possessed whitewashed walls, tidy shutters, and well-swept paths.
Beyond them, however, the road descended toward the old mill.
There the cottages stood closer together.
Their roofs sagged. The ground remained damp long after rain had ceased, and the river moved behind the houses with a dark, persistent murmur.
Clara noticed the change immediately.
Julian had not visited that part of the village since the previous spring.
He realized this with an uncomfortable sense of shame.
His steward, Silas Vane, sent detailed monthly reports. They described rents collected, repairs commissioned, timber sold, and improvements undertaken. The reports were thorough, elegantly written, and invariably reassuring.
Julian had trusted them.
It was easier than admitting how thoroughly the estate had overwhelmed him.
When his brother Matthew died, Julian had been serving with the army. He had returned to England expecting a few weeks of mourning and discovered that the family properties were entangled in old mortgages, disputed rights of way, and agreements his father had signed without understanding their consequences.
His first year as duke had been spent with solicitors.
His second had been spent negotiating creditors.
During the third, he had begun to believe that the worst was behind him.
Now, looking at the damp walls of the lower village, he wondered how much he had failed to see.
Their carriage stopped outside a cottage with a crooked wooden gate.
Clara stepped down before the footman could assist her.
Julian followed.
A thin woman of perhaps forty appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands upon her apron.
She looked at Julian's coat, the ducal crest upon the carriage, and the two liveried servants.
Her face went pale.
“Your Grace.”
“Mrs. Beale?”