Sophia leaned forward. "Your estate needs capital. My family wants a ducal connection. There is no need to pretend marriage is anything other than an arrangement."
For the first time all afternoon, Alexander seemed almost approving. "At last, honesty."
Sophia smiled. "Then we understand one another."
"Perhaps. Tell me what you would do here."
She glanced around the drawing room. "Here?"
"At Whitmore."
"I would reopen the London house for the season, host properly, restore the ballroom, modernize these rooms, increase the tenant rents where possible."
Alexander's cup touched its saucer with a soft click. "Why?"
Sophia blinked. "Why what?"
"Why would you want to live here?"
Her confidence faltered. "Because I would be Duchess of Whitmore."
Alexander leaned back. "That is what you would be. I asked why you would want to live here."
Silence gathered around them. Ellie watched Sophia search for the correct answer and realized Alexander had asked every candidate some version of the same question. "What do you want when nobody is watching?" "What remains when the title is removed?" None of them had understood.
Sophia recovered with a polished smile. "Surely affection can grow after a suitable marriage settlement."
Alexander looked toward the fire. "That is what people say when suitability is all they have."
Ellie saw his thumb press against the scar beneath his ear. Once, then stop. Sophia's face hardened.
"You invited us here to choose a wife."
"I did. Yet you seem determined to find fault with every woman who came."
Alexander rose. "Perhaps I finally understand why." He crossed to the bell and pulled it. The sound rang through the house. Within moments, the other candidates and their mothers were summoned from adjoining rooms.
Alexander stood before all six women. "Thank you for coming. There will be no marriage arrangement."
Shock moved through the room. Protests followed immediately. Alexander endured perhaps 20 seconds. Then his hand came down against the mantle.
"Everyone out."
Silk rustled. Chairs scraped. Ellie began collecting the abandoned cups. One by one, the rejected candidates swept past her. She lifted the silver tray and followed them toward the door.
"Miss Harper."
Ellie stopped.
"Not you." She turned. Alexander stood alone beside the fire now, watching her with an expression she could not read. "You stay."
Ellie slowly lowered the tray. "Why?"
Alexander looked at the tea she had made for him, then pulled out the chair opposite his own. "Because six women came here today prepared to tell me exactly how they would become Duchess." His eyes returned to hers. "You are the only woman in this house who noticed I was hungry."
Ellie stared at the empty chair. Alexander rested one hand on its back. "Sit down, Miss Harper. I would like to ask you the question none of them could answer."
Ellie looked at the chair as though it might be another test. "Your Grace, my aunt told me not to draw attention."
"Your aunt's instructions have suffered a remarkable defeat."
A reluctant smile touched Ellie's mouth. She set the silver tray down and sat. Though she kept her back straight and her hands folded in her lap. Alexander took the chair opposite her. Without six candidates filling the room with perfume and ambition, the drawing room seemed suddenly enormous. Rain whispered against the windows. A coal shifted in the grate with a soft crack.
"What would you do here?" he asked.
Ellie blinked. "At Whitmore Hall?"
"If you had no one to impress and nothing to gain."
"That is a peculiar question to ask your housekeeper's niece."
"Apparently, I've been asking the wrong women."
Ellie glanced around the room. "I would open the curtains."
Alexander followed her gaze toward the heavy velvet drapes. "Why?"
"Because this room is gloomy enough to make perfectly cheerful people confess to crimes."
His eyebrow rose. "Anything else?"
"I'd stop heating the west corridor. It contains 12 rooms, 11 of which no one uses."
"You've counted."
"Your coal bills did."
Alexander became very still. "You have seen my household accounts."
"Only the invoices that passed through Aunt Mae's office."
"And?"
Ellie hesitated. "You asked what I would do here, not whether I wanted to keep my position."
"You don't have a position."
"Then I have even less to lose."
This time he smiled. It was brief, but unmistakable. "Continue."
Ellie looked toward the windows. "The kitchen orders too much meat on Thursdays. Half is never served. Candles disappear from storage faster than they are burned. Three upstairs rooms have been listed for chimney repairs twice since Christmas. Yet the plaster around the fireplaces is still cracked."
Alexander's amusement vanished. "How do you know that?"
"Because I live here."
The answer seemed to strike somewhere deeper than she intended. He leaned back. "So do I."
Ellie met his eyes. "Do you?"
Silence. The fire popped between them. Alexander's fingers tightened around the arm of his chair. Ellie immediately regretted the question, but she would not retreat from it.