They Mocked Her When Her Groom Arrived In A Farmer's Cart — He Was The Duke In Disguise
Chapter 10
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She trailed her fingers along the spines of the books, noting titles in French and Latin alongside English poetry, volumes bound in calfskin so soft it seemed barely touched by ordinary hands. On the mantel stood a small clock of gilded bronze, its mechanism ticking with a quiet precision that spoke of a maker's workshop far grander than any village clockmaker could offer."That is a fine instrument for a steward's home," she said carefully, watching his face, gesturing toward the violin resting in its shadowed corner."It was my mother's," Callum said, and turned to the fire before she could ask anything further. "She valued beautiful things, even when circumstances did not allow for many of them."It was not quite an answer. Matilda noticed the way he had turned the subject as smoothly as a man closing a door he did not wish opened, and filed the small mystery away rather than pressing it. There would be time, she told herself; there would be years if their marriage held.She met the housekeeper that evening: an older woman with silver hair pinned with unusual elegance, who curtsied a fraction too deeply for a servant, and spoke with vowels far too polished for a country cottage. The woman had rearranged the modest dinner table twice before the meal was served, murmuring under her breath about the improper placement of a fish fork, and had corrected a young maid's curtsy with the brisk authority of someone who had spent decades training servants for households considerably grander than a two-room cottage."Mrs. Ashby keeps the household running," Callum explained, though the woman's sharp, assessing glance at Matilda felt far less like a housekeeper's welcome and far more like an examination Matilda did not yet understand she was undergoing.At dinner, Matilda reached for the honeypot without thinking, stirring a spoonful into her tea out of old habit, and thought nothing more of it. But the following morning, when Callum poured her tea himself, he added the honey before she could ask, without a single word exchanged between them.She stared at the cup, then at him. "How did you know?""I noticed," he said simply, as though it required no explanation at all—as though noticing the smallest habits of a woman he had known for less than a day were simply what a man did when he had decided to pay proper attention to her.No one at Belgrave House had ever noticed how she took her tea. Matilda felt something unfamiliar and warm unfurl behind her ribs, and did not trust herself to examine it too closely just yet.The small mysteries continued to gather, quiet and strange, like pebbles she could not quite fit into any pattern.