They Mocked Her When Her Groom Arrived In A Farmer's Cart — He Was The Duke In Disguise
Chapter 9
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The scent of him reached her beneath the rain: wet wool, and beneath that, something warmer—cedar and horse, and the clean smell of a man who worked with his own hands, rather than merely directing others who did. It was nothing like the cologne-soaked gentlemen of London ballrooms, and Matilda found, to her own quiet astonishment, that she preferred it entirely.Neither of them looked away first. The rain went on falling, and the moment stretched, taut and trembling, until at last he cleared his throat and glanced back toward the horses, and the ordinary world returned around them once more.But something had shifted. Matilda felt it settle low in her chest, warm and unfamiliar, and she suspected, from the careful way Callum kept his eyes on the road once the rain eased and the cart pulled free, that he had felt it, too.They did not arrive at anything resembling the grand estate Matilda had quietly, foolishly allowed herself to imagine. Instead, the cart rolled to a stop before a small stone cottage tucked against a hillside: two rooms wide, its thatch patched in places, smoke curling thin and gray from a single chimney."This is my home," Callum said, watching her carefully, as though bracing for the disappointment he clearly expected.Matilda looked at the cottage—modest, weathered, entirely unremarkable—and felt none of the disappointment he seemed to anticipate. After a childhood spent in the cold splendor of Belgrave House, where every room had been beautiful and none of them had ever felt like home, the simplicity of the little cottage settled over her like a held breath finally released."It feels peaceful," she said, and meant it entirely.Callum said nothing for a moment, merely studied her face as though searching for the mockery he must have expected from any lady raised in London society. Finding none, something in his shoulders eased, some tension she had not noticed until it left him."No woman has ever said that to me before," he admitted quietly, and there was a rawness in the words that suggested he had not meant to say them aloud at all.Inside, the cottage revealed its first small contradiction. The furniture was simple, but every surface held something that did not belong to simplicity at all: a shelf of books bound in leather, too fine for a farmer's wages; a set of silverware, polished and heavy, laid out for their evening meal with a precision that spoke of long habit rather than borrowed grandeur. In the corner, half-shadowed by the low firelight, stood a violin whose wood gleamed with the deep patina of age and careful care—the kind of instrument, Matilda thought, that belonged in a concert hall rather than a farmer's cottage.