Arthur looked up. The severe lines of his face softened the moment he saw her. "Miss Penhaligan," he said. He did not look at her faded cotton morning gown. He did not care that her hair was haphazardly pinned.
"Your Grace," Beatatrice breathed, gripping the banister.
"You do not look sick."
"A miraculous recovery," she managed to say.
Arthur held out a small brown paper parcel. "I brought you something for your convalescence."
Lady Hemsley stared at the package as if it were a bomb. Beatatrice walked down the remaining stairs, intensely aware of her mother's burning glare, and took the parcel. It was heavy. She carefully untied the twine. Inside was a pair of women's walking boots. They were not fashionable. They were made of thick, supple, dark leather with a sturdy flat heel and reinforced toes. They were practical, expensive, and entirely unglamorous.
"For when you are chased," Arthur said quietly, watching her face.
A hysterical, genuine laugh bubbled up from Beatatrice's chest. It was a terrible sound, unladylike and loud, but she couldn't stop it. She clutched the heavy boots to her chest, looking up at the Duke of Westmoreland.
"Get your pelisse," Arthur said, a faint smile playing on his lips. "The brown one. We are going for a walk."
The botanical gardens were mostly empty. The damp gravel crunching under their feet. The air smelled of wet earth and crushed eucalyptus. Beatatrice wore the new boots. They fit perfectly. They walked in silence for a long time. It was the same comfortable silence from the library. Arthur walked with his hands clasped behind his back, slowing his long stride to match hers.
"Your mother," Arthur finally said, breaking the quiet, "is a terrifying creature."
"She is a pragmatist," Beatatrice corrected softly. "We have no money, Your Grace. Clara is beautiful. Therefore, Clara is the salvation of our family. I am a failed investment. My mother only cares for things that yield a return."
"And you?" Arthur glanced at her. "What do you care for?"
Beatatrice looked down at the sturdy leather boots. "Peace. Quiet. A life where I am not constantly told I am taking up too much space."
"You don't take up enough space," Arthur said. The bluntness of his statement made her stop walking.
He stopped a few paces ahead and turned to face her. The shadows of the giant ferns danced across his face.
"When I became Duke," Arthur said, his voice stripped of its usual sarcastic armor, "I became a commodity. Everyone who looks at me sees a title, a bank vault, a stepping stone. They don't see a man, they see an institution. Your sister looked at me and saw a crown. Lady Culper sees a social victory." He took a step closer to her. "You looked at me and saw a man with a headache."
Beatatrice swallowed hard. "You were hiding in a dark room. It was an easy deduction."
"I am asking you to stop hiding, Beatrice." He didn't say it like a command. He said it like a plea.
"They will mock you," Beatatrice whispered, the old insecurities clawing at her throat. "If you court me, if you choose me, they will say you went mad. They will say Clara rejected you and you took the scraps. You are a duke. I am the girl people forget is in the room."
"Let them talk." Arthur closed the distance between them. He didn't reach for her hand. He didn't invade her space. He simply stood before her, entirely open. "I have spent my entire life doing what is expected of me. I managed the estates. I expanded the foundries. I attended the awful balls. But I will not marry a mirror. I will not spend the next 40 years of my life with a woman who only tells me what I want to hear while calculating what she can extract from my surname." He reached out then, his bare fingers lightly grazing the rough wool of her sleeve. "I want a partner. I want a woman who will sit in the mud with me, who will tell me when I am being a fool, and who will laugh at the absurdity of it all. I want you, Beatatrice. And if society has a problem with it, society can go to hell."
Beatatrice looked into his dark eyes. There was no deception there, no pity, just a profound, unshakable certainty. She had spent her whole life waiting for permission to exist. In that moment, she suddenly realized she didn't need it. She only needed the courage to step forward.
"I am not a very good dancer," she reminded him, her voice thick with emotion.
"I have two left feet," Arthur replied, a slow, breathtaking smile spreading across his face.
"My mother will try to plan the wedding. She will want 300 doves and a carriage made of gold."
"We will elope to Scotland and send her a postcard."
Beatatrice laughed, a wet, bright sound. She took a step forward, closing the final inch between them, and rested her hand flat against his chest. She could feel the steady, reassuring beat of his heart through the fine wool of his coat.
"All right," she whispered. "Let them stare."
The scandal of the decade broke 3 weeks later. The announcement in the Times was brief, understated, and explosive. Arthur Pendleton, Duke of Westmoreland, to Miss Beatatrice Penhaligan.
Clara took to her bed for a month, claiming a nervous exhaustion that nobody quite believed. Lady Hemsley fluctuated between apoplectic rage that she had lost control of the narrative and smug triumph that she was now technically the mother of a duchess.
But Beatatrice didn't care. She stood in the library of Westmoreland House on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. [clears throat] The fire was crackling. The dogs were sleeping on the hearth, safely away from the Persian rug. She was wearing a comfortable, slightly worn blue dress. Her sturdy walking boots were tucked under her chair. Arthur sat across from her. A stack of ledger books on his lap, a smudge of ink on his jaw.
He looked up, catching her staring. He didn't say anything. He just smiled, that rare, quiet smile reserved entirely for her, and went back to his reading.
Beatatrice leaned back in her chair and opened her book. She was no longer the wallpaper. She was the architect of her own life, and the room finally felt exactly the right size.