He smiled and looked away, and a look passed across his face like he had lost a battle but was relieved about it.
“Perhaps not,” he murmured. “Come now, let us eat. We have a long day tomorrow on our journey back to London.”
Chapter Eighteen
“It is good to be back in London,” Vanessa observed as Elaine helped her set her hair several days later. It had taken them a few days to travel back to London, but they had arrived the evening before, and now, as Vanessa watched her lady’s maid do up her hair, excitement was beginning to bubble up inside of her. “There is so much I can do now that I am a married woman,” she said, her eyes slightly glassy as she began to think of it. “I can even throw my own ball if I wish!”
“That is very exciting, Your Grace,” Elaine said, beaming at her. “You will surely have visitors, too, now that you are a duchess. The ladies and gentlemen of thetonwill want to pay their respects.”
Vanessa didn’t say anything to this. She hadn’t thought about it before, but yes, Elaine was right: as a duchess, she would have many people vying for her favor, and she would have a responsibility to give her opinion and thoughts on different matters that affected society.
It was an intimidating thought. Vanessa had never even had any friends before. How was she supposed to have people looking up at her and asking her advice?
She also did not voice her other fear: that the Duke would want them to maintain separate households and send her off to one of his lesser houses. So far, that had not been the case, but she could not be sure he wouldn’t require it. After all, he was always saying they were to have their freedom in the marriage.
Although ever since the inn and then the midnight snack they’d shared at Thornfield Castle, she wondered if that was starting to change…
“Well, you look every bit the perfect duchess,” Elaine said, stepping back from Vanessa’s hair to admire her work. “Your callers today will all be impressed!”
“Do I have callers already?” Vanessa asked, her heart skipping a beat.
“I would not be surprised,” Elaine replied with a smile. “Everyone will be dying to meet the new Duchess of Thornfield!”
Vanessa felt a bit nervous that afternoon as she waited for whichever callers would be first to visit her. But when the footman came in holding a silver tray with two calling cards on it, she was pleasantly surprised to see the names written on them.
“Please show Miss Redding and Lady Selina in,” she said to the butler at once.
Moments later, Miss Phoebe Redding and Lady Selina Wexford were sweeping into the parlor, both beaming. Phoebe even had her arms outstretched, and she pulled Vanessa into a hug at once.
“I am so glad that you have returned from Dorset!” she trilled. “How dreadfully dreary of my cousin to take you there on your honeymoon! Of all the beautiful places he might have taken you!”
“Oh, no, Dorset was lovely,” Vanessa said at once. “Thornfield Castle is so?—”
“Old-fashioned and haunted-feeling?” Phoebe quipped, making Vanessa laugh.
“I was going to say charming and gothic,” she said. “I felt as if I were in a book by being there!”
“Then you are a much more patient wife than I shall be,” Phoebe replied, shaking her head. “When I marry, I shall demand that my husband take me to Italy or Paris. I will have none of this honeymooning in England. How very dull indeed!”
“Do not make her feel bad, Phoebe,” Lady Selina urged, smiling at Vanessa. “I am sure that the Duke was very thoughtful andattentive in choosing Dorset. He must have been eager to show you his home.”
“Yes, I am sure that was it,” Vanessa agreed, sidestepping the question. Privately, she suspected that Winston had taken her to Thornfield Castle because it was where he felt most comfortable—although considering his past there, she was surprised. One would think he wouldn’t want to spend another moment in the place where so much cruelty had happened and where his own sister had died.
“How was the honeymoon?” Phoebe asked as she settled on the settee across from Vanessa. “Did His Grace behave himself, or was he very beastly?”
“He wasn’t beastly at all!” Vanessa replied, surprising herself by how quick she was to defend her husband—who had, after all, left her alone for most of the honeymoon. “That is, he was very busy with estate business, but it was nice to spend more time with him and get to know him better. You were right, Miss Redding?—”
“I told you, call me Phoebe!”
“Right…” Vanessa blushed. “Well, you were right, Phoebe, when you said that he has a softer side. And I did get to see it. Your cousin can be quite chivalrous when he wants to be.”
“Yes, he can,” Phoebe agreed, her eyebrows knitting together slightly as she observed Vanessa. It was as if she was trying to discover something—maybe the depth of Vanessa’s feelings. ButVanessa did not even know what her feelings were, and while she liked Phoebe quite a lot, she was scared to talk too openly about them. They were so fragile, so delicate, and likely to break if she looked at them directly.
“I am very happy to hear that it was a pleasant honeymoon,” Lady Selina said. “And it is not as if you have missed much in London. There have been no shocking or scandalous matches.”
“Not since your own,” Phoebe teased with a wink. “Although I must disagree with my friend that you have not missed much. It was just in the papers a few days ago: the Bow Street Runners have several suspects in the Vigilantes of Virtue case.”
“Really?” Vanessa’s heart began to pound. “Several suspects? They think it was more than one person?”
