“There is something you must know,” she said quietly. “I have a mission. I will not tell you all of it now, but something happened that I have not yet shared with you, but I will. I promise I will. You may think little of my duties in the house, but I mean to fulfil something that matters to me.” Her chest tightened as she confessed it, though her words revealed no more than she intended. “I do not like that we hold too many secrets between us. You guard yours... I know you do, especially concerning that painting. I have my own secrets, too, but I will not let this one become a secret as well.”
Her eyes searched his, calm though unyielding. “So tell me, Your Grace, what made you smile that day when we spoke of the hyacinth?”
The air between them grew charged in the pause that followed. He did not look away at once, and in the span of those silent moments, she felt as though she had gotten through to him, finally. His breath caught, a faint sharpness in the sound, before at last he turned his head, his gaze shifting to the passing fields beyond the carriage window.
“It was my sister’s favorite flower,” he said at length, his voice roughened by restraint. “Eugenia’s mother loved the hyacinth.When you spoke of it, I thought it—” He gave a small, incredulous shake of his head. “It was absurd and yet fitting, as though the daughter must echo the mother even in this. That was what amused me.”
Then his eyes returned to her, searching now, the balance of inquiry tipped in her direction. “Why did she begin to favor the hyacinth? What drew her to it?”
Dorothy’s lips parted, her thoughts racing back to that moment in the garden. “We were gathering flowers for her painting. She would not leave the hyacinth behind. She only pointed, with that stubborn look she has, and I knew at once she meant it. From then on, she would have no other. It became her favorite.”
A faint sound escaped him, half breath, half laugh, and when she glanced at him, she saw it again, that rare flicker of a smile tugging at his mouth. He turned his face toward the window then, though his voice carried easily in the close space of the carriage.
“It seems fitting. She mirrors her mother in more ways than one,” he said quietly, watching the fields roll past. “Perhaps I do not often acknowledge it, but…in these months since you have been here, I can see a change in her. She is better. More comfortable. I think it is only fair to admit that you are the reason for it.”
Her heart stumbled. He went on, his tone steady, almost reflective, “I might not have said so before. I might not havegiven you the words, but you are doing well, Dorothy. You have done right by her.”
The confession settled between them, heavier than any silence could have been. She turned her face away, lest he see the confusion tightening her chest. He could not be saying such things to her, not when her thoughts were already so tangled, not when she was barely holding her composure together. A strange warmth threatened to rise in her, and she fought it back the only way she could, by smiling faintly to herself, then fixing her gaze firmly upon the road beyond the carriage window.
“When we reach London,” he finally said, breaking the silence, “you will need a dress. A new one. There is a ball, and though I loathe public appearances, when I must endure them, I expect you to look your finest. No compromises.”
Dorothy turned her head at that, regarding him with a touch of amusement. The solemnity of a moment ago was gone, replaced by the imperious Duke once more, issuing instructions.
“I shall need your help then,” she replied evenly.
“My help?” His brow arched. “Surely, you jest. I am not in the habit of choosing gowns.”
“Nor am I in the habit of parading alone through modistes’ shops,” she countered smoothly, her eyes never leaving his. “If I must endure London and its scrutiny, then so must you. You will come with me, Your Grace.”
His lips twitched, though he smothered it quickly. “I have far more pressing matters to attend than trailing after you while bolts of fabric and feathers are paraded under your nose.”
“Then I shall not go,” she said simply, folding her hands in her lap.
That earned her a sharper glance, one that seemed to weigh whether she was bluffing. “You would defy me on this?”
“Not defy,” Dorothy corrected, her tone maddeningly calm. “Merely refuse to go without you. What sense is there in choosing gowns to please strangers if the one person who asked for them does not care to see them chosen?”
For a beat too long, silence stretched. She felt the carriage rattle beneath them, then Magnus exhaled, slow and resigned, as if the battle had been lost the moment she opened her mouth.
“You are… impossible,” he muttered.
“It is a small ask, Your Grace,” she returned, allowing herself the smallest smile.
His eyes met hers again, and this time he did not look away so quickly. “Very well,” he said at last, his tone low. “But we will visit no more than two shops. Pick the best ones.”
“Thank you,” she replied, though in truth she knew she had already won far more than that.
She is impossible.
The thought came to Magnus unbidden. Impossible, and yet dangerous. Something was happening, something he had not permitted, not even noticed until now that he stood in a modiste’s shop. The realization was awfully strange to him. How had it come to this? That he was bending, softening, saying yes when he had built his life on no?
The pattern revealed itself the moment he searched for it. Ever since his return from that business trip with Rowan, ever since the quarrel about the painting on the wall, the change had begun. He had raised his voice at her, and the guilt of it lingered like smoke that refused to clear. Perhaps it was penance, this new compliance. Perhaps he had been making amends without admitting it.
Or perhaps it was something else. Something worse.
He could not deny that Dorothy had, in some persistent way, become entwined in his days. Her voice carried into his decisions, her presence wound itself through his routines. It was as though she had crept into the very fabric of his life, and rather than resist, he had accepted it. Not openly, not even willingly, but accepted all the same.
Magnus shifted, eyes narrowing at the thought. This was not the arrangement he had planned for himself. Not the carefully ordered future he had envisioned for his household. Dorothy was to have been a convenience, a caretaker for Eugenia, a shield against society’s endless demands. She was not meant to touch anything beyond that.
