“That’s the thing!” Hester was suddenly animated. “No one expected it, but the Duke—Scarfield himself—has stepped in. He’s to be their guardian, or so Lady Rawlings told me. Can you imagine?”
Aunt Sophia, who had been surreptitiously eavesdropping, clucked her tongue. “Scarfield? He’s barely fit to mind his own affairs. The man is a public disgrace.”
Hester grinned. “Which makes it all the more delicious. I wager thetonwill be discussing it for months.”
Nancy’s heart was thundering, but she maintained her usual outward calm.It cannot be. He cannot have them. The children?—
Fiona nudged her, smiling. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, Nancy.”
“Only the ghosts of my own prospects,” she said, willing her face into its familiar mask.
But Fiona frowned, studying her. “Are you quite well?”
“I believe I have developed a headache.” Nancy found her aunt’s arm, clung to it, and—before anyone could argue—announced, “We must go. Now.”
Sophia sputtered, “But the dancing?—”
“Is beyond hope,” Nancy said. “Truly, I am unwell.”
The four friends exchanged looks as Sophia, defeated, gathered her shawl and her dignity.
“I shall call tomorrow,” Fiona said softly, as Nancy walked away.
Nancy nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The door to the ballroom seemed impossibly far. On the street, the air was sharp with mist and coal smoke. Sophia’s carriage awaited, a dark boxy shadow in the lamplight.
Inside, Sophia muttered about missed opportunities and the cruelty of fate. Nancy watched the world pass through a fogged window. She tried to steady her breathing. Her hands would not stop shaking.
When the carriage rolled to a stop before their townhouse, Sophia braced a hand on Nancy’s shoulder. “If you are truly ill, you must not attend the matinee tomorrow. I shall send word to the doctor?—”
“No, Aunt,” Nancy said, voice soft but steady. “It is only that I am tired. That is all.”
She took her candle and climbed the stairs, pausing at the top. For a long moment, she stood silent in the dark, listening for anything to steady herself—a voice, a memory, anything.
Finally, she whispered, “I must go to them. I must protect the children. From him.”
CHAPTER 2
“Adisgrace!” Oscar Rowson, the ninth Duke of Scarfield, muttered as he squeezed the bridge of his nose. “How does a duke lose a battle against five-year-olds?”
The day had begun so well. He had finished the quarterly accounts for the eastern tenants before breakfast and dictated a six-page letter to his solicitor before the clock struck eleven. Even the estate manager’s report on the recent sheep blight, which most men would have found cause for weeping, elicited no more than a dry smile and a note in the margin: “Increase mutton purchases for winter. Sell at a loss if needed. The Duchy must never appear vulnerable.”
It was the sort of thinking that made a Rowson, and he did it better than anyone since his grandfather.
Yet now, three hours after sunset, he found himself barricaded behind his own desk, dreading the next summons from the nursery. It came at nine minutes past.
A tentative rap at the door. Not a child’s fist. Too polite. Probably Mrs. Tullock again.
“Enter,” Oscar said, without looking up.
Mrs. Tullock bustled in, cap askew, expression already pleading. “Your Grace,” she began, “it’s the little ones. They?—”
“Still refusing food?” Oscar’s pen hovered over the ledger.
“They won’t touch a bite. Nor let us near them with a bath. Clara threw her bread at the window and says she’ll only eat when her mother returns.” The woman’s hands fidgeted in her apron.
Oscar closed the ledger with a sigh. “That is not physically possible. Mrs. Rowson is—” He stopped, remembering the explicit instructions never to speak of the deceased parent. “She is not returning.”
Mrs. Tullock only nodded, voice thick. “The boy’s not much better. He stares at the fire and won’t answer when spoken to.”
