He stepped forward, as softly as he could, and doused the candles. Then he stood for a time, simply watching. The fire-haired menace to arithmetic looked curiously small when asleep, her face absent all the sharp angles and barbed retorts of the daytime. Even her freckles were dimmed, as if the darkness had gently ironed them flat.
She also looked, he thought, thoroughly exhausted.
Oscar retreated, quiet, and summoned Mrs. Tullock to the first-floor drawing room. She arrived as though conjured, arms folded and ready for combat.
“You sent for me, Your Grace.”
He nodded, pinched the bridge of his nose. “I did.”
Mrs. Tullock stood at attention, which was her only mode of address. “Is there an emergency?”
“Not precisely.” He hesitated. “How is the Duchess adjusting to her duties?”
Mrs. Tullock regarded him with the exact level of skepticism one might reserve for a leaky roof or a recalcitrant spaniel. “She is more competent than most. Less shrill. Very stubborn. But I suppose you knew that.”
“She seems tired.”
“She is,” Mrs. Tullock replied, flat. “The children will not leave her be for a moment, and the staff have never seen the nursery so busy. The maids cannot help, because the twins will not allow it. If you ask me, they will drive her mad by Michaelmas.”
Oscar rubbed his temple. “Couldn’t you insist the nursemaids take the children in the mornings?”
“They tried,” Mrs. Tullock said. “The twins threatened to sabotage the nursery’s plumbing with sheep intestines if the Duchess was removed. Not an idle threat, as you are aware.”
Oscar grunted. “Tell the Duchess’s lady’s maid not to wake her tomorrow. She is to sleep as long as she likes. The same for the chambermaids. If anyone disturbs her before noon, they answer to me.”
Mrs. Tullock’s lips twitched upward, a nearly invisible sign of approval. “Very good, Your Grace.”
Oscar watched her go, a sense of ill-defined guilt swelling in her absence. He had taken on a wife out of necessity, then promptly left her to fend off the domestic insanity single-handed. Heshould have done more. If Nancy were to run the household, she required support—not just from the staff, but from him.
Perhaps it was time to consider Adrian’s suggestion about the governess. Or perhaps he simply needed to stop hiding in his study and behave like a proper, if reluctant, husband.
Oscar’s next action was nearly instinct: he returned to the nursery, this time more purposeful, and saw at once that the sleeping arrangement was unchanged. The twins had not moved, but Nancy’s lips twitched in her sleep as if she were arguing even in her dreams.
He moved Henry, first, lifting the child from the bed and tucking him into the trundle with the care he would have reserved for a sack of nitroglycerin. Clara, on being freed, promptly rolled into the vacancy and latched onto Nancy’s arm, murmuring something about monsters under the bureau. Oscar managed, after several attempts, to extricate Nancy without waking either of them.
He swept her up gingerly, and was struck at once by two things: first, how little she weighed. Second, the scent of her hair, something sharp and clean—strawberries, he realized, the same note the twins had used to describe her on the first day she arrived.
Oscar cradled her, feeling foolish and yet unwilling to let go, and made his way to the master chambers. The hallway was dark, empty, but he could not help the sense that the house itself was watching him, and perhaps finding his predicament amusing.
In the Duchess’s rooms, he lay her on the bed, careful to keep her head from striking the headboard. She stirred, mumbling. “Duke,” she muttered, “if you have come to debate calculus at this hour, you may drown in a bucket.”
He nearly laughed, but settled for tucking the blankets around her shoulders and turning to leave.
A hand shot out and caught his wrist.
He froze, looking down at her. Her eyes were open, green as fire in the low light, and there was none of the ice from their daylight sparring. She seemed, for once, entirely herself—unguarded, lost to the moment.
“Don’t go,” she said, then wrinkled her nose as if she could not believe she had spoken the words aloud. “My stays are killing me,” she continued, more petulant than pleading. “They are too tight. I’ll die if you leave them on.”
Oscar, very suddenly aware of all the ways this could end in disaster, stood perfectly still. “Do you want me to summon your maid?”
Nancy squinted at him, then at the clock. “It’s past midnight. Lynch will weep if you wake her.” She rolled onto her stomach, exposing the tangled knots and hooks at the back of her dress. “Just loosen them. I will pay you in scones.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, not trusting himself to breathe. The stays were knotted tightly, and for a moment, he could not imagine how she managed to remain upright, let alone hold her own in a debate.
He worked at the laces, slow, methodical, and tried to think of calculus or Greek or anything but the heat rising in his face. Nancy, for her part, simply sighed in relief as the bindings gave way. “All the way,” she ordered. “Undo the last hook.”
He did, and the dress slipped an inch, exposing her back to the curve of her spine. Oscar swallowed and drew his hands away. The urge to touch her—her hair, her shoulder, the smooth expanse of skin—was intense enough to be disorienting.
