“Ourhome,” she corrected. “Which is precisely why I am taking you on this tour — so we may each decide what we like and what we do not. And if you do not like gold?—”
“I can agree to gold,” he said. “You see — the arrangement is already working out rather well.”
It was, she had to admit. Rather better than she had expected.
“Have you looked through the books?” he asked.
“I have. They are eclectic. A great many travel books — were there explorers among your ancestors?”
“Not that I know of. My father always said his relatives had never left England, not even for the continent. It was actually one of the reasons I joined the militia — I was under the mistaken impression that we would be travelling.”
“Ah, but that would be the military. Or the Navy specifically.” She kept her tone light. “Although, given what my father told me about your conduct aboard that particular vessel?—”
“Will youstop—” He turned, laughing, and it was playful, entirely playful and yet the sudden movement caught something in her chest and she took a sharp step back.
He stopped at once.
“Are you quite all right?” His voice had changed. His hand rose and he placed it on her arm, very gently, and somehow that made it worse.
“Perfectly,” she said. “It is a very good thing you did not end up in the Navy. Any number of terrible things might have befallen you. Seasickness, for one.”
“Indeed,” he said — but the warmth had gone out of his voice.
They continued the tour a little while longer, moving up to the floor where the bedchambers were. She was not quite ready to part ways, which surprised her.
“I understand there is a circulating library in the village,” she said.
“Is there? I had not heard. We could go together, if you like.” He said it easily, then seemed to think better of it and added, “We ought to be seen together with some regularity in any case — as Duke and Duchess it is expected.”
“Of course,” she said. “Yes.”
They stood for a moment in the corridor, neither quite moving.
“Do you suppose,” he began, “that you will take an interest in the village in the usual way? I am told it is customary for the Duchess to be involved with the parish and so on. My — I am not sure what to call her. I used to say aunt, but that is not quite accurate, as she was my predecessor’s mother, which makes her—” he waved a hand. “She was apparently very engaged with charitable work locally.”
“I imagine I shall find something to occupy me,” she said.
She was about to say more when a door slammed somewhere behind her, followed by a sharp voice — a maid, evidently unaware that anyone was nearby. The sound hit her like cold water.
“It is only a maid,” Gideon said at once. “They do not know we are here.”
“Of course,” she said. “I ought to go. I am rather tired.”
She knew it was abrupt. She could see in his face that it confused him, and she was sorry for it, but she could not help herself. Between his sudden turning in the library and the slamming door, her body had gone rigid and she wanted very much to be alone.
“Of course. Rest well. I will see you at dinner.”
“You will,” she said, and went.
As she walked to her chamber the feeling only increased. Her arms were stiff, her shoulders drawn up. Her mind felt foggy at the edges. She recognized all of it — recognized it with a deep and unhappy familiarity. These were the feelings she had lived with at the Vale estate. The heightened attention, the wariness, the bracing. Huxley raising his voice. Huxley raising his hand.
She had nearly forgotten this feeling. It had left her gradually in the months she had lived alone in Bloomsbury, fading so slowly she had not noticed it going. And now here it was again, sitting in her bones like old cold.
Gideon was not Huxley. She knew that. This house was not Vale. She knew that too.
And yet she could not seem to make her body believe it. And she did not know how long it would take, or what it would cost her, before it finally did.
CHAPTER 23
