Iris stared into the fire. “The heir is the Duke of Knoxford,” she said simply, and Margaret gasped.
“Oh! Is he not that dreamy, scarred duke who hosted that exquisite ball? Camelia cannot stop talking about it.”
Iris sighed. “Yes, that is him.”
Margaret’s brows climbed. “Young and handsome, then. That explains everything. Handsome men are the worst.”
Handsome did not begin to describe him, but Iris refused to admit that.
“It does not matter what he looks like,” Iris said, heat creeping up her neck. “What matters is that he stood there and told me I was a trespasser. That my husband’s room was his, that the whole house was his, and that I must move.”
Margaret side-eyed Iris. “At least he took the old man’s chambers and not yours.”
“He almost took my chambers,” Iris said softly.
“What?”Margaret gaped.
Iris heard the soft, inexorable snick of the latch again.
“I felt…” She searched for the words. “As if someone had taken a broom to my life and swept every effort, every little proof that I am capable, into a corner and brushed it away. As if the last seven years were… temporary. Or just a mistake to be corrected.”
“Oh, Iris.” Margaret slid closer, her voice losing its bright edge. “You have done wonders with that ramshackle place. You rescued it from bankruptcy, and you made it a home.”
“It is the only thing I have ever been allowed to be in charge of,” Iris said. The admission tasted like sorrow. “When Mama died, I was supposed to hold everything together, and I did not. Camelia married to save us. You almost got married off, and Papa crumbled. And then Hentley died, leaving nothing but debts and this house. For once, the burden was mine alone. It was… something I could do.”
Her gaze drifted to the window.
“It was shabby and leaking and full of angry men wanting money. And yet I could answer them. I could say, ‘No, you must wait,’ or ‘Yes, now we can.’ I learned the accounts, I bargained with coal merchants and roofers. Every small victory was mine. The carpets I chose. The repairs I ordered. Even the cracks in the plaster feel like they belong to me because I kept them from becoming holes.”
Margaret’s eyes shone. “I know.”
“And now a man walks in with a key and a title, and it is as if I am a part of the furniture that could be moved aside while he admires his property. How can I be civil to him, or even grateful, when he has the power to turn me out or keep me? It is as though my life is a question to be answered by his convenience.”
“It is preposterous,” Margaret said fiercely. “You are not furniture. And you are not a question. You are?—”
“An encumbrance,” Iris supplied softly. “In the eyes of the law, at least.”
“In the eyes of idiots,” Margaret corrected. “Iris, listen to me. Whatever happens with that house, whatever that wretched duke decides, it does not unmake what you have done. It does not erase the woman you became because of it.”
Iris’s throat ached. “But if I lose it, what am I left with? A small income, and the knowledge that I must lean yet again on those I love. I do not know if I can bear that. I wanted, just once, to be the one others leaned upon.”
Margaret slid an arm around her shoulders and drew her close, the way she had when they were girls and Iris had returned from some humiliating dance, empty-handed.
“Then we will lean on each other,” Margaret said.
* * *
Blaise found Mrs. Henkings in the small breakfast parlor, as if she had rooted herself between hearth and sideboard and would not be shifted by storm or duke. A dishcloth hung from one hand; the other tightened imperceptibly when she saw him.
“Your Grace.” She bobbed a curtsy that was more habit than deference. “I was about to bring your luncheon.”
“Thank you,” Blaise said.
Her eyes sharpened, but she nodded politely.
Blaise recognized her quiet loyalty to the viscountess. Men did not acquire useful empires without learning to read the people who kept them from burning down.
“Sit,” he said mildly, taking a chair himself rather than claiming the head of the table. “I need to know how things stand in this house.”
