Page 17 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

“Agreed. You are not to be reproached for what you do not feel, and I am not to expect that, in time, you should…”

He stopped, his jaw tightening.

“That was wrongly expressed. I made it sound as though I were entitled to your affection and magnanimously consenting to do without it.” He looked down at the table. “I am entitled to nothing of the kind. State the term again, and I shall answer it properly.”

“I will not be asked for affection I do not feel.”

“Then you will not be asked.”

The door opened and the tea arrived upon a heavy tray, carried by a footman who had plainly been awake nearly as long as his master. Neither of them spoke as he arranged the cups, the pot and the little jug. He adjusted the fruit knife by half an inch to align it with the cloth, then withdrew.

The door closed. The clock upon the mantel had a loose tick which Selina had not noticed before.

“Georgiana is to remain your sister, not become solely my responsibility. I will guide her where I can, but you must make a greater effort to speak with her rather than merely manage the dangers around her. She appears to have begun mistaking your vigilance for impatience with her, and I suspect that made Rowland’s attention seem more valuable than it was.”

His mouth moved, and he made no attempt to conceal it. “Agreed.” He turned his cup a quarter turn upon its saucer. “I ought to have understood that without your assistance.”

“You did not.”

“No.”

“And there will be no lies between us. Neither the polite sort nor those intended as kindness. You will not conceal matters from me because I am a woman, and I shall not spare you the truth because you are proud. That is my final term. It is the one about which I care most.”

“No lies between us,” he repeated, as a man might repeat a figure to ensure that he had heard it correctly.

After a moment, and with greater difficulty, he continued. “There will be a settlement. My solicitor, Petherick, will draw it up. You are to have money of your own, secured to your separate use and entirely at your disposal. You will account to me for none of it; not a farthing, not for any purpose.”

“Yes. Agreed.”

The answer escaped before he had completed the sentence. Selina sat back as though the movement might conceal its haste.

She had answered too quickly. She heard the small, hungry eagerness of it in a room where every other word had been carefully weighed. She reached for the milk jug, though she did not want it, merely to give her hands an occupation.

Nathaniel looked at her for a moment longer than was necessary.

He asked nothing.

“Now hear my term,” he said instead. He leant forward, his forearms resting upon his “Now hear my term,” he said. “You will not leave this house in order to protect my name without first speaking to me. You have already offered to disappear as though your absence were the simplest answer to every difficulty.”

“You are asking me not to run.”

“I am asking you not to sacrifice yourself for my family and call it practicality. Once we are married, you will not decide alone that we are better served without you.”

Selina set down the unused milk jug. “No lies and no noble disappearances.”

“Precisely.”

The loose tick of the clock continued between them. At last, Selina poured tea, drank a little and replaced the cup upon its saucer. She allowed the clock to complete two slow rounds before she spoke.

“Then I accept.”

Nathaniel did not move, though something in his expression altered.

“I suspect your family will be less composed about it,” Selina continued. “Particularly whichever of your relations considers herself responsible for preserving the Sinclair name.”

“My aunt, Lady Helena Sinclair. She will be appalled, and she will come at once. She has never missed an event she could disapprove of in person.” He almost smiled. “You will not like her. No one does.”

“That may be the first difficulty you have mentioned this morning which does not alarm me.”