Page 22 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

“Perhaps not. But you asked what we thought of the marriage, and that is what I think.”

Lady Helena regarded her for a moment. “Very well.”

Georgiana picked up her fork again, still subdued but no longer shrinking beneath the older woman’s attention.

“You do not defend the match, Wexford,” Lady Helena said.

“I did not realise that my wife required a defence.”

“Every unexpected marriage requires some explanation. A younger man would offer me love at first sight or another convenient fiction.”

“And you would despise him for expecting you to believe it.”

“Certainly. But I should know what manner of fool I was dealing with.”

Nathaniel set down his cup. “It was a considered decision, freely made by us both. That is all the explanation I intend to provide.”

Lady Helena looked from him to Selina. “And you are content with that, Duchess?”

“I am content that my husband does not embellish the truth merely to make it more palatable.”

“Hmm.” Lady Helena placed her knife beside her plate. “I shall remain for a se’nnight. The family will have questions, and I prefer not to answer from ignorance. I will observe, form my own judgement and give it to you plainly.”

“I had supposed you might,” Nathaniel said.

“Neither of you need perform domestic happiness for my benefit. I have no patience for tableaux.”

“We shall endeavour to disappoint you honestly,” Selina said.

Lady Helena’s expression remained unchanged, but she gave the slightest inclination of her head before reaching for the coffee.

***

After breakfast, Nathaniel found Selina in the small parlour and carried out a decision he had reached during the sleepless hours in his study.

“The household is yours,” he said. “The accounts, the appointment and dismissal of servants, and every decision ordinarily belonging to its mistress. Bassett and the senior servants have managed between them in the absence of one, and Bassett will be relieved to surrender the responsibility. He has informed me twice this year that a house requires a woman at its head and that a duke is a poor substitute.” He paused, then made himself finish plainly. “You need not preserve an arrangement merely because it was mine, nor seek my approval before changing it. If you find something wanting, alter it.”

Selina regarded him across the parlour. An expression he had not seen before crossed her face: surprise, plain and entirely unarranged. One hand rested upon the back of a chair. She removed it, then appeared uncertain what to do with it.

“You are giving me the management of your house.”

“Our house,” he corrected. “And yes. You have already demonstrated a distressing aptitude for discovering what everyone else has neglected. I should like to see what you make of the linen accounts. They have outlasted three housekeepers and baffled one duke.”

Selina laughed.

It was nothing like the brief, unwilling sound which had escaped her at the hiring assembly and been immediately suppressed. This laugh was full and unguarded, surprised out of her by the linen accounts of all things. It transformed her face and passed through Nathaniel with a force entirely disproportionate to a jest about household linen.

“The linen accounts,” she repeated when she had recovered. “You surrender the fortress and name the linen as the prize. You have no notion how to tempt a woman.”

“None whatsoever.”

“I accept, naturally. I would have accepted the authority alone, but I am glad that you included the linen. It is the first genuinely foolish thing I have known you to do, and I find it reassuring.”

He possessed no answer which did not risk saying more than the terms of their marriage permitted. A footman spared him the attempt by appearing with a question concerning the dinner arrangements, and Selina turned to address the matter in her new capacity.

Nathaniel took the rear passage towards his study. It passed behind the stillroom and the servants’ workrooms. As he approached the half-open kitchen door, he heard a low voice, pleased with itself.

“…married her. The murderer’s daughter, in this very house. I had it from the Ottleys’ second footman. He was standing there when the gentleman said the name aloud. Calvert, it was… the man who was hanged. Now she is a duchess, and we are expected to curtsey and call her Your Grace as though her father never swung for it.”