Page 47 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

If Rowland believed Giles intended to sacrifice him, he might turn upon his creditor. If Giles believed Rowland had become careless, he might withdraw his protection. Their strength lay in the confidence that neither would move without the other.

Nathaniel intended to disturb that confidence.

He drew the bell and sent for Selina. The report concerned her family, her name and the house that had become hers. He would not make the mistake of deciding alone what should be done with it.

Chapter Thirteen

The cob stopped in the middle of the lane and lowered its head towards the verge. Nothing Selina did with the reins made the smallest impression upon it.

“You are holding them as though they had insulted you,” Nathaniel said.

“They are attached to an animal with opinions.” She tightened her grip and was rewarded by the cob tearing up another mouthful of grass. “We have not yet agreed whose opinions are to prevail.”

“At present, his.”

“I had observed as much.”

The phaeton stood a hundred yards short of the gate in a private lane at Wexford Park, the may still white in the hedges and the morning already warm. Nathaniel sat beside her upon the narrow seat, close in the way the seat required and no closer.

“You are gripping too hard,” he said. “He feels the strain in your hands and knows that you are uncertain. Loosen the reins.”

“Was that a lesson in horsemanship or a criticism of my character?”

“Both. I economise.”

She kept her eyes upon the cob’s ears. “And if he takes advantage?”

“Then you correct him. Firmly, but without quarrelling with him over every blade of grass.”

“You make it sound very simple.”

“It is simple. That does not make it easy.” He paused. “Loosen your hands, Selina.”

The sound of her name in his voice startled the tension from her fingers. The reins slackened. Whether persuaded by the change or merely satisfied with its breakfast, the cob lifted its head and consented to walk.

The phaeton rolled forward.

Selina laughed aloud in surprise. When she glanced at Nathaniel, he was looking very deliberately towards the hedge.

They had been at Wexford Park for a se’nnight. The house sat low and honey-coloured among the Berkshire hills, its lawns descending towards the river and its beech woods older than the title itself. On the first morning, Selina had stood before one of its long windows and thought that it was the first place in eight years which did not appear to be preparing to ask her to leave.

The country house was less imposing than the London residence and possessed none of its rigid order. Its floors complained beneath the tread, doors required persuasion in wet weather, and generations of Sinclairs looked down from fading portraits with the indifference of people too securely dead to care whom Nathaniel had married.

The housekeeper showed Selina the linen presses on the second morning and left roses in her room on the third. She asked no questions about London, the Calverts or the speed of the marriage. Selina was grateful enough for the omission that she did not mention the roses either.

Their days gradually acquired a shape. The three of them breakfasted together in a sunny room overlooking the east lawn. Georgiana, removed from London and the expectation of disaster arriving with every knock, had grown easier. She still quarrelled with her brother, but without the old desperation beneath it, and Nathaniel had begun to answer rather than forbid her.

Selina walked in the beech woods before breakfast and discovered, after the second morning, that Nathaniel had developed the same habit. Neither of them called the meetings arranged.

On the fourth morning, he was waiting beside the stile when she reached it.

“There were bluebells here a fortnight ago,” he said as they walked. “You have missed them.”

“I believe that is generally what happens when one arrives after a flower has finished.”

“I am sorry for it.”

She stopped to free her hem from a bramble. “You are apologising to me for the calendar.”