Page 55 of A Duchess for his Family

This is for the girls, Benedict told himself once more.

It had nothing to do with him, nothing at all. But before he’d realized what had happened, he was no longer looking at Miss Sophia Norton but at the Duchess of Rivermere.

Chapter Fourteen

“Your Grace, would you prefer chocolate or tea?”

Sophia turned at once, searching the breakfast room for the duchess being addressed. There was no other woman in it. Only Amelia and Marjorie sat at the long table, both watching her with open interest, while a footman waited beside the silver service with admirable patience.

“Oh,” Sophia said. “You mean me.”

Marjorie grinned. “You did it again.”

“I have been Your Grace for less than a day. I think I may be permitted some confusion.”

“You turned around when Peters called you that in the hall,” Amelia reminded her.

“And when Mrs. Bell greeted you upon the stairs,” Marjorie added. “You nearly looked behind a statue.”

“The statue appeared far more accustomed to consequence than I am.”

The footman’s expression did not alter, though Sophia suspected this required effort.

“Tea, please,” she told him.

“Very good, Your Grace.”

Her head began to turn before she stopped herself. Marjorie laughed into her napkin.

The breakfast room was smaller than the formal dining room, yet it still seemed enormous to Sophia. Morning light streamed through three tall windows, falling across polished mahogany and silver dishes, and filling enough chairs to accommodate a family twice their size. The ceiling rose high above them, adorned with plasterwork she had not noticed on her earlier visits. Even the fire looked grander than necessary, burning in a marble grate large enough to warm a modest cottage.

Sophia sat at one end of the table and felt as though she had borrowed another woman’s place. The Duchess of Rivermere ought to know where the preserves were kept. She ought to remember every servant’s name, know which bell summoned whom, and enter a room without wondering whether she needed permission to sit.

Sophia knew none of those things. The wedding ended. The guests departed. Her trunks stood in chambers that now belonged to her, and every person within Rivermere addressed her as though she had become someone important merely by repeating vows before a clergyman.

Yet beneath the new title, she remained Sophia. She still disliked being observed while eating. She still preferred books to assemblies. She still had to remind herself that the house into which she had awakened that morning was now her home. The word felt too large to hold.

“Where is Uncle Benedict?” Marjorie asked, reaching for another piece of toast.

“In his study,” Amelia answered before Sophia could. “Mr. Hughes brought the morning correspondence.”

“He might have breakfasted first.”

“He generally does not when there are letters from London.”

Sophia lowered her gaze to her tea. She had seen Benedict only briefly that morning. He greeted her with grave politeness in the corridor, inquired whether she had slept well, and informed her that urgent correspondence required his attention. There was nothing unusual in his manner. That should have relieved her. Instead, she felt strangely disappointed.

“We shall show you everything while he is occupied,” Marjorie announced.

“Everything?” Sophia repeated.

“The kitchens, the schoolroom, the stables, the west garden, the old tower⁠—”

“Not the old tower,” Amelia said.

“Eventually.”

“Uncle Benedict said the stairs are unsafe.”