Page 81 of A Family Bargain with the Duke

“Very good, Your Grace.” Simmons hesitated at the door. “Might I say that the household has missed Her Grace very much these past days.”

“So have I, Simmons.” Julian looked back toward the window, toward the dark grounds beyond it, and found, saying it aloud even to his own valet, that the admission cost him nothing at all. “So have I.”

He stood a long while after Simmons had gone, the drawing still resting on his desk, and thought, with a small bittersweet ache that he did not try to push away, how much he wished Louisa had been standing beside him that morning in London, watching Thomas Whitmore shake his hand before the entire room. She, more than anyone, deserved to have seen it.

She had been the one to find Whitmore in the first place, the one to trust her own judgment when his own fear had told him to send her away rather than let her stand beside him.

Tomorrow, he thought, banking the fire before he finally retired. Tomorrow, I will bring her home, and I will not make the same mistake twice.

* * *

“You have rearranged that same pillow four times in the last quarter hour, Louisa. I’m beginning to think that it has personally offended you.”

“It has not offended me.” Louisa punched the pillow with both hands. “It is simply uncomfortable.”

She paused, staring down at the poor, innocent pillow.

“Oh, I am sorry,” she murmured, smoothing the crease she had made in its middle. “It is hardly your fault. You are not the source of my sorrow.”

“You cannot find anything comfortable at present, my dear, and we both know the pillow has very little to do with it.” Fiona sat curled in the window seat, one of Louisa’s old novels open in her lap, watching her with patient exasperation. She had spent the better part of the week attempting, without much success, to lift her spirits. “I have told you three separate pieces of news this afternoon, each one considerably more interesting than the state of your pillows, and you have heard perhaps half of one of them.”

“I heard all of them.”

“You did not. I told you that Lady Rothbury has run off to Scotland with her dancing master, and you merely nodded as though I had informed you of the weather.”

“That is dreadful. Poor Lord Rothbury.”

“Poor Lord Rothbury has been dreadfully cold toward her for eleven years, and I confess I find myself on the dancing master’s side, scandal or not.” Fiona set the novel aside, studying Louisa with sudden seriousness. “I did save the best news for last, actually. I heard from Lady Camden’s sister that your husband gave a public statement in London last week, admitting his father’s wrongdoing and restoring some ruined family’s good name at considerable cost to his name.”

Louisa’s hands stilled over the pillow.

“He did it,” she said quietly, more to herself than to Fiona. “He truly did it.”

“So it would seem, and rather bravely too, from every account I have heard. Lady Camden’s sister says that half of London cannot decide whether to admire him or pity him for it, though I confess I find myself in the admiring camp.” Fiona’s expression softened as fresh tears welled up in Louisa’s eyes. “Oh, Louisa. I did not mean to make you cry, only to tell you something good for once.”

“It is good.” Louisa pressed her fingers briefly beneath her eyes, willing the tears back before they could spill over. “I only wish I had been there to see it. More than that, I wish I had not left him to face it alone.”

Eleanor stirred in her cradle nearby, making a drowsy sound, and Louisa rose to smooth her blanket, grateful for the small distraction, when a soft knock sounded at the door.

“Your Grace.” The butler’s voice called through the door. “The Duke of Ashvale has arrived and asks whether he might have a word.”

Louisa froze, one hand resting on Eleanor’s blanket. “He is here?”

“In the drawing room downstairs, Your Grace. He has asked specifically for you.”

“I—” Louisa’s heart had begun hammering with a force that made her voice sound strange to her ears. “I do not know that I am ready to see him.”

Fiona was on her feet at once, crossing to take Louisa’s hands in her own. “You do not have to see him, Louisa. Not until you are ready. I can send him away myself if you wish it; no one will think the worse of you for needing a little more time.”

“I am not ready.” The words came out fast, almost panicked, Louisa’s heart beating so fast she could feel it in her throat. “What would I even say to him? I have spent a week rehearsing a dozen different things, and now that he is actually here, standing in my father’s drawing room, I cannot remember a single one of them.”

“Then say nothing at all, if that is what you need. Stay here with me.”

“Mother—” Louisa turned toward her mother as the door opened, her mother appearing in the doorway..

Her mother stepped inside, looking eager.

“Tell him—” Louisa broke off, because she did not know what she wished to tell Julian, only that not yet felt both true and entirely inadequate. “I do not know what to do.”