Page 52 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

The door to the dining room opened, and the butler announced that dinner was served.

Roman rose and extended his hand to her. “Hopefully, a quiet table is one of them. At least for this evening.”

She took his hand. His heart pressed against his chest.

Tamsin’s eyes brightened, her concerned expression replaced completely with one of curiosity. “I hope not too quiet. I want to hear all about your day, if you are willing to share it.”

“I find I am most willing, my lady.” He led her to her chair. “I will tell you anything you wish to know.”

And was only half-surprised to discover that he meant it.

Chapter Sixteen

On the fifth day of their marriage, Roman was already dressed to leave the house when Tamsin came down, standing near the entry table with a small stack of pamphlets tied in string. He wore the expression she now categorized as serious. Given his mostly neutral way of bearing himself, she had to find the tiniest hints to guess at what his mood was when she came upon him. The way his brows were drawn together, even if it was slight, gave away his emotions at present.

“You are going out,” she observed. “On an important errand.”

“I am.” He glanced up, something in his face easing at the sight of her—a twitch of his lips she suspected immediately gave away that he was pleased. Because of her presence? Her interest in his activities? “I intend to visit the York Herald offices first, then a few other businesses about town. I have had these printed.” He held a pamphlet out to her. “In regards to the matter we discussed at dinner.”

She took it, reading the bold typeface at the top. A Concerned Citizen of York, on the Preservation of Our Ancient Bars. Beneath it, in smaller print…his name. Written and Authorized by Roman Eastwood, Baron Hartwell.

“You will put your own name to the pamphlet?” Tamsin was surprised. Oftentimes, political opinions and social observances were published anonymously.

Her husband nodded. “I thought it best, in this instance, to make it clear who authored the piece. The alternative never even occurred to me. I have written with honesty and respect for our city’s history. A man ought to be willing to stand behind his own convictions, especially where his home is concerned.”

Tamsin turned the pamphlet over, reading a line here and there—the bar’s four hundred years standing witness to the city’s history, a paragraph about what was lost when a thing was pulled down for the sake of convenience. It was, she thought, entirely unlike the dry political talk she’d half-listened to at the wedding breakfast. This had feeling in it. Conviction, too. “You wrote all this yourself?”

“Every word.” His smile appeared, though it was faint, and he lowered his head. “Holly tells me I use too many adjectives when I feel strongly about something. He might be right.”

Tamsin found she wanted, quite suddenly, to see him do this. Not just hear about it after, secondhand, the way she’d absorbed most of his world so far—bits and pieces at meals, names she couldn’t yet attach faces to, committees she couldn’t picture. She wanted to watch him be the man his friends at the wedding breakfast had deferred to without a second thought.

So the question spilled from her lips. “May I come with you?”

That earned her a look of genuine surprise—a brief widening of Roman’s clear blue eyes, a wrinkle in his brow he quickly smoothed over, and a slight pause before he spoke. “Do you truly wish to accompany me to the newspaper office?”

“I wish to see what it is you spend your time doing, especially when it is something you care about so passionately.” She hoped he heard the sincerity in her words—but perhaps he would think her a nuisance? Or overly concerned with his doings? “When you say you are busy with things like matters of finance and correspondence, I leave it entirely to my imagination. But this seems different.” She offered the pamphlet back though he didn’t take it, only studied her with an expression she couldn’t yet describe. “Unless you would rather go alone. I do not wish to be in the way⁠—”

“No.” The word came so quickly, she suspected it had startled him, too. “No, I should like your company. Very much, as a matter of fact. Of course you may come.” He glanced toward the stairs, some calculation passing behind his eyes. “Will you need long to ready yourself?”

“Ten minutes.” She was already turning for the stairs before she’d finished speaking, her familiar need for efficiency rising without effort. She had spent years getting children into coats and out the door on a moment’s notice. “I only need my bonnet, spencer, and shorter boots. The streets will not be kind to my slippers.”

“Practical,” Roman said, and there was something warm beneath the single word, something that followed her partway up the stairs. He approved.

The flush of pleasure in Tamsin’s cheeks from such a simple word, barely even true praise, surprised her—yet he had meant it as a compliment. Instinctively she knew he admired that trait. He had recognized it and spoken it out loud.

The notice was rather gratifying.

Jones was the groomsman who held the carriage door, but it was Roman who handed her into the vehicle with the ease of a man who had done so a thousand times. The gesture held none of the awkwardness of something newly begun. He settled across from her, drawing the pamphlets into a neat stack on his knee, his brow set in the line she now recognized as thinking rather than displeasure.

The York Herald’s office occupied a narrow frontage on Coney Street, easy to miss if not for the painted sign above the door, gilt lettering gone slightly dull from weathering. Roman held the door for her, and the smell reached Tamsin before her eyes had adjusted to the dimmer light: ink, heavy and mineral, and beneath it the drier scent of paper and dust. From somewhere beyond the front room came a steady, rhythmic thud, unhurried but insistent. Each heavy thud made her wince.

“The press,” Roman said, catching her expression. “Mr. Hargrove claims he no longer hears it at all, though I suspect that is more boast than truth.”

“I think it would give me the worst of headaches.” She kept her voice low as she spoke, hand on his arm. “If not drive me to madness, in time.”

That made her new husband’s smile appear, a soft hum of amusement meeting her ear. Even that small response was intriguing, and somehow satisfying.

A young man at a high desk near the window looked up, recognized Roman, and quickly bowed. “Your lordship. I will fetch Mr. Hargrove at once.” The clerk disappeared through a door at the back without another word, returning a moment later trailing a broader, older man in shirtsleeves and a printer’s apron, ink worked so thoroughly into the creases of his hands that it seemed less like a stain than a second complexion.