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“Your Grace.” He bowed deeper than necessary. It was almost embarrassing. “Laura. What a pleasure. Please, sit, sit! I’ve had something special prepared for the occasion.”

“Lord Harwood,” Nathaniel greeted coolly.

He guided Laura to a settee and sat beside her, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers, and her heart beat steadier for it. She was grateful for the warmth of him in such a cold place, the steady presence of him.

Her father settled back into his chair and steepled his fingers as he looked at them.

“Have you been following the bill making its way through Parliament, the one about wool trade?” he asked, reaching for the glass of brandy on the side table. “I confess I can’t make heads or tails of half the language in it, but I’m told it’ll cut one way or the other for anyone with sheep on their land. Do you keep many sheep, Your Grace?”

“Not many,” Nathaniel replied, not offering more than that.

“Ah, well… here’s the thing I actually wanted to hear your opinion on,” Lord Harwood recovered quickly. “I’ve had my eye on a horse in the Duke of Grafton’s stables for a while, but I can’t swear to its pedigree. I am not much of a horseman like you are, Your Grace. What do you think about it? Is it a sound investment, or should I look elsewhere?”

“A sound choice, Lord Harwood,” Nathaniel answered, again purposefully short, even on a topic he knew well.

Not once has Father addressed me or asked a single question about my life at Duskwell Castle or in Duskwell House.

Laura sat through the rest of the conversation with her hands folded in her lap, offering the occasional polite nod when required, watching her father lean toward her husband as if warming himself by a fire. Only after they sat down for dinner and the second course was served did he finally turn to her.

“And how is married life treating you, Laura?” he asked, his eyes fixed on Nathaniel as though he were meant to answer for her. “You look well. The air at Duskwell must agree with you.”

“It does,” Laura said. “The castle has come along beautifully. I’ve been working mostly on the gardens.”

“Gardens?” Her father waved this away as though she’d mentioned the weather. “Well, that’s something for a lady to do, I suppose, while she waits.” He set down his fork, and something in his expression sharpened. “Which reminds me. It has been a few months now, hasn’t it?”

“What do you mean, Father?” she asked, already dreading where this conversation was heading.

“Why, since the wedding, of course.”

“Barely, Father.” A child swept through her.

“I only mean,” he pressed on, entirely undeterred as he popped a bite of potato into his mouth, “that a duchess has certain duties, Laura. The sooner you see to them, the better for everyone. You’re not getting any younger, and His Grace will want an heir.” He smiled at Nathaniel, as though she wasn’t sitting three feet away, a woman with her own mind.

“I see,” she mumbled, lowering her eyes to the plate and moving her food around with her fork.

“I trust you’ll forgive an old man’s bluntness, Your Grace, but it would ease my mind considerably to know the succession was settled.” He shrugged. “It’s a father’s prerogative to worry about such things.”

A father’s prerogative…

The words hit just where he had always known to strike.

Laura felt the old fear rise in her throat, thick and choking. She closed her eyes and saw the image that had haunted her since her childhood, one she had imagined rather than lived. She could see her mother’s face, gray and still. Could hear the midwife’s cry through a closed door. Her father had always claimed that it was a woman’s duty to produce children and that her mother had simply died doing her duty.

“This is not a matter for the dinner table,” she said curtly, proud of how steady her voice came out, even though her hands curled in her lap beneath the tablecloth.

Her father’s smile thinned. “I am only speaking plainly, Laura. There is no shame in it. Every woman of your station knows what’s expected of her⁠—”

“I am well aware of what’s expected of me,” Laura cut him off, sharper now, her fear giving way to anger. “I have been aware of it my entire life. I don’t need to be reminded of it over the fish course.”

“Watch your tone.” His voice hardened, the pleasant mask he had donned for her husband slipping for just a moment to show the man beneath it. “You forget yourself. I am still your father, and I will not be spoken to so rudely at my own table.”

“Lord Harwood.” Nathaniel’s voice was deep and smooth, cutting through the air like a blade.

Everyone stopped speaking and breathing.

Lord Harwood swallowed and turned to him.

“You will watch how you speak to my wife,” Nathaniel said, setting down his glass, each word deliberate and precise. “She is to be addressed as Her Grace, the Duchess of Duskwell. She answers to me and no one else.”