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They walked a while in silence as she calmed down. Her hand actually trembled on his arm.
“You long for that life,” Jack suggested when she had recovered.
“Oh yes, so much.”
“Why not go back to Tunbridge Wells then?”
“Oh, I can’t afford that anymore.”
Jack thought if she actually opened a shop and charged a fair price for her needlework, she might be able to afford it. But that was clearly out of the question for Mrs. Finch. And perhaps those friends and acquaintances wouldn’t patronize a shop as they did her home. “Your father wouldn’t give…”
Mrs. Finch stopped short and dug her fingers into his forearm. “You won’t tell him what I said.”
She was really frightened of old Winstead. The man must be even more unpleasant than he’d thought. “No. Not a word.”
Her grip eased. As they started walking again, she threw him uneasy glances. Jack wondered what was going through her mind.
“I shall like living at Ferrington Hall,” she said after a while. “If that is what you really… I mean, Harriet suggested… Of course, I would never expect… Only Harriet thought…” She became tangled up in words and subsided.
She’d thought of her dependence on him, Jack realized. It was either him or her tyrannical father. She had no other choices. The idea was distasteful. He didn’t want to be one of the many things this small woman apparently feared. Yet he wasn’t certain how to reassure her without rousing more anxiety. He settled for, “You are very welcome.”
Mrs. Finch’s face relaxed. They had come to the edge of the Winstead Hall gardens. “I will leave you here,” said Jack.
“You won’t come in?”
“Not just now.” He wasn’t ready to face Harriet yet. He had a good deal to think about. But more than that, he wanted to move, to act. Since he’d come to England, he’d spent far too much time reacting to other people’s wishes and opinions, Jack decided. He’d imagined that, in a foreign country, they knew best. But they—in particular his great-grandmother Lady Wilton—did not. Not for him. A restlessness that had been building in him burst out. He was accustomed to making decisions and seeing them carried out. He was good at it. More often than not, he’d been right. It was time to see what he could do here and now. Ideas began to surface as he strode home.
Back at Ferrington Hall, Jack searched out the duke. He found him in the drawing room behind an open newspaper.
Tereford closed the pages when Jack came in, saying, “There’s a certain futility in day-old news. It is over. There’s nothing to be done. Should one even read it?”
This probably qualified as a witticism. It was at least an invitation to exchange the kind of banter Jack found pointless. He shrugged. “You mentioned a man of business who could manage all sorts of matters.”
The duke put the newspaper aside. “Dalton, yes. Cecelia thinks very highly of his firm.”
She would have made certain they were competent, Jack thought. “I should like to write to him.”
“Cecelia can give you his direction. She will have it neatly listed.”
Jack was sure she would. “Do you know of a place called Tunbridge Wells?” he went on.
“Tunbridge Wells?” The duke looked surprised at the change of topic.
“It’s a town, I understand. Do you know where it is?”
“About twenty miles east of here. But, my dear Ferrington, you don’t want anything to do with Tunbridge Wells. It’s full of terrifying dowagers and fubsy-faced widows. Dreadfully unfashionable.”
“Is it?” Jack saw this as a point in its favor.
“It is. Whence comes this odd request?” Tereford’s blue eyes had grown curious.
Jack saw no need to explain himself. “Call it a whim,” he replied. He had heard the duke say this to his wife.
Perhaps the man remembered because he smiled. “I see.”
Jack turned to go, the letter he would send this Dalton fellow already forming in his mind. Then he remembered another point. “This calling of banns in the church,” he said, turning back. “I’m not familiar with the process as I have never set out to marry before. They are quite a public announcement, it seems.”
“Yes, but they aren’t necessary,” replied the duke.
