And just like that, the spark was back. He smiled, and the rest of the ballroom seemed to fade away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Iswear, I blinked, and a goat trotted directly into the bakery.”
Evelyn leaned back on the settee with her stockinged feet tucked beneath her, laughter threading her voice. Her fingers curled around the delicate porcelain of her teacup as she watched her friends react.
Cordelia gasped, violet eyes wide. “Inside the bakery? Not just nibbling at the doorstep?”
“Oh no,” Evelyn replied as her eyes gleamed with amusement. “Straight in through the door as though it had an appointment. Knocked over an entire tray of currant buns. Poor Mr. Tilbury nearly fainted.”
Cordelia pressed a hand to her heart then let it fall dramatically into her lap. “That’s it. I’m moving to the country. Nothinginteresting ever happens in London except scandal and the occasional duel. But goats in bakeries? That’s poetry.”
Hazel, seated with perfect posture by the hearth, merely arched a brow over the rim of her tea. “Perhaps you might reconsider after a week without hot water and a stable full of gossiping tenants.”
“Hazel, you wound me,” Cordelia sighed though her smile flickered, dimmed for a heartbeat too long.
Evelyn saw it, just a flicker, but it was there, the shadow behind the laughter. She was learning to look for it now.
She tucked it away for later. As always, Cordelia would not speak of it unless she wanted to, and pressing her was like chasing fog. Instead, Evelyn continued, “Goats aside, the duchy is… beautiful. Quiet. Wiser, somehow, than London.”
“You’ve gone soft,” Hazel said though her eyes were warm. “You always said you’d loathe being tucked away like a kept bird.”
“I did. And I still refuse to be tucked anywhere, I assure you, but it isn’t that. It’s…” Evelyn paused, searching for the right words. “There’s a rhythm to it. A stillness that makes one notice things.”
Cordelia tilted her head. “Like what?”
Evelyn set her teacup down, fingers trailing the rim of the saucer. “Like the cracks in the plaster of the schoolhouse. Themissing panes in the poor widow’s cottage. The fact that the market square has had the same rotting cart blocking the drain for what looks like two years. It’s not ruin. It’s neglect. Small things that have grown into… bigger things.”
“Isn’t that the steward’s duty?” Hazel asked, frowning. “To maintain such concerns?”
“Yes. But apparently the last steward was a cousin of a cousin, and he vanished with a suspiciously full purse sometime before Robert returned to claim the title. Robert’s been going through the accounts, but it’s a tangled mess. And while he unravels it, the village simply waits.”
Cordelia leaned forward, her voice softer now. “What will you do?”
Evelyn looked up, a fire lighting behind her eyes. “We’ll fix it. I want to bring proper schooling. Repairs. A new well for the south fields—they haven’t had fresh water in months. Robert said it wasn’t my responsibility but...” She smiled, small and fierce. “He also said that just before I bullied the baker into accepting new shutters free of charge.”
Hazel huffed a quiet laugh. “You do have a certain… persuasive nature.”
Evelyn shrugged, unrepentant. “I prefereffective.”
Cordelia was watching her again, that glimmer of awe mixed with affection. “You’re going to change everything there, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know about everything,” Evelyn said with a quiet smile. “But I can’t live there and pretend not to see. And now that Ihaveseen… how can I do nothing?”
For a moment, the drawing room was silent save for the ticking of the longcase clock in the corner and the soft clink of porcelain.
Then Hazel pointed out, “It suits you.”
Evelyn blinked. “What does?”
“The duchess of a place that needs saving.”
Cordelia’s voice was barely above a whisper. “You make it sound like a storybook.”
Hazel’s eyes didn’t leave Evelyn’s. “Perhaps it is. But you’ve always been more heroine than spectator, Evelyn. And the Duke clearly knows it, too.”
Suddenly, Evelyn shot upright, her skirts rustling like a storm of silk. “That’s it! I must go to Robert!”
