He looked up. “Have you ever been to the city?”
She shook her head.
“Then you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s definitely not…” He glanced about the cold stone tower. “…this.”
Noelle winced at the reminder that even if Silkridge weren’t expected in Parliament, he still would have no interest in staying here. But even if her village was all wrong for him, she wanted him to understand why it was so special to her.
“I know you hate that Cressmouth is as far from London as possible whilst still being in England, but that’s what I like about it,” she said. “I live in a castle. I work amid a vista of snow-dusted mountains. I, a woman, can be a clerk.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” he said drolly. “Wouldn’t the social whirl of a debutante be more fun than the drudgery of a clerk?”
“I don’t consider it drudgery,” she explained. “I have no particular love for mathematics, but I adore putting things to rights. Creating order. Organizing people and events. It does not matter to me whether I’m arranging welcome biscuits in the common rooms or the transactions that pass through this counting house. The point is helping. I would much rather be useful than useless.”
A startled laugh burst from him. “Are debutantes useless?”
“Not by choice,” she said. “They certainly don’t grow up to be clerks. They aren’t in charge of their lives at all.”
He raised his brows. “Pray tell, who is in charge of debutantes’ lives?”
She could not tell whether he was mocking her or genuinely curious. Perhaps he had never considered a female perspective. Now would be a fine time to start.
“First, the wet nurse and then the governess,” she said slowly. “That covers the first sixteen or so years. After the come-out, the ruling parties become the sponsor and the chaperone. Once a courtship has begun, it changes again. Only her father has the power to accept a suitor’s request. And after that, her husband. The end.”
He frowned. “Hardly theend. Any debutante who follows that path never has to work a day in her life. Once she’s secured heirs, she’s free to devote herself to fashion and parties and social calls. A life of leisure, by any estimation.”
Noelle ran a finger down the spines of the journals she’d worked so hard on these past four years. “Perhaps that’s not what I want.”
“You are opposed to a life filled with pleasures?”
“I’m opposed to anemptylife,” she clarified. “I would not wish for idleness to define me. Work and play are not mutually exclusive. I may be up here in this tower six days a week, but seven days a week, I am out in the village with my friends and neighbors. We are all useful. And we all like fun.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Fun like the annual house party with one of your many dukes?”
She narrowed her gaze at him. That tradition had begun well after his last visit. “How do you know about the annual house party?”
She could swear his cheekbones deepened with color.
“Cressmouth Chronicle,” he admitted.
It was her turn to burst into laughter. “You subscribe to the Cressmouth gazette?”
“Of course not,” he protested quickly. “My grandfather insisted upon the quarterly journal being delivered to my home, quite against my wishes. I have never been able to cancel the subscription no matter how many letters I send.”
She giggled at the thought of him responding to each circular with an angry letter for having successfully received it. “You should read the articles. They’re quite dreadful.”
“I know,” he admitted. “Why do you think I wrote so many demands for my subscription to be annulled? Whenever the deuced rag arrived, I could not prevent myself from reading it cover to cover.”
“All is well,” she assured him. “I have heard there are worse guilty pleasures a gentleman could have.”
“Like building launch pads for dirigibles?” he said wryly. “Or stocking a menagerie with precisely one malnourished pygmy goat?”
She could just imagine the duke’s incredulous expression as he read each article. “Was there no mention of Tim in the latest gazette?”
“There was no latest gazette,” he said. “At first I thought delivery was a little late, then shockingly late, then began to fear my cancellation requests had been answered after all. As it happened, Grandfather had fallen ill and the quarterly fell by the wayside.”
Noelle’s breath caught. Silkridge was right. The townsfolk had been focused on Mr. Marlowe’s rapidly worsening condition. In a matter of weeks, their founder had gone from a robust, jovial man to a slot in the castle mausoleum. She froze.
Had anyone thought to inform his grandson? Was the only information he ever received about his own grandfather the snippets he gleaned from a nonsense quarterly journal? Worse, was the real reason Silkridge had not been present for his grandfather’s final days because he had not known anything was amiss until the summons arrived for the reading of the will? Horror gripped her.
