Daniel's jaw was tight enough to ache. The words came out stiff, reluctant, forced past his defenses by something stronger than his pride.
"Your reasoning was correct. The question you asked, about the planting of the tree, I should have thought of it myself. I did not."
Her expression shifted; a flicker of surprise, quickly smoothed away. "Thank you, Your Grace."
"I am not thanking you. I am just acknowledging."
"Then I acknowledge your acknowledgment."
Was that amusement in her voice? That slight curve at the corner of her mouth….Was shelaughingat him?
He could not tell. He could never tell, with her. She was too composed, too controlled, her emotions held behind a serene facade that rivaled his own.
It was maddening.
"Good afternoon, Miss Whitcombe," he said, with pointed finality.
"Good afternoon, Your Grace."
She left, Rosanne trailing behind her, and Daniel was alone once more in his study.
He stood for a long moment, staring at the closed door, his mind replaying the scene over and over. The question she had asked was so simple, so obvious in retrospect. The way both farmers had listened to her, a young woman of no particular standing, as though her words carried the weight of authority. The look in her eyes when she had apologized was calm, untroubled, entirely unrepentant beneath her polite words.
She was right, and she knew she was right, and she was not sorry at all.
He should be annoyed and hewasannoyed. She had interfered in his affairs, overstepped her bounds, and demonstrated a competence that bordered on the presumptuous.
But beneath the annoyance, there was something else. Something that felt uncomfortably like admiration.
He pushed the feeling away, returning to his desk with determined focus. The drainage report awaited. The estate accounts required review. There was work to be done; real, tangible work that did not involve analyzing the expressions of young women who asked inconvenient questions.
He would not think about Miss Lillian Whitcombe.
He would absolutely not think about the way she had looked at him when he acknowledged her reasoning; that flash of something warm in her eyes before she smoothed it away.
He would absolutely not.
***
Lillian walked beside Rosanne through the corridors of Wynthorpe Hall, and she did not think about the Duke of Wyntham at all.
She did not think about the stiffness in his shoulders when she had offered her reasoning, or the reluctant acknowledgment that had been forced from his lips like a tooth being extracted. She did not think about the way his jaw had tightened when she apologized, or the flicker of something, which seemed like irritation or respect or something else entirely, that had passed through his dark eyes.
She thought about the weather instead. The weather was very fine today.
"That was magnificent," Rosanne breathed, once they were safely out of earshot. "Did you see his face? I do not think anyone has ever solved one of his problems before he could."
"I did not solve anything. I merely asked a question."
"A question that resolved a dispute that might have gone on for months. A question that neither Daniel nor his steward thought to ask." Rosanne's eyes were shining. "You are wasted as a gentleman's daughter, Lillian. You should be running an estate of your own."
Lillian laughed despite herself. "I fear the world is not quite ready for a female estate manager."
"The world is foolish. That is well established."
They had reached the morning room, where their abandoned watercolors waited on their easels. Rosanne's latest attempt at a landscape had dried in their absence, and the colors had settled into something that looked almost intentional; a loose style that might, if one squinted, seem artistic rather than unskilled.
"I should not have spoken," Lillian said, settling into her chair and examining her own half-finished painting. "Your brother was correct. It was not my place."
