“I do not merely know of him,” she said carefully. “Rowan Clawridge is, in fact, my husband’s closest friend.”
Lucy stared at her. “You mean he is the Duke’s friend? Your husband? He knows him well?”
Dorothy nodded. “Very well. Rowan is not a man who collects friendships. He does not linger in company, nor does he cultivate affection for its own sake. If Magnus was not present in his life, I suspect Rowan would live quite contentedly without friends at all.”
Lucy shook her head faintly. “Why did I not know this?”
A wry smile touched Dorothy’s lips. “Perhaps because you have been rather busy these past few years,” she said gently. “Upsetting your mama. Avoiding certain conversations. Running headlong into independence with admirable stubbornness.” She reached out and squeezed Lucy’s hand. “But also... perhaps because Rowan Clawridge is not a man people speak of freely, even when they know him.”
“This is useful,” Lucy said, nodding. “Very useful indeed.” She hesitated, then looked up. “Tell me what he is like. Truly.”
Dorothy leaned back against the sofa cushions, her expression turning reflective. “The Duke of Langridge,” she began, “... is a man whose presence commands attention. But most of the time for all the wrong reasons. He does not seek it, and perhaps, that is why it is so unavoidable.” She paused. “He is sharp-minded. Calculating. Society finds him cold and not without reason. He does not soften himself to be palatable.”
Lucy listened intently.
“He possesses a dark sense of humor, I would say,” Dorothy continued. “One that often leaves people unsettled rather than amused. Magnus complains that he is the only one who ever understands when Rowan is joking, and even then, it can be exhausting.” A faint smile flickered. “It is that edge, I think, that keeps most people at a distance.”
“Oh, I know what you speak of,” Lucy said and rolled her eyes. “Yet Magnus tolerates it?”
“Tolerates, understands, and respects,” Dorothy corrected. “While people whisper about Magnus’ own ruthlessness, he has always said Rowan operates on an entirely different trajectory. Rowan does not act to impress or intimidate. He acts because he has already calculated the outcome. A force of nature, Magnus once called him. One few are foolish enough to challenge.”
“Are you perhaps calling me foolish, dear cousin?”
Dorothy smiled at that, a curve of her lips as she studied Lucy over the rim of her teacup. “I would never call you foolish, Lucy,” she corrected lightly.
Lucy huffed out a breath and shifted closer on the sofa, tucking one leg beneath her skirts. London felt warmer than Langridge, noisier, fuller, yet her thoughts remained firmly anchored to a tall, cold man with a warped sense of humor and an unnerving stare. “He does not strike me as a man who welcomes interference,” she said carefully.
“He does not,” Dorothy agreed. “The Duke has never welcomed anything he did not choose himself.”
Lucy hesitated, then leaned in further, lowering her voice though the room was empty save for them. “Dorothy… do you know what happened to his wife?”
Dorothy’s hand stilled mid-motion. The teacup paused, suspended for the briefest moment, before she set it down with deliberate care.
“I know she passed,” Lucy continued, choosing her words with care. “Some years ago. I know it happened not long after the birth of his youngest son. Beyond that, I have no other information. Unhelpfully so.” She glanced at Dorothy, searching her face. “Was he fond of her? Was it a love match? How did she die?”
Dorothy shook her head then. “No. You must first tell me why you are a guest at the Duke’s residence. You’ll be there for two weeks? Why?”
Lucy hesitated. Dorothy noticed at once. She always did.
“For heaven’s sake,” Dorothy said, lowering her voice as she reached for Lucy’s hands. “That pause alone tells me this is far worse than you are admitting. What have you done this time, Lucy?”
Lucy let out a breath, her shoulders loosening just a fraction. There was no use pretending with Dorothy. There had never been.
“Do you remember...” Lucy began slowly, “... when my mother sent me to live with Aunt Selina?”
Dorothy nodded at once. “How could I forget? Your mama was convinced solitude would cure you of... what did she call it? Romantic impracticality.”
Lucy nodded. “She wished me to understand what it meant to grow up alone,” she said, a faint, wry curve to her mouth. “To feel the absence of family. Of companionship. She believed seeing Aunt Selina living like a recluse... with no husband or children would wake me up and force my hand into marriage.”
“Right,” Dorothy said.
“Living with Aunt Selina changed everything. Watching her work, seeing how she studied people, how she understood what they needed before they did, it made sense to me in a way nothing else ever had. I wanted to learn it. I wanted her to teach me.”
Dorothy leaned back against the sofa cushions, listening intently.
“It took months to convince her,” Lucy continued. “Months of assisting, observing, proving that I was serious. But just when I thought she would never relent, a letter arrived.”
Dorothy’s brows lifted. “A letter?”
