And there it was, he thought. The reason Jamie had fallen in love with Georgiana Wyndham in the first place. That smile. Wide, bright, warm, all-encompassing, as if she embraced not just him but the world. Before he knew it, Adam was smiling back.
“He loved you very much,” he said.
Her eyes glittered with welling tears, but that smile held. “I know,” she whispered. “I loved him as well. I am so very glad to finally meet you. He spoke of you as well, of course. You were quite his hero, even though you didn’t have the sense to join the Navy. Hussars, wasn’t it?”
“It was.”
She nodded. “I suspect that Jamie was quite jealous, actually. He never did manage to sit a horse properly, or I believe he would have trotted off after you like a faithful pup.”
Adam shook his head, his chest tight with too-familiar grief. Jamie had only been one of the good friends he had lost. At least he hadn’t been forced to see Jamie’s body blasted to pieces or hold him as he died. Small comfort.
“No,” he said. “I believe he was meant for the sea. A true Dorsetman.”
Her own grief darkened her expressive eyes, even as she kept smiling. “I am so glad you have made it home safe.”
He grinned and tapped at his leg. “A bit banged up, but whole.”
Her face folded once again into bemusement. “But...duke? The last I heard you were a mere mister…well, colonel.”
His smile grew wry. “There was a cousin,” he said. “On my father’s side. He and his son were lost at sea while I was in Belgium. I came home to find myself lord and master of a rather shabby manor house in Cumbria, an even shabbier town house in Mayfair and a stable full of very prime thoroughbreds in Newmarket. Needless to say, it has been an adjustment. Otherwise, I would have looked for you much sooner.”
She waved off his apology. “I’m not sure you would have found me much sooner.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “That is what I hear. The lawyers told me that you have been...shall we say, unavailable for the better part of two years until this summer? Something about your brother’s wife and child needing refuge?”
“A long story for another time. Are you staying nearby, sir? I would be happy to put you up here, but as I said, my brother and his wife are currently in London dealing with some family business.”
“No, no,” he demurred. “I am at the King’s Nose.” He couldn’t help a laugh. “You do have some imaginative innkeepers hereabouts.”
Her chuckle was throaty and sweet. “Will Bass claims George the First once stopped in for an ale while suffering from a head cold and left his handkerchief behind. I imagine it’s as good a story as any.”
She was about to say something else when a clatter rose outside the parlor doors. Adam was all set to jump to his feet to defend the house, but Jamie’s wife didn’t budge. She simply put on a kind smile and waited as the doors were once again yanked open and a line of servants processed in, each seeming to barely keep hold of wobbly trays filled with a tea service and enough bakery items to have fed an officer’s mess. Adam considered it one of his greater acts of bravery that he held his place even as the tray of teacakes tipped precariously in his direction, threatening the cleanliness of his attire. The girl fighting against gravity couldn’t have been more than fifteen, her mobcap sliding down over her forehead and her uniform just a little too large and long. It was a recipe for disaster.
And yet Jamie’s wife simply sat with a quiet smile on her face. Adam was truly impressed. She was inches from being scalded by the tea her butler carried.
“Set those on the table by me, please, Mary,” she said calmly, gesturing toward the tea table.
“Yes’m.” Mary didn’t look nearly as assured as she bent her knees to deposit the tray on the table with a sharp clang that spoke ill for the table’s health. Behind her another girl, this one with the darkest skin Adam had ever seen and a limp almost as pronounced as his, followed with another tray of delicacies. The butler, his freckled face taut with concentration, lowered the tea tray onto a second table. The pot slid back and forth a bit but failed to fly off and settled with no more than a small rattle when it was deposited. Adam quashed an impulse to applaud.
He turned to witness the return of Georgie Grace’s magnificent smile, which truly seemed to cast its glow across the three young faces. “Oh, excellent, all three of you. You have improved so much.” Then, leaning forward a bit, she pitched her voice low. “Would you like to meet a duke?”
Three faces froze. The girl named Mary actually gasped.
“Your Grace,” Jamie’s wife said. “I realize it is a bit of a protocol breach, but may I introduce you to three of our staff, who have only been with us for a month, and see how beautifully they are doing.”
“I do see,” he agreed. “They have great potential.”
She turned that blinding smile on him, leaving him a bit dizzy, and returned to her staff. “Pay your respects as I announce you. Our butler is Tom Nelson, our maids Maisy Tuesday and Mary Willard.” Each bobbed in turn and waited. “Now, off with you,” she ordered. “If there are any pastries left, share them with the others.”
The three fled as if Adam had growled. He couldn’t help but smile.
“Others?” he asked.
Her smile grew impish as she bent to prepare the tea. “We are the despair of the parish...well, I imagineIam. Jack and Olivia haven’t been here enough lately to be considered accomplices. But I decided that since I am mostly out of society it would be a safe place for the new staff to train up. I admit they have been a delight.”
“Can I ask how Maisy came to be here? She doesn’t quite seem to be a local.”
Immediately the smile disappeared. “She found herself lost on foreign shores when her American master died of the ague in London. My sister-by-marriage, Olivia, found her and brought her to us. I am so glad, too. She is teaching me so much about America. I’m even learning a bit of the Creole language. She is from New Orleans, where we lost so many of our brave young men.”
