Miss MacCallum finally arrived, her short hair swinging free around her head. She offered half a smile, then gazed pointedly at Mr. Hume until he made his excuses and departed.
She noticed Mrs. Hume in the corner. “My apologies, Your Grace. It could not be avoided.” She gestured to chairs set near the opposite corner. “Let us sit here, if that will suit you.”
The front windows sent diffused light over her after she took her chair. It turned her hair a silvery gold and her eyes a deep sapphire. She wore the same pale ocher dress as the last time. A limited wardrobe. Small wonder she wanted those lands.
* * *
For reasons Davina could not fathom, the duke did not launch into an explanation of his arrival. Rather, he sat there looking at her. Sizing her up, she assumed. Though he’d had enough time for that in the past, so unless he was indeed slow witted, he should not need to do it now.
“I assume you have come about my inheritance,” she said, breaking the stretching silence.
“I have mostly come to warn you that any hope of discretion has been lost. Your claim is being discussed in drawing rooms all over town today. It will continue for some time.”
She swallowed the curse that almost slipped out. She had wanted to avoid this. It could never help, and might make a resolution harder. In particular, if the king’s negligence about his promise was well known, she no longer had the implicit threat of the world finding out as a weapon.
“I told no one.”
“I did not think you had. Even the duchess is vague on the particulars. I think this was the work of someone who thought it would put the king’s feet to the fire. That was a mistaken belief.”
“Indeed it was.”
He glanced at Mrs. Hume.
“She appears to be asleep, but she is not,” Davina warned quietly. “And while half deaf, the ear facing us is very good.”
“I do not care if she hears what I am about to say. Let her, and let her repeat it to her son. It was he who spread the story of your situation. He admitted it before you came in.”
She had guessed as much. Who else could it have been? “He thought to help me, I am sure.”
“He thought to help himself. He has plans about all of this.” His gaze penetrated hers. “But I think you know that.”
She felt her face warming. “My own plans are very simple, and that is what matters.”
“It is not my place to ask, of course, but—” He appeared unsure of his words. “I hope he has not—He thinks of you as more than a servant or a tutor, I believe. A woman in your situation is vulnerable. I trust he has not—”
He suddenly appeared a man discomfited by an ill-fitting jacket. She was certain that was a rare occurrence. So rare that the discomfort only begat more discomfort.
She let him remain thus for a ten count, wondering if there were some way to document what she was seeing. No one would believe her just on the telling of it.
“I know of his interest,” she finally said. “I do not share it, and he is aware of that. He has in no way insulted me the way I think you fear.”
That satisfied him, mostly. “If that ever changes, if he—you are to tell someone. Tell the Duchess of Langford. I am told you are friends with her.”
“I will be sure to do that. Did you call in order to warn me about the gossip and my employer’s designs? How kind of you.”
“I came to warn you, yes. As for your employer, that was an impulse.”
“And here I thought you never had any of those.”
His smile almost appeared chagrined. “They are not frequent. I did come about him, however. How do you know him?”
“We were introduced at a meeting. An historical one, lest you assume I share his politics.”
“I am surprised he attends any other kind.”
“This particular society has a special subject. Its mission is to reestablish Scotland’s history, lest it be lost in all the romantic notions becoming so popular.”
“The public likes those notions. Hence their popularity.”
