He lifted a single brow, attention still turned out the window.
“If it’s not too late, I have a proposal for you.”
Arms crossed, he tilted his head slightly toward me. “Is this how you make your little bargains?” He scoffed, but his voice betrayed his interest. “Offering proposals of every kind?”
I had half a mind to rescind it. The man was too emotional. Too easily bruised. “I will give you the money you need,” I started, and his jaw slackened in surprise. “But in return, should you turn a profit, I want five percent for the first five years.”
He was silent. Completely still. “And if I do not turn a profit?”
“Untilyou turn a profit, you will work for me in management until the loan is repaid.”
He swallowed hard. “Management? You hardly trust me with managing the estate I live on. You would trust me with another?”
“The Newbury land is ready for ownership. I will oversee your work. But you will take charge of its upkeep, hiring the necessary labor and reporting back to me. When your debt is paid, you will find and train a new manager.”
He blinked and stared and waited. “Why this sudden change of heart?”
I immediately thought of Georgiana, sitting in my chair like she belonged there, thoughtful as she’d said the words I now repeated, “Strength of the whole is better than strength of the one.”
Gabriel nodded once, smiling to himself. “Perhaps to your chagrin, I will prove that right, Duke Marlow.”
“I truly hope you do.”
After leaving Gabriel to his vices, I returned home with a renewed bounce in my step. I gave my hat and overcoat to Toole, then took the stairs two at a time. I swapped my jacket and waistcoat for a comfortable brown robe to match the hour and the mood—I hadn’t waited all day, hadn’t anticipated this very moment; I’d just come for my normal routine—then hurried to the end of the hall, where warm light flickered from within the open doors of my library.
I slowed my steps on the blue-and-green patterned carpet, lifting a hand to tame my unruly tufts, and wished, for the first time all night, for a mirror to gauge my reflection.
The absurdity.
Rounding the doorframe, I froze. For there she sat in my chair, reading. She wore a light-blue dress of soft muslin with her hair loosely twisted at the nape of her neck, and Cleo purred in her lap.
Half of me hoped to prove I’d been too drunk last night to perceive her clearly. That perhaps I had created a version of this woman in my mind who did not exist. It had taken me exactly five seconds to see that the reality was even better than memory served.
My heart thumped hard and fast against my chest. A refuge that felt like home now also felt as terrifying as being alone in a dark field in the middle of the night. And yet I wanted nothing more.
A quick glance at the clock told me the hour—forty past eleven. How long had she been here? Had I come too late?
She lifted a steaming cup of tea, holding it between her lips and the page her gaze was trained upon. After a sip, she exchanged it for a sweet bun, which she suspended in the air,squeezing with her fingers as her lips parted. She drew the book closer.
I took a forward step, and the floorboards—dash them—gave me away.
She looked up, frightened. Then sighed. “Marlow. Thank heavens. I thought you were a ghost.”
I fought a smile as I strode toward the chair beside her. “What sort of ghost?”
She looked pleased as I took my seat, and I reveled in her attention. “The kind that haunt young ladies behind veils in castles.”
“Udolpho?”
She touched her bottom lip. Embarrassed? Then nodded her head. “Have you never read a book with mystery before?”
I wouldn’t tell her I was currently reading the very same book as she. I thought hard. “Perhaps in my youth.”
She tsked. “What do you read now?”
Other thanUdolpho? History, business, agriculture ... “Books that would put your imagination fast asleep.”
To my surprise, she closed her book. “Where were you this evening? Not at dinner.”
