“I know, but I thought it worth saying.” He tilted his head slightly toward the reading table. “Cowper. The collected letters. The essays on the Peninsular campaigns.” He looked back at her. “Those are good choices. Isadora will read the essays twice.”
“I thought so.”
“She’ll have opinions about the third chapter.”
“I’m counting on it.”
He looked at her for one more moment. Then he straightened and stepped back. The space between them resumed its proper dimensions, the air between them resumed its normal temperature—or perhaps she simply stopped noticing it—and he moved toward the door.
“Goodnight, Duchess,” he said.
“Goodnight, Duke.”
He left.
The fire crackled. The house fell into silence. Cecily stood with her back against the shelf and the book beside her shoulder and no audience at all for whatever was currently happening in her chest, which was considerable and unresolved.
She was still flushed, and she knew it, and there was no one left to see it, which was the only mercy the evening had to offer.
She reached up and took the book from the shelf. Then she tucked it under her arm with the others and went to bed.
CHAPTER 13
“You’re early,” Beatrice noted, appearing in the doorway before the butler had quite finished announcing them, as if she had been listening for the carriage from somewhere upstairs and had decided not to pretend otherwise.
She looked at Cecily first—the quick, searching look of a sister taking inventory—and then at William, and then back at Cecily with a look that said very clearly,We will talk later.
“We made good time,” Cecily said.
“You are never early. You were late to your own–” Beatrice stopped. Glanced at William. Reconsidered. “You were late to a great many things growing up.”
“The roads were clear,” Cecily said firmly.
William had removed his hat and was handing it to the footman. He turned to Beatrice and inclined his head. “Duchess. Thank you for having us.”
Beatrice looked at him, then smiled. “Come in. Edward is in the study and will emerge shortly, which in Edward’s language means approximately twenty minutes. Tea is in the drawing room.”
Edward emerged in fourteen minutes, which Beatrice later said was a personal record and which Cecily attributed entirely to curiosity.
He was a large, composed man and undeniably handsome, something Society had spent several seasons remarking upon before he married Beatrice. He wore consequence lightly, the way people did when they had never had to put it on deliberately.
He shook William’s hand, looked at him for a moment, and said, “Blackmoor. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“I imagine you have,” William returned.
“Some of it from the papers.” Edward settled into the chair across from him. “Rather more from my lovely wife, who has strong opinions about most things and has not exempted you from them.”
“Edward,” Beatrice warned.
“That was a compliment, my love,” Edward said mildly. “Strong opinions are the mark of a person paying attention.” He looked at William. “I understand you’ve been managing your estate since you were nineteen.”
“Since I was eighteen, effectively. The title came at nineteen.”
“That’s a significant acreage for a young man to inherit mid-season.”
“It was March,” William clarified. “Which helped. The drainage trouble waited until April.”
Edward looked at him for a moment. Then he laughed, which made his face look younger than it had a moment before. “The drainage problems. Yes. I inherited a flooding problem in the east field that my father had apparently been negotiating with for thirty years.” He reached for his tea. “What did you do about yours?”
