Cecily settled back in her chair and let the conversation carry on without her, though she was conscious of Beatrice’s gaze on her, which meant she wanted to talk.
“… redirected the overflow channel,” William was saying. “The original design had been routing water toward the lower field, which solved one problem and created another every time we had a wet autumn. It took two seasons to get right.”
“Two seasons is remarkably fast,” Edward remarked. “Mine took four, and I had the benefit of a steward who’d been on the land for thirty years.”
“I have a steward who’d been on the land thirty years,” William said. “He had very strong feelings about the original design and took the redirection as a personal criticism.”
“Did he come round eventually?”
“He is doing a fantastic job,” William said. “The best man I have on ground.”
Edward’s mouth curved. “And the tenants? A change of title at your age—that’s not always a smooth transition.”
“No,” William agreed. “It isn’t. The first year was largely spent convincing people that I intended to stay, which sounds simple and isn’t. A young duke in London is one thing. A young duke who appears at your gate in November to discuss the state of your cottage roof is something else.” He paused. “I made a great many unannounced visits that first year.”
“Did it work?”
“Eventually. There was a tenant in the northern field, a man named Garret, who’d been on the land since my grandfather’s time. He didn’t trust me. He told me so directly, which I respected. I asked him what would change his mind. He said,come back in five years and I’ll tell you.” He picked up his tea.“I went back every month for a year instead. At the end of it, he said that wasn’t what he’d meant, but it would do.”
Edward studied him. Cecily, who had been listening with one ear while appearing to examine the pattern on her teacup, looked up without thinking and found Beatrice watching her with the expression she wore when she was trying very hard not to look pleased about something.
Cecily returned her attention to her teacup.
Edward nodded and reached for the plate of biscuits, and the conversation moved on to the politics of the autumn session in Parliament.
Cecily found herself genuinely listening now, not as a courtesy but because William spoke about the reform proposals with the same directness he brought to everything—no performance of opinion, no positioning, simply what he thought and why he thought it. He was wrong about one thing, which she filed away carefully for a later conversation, and right about two others in ways she hadn’t anticipated.
“You don’t support the measure?” Edward asked.
“I support the principle,” William replied. “The measure as written has three provisions that will create the precise problem it’s attempting to solve, which suggests the people who drafted it did not speak to the people it will affect.” He set down his cup. “I generally find that to be the central difficulty with well-intentioned legislation.”
“And the poorly-intentioned kind?”
“At least that has the honesty of clear motivation,” William said. “The well-intentioned kind tends to be surprised by its own consequences.”
Edward looked at him with an expression that Cecily had only seen him direct at three people in her acquaintance: Beatrice, his closest friend Sebastian, and the man he considered the best legal mind in the House of Lords.
She stored this information quietly and said nothing.
The door opened.
Eloise arrived ahead of her nurse in the manner of a person who considered being escorted a suggestion. She was three years old, dark-haired, with her father’s smile and her mother’s eyes and the expression of someone conducting a formal inspection of her own drawing room. She surveyed the room with the comprehensive attention of a general reviewing unfamiliar terrain.
She looked at her mother and moved on. When she got to Cecily, she studied her briefly, apparently found her acceptable, and moved on. Once her gaze landed on William, she stopped.
William looked back at her with the same seriousness with which she was looking at him, as though they had arrived ata mutual understanding that this was a meeting of equals and neither of them was going to be condescending about it.
She crossed the room, placed both hands on his knee, and climbed up with efficient confidence. She settled herself, smoothed her skirt in an unconscious echo of her mother, and looked up at him with the air of a woman who had taken a seat at a table and was ready to begin.
William had gone very still. Then, carefully, as though handling something that required more delicacy than an estate or a parliamentary debate, he said, “Good afternoon.”
Eloise looked at him. She was doing the thorough, unblinking assessment that very small children did before they had learned that it made adults uncomfortable—taking in his face, his coat, his general dimensions with the focused patience of someone who intended to reach a conclusion and was not going to be rushed.
William waited. He did not smile encouragingly. He did not make the face that most adults made at small children. He simply waited, as though he had all the time in the world and she was welcome to use it.
“Hello,” Eloise said, finally.
“Hello,” he returned. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
