“I can remember a few times you made your own escapes.”
Had he? James couldn’t remember a time he’d escaped anything. Not the suffocating weight of the dukedom at a young age, not the death of his beloved wife, and not now the impending doom that loomed ever-so precariously over his head every waking hour. And the sleeping hours too, for that matter. “I’m worried about her, Daniel, about…”
Daniel sat forward in his seat. “You will be fine. Better than fine. You will outlast all of us, just wait and see.”
There was nothing else he could do. Wait and see. Until he couldn’t do that any longer. He bid his brother a good night and then made his way to the nursery.
Hannah was asleep. Her blonde hair spread across the pillow and her expression one of complete and total peace. Marmalade had apparently escaped the kitchens once more and the little kitten was snoring louder than someone his size had a right to do.
James considered removing him, but instead he pulled the door closed and went to his own chambers. If there was something fractionally lighter in his step than there had been that morning, he attributed it to a successful evening and the satisfaction of a gathering that had gone well, and left it at that.
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
He went to sleep before it could occur to him that he had also, at some point during the evening, stopped thinking of the gathering as something to be endured.
Hythe House
Curzon Street, Mayfair
Cori dropped into the middle of her four-poster with a world-weary sigh, and stared up at the ceiling above. It had all gone so well…until she’d decided to plop down like an unrefined salt raker in the middle of Linthorpe’s marble corridor. Just the memory made her cheeks warm anew.
Heaven help her if Cara should ever learn of this faux pas.
Cori grabbed a pillow and hid under it, as if doing so could erase her memories of her embarrassment all together.
A knock sounded on her door and Cori winced. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash the evening with Cait.
“Yes?” she said into the pillow, still covering her face. Perhaps if her sister couldn’t hear her, perhaps if she thought Cori was asleep…
No such luck. The door opened?—
“Corinna?”
The duchess?
Cori peeked from under her pillow. “I thought you were Cait.”
The old woman, who was so much like a grandmother to her, lifted her brow in surprise. “Sleeping in your gown, are you?”
Cori sat up and glanced down at her third dress of the evening. She sighed. She probably should have rung for her maid. “Just recovering from the evening,” she said.
“Ah.” The Duchess sat on the edge of Cori’s bed. “Was there much to recover from, my dear? You seemed like you were enjoying yourself.”
Up until she’d made a cake of herself. Instead of admitting as much, Cori shrugged one shoulder. “Just not sure if I’m cut out for all of this, Your Grace.”
“Cut out for all of this?” the duchess echoed.
“Fitting into London society. It’s a far cry from the shores of Bermuda.”
The older lady smiled, warmly like she always did. “Cara and Cait have managed, and?—”
“Cara’s rather polished and Cait?—”
“Would balk at being called polished,” the duchess added.
That was true enough. “Yet she found a fellow who seems to adore her just the same.”
“And you will find a fellow who loves and cherishes you precisely because you are who you are too,” the older woman assured her.
