James stood in the entrance hall for a moment after the door closed behind him. The same stone flags. The same carved staircase. The same north light through the tall windows at the end of the passage. The house smelled of beeswax and cold stone and something older than either, something that was solely Acklan and had no other name.
Alice had loved it here.
He went to the study to find that Turlow had left a stack of correspondence on the desk for his attention. James promptly sat down and lost himself in the things that needed to be done. It was easier, after all, than letting old memories take up residence in his consciousness.
The next day…
* * *
The Duke of Hythe's travelling carriage
Somewhere in Lincolnshire
Cori had been on longer journeys than the trek from London to Yorkshire.
She had, after all, crossed the Atlantic more than once.
However, none of her Atlantic crossings had ever quite managed this particular quality of sustained intensity. Then again, none of those voyages had contained the Duchess of Hythe with her warm, knowing eyes, Lord Daniel who was too perceptive by half, and the Duke of Hythe who appeared to be reading his gazette but almost certainly was not. Cait, for her part, had said nothing and was therefore the most alarming of all of them.
The Atlantic had not known what she was thinking.
These people, she suspected, knew exactly what she was thinking. Or at least some of them did. But even one was too many.
"Are you warm enough, my dear?" the duchess asked, for the second time in an hour.
"Perfectly, thank you," Cori replied.
"You seem a little flushed," Lord Daniel said, from the opposite seat where he had Cait tucked against his side.
"The carriage is warm,” Cori said, which was a ridiculous thing to say because it was rather cold and dreary outside. But if anyone disagreed with her, they did not say so.
Cait tilted her head toward the window. "How far are we?"
"Less than an hour," the Duke of Hythe said, without looking up from his gazette, which settled the question of whether he was actually reading it or not.
"Less than an hour," Lord Daniel agreed with great satisfaction. He looked at Cait. "You will love it."
"You have said so," Cait replied. “Repeatedly.”
"And I will keep saying so until you confirm that I was right."
"Which she will eventually," Cori said, because agreeing with Daniel kept him from turning his attention back to her, where it had been doing inconvenient things for the better part of the journey.
He turned his attention back to her anyway.
"You seem in good spirits," Daniel said, glancing away from the window.
"It is a very fine day," Cori said pleasantly.
"It is not a fine day at all," Daniel replied. "It is grey and cold and the road through Lincolnshire is in a deplorable state. You’ve barely noticed any of it."
"I’m an optimistic traveler," Cori said.
"Mm." He did not appear convinced. "Hythe, has Miss Corinna struck you as a particularly optimistic traveler up to this point?"
The Duke of Hythe lowered his gazette by precisely one inch. "I think Miss Corinna is enjoying the journey," he said, very mildly, "in her own way."
Which was unhelpful but kind, and Cori liked him enormously for it.
