He crossed to the bellpull and summoned a footman, instructing him to ask the dowager duchess the younger to attend him in the library at her earliest convenience. The servant departed with a bow, and Alistair returned to the window to wait.
The rain continued its assault. Beyond the gardens, the river would be rising. He could picture it swelling against its banks, brown and urgent, carrying debris from the hills above Irwyn. Another problem for another day.
He did not have to wait long. Footsteps approached within minutes, lighter than Beckwith’s measured tread but brisker than Genevieve’s cautious whisper, and then Josephine appeared in the doorway. Her blonde hair was pinned beneath a simple cap, her mourning gown a study in restrained elegance, and her gray eyes carried the tentative expression of a woman summoned without explanation.
“You wished to see me, Your Grace?” Her voice was controlled, but he detected the faintest tremor beneath it. She clasped her hands before her, fingers laced, and remained just inside the threshold.
“Come in. Close the door.”
She obeyed, drawing the door shut with a quiet click and settling into the chair Beckwith had vacated. She folded her hands in her lap with the practiced stillness of one who had learned that composure was the only armor available to her. The firelight caught the side of her face, warming the pale skin and lending depth to the gray of her eyes, and Alistair found himselfstudying her for a moment longer than was strictly necessary. She sat very straight, as if expecting bad news, and the firelight picked out the faint shadows beneath her eyes that spoke of too many sleepless nights.
He did not sit. Instead, he stood by the mantel, one arm resting against the carved stone surround, and regarded her with the directness that governed all his dealings.
Alistair had taken very little for himself in the past, but he found that there was something he desired now that it had been offered. Something for him alone. Something selfish, but necessary. For a man who was always considering the best course for all concerned, he had decided it was finally time to take care of his own needs.
Josephine, with her quiet grace, was a boon to a man who was always racing to his next goal. She cooled his racing mind while heating his cold blood. Made him notice the world around him. Made him aware of matters beyond work. A man used to taking decisive action, Alistair had mulled this certain decision endlessly and finally reached a conclusion.
“I have decided we shall wed.”
Josephine’s brow immediately wrinkled. “Am I to have a say in the matter?”
“Do not be contrary. We both know that you want my protection. That you have hoped for a proposal. If the babe is a son, I shall have no legal standing to assist you unless we are married.”
She was silent for several seconds, clearly not having expected to have her proposal accepted.
“And the scandal? You are willing to wed your uncle’s widow?”
“I am no stranger to scandal. This is about legal expediency. You and your offspring will be mine to defend if we are wed. Ishall be his or her father, and the old woman will have no power, even if you do carry the true heir to this title.”
Despite trying to bait him into making this very decision, she now seemed at odds. Resentment firmed her jaw as she rose to go stare pensively out the window that overlooked Fortune’s Fall. Alistair waited, knowing precisely when to speak and when to remain silent while negotiating with an opponent.
“I already wed one man and lost all my voice. Now you command me to wed another who does not need to hear my answer.”
A humorless smile stretched his lips as he considered the irony of her resistance.
“I hear you. I hear you very well. You wish for me to be your champion. To take the reins of this crumbling dukedom and build it into greatness. A title that will take care of you and the girls. That will place you in a position of genuine authority and render the old woman moot so you might reshape this household. How do you propose I do that if you will not now cooperate by taking vows with me? If you wish to have my protection, a wedding is the only guarantee of success.”
The silence that followed was crowded with the sound of rain against glass. Her hand rested against the stone sill, and Alistair watched the tension in her shoulders, the slight bow of her head, and resisted the impulse to cross the room. He had made his case. The rest was hers to decide.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet but contained none of the trembling from before. “You speak of this as though it were a contract.”
“What would you have me call it?” He kept his tone level, though her reproach found a mark he had not anticipated. “I am a man of commerce, Josephine. I understand terms and obligations. But I also understand loyalty, and I am offering you mine. Without condition.”
She glanced over her shoulder, and the look she gave him was searching and long. He held it without flinching, allowing her to see whatever she needed to see. If she wished to find falsehood in his expression, she would search in vain. Alistair Fraser-Oxley did not dissemble. It was a flaw the aristocracy would find intolerable and one of the few qualities he considered worthy of pride.
“And if I say yes, you will truly stand between us and the dowager? You will ensure the girls are brought into society? That Seraphina and Arabella will have their chance? Be … a father to—” She gestured at her belly.
“You have my word on it. And I do not give my word carelessly.”
Something shifted behind her eyes. The wariness remained, stubborn as the weather, but beneath it, he glimpsed the first tentative stirring of belief. Of trust not yet formed but considering whether it might take root.
“Then I accept.” The words were said in a grave tone that acknowledged what she was surrendering and what she hoped to gain. “I accept, Your Grace.”
She walked back toward him, stopping close enough that the chamomile sweetness of her skin reached him. He looked down into those remarkable gray eyes and felt something loosen in his chest that had been wound tight for years.
“Thank you,” he said. He meant it more than he had anticipated. An indefinable change had occurred between them in the space of a few words, subtle as a change in the weather. The negotiation was over. What remained felt entirely different.
She tilted her face upward, and for a suspended moment, the rain and the crumbling estate and the obligations waiting in London all receded. There was only Josephine, pale and resolute and carrying a courage that humbled him. He lifted a hand to brush a loose strand of honey-blonde hair from her temple, hiscalloused fingertips grazing the silk of her skin, and felt her breath catch.
