I am being selfish.
The thought did not trouble him. Selflessness had governed the better part of his adult life, and it had left him with a prosperous mill, loyal brothers, and a persistent hollowness that no ledger entry could fill. He had abandoned the only woman he had ever courted, while at university, a rector’s daughter with clever eyes and a fondness for Virgil, because his father’s death had demanded he return to the mill and become a man before he had finished being young. He had not regretted the choice. He had simply never made another. The years since had been filled with work and obligation and the quiet loneliness of a man who slept each night in a house built for a family he had never allowed himself to want. If wanting Josephine made him selfish, then selfishness was long overdue.
There was more to settle between them. But for now, standing in the gray light of the west library with the rain on the glass and Josephine watching him with those remarkable eyes, Alistair found himself in no hurry at all.
However, he did not know what she would make of the rest of his news, whether it would please or anger.
CHAPTER 9
The words settled over Josephine like the first warmth of spring after a punishing winter, so unexpected that she did not trust them. He had accepted. Not reluctantly, not with the resigned sighs of a man cornered into obligation, but with the decisive authority of a man who had weighed the matter and found the terms satisfactory. He had announced their future as though it were already settled, a bill of lading signed and sealed, and the sheer swiftness of it left her breathless.
She had thrown the proposal at him in a moment of reckless desperation, half-formed and born from the wild hope that a man who solved problems for a living might be persuaded to solve hers. She had braced herself for further rejection, for the cool dismissal he had given her the last time she had overstepped, and instead he had looked at her with those storm-blue eyes and declared his intentions without so much as a tremor of doubt.
It was, she realized with a start that made her press her hand flatter against the sill, quite a compliment.
A man like Alistair Fraser-Oxley did not act from pity. She had observed him long enough to understand that much. Heacted from calculation and conviction. He had weighed the scandal of marrying his uncle’s widow against the advantages of legal guardianship, assessed the cost of entanglement against the returns of stability. Whatever arithmetic he had performed in that relentless mind of his had produced a sum in her favor. He had examined her situation with the same shrewd eye he applied to drainage estimates and canal investments, and he had concluded that she was worth the trouble.
No man had ever concluded that before.
Jerome had married her because she was young and biddable and came without a dowry that might embolden her family to make demands. His proposal had not been a compliment. It had been a transaction in which her youth and her compliance were the only currency she possessed.
Alistair’s acceptance was something else entirely. He did not need her compliance. He did not require her youth. He had a mill and a family and a fortune built by his own hands, and he could have walked away from Fortunestone Hall and its crumbling obligations without a backward glance. That he had chosen to stay was a gift she had not dared to expect.
He cannot protect you completely.
The thought arrived unbidden, sharp as a needle slipped beneath a seam. No marriage could shield her from certain consequences. Not from the law. Not from the whispers. Not from the ruin that would follow if the shadow she carried ever stepped into the light.
But the babe would have a father. The girls would have a guardian whose authority the dowager could not contest. If the worst came to pass, Alistair would stand between her child and the old woman’s venomous grip. That was more than she had dared to hope the morning his carriage had appeared through the mist, a stranger come to claim a title he did not want.
She could feel him watching her and when she glanced over her shoulder, the look he returned was patient and entirely without pretense.
His words had stirred something she had thought long dead. A fragile belief that a man’s promises might actually be kept. Jerome had offered terms too, once. Those terms had proven hollow within a fortnight.
And yet this man was not Jerome. He did not perform authority. He possessed it, and he wielded it not to diminish but to build. She had watched him transform the atmosphere of this suffocating household in a matter of days, and the trip to Irwyn had confirmed what the vicar had told her months ago in his careful, oblique way.
He takes care of his people.
She must press him on the matter of the girls. Whether he would stand between them and the dowager, whether Seraphina and Arabella would have their chance at society. If he gave his word, it would be unequivocal. Not ornate pledges rehearsed and empty as a stage play, but plain words from a man who measured their cost before spending them.
She believed in him. That was the astonishing thing. She gripped the sill harder, bracing herself to speak, and felt the cool stone beneath her fingers like an anchor in a storm.
After she received his reassurances and told him she accepted, her voice quieter than intended, she walked back toward him, close enough to catch the scent of wool and cedar that clung to his coat. His expression was unguarded and almost tender as he thanked her and brushed her hair back, before the practical man reasserted himself and stepped back to lean against the edge of the desk with his arms folded.
“There are arrangements we should discuss.”
The word should have been a comfort. She folded her hands before her and arranged her features into the serene receptivitythat marriage to Jerome had taught her, the expression that concealed whatever she truly felt.
“I shall continue living in Irwyn to run the mill. The business cannot survive my absence, and the Hollingford & Goss contract will demand close attention for months. But I shall visit on the weekends, and I shall ensure that you and the girls have full freedom of movement. No more being confined to these grounds.” He spoke with the quiet confidence of a man laying out a business plan. “I shall assist you in planning Seraphina and Arabella’s coming-out, so they may seek worthy husbands.”
The warmth that had been building in her chest cooled as though a window had been thrown open to the March wind.
He is not staying.
A month ago, she would have wept with gratitude at such terms. A month ago, any arrangement that placed Alistair between her household and the dowager’s malice would have seemed a miracle.
But a change had come in the days since his arrival. Something she had not anticipated when she had set out to entice a reluctant duke into shouldering his inheritance. She had not expected to want his company for its own sake. His voice filled the cavernous rooms and made the shadows retreat; his restless energy made the stale air of Fortunestone Hall feel charged with possibility. She had not expected his presence to soothe the frantic beating of her heart.
She would be the true Duchess of Oxley. Armed with his name and his authority and the promise of weekend visits. But she would not be sharing his life. Disappointment settled across her shoulders like a cloak she could not shrug off.
