Page 22 of Five Nights to Claim His Duchess

“Of course — of course she may. I meant no⁠—”

Octavia laughed. It came out of nowhere and filled the room like a spilled cup.

“He is only anxious, Your Grace. Diana is our pride and our joy — but we did so worry that she should not know how to serve. She was never taught it properly, poor lamb. It is not her fault.”

Valentine did not appear to have heard her.

“We have come for something more,” he said. He glanced at Diana. Then he turned to her father. “My Duchess has asked that the child come and live with us.”

“Indeed she did!” Octavia’s hands flew to her breast. “Such a sweet soul, our Diana — she frets over her sister so, it is quite touching, truly. But we could not dream of imposing so upon Your Grace. It would be most improper.”

There.

Diana kept her face perfectly still, and inside her something clicked shut like a lock.

She wrote the letter after all; Diana confirmed that her suspicions were not wrong.

Valentine turned to her father.

“Do you think the same, Westleigh?”

Her father shifted. “You have been married barely a week. It is not proper. A new marriage wants privacy. The child would be underfoot.”

“I do not mind.” He said it easily. Then he looked at Diana, and held the look a moment, and turned back. “If my wife wants it, she must have it. It is an unlucky thing, a dissatisfied wife. Would you not agree?”

Her father looked away.

“Your Grace.” Octavia’s voice had climbed half a step. “I am sure I do not know what she has told you⁠—”

“She has told me nothing.”

The room went quiet.

“I confess I am at a loss.” Valentine’s tone had not altered at all, which was somehow worse. “Twice now, madam, you have supposed that I am acting upon the promptings of my wife. Do you take me for a man of so little will? Or for a puppet, perhaps, with somebody’s hand up the back of my coat?”

“No — Your Grace, of course not, I only assumed⁠—”

“Then I would bid you be cautious with your assumptions.” He let it sit. “You do not appear to have goodwill enough to spare on them.”

“She meant no harm, Your Grace,” her father said quickly. “None at all. She only⁠—”

Diana laughed inwardly, where it could not be heard.

He has not looked at me once since I came through that door except to find fault. Not once. His daughter, married off in a week to a man he was told was a monster, and he has not asked me a single question about how I do. Yet he leaps to her defense so fast he nearly falls over.

She had expected it. She had told herself in the carriage exactly what to expect, and had thought herself quite prepared.

And I am disappointed anyway—every single time.

Valentine cleared his throat.

“Then let us leave the decision with the child,” he said. “If she chooses to return with us, she comes. If she does not, she stays. I take it no one here objects to that.”

Diana saw the smirk come back into Octavia’s face, satisfied and quickly hidden.

“Very well,” said her stepmother, and turned and signaled to the maid at the door.

Diana’s stomach turned over.