Page 18 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

He watched Aurelia watch it, dangerously curious about what she thought. She was sitting correctly, like always, but her hands had gone still in her lap. His heart sank with the thought that Carrstone was too small, eclectic, or isolated for her. He hoped against hope that would not be the case.

The coach stopped. He stepped down first and offered Aurelia his hand tentatively. She took it, and they walked toward the door where Mrs. Foulger was already standing with the assembled household behind her, twelve of them in two lines, the way it had always been done. Evander found it too serious for a place like Carrstone.

“Your Grace.” Mrs. Foulger addressed him and then Aurelia directly, with the tight smile he was familiar with. She looked the exact same as when he had left her after the winter, two months ago, but the grey in her hair had overtaken more of the brown. “Welcome to Carrstone Manor. We are very glad to have you.”

Aurelia received this neutrally and fell into a curtsey. She asked Mrs. Foulger's name as a small courtesy, he noted.

He was showing her the entrance hall next, once the staff had been dismissed to prepare a supper for them and take their belongings to their respective rooms. The hall was the result of a renovation his great-great-grandfather had begun. He was about to say as much, staring up at the stonework of the ceiling, when he heard a sound that made the whole trip worthwhile: claws on stone.

He had about a second's warning before Titan came around the corner at full speed, all four legs losing traction on the flagstones, skidding to a halt directly against Evander's legs with a force that almost knocked him over.

“All right, that’s quite enough,” Evander said, going down onto one knee and letting Titan's enormous head push against his chest. “Yes. I know. I was gone, and I am sorry.”

Titan communicated his feelings about this at length, his slim ash-brown tail wagging emphatically back and forth. Evander bore the onslaught with a smile, wincing at the volume of his barks and the foul but comforting smell of his mouth.

When he looked up, Aurelia had taken two steps back. Her hands were together at her front, squeezing her fingers. Her expression was doing its best to communicate politeness, but her ears had gone red.

Then the second dog appeared. Titan's younger sister, Nike, a little less large and enthusiastic, a pale spotted grey, who proceeded to investigate Aurelia's hem with tremendous interest.

“Off her, Nike,” Evander said, standing roughly. He caught Nike by the collar and drew her back. “Forgive me. I should have warned you. They are,” he looked at them, Titan still pressing against his leg, Nike attempting to reapproach, “enthusiastic creatures to say the least."

“You say creatures but…” Aurelia’s neck worked and she took another step back when Nike stirred again. “What are they?”

“Dogs.”

“What dogs?”

“Great Danes.”

“I have never seen dogs so large in my life. They look more like ponies. They could swallow Margie and the rest of Violet’s pack whole.”

Evan laughed, patting Titan on the head. “Does that mean you do not like them?”

He had said it as a joke, but she seemed genuinely panicked by the question.

“No. How could I not like them? They are wonderful, so different. But they will take some getting used to.”

“You don't have to–”

“I mean it. I’m not in the business of lying, especially not to you,” she repeated more firmly, and crouched down on the stones in the same casual manner he had, and let Nike sniff her hand.

Evander watched her hold very still while Nike completed her assessment, and then Nike licked her gloved wrist. Aurelia glanced up with surprise, and then she steadied herself and scratched behind Nike's ear until she smiled and Nike began panting.

“She is named Nike,” he said.

“I hear that, and I see why.” Aurelia rubbed Nike’s one white ear, laughing when the dog tried to climb into Aurelia's lap. “She will never fit. She is very large.”

“She is exactly the size of her mother, who was also very large.” He called Titan back and held his collar. “The other one is Titan. They have the same parents but they are from different litters. He is better behaved. And thank God for it, given the size of him.”

Titan chose this moment to sit on Evander's foot, obscuring his muddied Wellington boot.

Aurelia looked up at him from her crouching position, Nike's paws on her knees and what he was fairly certain was dog hair already on pale yellow travelling coat from her wedding trousseau. She laughed again, a real and sudden laugh.

And the doubt he had about her and Carrstone began to dissipate.

He was giving her the eastern wing and took her there now, Nike and Titan trailing behind them and sniffing the dusty parquet. He had thought about this on the journey, and then told himself he was not thinking about it, and then found himself thinking about it again. It was a strange thing to give someone. A wing. It had been strange when the thought had first arrived three days ago, and he had not been able to talk himself out of it since.

The east wing had not been opened in eleven months. It smelled of beeswax and old wood and the dryness of a room that had not been used for too long. He lit the lamps himself. Mrs. Foulger had been dismissed for the evening now that supper was waiting for them elsewhere, and they wanted to be alone.