Page 66

“That is very generous of you, Mr. Dornet.”

“It is nothing more than any man in my position ought to do.” He smiled again, the same half-second delay. “I had hoped to speak with you of it directly, Your Grace, since I am told the Duchess of Brawnhite takes a close personal interest in how such houses are run, and I did not wish my donation to vanish into accounts I knew nothing of. I should like to see it put to good use.”

“We have a particular need for coal this year.” She reached for the ledger, and found her hand was steady, which surprised her. “If you will give me a figure, Mr. Dornet, I shall see it entered properly, and I can assure you it will be spent exactly as you wish.”

He named a sum.

It was not small, and she wrote it down promptly.

In her mind, she was trying to figure out what he was trying to do. Surely, he had some sort of a motive. There had to be.

“You are very prompt about it,” he said, watching her write. “I had thought I might be made to wait on a committee, or some such thing.”

“I find committees are very good at losing a sense of urgency that children in want of coal do not have the luxury of sharing.” She looked up and met his eyes directly, and made herself hold them, though everything in her wanted to look away. “We are glad of every shilling, Mr. Dornet, and gladder still of every hand that offers one without being asked twice.”

“I am glad to be of use, Your Grace.” Something flickered behind his pleasant face, there and gone, too quick to name. “You have a great many children here.”

“We have.”

“All manner of ages, I suppose.”

“All manner.” She watched him watch the window, and something in her went very cold and very still and very clear, the way the world goes clear in the instant before a fall. “We have infants in the nursery not a twelvemonth old, up to boys nearly grown and ready to be placed in a trade. Why do you ask?”

“No reason at all.” The smile came back, “Only curiosity. It is a long while since I was small enough to be one of them myself.”

She held his gaze a moment longer than was strictly polite, and he did not look away first.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to let him go. To thank him for his coal money, and show him to the door. But something in her betrayed her.

“Mr. Dornet, before you go, I wonder if I might impose on your generosity a little further.”

“Anything, Your Grace.”

“We are to hold a ball, at Brawnhite House, a fortnight from now, in aid of St. Anthony’s and several houses like it. There will be a great deal of London there, and a great deal of money raised, I hope, and a little entertainment besides. The children are to sing.” She watched him carefully as she said it, and saw something move behind his eyes, quick and bright and hungry, gone almost before she could be certain she had seen it. “I should like very much for you to attend, as our guest, if you are able. It seems only right that a man who gives so generously should see for himself what becomes of it.”

For a moment he said nothing at all.

“The children will sing,” he repeated, slowly.

“They have been practicing for a fortnight. I am told it is equal parts charming and excruciating, and I would not miss it for the world.” She kept her voice light, easy, the voice of a woman offering nothing more than a pleasant evening. “Will you come, Mr. Dornet?”

The smile that spread across his face then was different from the others, she thought. It reached, for the first time, all the way to his eyes.

“Your Grace,” he said, “I cannot think of anything I should like better. Thank you. I am very deeply obliged to you.”

“The obligation is entirely mine. Good charity requires good company to witness it.” She rose, and held out her hand, and he took it, his grip warm and perfectly correct and entirely unremarkable, nothing in it to account for the cold that climbed her spine at his touch. “I shall have a card sent round with the particulars. I do hope you will not disappoint us.”

“I would not dream of it,” said Michael Dornet, and bowed, and took his leave, and Phillipa stood alone in the little office for a long moment after the door had closed behind him, looking at her own steady hand on the ledger as though it belonged to a stranger.

She heard Augusta’s laugh carrying from the yard as she was making her way inside from the tour.

Once he had left though, she felt the weight of what she had done.

It is the perfect plan, she told herself. She was still convinced of it, and perhaps now the next task was that she needed to convince her husband as well.

If he was here, he would have done the same thing.

Right?