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Gabriel looked away. If he could persuade himself that wouldn’t be the case, he’d do so in a heartbeat, but he’d returned to Annan nearly a year ago, and it had been the quietest year of his life.

The threat of him wandering about this castle until he expired from loneliness was all too real.

“All will be well, Your Grace.” Rowan took up his brush again. “I promise it.”

Promises were breakable things, and it was on the tip of his tongue to say so, but Walter Rowan had never, in all the years Gabriel had known him, broken a promise to him.

He was a man of his word, so Gabriel bit back his complaints and turned once again to the activity unfolding below his window. “Good Lord, that’s a great many trunks. How long do they intend to stay?”

“Perhaps one of them will stay forever as the Duchess of Hawthorne.”

Forever. “What a strange thought that is.”

He pushed the draperies aside and resumed spying on the ladies below.

The tallest of the three was of a matronly age, and likely the mother of the two young ladies who’d emerged from the carriage after her. They were dark-haired, red-cheeked young ladies, and quite pretty, at least from this distance.

How odd, to think one of them might become his duchess. How odd that he should need a duchess at all! He stared hard at the two young ladies, trying his best to feel something. Surely, he should be able to tell if he was looking at his future betrothed? Shouldn’t there be a shiver of awareness, or a delightful pang of some sort?

There was nothing. Well, unless one counted indigestion. There was plenty of that.

For as long as he could remember his father had told him he’d know at once when he found the lady meant to be his duchess. He’d described it as a lightning strike, the sudden clarity like a gift from fate herself, but Gabriel had turned thirty years old this year, and he remained unstruck.

He’d never felt a twinge of anything that might be love.

Had it all been romantic nonsense? Sentimental claptrap? He hadn’t thought so at the time. At the time, he’d believed every word his father said. Since then, he’d dreamed of the day he’d find the lady his heart recognized as his own.

But it had never happened, and there was no one left to ask about it. His father was dead and tucked into the family mausoleum at the north end of the property, and with him Gabriel’s beloved older brother James, who’d succumbed to a fever just over a year ago.

Now, against his every expectation, he found himself the Sixth Duke of Hawthorne, of all cumbersome things, and every duke must have a duchess.

So, here they were.

Someone must become the Duchess of Hawthorne. Why shouldn’t it be one of the two young ladies standing in his drive, mere steps away from the front door of his castle?

Even as he watched, a fourth figure emerged from the carriage, a threadbare cloak wrapped around her, the deep hood pulled low over her face, as if she were hiding.

No richly embroidered velvet for her, then. She must be a servant.

“I believe that’s Lady Featherstone,” Rowan murmured. “I recognize the crest on the carriage. Her two daughters, Cornelia and Beatrice, have accompanied her here. The eldest, Cornelia, is reputed to be a beauty.”

“What of the other lady, the one who’s just stepped onto the drive. Who is she?”

Rowan observed the ladies through the window, his brow creased. “I couldn’t say. I’m certain Lady Featherstone accepted the invitation on behalf of herself and her two daughters. I daresay the other must be their lady’s maid.”

Yes, that made sense, given that shapeless cloak she was wearing.

She didn’t have the bearing of a servant, though. There was something regal about her, an innate grace that marked her as a gently born lady, but she was dressed in what looked like a bundle of rags.

How odd.

He watched from his perch at the window as she wandered to the far side of the drive. The eastern edge of the formal gardens could be seen from there, and she stood for some time gazing at the grounds before a sharp word from Lady Featherstone recalled her.

She turned to rejoin her party, but she paused for an instant first, and then, almost as if something had compelled her, she tilted her head back, her gaze moving up the castle’s façade—up, up, up—until she appeared to be gazing right at him.

He stumbled backward, away from the window, shock rushing through him.

That face. He’d seen it somewhere before, hadn’t he? Fine, pale skin, wide eyes, and an adorably stubborn, pointed chin …