She Gave a Lost Stranger a Ride Home—Hours Later, the Duke Knocked on Her Door

Chapter 11

He came to the household office at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night.

Nell was at the desk with the supply contracts, working by lamplight, because the days had gone short and the light in that room failed by half past three, and there was no point in lighting the whole passage for one woman and one ledger. She heard his step in the corridor and knew it was him before he reached the door, because he walked differently from Craddock — heavier, and without the conscious slowing that age had taught the old man.

He had come straight from his own study. There was ink on his right hand. His cravat hung open at the collar. And his expression was the particular contained fury of a man who had decided not to shout, and was finding that decision increasingly difficult to honour.

He held out his hand. He said nothing at all. He did not need to.

Nell looked at him for a moment. Then she opened the back of the correspondence drawer, moved the coal receipts aside, and put Lady Thornbury’s letter into his palm.

He read it.

He read it twice. The second reading was slower, quieter, and considerably more dangerous than the first.

“She brought this here herself,” he said.

His voice was very level, which meant that it was not level at all.

“On Monday morning.”

“You did not tell me.”

“It is not your concern, your grace.”

He set the letter down on the desk. He placed both hands flat on the wood and looked at her across the lamplight. The shadows made the hard planes of his face harder. His eyes were not hard. They were burning with a clear, controlled fury that she had not seen in him before and would not forget.

“You are in my household,” he said.

“Yes.”

“When someone attempts to undermine your position in my household, that is directly my concern.”

He let the sentence stand.

“She wrote this because she cannot reach you here. And it enrages her that she cannot.”

“If you involve yourself, she will read it as confirmation of something irregular between us. It will make things considerably worse.”

“Lady Thornbury,” Rowan said, and his voice dropped into a register that was somehow more alarming than any raised one, “is a frightened woman who built this letter because she cannot stand that you are beyond her reach.” He straightened. “She is not going to be sending further correspondence to this estate.”

He picked the letter up.

“I have been reviewing the drainage easement that runs across the north boundary of the Thornbury property,” he said. “My estate has maintained that easement for forty years at no cost to her whatever. It keeps the bottom four fields from flooding. My solicitor has been asked to review whether it remains practical to continue.”

Nell stared at him.

“The drainage easement,” she said.

“Yes.”

“She will understand immediately.”

“Yes. She will also understand that the next letter she writes to anyone in this house will result in consequences considerably more permanent than a disrupted drainage line.”

He held the folded letter over the lamp.

The paper caught instantly. He held it until the last corner blackened and curled, and then he dropped the ash into the ink tray and watched it.

“Good,” he said.

He straightened. And then the official fury settled into something else — something quieter, and considerably more difficult to address across a desk at eleven o’clock at night.

“It is past eleven,” he said. “The supply contracts need to be reviewed before Thursday’s delivery.”

“They will survive until morning, Nell.”

It was the first time he had used her given name without any title of address, and it fell into the quiet office like a stone dropped into still water.

She stood. She collected her papers. She picked up the lamp.

She stopped in the doorway.

“Thank you,” she said.

Two words only, carrying the whole weight of everything she had no intention of saying at eleven o’clock in a household office.

“Thank you,” Rowan said, “for not driving past.”

She understood that he did not mean the easement.