The Duke Asked May I Continue On Their Night — How a Forced Marriage in 1848 Became True Romance

Chapter 4

The first weeks passed in a rhythm of careful distance.

They ate breakfast together in a small dining room that caught the morning sun. He read the newspaper. She poured tea. They exchanged observations about the weather, the estate, the books on the library shelves. The conversations were like water wearing down stone — slow, persistent, leaving marks that neither acknowledged.

Evelyn explored the house with the curiosity of a prisoner testing the boundaries of a cell. She found a library with ceiling-high shelves and a fireplace large enough to stand in. She found a conservatory filled with plants that had been allowed to grow wild. She found a music room with a piano that had not been played in years. She did not touch it. She was not sure she was allowed.

The servants watched her with careful eyes. She learned their names deliberately — Mrs. Holloway, the housekeeper, who had been at Ashworth Park for thirty years and whose hands were never still. Thomas, the butler, who moved through the halls like a ghost and spoke in a voice so low it seemed to come from somewhere else. Mary, a young maid with a scar on her chin, who looked at Evelyn with something like sympathy.

One afternoon, when the house was quiet, Evelyn found herself in the music room again. The piano sat in the corner, its keys yellowed with age. She lifted the lid and touched a single note. The sound was pure, untouched, as if the instrument had been waiting for her. She sat down and began to play — a piece her mother had taught her, simple and sad, the melody of a song about a girl waiting by the sea. She closed her eyes and let the music carry her back to a time when she had been loved, when her mother had sat beside her on the piano bench, her hands guiding Evelyn’s fingers across the keys. She did not notice the door open behind her. She did not see Julian standing in the doorway, listening. When she finished, she turned and found him there. He did not speak. He only looked at her, and in his eyes she saw something that made her chest tighten. He turned and left without a word, but the look stayed with her for days.

She asked Mary, one evening, about the Duke’s first wife.

Mary’s face closed like a door. “She passed away, Your Grace. Several years ago.”

“I know that,” Evelyn said gently. “I only wondered what she was like.”

Mary hesitated. “She was quiet,” she said finally. “Very quiet.”

It was not an answer, but Evelyn did not press.

The Duke — Julian — was a presence she felt before she saw. She would be reading in the library and sense the air change, and look up to find him standing in the doorway, watching her with an expression she could not read. He would ask if she needed anything. She would say no. He would nod and leave.

One afternoon, she found him in the garden, standing before a rose bush that had been pruned back to bare branches. His hands were clasped behind his back. He did not hear her approach.

“These will bloom in the spring,” she said.

He turned, surprised. “I did not hear you.”

“I did not mean to startle you.”

He looked back at the branches. “My wife — my first wife — planted these. She loved roses.”

Evelyn said nothing. She stood beside him, looking at the same bare branches, and felt the weight of the woman she had replaced.

“She was not happy here,” Julian said quietly. “I did not know how to make her happy. I am not certain I tried.”

Evelyn’s throat tightened. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I do not want to make the same mistake.”

The words settled between them like a stone dropped into still water. Evelyn looked at his profile, at the lines of regret carved into his face, and felt something shift inside her.

“Thank you,” she said.

He turned to look at her. “For what?”

“For telling me the truth.”

They stood in the garden until the sun set, and the silence between them was no longer cautious. It was the silence of two people who had begun, without announcing it, to trust one another.

That night, Evelyn lay awake and thought about the man she had married. She had expected a monster. She had found a man still carrying the weight of a failure he did not know how to name. And she realized, with a clarity that surprised her, that she wanted to be the person who helped him put it down.

The next morning, she did something she had never done before. She went to Mrs. Holloway and asked to see the household accounts. The housekeeper hesitated, clearly uncertain, but Evelyn waited. “I am the Duchess of Ashworth,” she said quietly. “I should know how this house runs.” Mrs. Holloway brought the ledgers, and Evelyn spent the afternoon reading them, learning the names of every servant, every expense, every corner of the estate that she now helped to govern. It was a small act. But it was hers.