A Widowed Duke’s Dreamy Governess (Preview)

Chapter One

The coin was too light.

Aurora Bennett knew it the moment the foreman dropped it into her palm, knew it by the hollow clink against her calloused skin, by the way it sat too easily in her hand.

She closed her fingers around it anyway, her throat tight as she watched Mr. Grimshaw turn away, already dismissing her from his thoughts as thoroughly as he’d dismissed her from his employ.

“That’s all?” The words escaped before she could stop them.

Grimshaw paused, his bulk filling the doorway of the mill office. When he turned back, his jowled face carried the patient annoyance of a man accustomed to explaining himself to his inferiors. “You worked three days this week, Miss Bennett. That’s three days’ wages.”

“I worked six days last week. And the week before that.” Aurora forced herself to meet his eyes, though her hand trembled around the pathetic coin. “You said I’d have steady work if I kept my pace up. I’ve kept my pace up.”

“And now the orders have dried up.” He waved a dismissive hand toward the windows, where the great looms sat silent, their wooden frames skeletal in the thin morning light. “I’ve let half the floor go. You’re lucky you got anything at all.”

Lucky. Aurora bit back the bitter laugh that rose in her throat. Yes, how fortunate she was to be turned out with barely enough coin to buy bread for a week, with a five-year-old sister who coughed through every night and an elderly aunt who could scarcely remember to feed herself, let alone a sickly child.

“When should I come back?” she asked, hating the note of desperation she heard in her voice. “When the orders pick up again?”

Grimshaw’s expression shifted into something that might have been pity, which was somehow worse than his annoyance. “Best look elsewhere, lass. Things won’t be picking up here for some time if they pick up at all. Cotton’s getting cheaper from the Americans. Can’t compete with it.”

He closed the door before she could respond, leaving her standing in the narrow corridor that stank of machine oil and unwashed bodies. Around her, the other dismissed workers shuffled past, their faces hollow with the same dread that now coiled in her belly.

She recognized Margaret Thorne, who had three children and a husband who drank his wages. Old Peter Simms, whose twisted hands could barely grip a shuttle anymore, but who’d worked the looms since he was seven years old. Betty Marsh, who was barely fourteen and whose mother depended on her earnings.

They didn’t look at each other. There was a particular shame in being let go, as if poverty were a personal failing rather than a fact of life for people like them.

Aurora tucked the coin into the small cloth purse tied at her waist, such as it was, more hole than fabric, and stepped out into the morning air. The village of Ashford spread before her in shades of gray: gray stone cottages huddled against gray skies, smoke rising from gray chimneys to join the perpetual haze hanging over the mill quarter. Even at this early hour, the acrid smell of coal fires and industrial waste made her eyes water.

She’d lived here all her life, but at that moment, she hated it with a fierceness that surprised her.

Claire can’t grow strong here, she thought, not for the first time. Her sister needed clean air, good food, and warmth. None of which Aurora could provide on three days’ wages from a job she no longer had.

The walk back to Aunt Marie’s cottage took her through the heart of the village. Despite her dark thoughts, Aurora couldn’t help noticing the small signs of life that persisted even in this dismal place. Mrs. Henley was sweeping her front step, calling out a greeting that Aurora returned automatically.

The baker’s boy whistled as he loaded his delivery cart, and the smell of fresh bread made her stomach clench with hunger. She’d given her breakfast portion to Claire that morning, not that she regretted it.

By the time she reached the posting square, her fingers were numb with cold, and her mind was churning through increasingly desperate options. She could try the other mills, but if Grimshaw was letting people go, they all were. Domestic service, perhaps?

But those positions were few and far between, and she had no references, no connections, nothing but her ability to work hard and a quick mind worth precisely nothing in a world that valued breeding over brains.

She was so deep in her spiraling thoughts that she nearly walked past the knot of women gathered around the village posting board.

“—impossible, that’s what I heard,” Mrs. Davies was saying, her voice pitched loud enough to carry across the square. “Gone through six governesses in two years. Six!”

“My cousin’s daughter applied for the position last spring,” added young Mary Fletcher, shifting her market basket to her other arm. “Lasted all of three weeks before she fled back to her family in tears. Said the child was a little demon, and his grace was worse.”

Aurora slowed her steps, curiosity momentarily overriding her misery. She edged closer to the group, pretending to examine the posted notices while her ears strained to catch every word.

“A demon child and a brooding widower,” Mrs. Davies continued with relish. “What respectable woman would want such a position? Mark my words, he’ll never find anyone suitable.”

“The wages are generous, though.” This from Mrs. Henley, who’d joined the group with her broom still in hand. “Room and board, plus forty pounds a year. That’s more than most governesses see.”

Forty pounds.

Aurora’s heart stuttered. Forty pounds was more than she’d made in two years at the mill. It was enough to pay for Claire’s medicine, to buy proper winter clothes, to perhaps even save a little against future disasters. It was enough to change everything.

“Generous wages for a position no one can keep,” Mary scoffed. “There must be something truly dreadful about the household. Perhaps the estate is haunted. Or perhaps …” she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “… perhaps the duke has … unnatural expectations of his employees.”

The women tittered, and Aurora felt heat rise to her cheeks. She shouldn’t be listening to such gossip. It was improper. Undignified.

And yet she couldn’t bring herself to walk away.

“The posting’s been up for a fortnight now,” Mrs. Davies said, shaking her head. “Surprising it hasn’t been taken down. Perhaps he’s given up hope of finding anyone.”

“Or perhaps,” Mrs. Henley said dryly, “the right person simply hasn’t seen it yet.”

Aurora’s eyes found the notice. It was a simple thing, printed on thick paper that spoke of money and position:

WANTED: Governess for a young lady of quality. Must be educated, patient, and of good moral character. Generous compensation. Apply in person to Weatherforth Estate, Ashford Parish.

Weatherforth Estate. She knew it only as a distant presence, the great house that sat beyond the village boundaries, surrounded by parkland that common folk like her never saw. She’d never even glimpsed the Duke of Weatherforth, though she’d heard he kept to himself since his wife’s death.

Six governesses in two years. A difficult child. An impossible employer.

And forty pounds a year.

“Excuse me,” Aurora said, her voice cutting through the gossip. Five pairs of eyes turned to her with varying degrees of surprise. She was used to that, the way her speech marked her as different, too educated for her station. Her mother had insisted on teaching her to read and write, to speak properly. “A waste for a mill girl,” the other workers had said. Aurora had once thought so, too.

Now, that education might be her salvation.

“I beg your pardon for interrupting,” she continued, keeping her tone respectful, “but did I understand correctly that this position remains unfilled?”

Mrs. Davies’s eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline. “The governess position? At Weatherforth Estate?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The women exchanged glances, and Aurora saw the thought pass between them as clearly as if they’d spoken it aloud: What business does a mill girl have applying for such a position?

“You’d need references,” Mary said, not unkindly. “Education. Experience with children of quality.”

“I can read and write in English and French,” Aurora said, lifting her chin. “I know mathematics, history, and geography. My mother was educated before she married and taught me everything she knew. As for references …” She hesitated. “I have none in the traditional sense. But I’ve cared for my younger sister these past five years, and she’s been well-taught, despite our circumstances.”

“A younger sister isn’t the same as a duke’s daughter,” Mrs. Davies pointed out.

“No,” Aurora agreed. “I imagine a duke’s daughter has never known hunger, or cold, or the fear of losing her home. But perhaps that’s precisely why she needs someone who has. Someone who can teach her that kindness matters more than consequence, and that true strength comes from weathering storms, not from being sheltered from them.”

The words came from somewhere deep and fierce inside her, and for a moment, the women simply stared.

Then Mrs. Henley smiled. “Well said, child. Though I doubt his grace will see it that way. From what I hear, he’s a proper gentleman, all duty and propriety. Wouldn’t know kindness if it knocked him off his horse.”

“Then perhaps it’s time someone taught him,” Aurora said, surprising herself with her boldness.

Mrs. Davies let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, you’re a spirited thing, aren’t you? Very well, Miss …?”

“Bennett. Aurora Bennett.”

“Miss Bennett, then. The posting’s been up for a fortnight, as I said. If you’ve a mind to apply, I’d suggest you don’t waste time. Though I’d also suggest you prepare yourself for disappointment. Men like the Duke of Weatherforth don’t hire mill girls as governesses, no matter how well they speak French.”

Aurora nodded, already mentally cataloging what she’d need to do. She’d have to borrow a decent dress from somewhere; her own clothes were patched and faded from mill work. She’d need to wash her hair, clean under her fingernails, present herself as respectable rather than desperate, even though desperation thrummed through her veins like a second heartbeat.

“Thank you for the advice,” she said, and meant it. These women could have been cruel, could have laughed her back to her proper place. Instead, they’d given her a chance, however slim.

She left them to their gossip and made her way back to Aunt Marie’s cottage with her mind racing. The building sat at the end of a narrow lane, its thatched roof sagging and its windows small and grimy.

It had once housed only Aunt Marie, but now it sheltered Aurora and Claire as well, along with Aunt Marie’s stepson, William, and his wife Anne, who barely acknowledged their existence and made it clear at every opportunity that they were counting the days until the old woman died and they could have the place to themselves.

Aurora pushed open the door and was immediately assaulted by the familiar smells of damp wood, old cooking grease, and the sharp tang of the chamber pot that needed emptying. The main room was dark despite the morning hour, the single window letting in barely enough light to see by.

Aunt Marie sat in her chair by the cold fireplace, her head nodding forward in sleep. Anne was nowhere to be seen, likely at the market, spending William’s wages on herself, and William would be at work until evening.

“Aurora?”

The small voice came from the corner, and Aurora’s heart clenched. Claire sat on their shared pallet, wrapped in the thin blanket that was their only bedding, her pale face turned hopefully toward the door.

“I’m here, sweetheart.” Aurora crossed the room and knelt beside her sister, pressing a hand to her forehead. Still warm, but not dangerously so. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” Claire coughed, the wet, rattling sound that had become as familiar as her own heartbeat. “Did you bring bread?”

Aurora’s throat tightened. She’d planned to buy bread with her wages and had promised Claire she would. Now, with only three days’ pay and no prospect of more, she’d have to make different choices. Harder choices.

“Not yet,” she said gently. “But I will. I have something to do first, and then I’ll buy us a proper loaf. Would you like that?”

Claire nodded, her thin fingers clutching Aurora’s sleeve. “With butter?”

“Perhaps. We’ll see.” Aurora smoothed her sister’s dark hair back from her face. Claire had their mother’s features, delicate bone structure, wide gray eyes, and a small rosebud mouth. She should have been running and playing with other children, her cheeks pink with health and happiness. Instead, she spent most of her days on this pallet, too weak to do much more than sit and occasionally help Aunt Marie with simple tasks like winding yarn.

The injustice of it made Aurora’s chest ache.

“I need you to be good while I’m gone,” she said. “Stay warm, and if Aunt Marie wakes, tell her I’ve gone to apply for a position.”

“A position?” Claire’s eyes widened. “As what?”

Aurora hesitated. She shouldn’t get the child’s hopes up, not when the likelihood of success was so small. But she also couldn’t lie to those trusting eyes.

“As a governess,” she said. “At a grand estate. If I get it, we’d have a proper home, Claire. Clean air, good food. You’d get strong again.”

“Would I go with you?”

The question pierced Aurora’s heart. She’d been so focused on the wages, on the possibility of providing for Claire, that she hadn’t let herself think about the reality of the position. A governess lived in her employer’s household. She wouldn’t be able to bring a sickly five-year-old sister with her, no matter how desperately she wanted to do that.

“Not right away,” she said carefully. “But the wages would be enough for me to send money for your care. And perhaps, in time …” She let the thought trail off. Perhaps what? Perhaps a duke would allow his governess to bring her impoverished sister to live at his estate? The notion was absurd.

But she couldn’t voice that to Claire, who was looking at her with such hope that Aurora felt her resolve harden into something like steel.

She would get this position. Somehow, she would make the Duke of Weatherforth see that she was exactly what his daughter needed. And if she couldn’t bring Claire with her, then by God, she’d earn enough to ensure her sister had everything she needed to get well.

“Rest now,” she told Claire, tucking the blanket more securely around her thin shoulders. “I’ll be back before dark.”

She stood and turned to find Aunt Marie watching her with rheumy eyes. The old woman’s moments of lucidity were becoming rarer, but there was something almost sharp in her gaze now.

“You’re going after that governess position,” Aunt Marie said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ll need a dress. Something better than that.” She gestured at Aurora’s faded work dress, worn thin at the elbows and stained with machine oil that no amount of washing could remove.

“I know. I thought perhaps I could borrow …”

“The blue one in the trunk.” Aunt Marie’s gnarled fingers pointed toward the ancient chest in the corner. “It was your mother’s. Should fit you well enough.”

Aurora’s eyes stung. She’d forgotten about her mother’s clothes, packed away years ago after the fever took her. “Are you certain?”

“Your mother would want you to have it. She always said you were meant for better things than the mill.” The old woman’s voice wavered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you and Claire more. Sorry you’ve had to live like this.”

“You gave us shelter when no one else would,” Aurora said fiercely. “We’ll never forget that.”

Aunt Marie waved a dismissive hand, but her eyes were wet. “Get the dress, child. And for heaven’s sake, wash your face and hands properly. You smell of the mill.”

Aurora did as she was told, retrieving the dress from the trunk. It was indeed blue, a soft, faded cornflower blue that brought back sudden, sharp memories of her mother wearing it to church on Sundays, back when they’d had a reason to go to church, back when her father had been alive, and their family had been whole.

She shook off the memories and focused on the practical. The dress would need pressing, and she’d need to adjust the waist; she was thinner now than her mother had been. But it was serviceable, respectable, the kind of dress a poor but genteel young woman might wear.

The kind of dress that might convince a duke she was worthy of teaching his daughter.

As she heated water to wash with, using the last of their precious soap, Aurora allowed herself to imagine it. A real position. A real home. Enough money to save Claire, to give them both a future beyond this gray, suffocating village.

It felt dangerous to hope, after so many disappointments. But as she scrubbed the mill grime from her skin and pinned her dark hair into a neat bun, Aurora made herself a promise: she would walk into Weatherforth Estate with her head held high. She would show the Duke of Weatherforth that she might be poor, but she was neither ignorant nor incapable.

And if he was fool enough to turn her away based on her circumstances rather than her merits, then he was the one who would suffer for it.

His daughter deserved better than a parade of fine ladies who couldn’t handle a spirited child. She deserved someone who understood what it meant to fight for what mattered.

She deserved someone like Aurora.

The thought steadied her as she dressed in her mother’s blue gown and pinned a small cameo brooch, her only piece of jewelry, at her throat.
When she looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror above the washbasin, she saw not a mill girl but a young woman who might, just might, be suitable for a governess position. The long braid she had pinned back with more care than usual was tidier than it had any right to be after the morning she’d had.

Her complexion was warm from years of outdoor work, her frame small but solid in a way that spoke more of endurance than elegance. Her eyes, blue, and too expressive for her own comfort, looked back at her with something she decided to call determination rather than desperation.

She was not the kind of woman who stopped a room. But in her mother’s blue dress, standing straight, she thought she might at least be the kind who made an impression.

Claire clapped her hands when she saw her. “You look like a lady, Aurora!”

“Well, I’m not a lady,” Aurora said, but she couldn’t help smiling. “But perhaps I can pretend to be one for an afternoon.”

She kissed her sister’s forehead, promised Aunt Marie she’d be careful, and stepped out into the overcast morning once more.

The walk to the Estate would take the better part of an hour. She’d have to follow the main road north out of the village, past the mill quarter, and into the countryside where the air slowly cleared and the world gradually transformed from gray to green.

Aurora had never walked that road before. Had never had reason to venture beyond the village boundaries into the realm of the wealthy. But as she set off, her mother’s dress swishing around her ankles and her chin held high despite the nervous flutter in her stomach, she felt something shift inside her.

This was more than just applying for a position.

This was the beginning of everything.

Chapter Two

A particular quality of silence settled over Weatherford Hall in the hours before the household properly stirred, a silence that was not truly silence at all but rather the muffled breath of a great house holding itself in suspension between night and morning.

The fire in the grate had long since been reduced to ash, the candles snuffed, and Algernon, Duke of Weatherford, had been sitting at his desk for three hours already, staring at a letter he had no intention of answering.

It was from his solicitor, Mr. Graves, and it concerned a matter of the entail, a perfectly routine matter that would have taken him no more than ten minutes to resolve on any ordinary day.

But since Catherine’s death, Algernon had discovered that the capacity for ordinary days had deserted him entirely, replaced by this peculiar condition in which the simplest tasks acquired the weight of mountains, and a man who had once managed an estate of ten thousand acres with brisk efficiency now found himself undone by a single sheet of correspondence before breakfast.

He pushed the letter aside and turned in his chair to look at the painting hanging above the fireplace, a portrait of Catherine commissioned in the first year of their marriage. She looked out at him from the canvas with that particular half-smile that the artist had caught with uncanny accuracy, neither warm nor cold, simply watchful.

He had considered having it removed a dozen times, but each time, he found he could not do it. The portrait was the only image of her mother that Eleanor had in the house, and whatever his own complicated feelings on the matter, he would not take that from the child.

What occupied his thoughts this morning, as on most mornings, was Eleanor.

She had been at it again last night. He had heard it himself this time, the sound of something striking the floor above with considerable force, followed by the muffled protests of the nursery maid and then a silence so abrupt it was almost more alarming than the noise that preceded it.

He had stood at the foot of the stairs for a long moment, his hand on the newel post, telling himself he ought to go up, that a father ought to go up. That any man worth the title would go up.

He had not gone up.

Instead, he had returned to his study and poured himself a measure of brandy he did not particularly want and sat with it untouched until the sounds from the upper floor resolved themselves into quiet and the household settled once more into its uneasy rest.

This was, he thought with a clarity that was not entirely comfortable, becoming something of a habit.

He had attempted, three days ago, to take his breakfast with Eleanor. It had seemed a reasonable gesture, the sort of thing a father ought to do.

He had arrived in the nursery with what he privately considered a perfectly agreeable expression only to have his daughter look up from her porridge, assess him with those large, solemn eyes that were disconcertingly similar to his own, and say, with the devastating directness of childhood, “You only come when something is wrong.”

He had assured her that nothing was wrong, that he simply wished to take breakfast with her. She had regarded him for a long moment with an expression that belonged properly on someone four times her age.

Then she had returned to her porridge without another word, and they had sat together in a silence so thick with things unsaid that Algernon had come away feeling considerably worse than when he arrived.

He was not, he reflected, naturally gifted at being a father. He had not had a particularly instructive example to follow. His own father had been a man of duty first and feeling a distant second, and what warmth there had been in Algernon’s childhood had come from his mother, who had died when he was twelve and left behind a void that no amount of discipline or obligation had ever adequately filled.

He had always assumed, in a vague way, that his own children would simply absorb from the atmosphere of the house whatever was required for their formation into decent human beings. He had not anticipated the atmosphere of the house becoming quite so thoroughly afflicted.

A knock on the door was followed immediately by the entrance of Marianne Whitmore, who had been managing the household since Mrs. Dawson’s illness had confined the proper housekeeper to her rooms. Marianne moved with a precision that Algernon had once found reassuring and now found merely ubiquitous. She was always there, always anticipating, always precisely where he did not expect to find her.

“Good morning, Your Grace.” She set a tray upon the corner of his desk with the ease of long familiarity. “I took the liberty of bringing your coffee early, as I noticed your light had been burning since before four o’clock.”

Algernon considered pointing out that his habits were not her concern, then decided the observation was not worth the conversation it would generate. “Thank you, Miss Whitmore.”

“I also wished to mention,” she continued, smoothing an invisible crease from her apron, “that Miss Eleanor has refused her breakfast again this morning. Mrs. Carver is at something of a loss as to what to offer her.”

“Give her whatever she wishes.” He reached for the coffee. “Within reason.”

“Of course.” Marianne lingered, which was another habit he had noted. She lingered with the purposefulness of a woman who had something more to say and had calculated precisely how long to wait before saying it. “There is also the matter of the governess position, Your Grace. It has been a fortnight since Miss Pemberton’s departure, and the first posting has drawn no suitable applicants. I wonder whether you have given thought to placing it again, or broadening its terms.”

There it was. Algernon looked up from his coffee. “I am aware of that, Miss Whitmore.”

“Shall I draft another advertisement? I am quite familiar with the form, having assisted Mrs. Dawson with such correspondence on several previous occasions.”

“I shall attend to it myself,” he said, with a finality that closed the subject as firmly as any locked door.

Marianne accepted the dismissal with a grace that did not quite conceal the flicker of something behind her eyes. Disappointment, perhaps. Algernon was not always certain he could tell the difference. “Very good, Your Grace. Shall I tell Mrs. Carver to expect you at the usual hour?”

“Tell Mrs. Carver I shall take my breakfast on my return from my walk.”

When she had gone, Algernon sat for a moment in the restored quiet, then rose, collected his coat from the stand, and let himself out through the side door into the cloudy morning.

The grounds of Weatherford Hall had always been his thinking place. He had walked these paths as a boy, as a young man newly come into his title, as a husband, as a father, and now as a widower.

The gardens gave way to the long avenue of oaks that lined the approach to the Hall, their branches bare still against the spring sky, and beyond that to the wall that marked the outer boundary of the estate, where the cultivated grounds surrendered to the rougher country beyond.

It was at this boundary that he encountered Julian.

Or rather, it was at this boundary that Julian ambushed him, appearing from behind the gatepost with the startling cheerfulness of a man who had not the slightest conception of how unwelcome that quality could be at half past seven in the morning.

Julian was fair where Algernon was dark, broad where he was lean, a man built for drawing rooms and easy company, which was perhaps why he appeared so entirely comfortable in both.

Algernon, by contrast, had always occupied space in a way that suggested rooms adjusted themselves to him rather than the other way around: tall, dark-haired, with the kind of angular features that did nothing to soften the impression of someone accustomed to being obeyed.

“There you are,” his cousin announced, falling into step beside him without invitation. “I arrived not twenty minutes ago, and your housekeeper informed me you had gone walking. She looked rather put out about it, as a matter of fact. I believe she had hoped to present you with your breakfast herself.”

“Marianne is the acting housekeeper,” Algernon said. “It is her function to attend to the household, not to present me with anything.”

“Yes, well.” Julian gave him a sidelong look that was irritatingly perceptive. “She seems rather more invested in the position than acting implies. But never mind that. How are you, cousin? You look dreadful, if I may say so.”

“You may not.”

“And yet I shall. When did you last sleep a full night?”

“When did you last mind your own affairs?”

“Touché,” Julian said, without the slightest evidence of being chastened. He matched Algernon’s stride with the ease of long practice, his hands clasped behind his back in a posture that somehow managed to suggest both leisure and purpose. “I have come because Olivia wished me out of the house while she discussed draperies with the upholsterer, and I wished to see how you were getting on. Both motivations are genuine, I assure you.”

Algernon almost smiled. Julian was one of the very few people in his acquaintance who could manage to be simultaneously exhausting and indispensable. “How is Olivia?”

“Well.” The word was flat, containing many things within its single syllable. “We are well. The house is very well. Everything is, as a matter of general principle, quite well.” He paused. “You know, Algernon, there are certain conversations one has with one’s wife that leave one feeling remarkably certain that the word well is doing a great deal of labor on behalf of several considerably less well-appointed sentiments.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“Are you? Or does it simply confirm what you have always suspected, which is that marriage is an institution designed primarily for the convenience of solicitors and the misery of everyone else?”

“I have never thought that.”

“No, you are far too decent. Which is a quality I have always admired in you and occasionally found maddening.” Julian kicked a stone off the path with a restlessness that was unlike his usual composure. There had been a change in him over the past year, Algernon thought, something quieter and less certain beneath the familiar brightness.

He and Olivia had been married four years now, an arrangement concluded with all the brisk efficiency of two families settling a long-standing account, and from what Algernon had observed, warmth had not been the defining feature of the match on either side.

Julian performed his role admirably. Olivia performed hers. And somewhere in the performing, two people who might have learned to be fond of one another appeared instead to have learned chiefly how to be politely disappointed.

“I am sorry,” Algernon said, meaning it.

Julian glanced at him sidelong. “Do not be. I am not here for your sympathy, I am here because if I had remained in that house while the upholsterer held forth on the relative merits of damask versus brocade, I should have said something that Olivia would not have forgiven before Christmas.” He exhaled. “Which is why I am far better suited to walking your grounds and prying into your affairs than attending to my own. Now. Tell me about Eleanor.”

Algernon was quiet for a moment. The oak avenue opened before them, and beyond the gates, the lane stretched away into the village. “She is herself,” he said at last. “Which is to say she is troubled, and she is difficult, and I am inadequately equipped to address either condition to my own satisfaction or hers.”

“You are too hard on yourself.”

“I am entirely accurate in my self-assessment, which is perhaps worse than being too hard.” He paused. “I sat with her at breakfast three days ago. I thought it might help. She informed me, with the sort of calm certainty that one generally associates with magistrates, that I only appear when something is wrong.”

Julian winced with genuine feeling. “Six years old, and she speaks like a judge.”

“She has a gift for it,” Algernon said, and there was something almost like wry pride beneath the frustration. “I confess I do not know where she acquired it.”

“From you,” Julian said simply. “She is precisely like you, which is why you cannot reach each other. Two people made of the same intractable material, both waiting for the other to concede the first inch.” He looked at his cousin steadily. “Someone needs to intervene before you have both calcified entirely. Eleanor needs a steady presence, not another woman who will pack her things after a fortnight and write you a regretful letter.”

“The posting went out again.”

“And what manner of woman do you hope it attracts?”

Algernon considered the question that he had not previously been asked in quite those terms. “A competent one,” he said finally. “An educated one. One who will not be undone by a six-year-old with strong opinions.”

“That is a description of requirements,” Julian said. “I asked what manner of woman you hope for.”

Algernon found, somewhat to his own irritation, that he did not have a ready answer.

He turned his gaze toward the middle distance, where a shape on the road had resolved itself from an indistinct blur into a figure. A woman, walking with some determination toward the Hall’s gates, consulting a piece of paper in one hand and managing, with the other, to hold her bonnet against the wind with an air of concentrated effort that would have been comical under other circumstances.

She had not yet noticed them.

Julian had, however, noticed his cousin’s sudden arrest of motion. “Do you know her?”

“I do not.” Algernon observed her approach with the involuntary attention one gives to anything unexpected in familiar surroundings. She was young, neatly dressed in a faded blue gown that had once been considerably finer than it was at present, and something about the way she moved spoke of a person entirely accustomed to managing on her own resources.

Her dark hair was pinned with more neatness than fashion. Her face, when she finally looked up and saw them standing at the gate, was rather striking, even with a smudge of road dust on one cheek and the slightly hunted expression of a woman who had been walking longer than she had anticipated.

“Oh!” She stopped, her eyes going first to Julian, then to Algernon, then back to the paper in her hand with the faintly desperate air of someone consulting a map that has ceased to bear any relation to the territory. “I beg your pardon, sirs. I am looking for Weatherford Hall. I was told it was along this road, and I confess I had begun to wonder whether I had been given quite incorrect directions.”

“You are on the right road,” Algernon said. “The Hall is through these gates.”

She looked at the gates with an expression of undisguised relief, and then something more cautious as she took in the two gentlemen before her with the instinctive wariness of a woman unused to encountering well-dressed strangers on country lanes. “I thank you, sir. You are very kind.”

“What is your business at the Hall, if I may enquire?” He was not entirely certain why he asked. Curiosity, perhaps, which was itself a novelty.

“I have come in the hope of speaking with the Duke of Weatherford.” Her chin lifted, the wariness shading into something more composed. “I understand there is a position available within the household.”

Algernon regarded her. She was not, he had to acknowledge, what he had expected. He was not certain what he had expected, precisely, but it was not this combination of obvious poverty and equally obvious dignity, this young woman who stood before him on a muddy lane in a mended gown and met his gaze without flinching.

He took in the state of her dress, the road dust, the general evidence of someone who had come a considerable distance without the benefit of a carriage, and said, with the detached observation of a man entirely accustomed to noting such things and seeing no particular reason not to, “You will want to see to your appearance before presenting yourself at the Hall. They keep high standards.”

He understood, approximately half a second after the words had left his mouth, that they had not landed as a helpful observation.

He understood this because her expression, which had been open and direct, became something else entirely, something precise and very still, in the way of a person who has just decided, in real time, exactly what they think of you.

“I was not aware that I had offered any invitation for comment upon my person, sir,” she said, with a politeness so exquisite it served as a perfect vehicle for its opposite. “Nor did I ask you to take any notice of my glove, my gown, or indeed any other aspect of my appearance. I have simply asked for directions, which you were good enough to supply, and for which I am grateful. I shall trouble you no further.”

She turned and passed through the gate without another word, her back very straight and her step considerably more brisk than it had been a moment ago.

Julian waited a respectful three seconds before he turned to Algernon with an expression of sublime enjoyment. “Well.”

“Not a word,” Algernon said.

“I was merely going to observe that she has remarkable bearing for someone who just corrected a duke on a muddy road.”

“She does not know I am the duke.”

“No,” Julian agreed, his tone suggesting that this fact, far from being reassuring, merely added an additional layer of interest to the situation. “She does not. Which means she said it entirely on principle.” He paused with the timing of a man who had always been considerably better at levity than Algernon. “I like her.”

Algernon said nothing. He watched the blue gown disappear around the curve of the drive, the young woman’s decisive step carrying her toward the Hall with the air of someone who had not come all this way only to be deterred by a thoughtless remark from a stranger.

He had meant nothing by it. He had simply noticed the road dust on her cheek, the worn state of her dress, and had said so without thinking how it would land, which was, he allowed grudgingly, precisely the problem. She had interpreted the observation as condescension, which was not, he allowed, also grudgingly, an entirely unreasonable interpretation given the manner in which he had delivered it.

He was, apparently, worse at civility than he had believed himself to be.

“She has come about the governess position,” he said, for something to say.

“So I gathered.” Julian fell into step beside him again as they followed the drive toward the Hall. “Shall you interview her, then?”

“I shall.” He kept his eyes on the path ahead. “Though I suspect she has already formed a thorough and unfavorable opinion of this household, and I have only myself to blame for it.”

Julian smiled, not unkindly. “Perhaps. Or perhaps, cousin, this is simply the sort of woman who requires a man to earn back what he carelessly gives away. Which is not, in my considerable experience, the worst quality in a person.”

Algernon turned this observation over in his mind as they walked, and found it, to his considerable discomfort, rather more interesting than he would have liked.

They came up the main drive to find Marianne stationed at the entrance with the expression of a woman who had been waiting rather longer than she considered reasonable. Her gaze traveled from Algernon to Julian and back with an efficient precision that catalogued, Algernon felt certain, every detail of the past hour.

“Your Grace,” she said, “your breakfast has been kept warm. And I wished to inform you that a young woman has arrived and is asking to speak with you regarding the governess position. I have taken the liberty of placing her in the blue sitting room.”

“Thank you,” Algernon said, without breaking stride. “I shall see her directly.”

“She arrived entirely unannounced,” Marianne added, and there was a careful quality to the remark that placed itself somewhere between observation and objection. “She had no letter of introduction, no references presented, and no prior correspondence with the household.”

“Then I shall find out what she has to recommend herself in the course of our conversation.” He paused with his hand on the door. “That is, after all, what an interview is for, Mrs. Whitmore.”

Marianne curtsied with a precision that communicated, without a single expressible word, her reservations on the matter.

Julian caught up with him in the entrance hall and gripped his arm briefly. “A word of counsel, offered freely and without obligation.”

“I suspect I shall receive it regardless.”

“She does not know you are the duke. Whatever she says to you in that room, she will say it as to a stranger who has not yet had the opportunity to disappoint her. That is remarkably valuable.” He released his arm. “Try not to waste it.”

Algernon did not reply to this. He straightened his coat, squared his shoulders in the manner of a man preparing to perform a duty he had no confidence in performing well, and walked toward the blue sitting room.

Behind him, he heard Julian say to no one in particular, “Two people made of the same intractable material.” And then, with the distinctive satisfaction of a man who believes he has said something useful, “Good Lord, this should be interesting.”

Algernon chose not to hear it.

He raised his hand to knock on the sitting room door, then stopped. Through the slight gap where the door had not been properly latched, he could see the young woman standing at the window, the morning light full on her face, studying the grounds of Weatherford Hall with an expression that was not timid, not calculating, but simply interested.

Genuinely, quietly interested in what lay before her. As though she were trying to understand a place, not merely assess its advantages.

It was such a small thing to notice. He noticed it, nonetheless.

He knocked, pushed open the door, and found himself facing the gray eyes of the young woman who had rebuked him so neatly not a quarter of an hour ago. She did not, to her considerable credit, allow the surprise of recognizing him to show in her face for more than a single unguarded second. Then she was perfectly composed, her hands folded before her, her chin at precisely that angle he had already identified as characteristic.

“Miss,” he said, because he did not yet know her name.

“Your Grace,” she replied because she had, apparently, worked it out.

The silence that followed was the particular silence of two people, each waiting to see whether the other would acknowledge what had just passed between them on the road, and each concluding, at the same time, that neither of them would be the first to do so.

“Please,” he said at last, gesturing toward the chair by the fireplace, “sit down.”

She sat. He remained standing a moment longer than was entirely natural, then thought better of it and sat as well.

“You have come,” he said, “about the governess position.”

“I have,” she said.

“Then,” said Algernon, who was, for reasons he could not have adequately explained, rather more awake than he had been at any point in the past several months, “perhaps you might tell me something of yourself.”