A Governess to Awaken the Duke’s Heart (Preview)

Prologue

Clara Whitcombe had meant only to breathe. The Royal Lyric Theatre was all heat and perfume and applause. From her father’s box, an island of gilt and brocade that jutted into the house like some privileged ledge, she had watched the soprano climb and climb, her arms raised like a bird and her voice shattering crystal into shards. The auditorium had become a living thing, shawls rustling, fans flashing, parasols tilted like sails, and a thousand small, eager faces turned toward the stage. Gentlemen in their evening coats leaned forward with the hunger of men who collected admiration. Ladies balanced on the edge of breathless interest and affected indifference. Chaperones patrolled the boxes like sentries, hawklike and precise.

By the time the aria reached its high, keening note, Clara’s gloves felt like a second skin. The silk on her wrists clung with heat. Her gloves had been chosen for effect, pale almond to set off the faint rose in her sleeve, and because they were expected. Under the lights, and under the fashion, she felt her chest tighten as if the room’s enthusiasm might crush her. Her father’s conversation about a newly proposed parliamentary measure dissolved into the hum of the house. The men at the front of the box whispered names as though whispering spell craft. Every few minutes, some polite hand pressed a calling card into her father’s lap and withdrew, the ritual of introductions performed with mechanical precision.

She had thought to endure it for the social currency of an opening night. Clara understood that these evenings were necessary, a schooling in the art of being seen. Her soft dove gray silk gown, embroidered with tiny silver leaves, sat as it should with the skirt full enough to suggest comfort, the bodice fitted to polite modesty, yet cut to flatter. A ribbon of darker gray at her throat bore the single jewel, an onyx set in silver, given by her mother before she became ill. The jewel carried weight in her chest more than on her neck. Her hair had been coiled and pinned into soft loops, a fashionably modest arrangement that showed the gentle slope of her neck. She carried the smallest of fans, folded and pale, and she wore her gloves. She had learned to make her laughter precise and harmless.

The applause became a tide. A gentleman in a violet cravat leaned toward her to congratulate.

“A most exemplary season for the Lyric, Miss Whitcombe,” he said. A woman of severe feathered coiffure smiled as if it were a carefully aimed arrow.

Clara smiled and nodded.

“I have no doubt that it will be,” she said politely.

The gentleman beamed, as if he himself were responsible for the supposed “exemplary season” to come.

“I dare say that it shall be the finest season yet,” he said.

The woman beside him nodded, appraising Clara in a way that made her wonder if she was the gentleman’s wife, jealous that her husband was speaking with her or his mother, who hoped to put her son in Clara’s sights. Either way, she hoped for the end of the interaction. She merely smiled and turned her thoughts to the performance of social exchange. When a younger suitor offered an especially earnest compliment to her wit, she parried with a practiced, light retort to the enjoyment of those within earshot. Even her father was pleased. He regarded the attention she received as if it were a ledger to be balanced. It was all part of the Season, and Clara judged by his expression that she was playing her part well.

However, it all became intolerable close to the final cadence. She stood, when she could, to follow the stage, and then slipped out of the box before the rest of the family could notice. It was not a bold contravention. It was simply an artful half-turn as the curtain’s rise allowed a small window and momentary anonymity. She took the stairs two at a time and let the warmth of the house release her like a clasp. Through a door marked for patrons and performers, she entered the theatre’s foyer, the luminous zone where the air felt less dense, where gaslight threw a softer glow than the blinding glare of the stage, and where the crowd thinned into smaller, more manageable constellations.

The corridor beyond the foyer smelled of coffee and stale roses. Czars of plaster and painted cherubim looked down from the ceiling, and mirrors in walnut frames reflected the occasional passerby with a loveliness that would flinch under the scrutiny of a morning mirror. Chairs arranged along the wall were filled with those for whom the theatre was a social extension, a place to be displayed as much as to watch. Clara paused by one such chair, fingers adjusting the edge of one glove as if her life depended on the neatness of a seam. A servant with a tray of lemonade darted about like a pale wasp. She took one breath that was all cool and minty, and she felt relief as if it was a small liberation.

“You seem to have had the same brilliant idea,” a man’s voice said from near the shadow of an archway.

The tone was soft and amused, pitched low enough that its owner might have spoken for his own pleasure, rather than to court notice. She turned, spotting him immediately. He stood, half in light and half in shadow, dressed simply enough that the only details which marked him as a gentleman of taste were a dark frock coat worn close to the body, a white stock with a knot that peeped like a neat promise, and a single silver chain at his waist catching a glimmer of gaslight. He was tall in a casual way, not with the military uprightness of a colonel, but with a manner of seeming never to have been surprised by circumstances. His features were clean, not heavily marked by fashion or affectation. Above the small, indifferent curl of his mouth, there were eyes as green as if they had been cut directly from an emerald gemstone ore. Those eyes held amusement and the faint, bright challenge of something untaught.

“It was a brilliant idea,” she said, because she had to. She had learned in her years among polite society that to be silent invited both pity and curiosity. “The soprano was remarkable, but the heat was remorseless.”

He smiled.

“The soprano invests a great deal of energy into appearing to suffer for beauty,” he said wryly. “It is the only suffering that pays dividends in compliments.”

The muscles around Clara’s mouth twitched with amusement, threatening to betray her polite despondence.

“That is an unfair indictment of the artistic temperament,” she said. “They do what they must to make the audience feel.”

The gentleman snorted.

“And the audience does what it must to look like connoisseurs,” he said with a small bow of his head toward the reflected throng beyond them. “Ladies showing taste by moderate rapture, gentlemen showing taste by measured applause. We fashion our feelings in them and then sell them back at a handsome markup.”

She found herself laughing. It was a clear, genuine sound, less a performance than a relief.

“You are merciless,” she said.

The gentleman shrugged, still wearing his easy smirk.

“Mercilessness is often mistaken for honesty,” he said. “I prefer to be called candid.”

Clara regarded him with the steady, observant attention trained by a life of noticing the small cues of a drawing room. His hair was a dark brown that resisted the neatness of powder and caught the light in strands like burnished thread. There was the faintest crease at the corner of one eye, as if he had held that smile long enough that his face held an imprint of the expression. He appeared to be in his thirties, and his face did not seem to carry the brittle lines of too many cares. He had an ease about him that did not presume to be charming. It simply was.

“You are not with a party,” he said, not unkindly. The statement bore a small curiosity as if the fact had been a puzzle waiting to be solved.

Clara shook her head.

“My father occupies the box,” she said. “I thought to take my leave of the crowd for a moment.”

The gentleman bowed politely.

“Then I do not presume to intrude,” he said. “But I shall confess I am glad you have chosen to intrude upon my solitude. It is rarer than one might suppose to find a lady who prefers fresh air to performance.”

Clara smirked, bemused and intrigued. She did not know the man, but she was certain he was not speaking about the performance on the stage.

“Or a gentleman willing to speak truth of society without the safety of sycophancy,” she said. “I should prefer to think I traded the stage’s false glitter for a better sort of entertainment.”

He laughed softly, the sound more like an approving sigh.

“A better sort of entertainment, indeed,” he said. “Though I must admit your trade-off is somewhat selfish.”

Clara blinked, confused.

“Selfish?” she asked.

The man nodded.

“Most would remain among the socialites to be praised for your propriety,” he said. “You have taken your praise and forfeited its future. A bold maneuver.”

Clara laughed. She doubted that her future praise would be marked by little more than a scolding from her father, assuming he noticed her absence before she returned.

“You flatter terribly well for a man of conviction,” she said.

The man shrugged again, his smile widening.

“Flattery is an inexhaustible resource,” he said. “It costs us a smile and returns a dozen meals.”

The conversation flowed on, a stream of small, glancing observations that felt dangerous only in how quickly it allowed the contours of trust to be sketched between them. They spoke of the soprano and of the ridiculousness of certain fashions — feathers the size of parasols, sleeves puffed to the size of small moons — and of the misplaced patriotism of certain patrons who applauded solely because their neighbors had. They found in each other companionable scorn for the pretense that draped so many of their contemporaries.

“You seem peculiarly honest for someone who has the good manners to be at the Lyric,” Clara said finally.

The man chuckled.

“And you are peculiarly candid for someone with a father in a box,” he said. “I find both facts refreshing, each in its own way.”

Between one comment and the next, she felt the weight of another presence like a hand against the door. The corridor’s light seemed to tilt. The air shifted. A rustle of silk and the faint chime of a woman’s laughter made them both glance instinctively toward the passage at the far end.

Lady Verity Ainsleigh entered as if the rooms were set for her. She was accompanied, as always, by a maid whose face suggested a woman who had learned to keep many confidences and fewer opinions. Lady Verity’s gown was pale blue and cut in a way that made the silk appear to move like water. Her hat was a tasteful, sculpted thing that suited the angle of her cheek. She moved with economy of motion.

As she came, her eyes swept the foyer with a practiced air. Her eyes found the handsome gentleman, and her expression seemed uncertain, until she eventually beamed at him as if he were suddenly the only thing in the world.

At the sight of the newcomer, the gentleman’s face altered as if a curtain had been drawn. Where previously there had been open, irreverent amusement, the lines tightened into an expression of polite reserve. Clara was shocked to observe that he instantly appeared as naturally cold as he had previously appeared to be warm. He straightened rigidly, as if remembering his place in a scene where others had the means to write the script.

“Miss Whitcombe,” Lady Verity said as she reached them, speaking as if Clara was a secondary thought. “How delightful to find you at the Lyric.”

Clara curtsied, even though she wanted nothing more than to turn and walk away from the young lady.

“Lady Verity,” she said. “How lovely to see you.”

Lady Verity’s eyes lingered on the gentleman with a curiosity that could have been either warm or trained, though Clara was not sure which.

Beside her, the maid shifted like a bird turning its head. The triangle of their social choreography closed. Clara felt a small, bitter amusement. The ease of her earlier conversation with the gentleman seemed to have been fiction all along. It had been a neat, perfumed illusion that existed only until Lady Verity crossed the stage and adjusted the lighting. Cool politeness entered the previously warm, vibrant corridor in neat folds.

“Good evening,” the gentleman said, looking only at Clara with a bow that signified both acknowledgment and withdrawal. The amusement had drained from his voice until only strained courtesy remained. He inclined his head and offered the briefest bow: complete, efficient, exact. The green in his eyes cooled. The smile became a rehearsed echo of itself.

Clara stood a little too still after he had gone. It was a foolish thing to feel incomplete because she had not learned a strange man’s name. She had half-expected to be angry at herself for allowing a conversation unchaperoned, for indulging in the deliciousness of being spoken to plainly. Yet she found, more than annoyance, a light, quivering curiosity that warmed her like the first stirrings of a fire. His green eyes kept opening in her mind as if they were windows she had glanced through and now wanted to explore.

“You will excuse me,” Lady Verity said, as if her interest in conversation had exited with the stranger. “I must not detain you.”

Clara nodded, saying nothing more as Lady Verity turned and hurried in the direction of the gentleman. Was she a former lover of his? A current one? His entire demeanor had changed the instant he saw her, so it was clear that he knew her. But how did he instantly look like a different man from the one she met in her first seconds in the foyer?

As she walked back through the foyer, past the chairs and the mirrors and the lingering chords that rose from the stage like a sound refusing to end, Clara could not help looking back toward the corridor. A sliver of shadow showed where the gentleman had stood. The space he had occupied seemed more populated than before, as if he had left behind some residue of personality in the air. She found herself wondering, with unnerving frankness, what it would be to know him more than as a passing shade of amusement.

Clara smoothed her glove and readied herself to return to the vigilant warmth of her family’s circle, carrying a small, private ember: the memory of green eyes, an impudent smirk, and a conversation that had, for a night, made the social universe look less like a stage and more like a world.

She had not learned his name, no more than one learns the name of a passing businessman, and yet she felt certain she would see him again. Whether that certainty was wish or prescience, she could not say. She only knew that part of her looked forward to another encounter with him.

Chapter One

The stagecoach rocked and sighed as it labored along the rutted lane. Its wheels hissed in the thin, indifferent rain. Clara huddled beneath her mother’s shawl, which now served as cloak and talisman against the late winter cold. Her hands, gloved yet numb at the fingertips, gripped the leather strap of the large trunk. The trunk had been a bargain. It had held, and would continue to hold, every possession she owned that could not be folded between her stays.

Rain tapped the coach’s roof in a staccato, mysterious code. Outside, fields lay gray and endless, and trees leaned into the wind. Inside, the stagecoach smelled of damp wool and cheap tobacco. Conversations of fellow passengers rose like small clouds — trifles about the weather. There were grumbles about the coach’s pace and an occasional laugh too bright for so colorless a day.

A woman in a hooded cloak opposite Clara lifted her chin and peered through the window. Her face was well-lined, and the edges of her mouth were set in wise steadiness.

“Where are you bound, miss?” she said after a pause. Travelers traded kindness and curiosity as naturally as bread and salt. Clara had been nervous about traveling with strangers. But the woman’s kind eyes disarmed her immediately, and she found that she was grateful for the interaction.

“To Windmere Hall,” Clara said, and the words tasted like an admission. Which, given her station and her title of The Honorable Miss Clara Whitcombe, she supposed it was. She had practiced them aloud on the trip from the station until the syllables felt less foreign. “To be governess.”

The woman’s eyes widened.

“Windmere?” she said. The name slid through the coach like a small stone. “Have you been told what they say? No governess lasts long. The master — Miss, forgive me, I should not be speaking of masters as if they were weather — is a cold man. Mercurial, some say. The children, I hear, are left to a nurse as if they were small statues. Folks say he rules like a magistrate.”

Clara had braced for this. The rumors had preceded her acceptance. They were, in some perverse fashion, part of the advertisement for the position. Her father, when he still had strength to talk, had called it an opportunity by necessity. The parish priest had called it a charity where independence may be learned. Now the woman’s words, spoken with unquestionable authority, settled into Clara as facts might.

“I have heard it said,” Clara said, keeping her voice level. “That no governess stays long, that is.” She held her tongue, instantly catching her mistake. The woman might be a stranger, but they were closer to Windmere now than to her home. If gossip were to circulate that the new governess was speaking ill of her employer before she had even met him, her job with the family might end before it even began.

“The sooner you know, the better,” the woman said. “You will find the house lonely. You will find the master colder than the February air. The nurse, Mrs. Durnell, is old and strict. They say the children are well brought up, in the way of iron. If you are not the patient sort, my dear, you had better take a post in town. Less mud and fewer tales.”

Clara’s chest tightened in a way she tried to disguise beneath a sudden cough. Patient, indeed, she thought with a chill. She had no illusions about the trials ahead. Her father’s death had shrunk the world to nothing but a modest governess’s salary, a roof that did not creak with the cold of unpaid hearths, and perhaps the dignity of being able to buy new clothing. The Whitcombes had remained genteel in name, but they became limited in coin. After the funeral, when the creditors were soothed with small apologies and promises, Clara had folded her grief into a decision. She would not petition distant relatives, nor spend the Season pressing herself for an advantageous introduction. She would go and earn her way.

“This is my chance,” she said quietly to the woman. There was no pleading in her voice, only the steady fact of it. “I intend to make the most of it.”

The woman’s mouth softened into something like a smile.

“Then I wish you luck, Miss. You will need it at Windmere.” She wrapped her hands tighter in her cloak and turned her gaze toward the window as if the pity of strangers were best kept private.

They passed the signposts for a crossroads with a rattle of splinters, and the coachman’s voice, an instrument of weathered authority, called:

“Windmere Hall! All for Windmere!” The coach lurched, and reins were adjusted with a cluck and the sting of a whip. “We will make a stop here, miss,” the coachman told Clara when she climbed down. “You will have to walk the rest. Bad bit o’ lane after the fork.”

Clara shouldered the trunk, which she had dragged down with no small effort. The first steps were steady. On the second, she found her foot caught in the ruts of a road swollen with winter thaw. The trunk swung like a pendulum, and the strap slipped. For an instant, she thought she had the world under control. Then the strap gave, and the trunk pitched sideways, its lid gaping and its contents spilling.

Her meager possessions landed in the sucking mud. Her bonnet rolled and underpinnings flared open. Clara’s breath caught and then broke into a sob she could not quite choke down. Rain struck her face, indistinguishable from the tears that spilled. She crouched to collect what she could, the wet fabric clinging to her fingers.

A steady hand, callused and gray, the hand of the woman from the coach, lent her assistance.

“Here,” the woman said. “Lift from below. Keep close to the skirts. Mud is not as forgiving as it looks.”

Clara tried to laugh, but it came out thin.

“I am so foolish,” she said.

The woman shook her head with a kind smile.

“You are not foolish,” she said. “You are young. We have all had our trunks fall in the mud at some time. It is part of the ritual.” She handed Clara a scrap of ribbon from her own cloak. Clara tied a wayward ribbon back into place. The action was small and humanizing. It reminded Clara that there were those who would help without hoping for a boon in return.

“Thank you, madam,” Clara said. “Your kindness is most welcome, especially now.”

The woman waved a gentle, dismissive hand.

“We sometimes must rely on the kindness of strangers, dear,” she said, patting Clara gently on the shoulder. “Good luck to you.”

Clara nodded, waving as the woman turned back toward the main street. Then, she continued on, following the bitter path that would take her to her new home. My new prison, she thought, shivering as the rumors and whispers about Windmere returned to her mind.

The road narrowed and rose. Through a thinning curtain of rain, the hall unfurled into view. Windmere Hall stood as both accusation and invitation. Stone rose from stone in severe dignity. Windows looked blank and shuttered against the weather. Gargoyles and a stone porch with worn gray steps announced the history of many long winters. The slate roof was dark, and the chimneys cut into the sky like columns. A single light glowed in a high window. Beyond that, no other sign of life stirred.

The front door opened to reveal a woman whose face was as severe as carved stone. She wore the black of a housekeeper and the look of someone entrusted not just with keys but with standards. Her cap was neat and exact. Her apron was folded with precision. The lines at her mouth suggested that they had never known the decadence of a smile. She surveyed Clara with a coolness that had seen too many seasonal fashions and too few genuine fits of distress.

“You are late,” she said. The words were accusation more than observation. “We do not keep a house waiting.”

Clara flushed at the chastisement.

“I am very sorry,” she said. The phrase felt small and useless under the housekeeper’s eyes. “The lane was slick with mud, and my trunk…”

“We are Windmere Hall,” the housekeeper said, her nostrils flaring. “We keep standards here. We expect order and timeliness, even of our new employees, not blathering and excuses.” She paused, taking a breath as if calming herself, though her eyes did not grow warm. “You will be given a room. Leave your things where instructed. You are to come down to the morning room at eight. The nurse will meet you in the nursery when she believes it is appropriate. The children do not take well to strangers.”

The words were brisk, clipped as if drawn from a list. Clara’s heart beat too quickly in her chest.

“What is the nurse’s name?” she said, wanting to be properly prepared to address the woman to hopefully avoid more sharp tongues.

The housekeeper scowled fiercely at her.

“You will be told when it is necessary,” she said. “We do not parade the household’s business amongst its guests.” The woman’s eyes flicked to the mud at Clara’s hem as if it were an unseemly stain on the Hall itself. “You will do well to see to your appearance. Windmere does not relish sloppy arrivals.”

Clara bowed her head, her cheeks burning with mortification.

“Yes, Mrs.…” she trailed off. The woman had not introduced herself, either. She winced, wondering if she would get as sharp a response as she had when asking for the nurse’s name.

“Mrs. Hardwell,” the stern woman said with disdain. “I am the housekeeper. I keep this house.”

Clara exhaled sharply. The woman’s reprimanding tone had shaken her. However, she was tired as well as nervous, and her grief over her father had hardly subsided. She straightened her shoulders. She would be respectful. But she saw no reason to cower meekly.

Mrs. Hardwell ushered Clara inside, and the door closed behind them, sounding final. Inside, Windmere Hall was a house of muted tones. Dark wood panels absorbed daylight until it seemed dim and private. Tapestries in faded heraldry hung like memories. Heavy curtains drooped as if the windows were drowsy. The hearths were banked low. The house seemed to be kept on discipline, even in its warmth. Few ornaments remained and those bore a severity that suggested careful placement rather than careless affection.

They traversed corridors that smelled faintly of lavender and dust. Mrs. Hardwell said nothing, letting silence act as their companion. Paintings of stern ancestral ladies and gentlemen looked down from the walls. Their eyes watched with a responsibility that bordered on reproach. Clara’s shoes made soft noises on the stairs, a whisper in the grand hush.

“You will be shown to your room,” Mrs. Hardwell said at last. “It is small but serviceable. The linens are clean. Take care with anything valuable you possess. These rooms have a draft, and the draft will unseat the nimblest pin.”

Clara shook her head. She could have mentioned her mother’s locket, but she did not feel inspired to confide in the harsh housekeeper.

“Thank you for the warning,” she said as firmly as she could manage.

The housekeeper nodded as if Clara’s answer had confirmed some tawdry assumption she had.

“I should hope you will safeguard your things,” Mrs. Hardwell said curtly. “We are not a place for sentiment or emotion, Miss Whitcombe. We prefer practical women.” The words cut and offered no apology.

Clara could have argued that necessity had already forced any sentiment to be turned practical. Instead, she let the housekeeper guide her into her chamber. The room was indeed modest, with one narrow window that peered onto a bleak garden. A small single bed was dressed with simple linen. A washstand stood in one corner, and a chair sat by the window. The room was sparse, but the blanket had been folded, and some plain muslin slippers were set side by side beneath the edge of the bed. There was a quiet dignity in the order.

“You will find your things where they belong,” Mrs. Hardwell said, as if reading aloud from a program everyone agreed upon. “Dinner is at seven. Be neat. Bedtime is to be kept. The children do not expect spectacle. They are under the nurse’s care.”

Clara nodded, trying to find her confidence.

“Mrs. Hardwell,” Clara said as the woman remained paused at the threshold. “May I ask the children’s names?”

The housekeeper scoffed.

“You concern yourself a great deal with names,” she said, as if learning the names of charges and fellow servants was an outrageous inconvenience. “They are under Mrs. Durnell’s charge. You will be introduced when she deems it necessary. That is all.”

When the door shut, its click felt like a verdict. Clara stood in her small room and let the sound of the house circulate around her. Rain ticked more softly now, as if it, too, were weary. Thank you for telling me the nurse’s name at last, she thought with a tired but victorious smile.

She took the locket from the place where she had worn it and cradled it in the palm of her hand. It was dented and scratched, the silver dulled by many days of rubbing against other things. The hinge complained as she opened it. Inside, the print of her mother’s face looked up at her..

Clara pressed it to her lips. The gesture steadied her. She breathed in, then slowly released the air. This was not the beginning she had imagined in the bright fantasies of a younger woman. There was no fanfare, no dramatic announcement, no soft landing in a sunlit nursery. But it was a beginning all the same. The mud would dry. Stockings could be mended. The locket would stay warm against her skin. She had chosen this, and she would make it a choice she would not regret.

Chapter Two

Edward Ashcombe kept the study shuttered against the rain. Thick curtains, drawn and heavy as a judge’s robe, swallowed the weak winter light. The only true brightness came from the lamp at his desk, its flame tilted by a brass chimney that threw a narrow pool onto paper and ink. The room was built for solitude. High bookshelves held myriad leather spines. A great globe in one corner was burdened by dust rather than use. Portraits in black frames watched the man as if cataloguing his grief. The house around him was a quiet thing. The walls had learned the cadence of his footsteps and, perhaps out of habit, kept their own counsel.

He sat behind the desk in the same chair he had taken since the death of his father, the previous Duke of Blackmoor, the leather worn to the familiar contour of his back. His frock coat lay over the arm, the dark cloth reflecting a well-cared for sheen. The stock at his throat was clean and white, tied in a simple knot. The silver of his watch chain flashed as he moved a hand to smooth a stack of papers. He wore no smile. There was a quiet in his face that had nothing to do with softness and everything to do with a refusal of sentiment. Grief, if it visited him, was treated as one treats an unwanted guest, seen to be inconvenienced and then ignored.

Papers lay across the desk in varying degrees of order. Estate accounts, ledger sheets with numbers that required no imagination, letters phrased in ceremonial bitterness that made any answer either futile or more painful. A Duke’s work is never done, he thought dryly. Even when grief and burden are his only companions.

He attended to everything with the same mechanical precision he had always applied to duty. The mind divided private ache from practical work as if the latter might act as a brace. There was comfort in precision. It meant the world would not collapse at once if he kept the books straight and the embers on the hearth banked.

A knock, brief and measured, came at the door. Edward did not start. He had expected a visitor.

“Enter,” he said without looking up.

George Hargreaves came in with a small, deliberate shuffle. Mr. Hargreaves was an old acquaintance of the family. He wore his years like a careful garment. Spectacles perched low on his nose. His coat was buttoned securely. His fingers bore the stain of ink from endless signatures. He set a leather satchel on the desk, released a newspaper and a folded bundle of papers, and regarded Edward with practiced sympathy.

“Your Grace,” he said with a dip of his head. “I have gone over the accounts as you requested. There are some liabilities to be arranged, but nothing beyond what one might expect of a house of your standing, given the recent circumstances.”

Edward rose mechanically to give the smallest bow, which Mr. Hargreaves returned with polite warmth. Edward jerked a hand toward the chair opposite him as he sat back down, a curt movement that both dismissed preliminary politeness and invited details.

“Speak plainly,” he said.

The solicitor nodded as he accepted the seat.

“Plainly, then,” Mr. Hargreaves said. He opened the satchel and spread a few documents on the blotter. “There are a few outstanding debts in the colonel’s accounts and a claim from a supplier regarding the ironwork at the west lodge. I have written a reply that should satisfy them without the need for court. I will attend to further correspondence should you authorize it.”

Edward glanced at the papers’ numbers and dates, the small tyranny of arithmetic, and nodded.

“Proceed, and I will sign,” he said.

As Mr. Hargreaves set the pen down neatly and began to explain his proposed replies, he let a conversation drift in, the small human voice that seeks to navigate the quiet with steadier light.

“I had not the pleasure of knowing your sister well,” he said almost offhand. “But I remember her manner when she came to the lodge on occasion. She made a lively impression. She will be remembered.”

Edward’s hand paused above the ink for a beat longer than he liked. Amelia’s name rose in his memory like a terribly bright sun. There was a time when the family had been larger, not merely in number, but also in consequence. Amelia’s laugh had filled rooms, but he no longer allowed for joy. Once, his sister’s name brought a smile to his face, now drew only bitterness and disdain from his heart.

“Amelia made her choices,” he said curtly.

Mr. Hargreaves’s face softened. The man knew that the path to consolation was not the place for absolutes.

“I did not mean…” he paused, clearing his throat. “Excuse me. I meant that she was thought of kindly in many quarters. It is always unfortunate…”

“She married below her station,” Edward interrupted harshly, standing so quickly that his chair hit the cabinet behind him. The sentence was both admonishment and habit. “She spurned advice. She went to Penharrow Village after my entreaties. I told her it would end in hardship.” His voice cooled around the memory. The steel of reproach caught at the tender places rather than approaching them with gentle hands. He dismissed the thought that came after, that he had never imagined her death would be the hardship, and he buried the guilt that threatened to pierce his distaste for Amelia’s decision to marry a schoolteacher. He was still angry with her for being so foolish. He had to still be angry with her.

Mr. Hargreaves, who had sat through many permutations of family misfortune, inclined his head. Despite Edward’s tall, broad frame towering over him in his agitation, he seemed more saddened than intimidated.

“You told her, as your family would have,” he said. “And yet, she chose her path. It is a difficulty for the hearts left behind. Perhaps the poor children will be a consolation.”

Edward did not look up from the papers in front of him.

“Perhaps,” he said with dry insincerity. The single word held both acknowledgement and refusal. The children were not a consolation. They were proof, small and human, of the life she had lived and, in his mind, of the foolishness she had chosen. He pictured them sometimes as moving reproaches with faces like hers and eyes that might laugh at something he would never laugh at again. Especially the girl. She was Amelia’s image reborn. That vision tightened his chest as much as any other admonition had. He could not bear to look into their faces and see her.

Mr. Hargreaves set a hand on a sheet of paper as if to steer the conversation away from deeper seas.

“I must attend to the legalities of the minor’s guardianship and to the settlement of certain personal notes,” he said. “I shall prepare the necessary petitions and bring them to you for signature. If you find yourself disposed, I can call by the end of the week to take further instructions.”

Edward nodded once.

“Do so,” he said.

There was a pause in which the solicitor folded himself back into professional skin, replenishing the lighter tone.

“One more thing, if I may, unrelated to accounts,” he said. “I heard from Mrs. Hardwell that a governess is arriving today. She is to take charge of the children as per the arrangement. It may be of practical use to have someone competent at the Hall while matters are unsettled.”

The words landed with a faint click like the locking of a cabinet. Edward had known arrangements were being made. Papers had been filed and offers accepted. Still, the detail of another person acting in his household pricked at him.

“Where did she come from?” he asked.

The solicitor thought for a moment.

“Hampshire, I believe,” he said. “A Miss Whitcombe. The letters recommend her as sober and competent.”

Edward kept his face composed. The image of a governess, an interloper who would move among the rooms and the small lives of the children, offered the taste of a necessary remedy he did not care to be grateful for.

“Very good. Proceed as necessary,” he said.

A soft knock on the door broke his concentration. Mrs. Hardwell entered without waiting for a reply, as if she had made a habit of assuming permission in rooms she managed. Her cap sat like a static fixture upon her head. Her face, when it relaxed, did so only marginally. She held a damp handkerchief and a small book.

“Your Grace,” she said, her voice low. “The new governess has arrived. Miss Whitcombe.”

Edward’s expression did not shift, even as he took three paces across the room to peek out the window, where a sliver of carriage wheel was just disappearing at the end of the long, barren driveway. The woman’s name was inconsequential to him, as was her arrival. If she was a governess, it was unlikely he had ever met her before. He supposed the only reason he needed to know her name was for the sake of payroll.

At the intrusion, Mr. Hargreaves rose to gather his papers with professional haste.

“I shall return Friday,” he said. “And, Lord Blackmoor, if ever you wish to talk of Amelia, about her affairs or otherwise, do not hesitate,” he said.

Edward allowed himself a motion that could be mistaken for appreciation.

“Thank you,” he said.

Mr. Hargreaves nodded, patting himself as if to take account of his person. Then, he gave a tip of his head to Mrs. Hardwell and saw himself out.

Edward returned his attention, such as it was, to the housekeeper once more.

“Has she been made comfortable?” he asked. The practical question bore the quiet shade of curiosity.

The housekeeper nodded, her nose wrinkling in distaste in a way Edward was sure was second nature to the dry woman.

“She is in the guest room by the west corridor,” she said. “She arrived with mud upon her skirts.” Her mouth twitched in what might have been an attempt to convey both pity and reproach. “She appears, by all accounts, earnest.”

Edward nodded, burying any inclination to turn uninvited interest into a burden.

“Very well,” he said. “And let her be. I imagine her trip was an uneasy one if she arrived dirty.”

The housekeeper looked shocked at his dismissal of the governess’s appearance, but he ignored her horror. She cleared her throat and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in her starched, white apron.

“Will you see her?” she asked. The question tasted polite, but it was edged with expectation. It was the housekeeper’s duty to inquire whether the master would be present for introductions. It was not, however, her duty to expect her master to do something. A master who wished to retreat had his retreat respected. A master who wished for presence commanded attention. He had made his intention clear, and he expected her to know that.

Edward’s hand closed on the pen. The action was small and decisive.

“No,” he said.

Mrs. Hardwell’s eyebrows rose the merest fraction.

“You do not wish to interview her?” she asked.

He shook his head, meeting the housekeeper’s gaze firmly.

“No,” he said authoritatively. “Let her do her job quietly and without fuss. That is all I require.”

Her lips pressed into a line of clear disapproval.

“As you say, Your Grace,” she said. “If you change your mind, Mrs. Durnell has the children, and she may determine when introductions are proper. I will not call upon them needlessly.”

He nodded. There were things he would not permit himself. Interviews that required him to engage in a performance he had little appetite for. Faces that might pry into the private calculus of grief and blame. Better that a stranger, competent and contained, tended to the children until such time as he could bear the look of them.

“Very well,” he said. “If there is nothing else, you are dismissed.”

Mrs. Hardwell pivoted to the door as if his words had been a physical blow.

“Dinner will be served at seven,” she said. “The staff will be informed to accommodate Miss Whitcombe.”

Edward nodded vaguely, annoyed.

“Do as is necessary,” he said. The lamp light picked up the ring on his finger, the subtle set of a signet that he remembered to turn from time to time as if to soothe his skin against the weight of the duty it represented.

When she had gone, the house exhaled once more, and the rain picked up as though to emphasize the solitude. He rose, walked to the window, and pulled aside the heavy curtain that kept the world out. From this height, Windmere’s grounds were a patchwork of dark furrows and the restless line of bare trees. In the distance, the road where the solicitor’s coach had turned away was a thin silver line. He imagined a woman making her slow way across the yard, a governess with a trunk, and a muddy dress, and good intentions. He imagined, too, a dozen other small intrusions upon the quiet order he had attempted to establish.

He returned to the desk and to his numbers. The ink took his thoughts that night, and for a while, the arithmetic was enough. Still, the dim shape of a child’s laugh, something he had not permitted to return to the house, rippled once in his mind, unwelcome and inexplicable. He thought of Amelia’s decisions as if they were a ledger of debts and credits. She had spent her portion of the family’s caution, and now the balance was due.

He would sign the papers Mr. Hargreaves left and make the appointment for the solicitor’s return. He would have Mrs. Durnell’s instructions delivered and ensure Miss Whitcombe had what she needed for her tasks. He would be efficient. He would be rigorous. He would, for a time, be the man with his chin set and his hands busy.

But he would not, tonight, oversee the arrival of the woman who had come to intrude on the strictness of a house that had learned to mourn. Let her do her work quietly, he thought again. It was more than he believed the house needed. But with the children in his charge, he had to acquiesce to things that were not just about him or his home from now on.