Page 38 of His Mad Duchess
He lifted a brow, feigning scandal. “Slander. I shall add it to your next letter to Cecily.”
Her laugh escaped before she could smother it, warm in the space between them. It startled her a little at how easily it came now, how quickly he could coax it without trying. And beneath that was a quieter, far more dangerous thought: that she had begun to look forward to this hour, to this strange, private companionship they never spoke of but always seemed to keep.
Two moves later, she hesitated, her fingers hovering above the knight. The piece itself was secondary—what mattered was the line she was trying to see, the trap she was hoping to spring. She sensed rather than saw his gaze, that faint weight of attention he thought himself clever enough to disguise.
She shifted the knight into place, satisfied, and then looked up—directly into his eyes. He didn’t quite have the time to glance away.
“Your Grace?” she asked, letting just enough arch amusement curl through her tone to make it a challenge.
The faintest expression crossed his face, not quite embarrassment but something close to being caught in a thought he had no intention of sharing.
He cleared his throat, dropping his eyes to the board. “Forgive me. I was considering my next retreat.”
“Coward,” she said, soft, amused.
He let out a low huff that might once have been laughter. “Undoubtedly.”
Their game went on, pieces knocking gently, firelight glinting off carved bone and polished dark wood. Outside, the rain softened. Inside, the air felt almost companionable. She would not name it comfort, but it was perilously near.
She told herself she would retire after this match. She always told herself that. And yet, every night, she lingered too long in this chair across from him, bound by this strange, unspoken treaty they kept over a chessboard. The rain, the firelight, the easy rhythm between them, all of it felt borrowed, fragile. Sheknew it could not last. And perhaps that was why she held on to it all the more fiercely while it was hers.
Margaret had taken to walking the south terrace before supper each evening. It gave her an excuse to breathe, to remind herself she still could, and to watch the lamplight come alive in the long windows, catching glimpses of her own figure reflected back.
This evening, a fine mist clung to the hedges. A soft rain had left the garden paths gleaming like ribbons of ink. Jenny trailed behind her with a small lantern, careful not to let the flame gutter out in the breeze.
“You’ll catch a chill, Your Grace,” Jenny ventured as they paused by the rose arches. Her voice was low but carried in the stillness of the damp dusk. “Shall I fetch your shawl?”
Margaret pressed her hand to a wet stone pillar, drawing in the smell of green things and fresh earth. She liked this hour best, the privacy before the household gathered, the quiet before conversation. Before, they pretended they were something like husband and wife.
“No, Jenny. Just a minute longer. It’s only water.”
The maid hovered, fussing with the lantern’s handle. “Mrs. Fowler says Cook’s laid out the supper. Roast duck and a pudding; Mr. Parsons says His Grace will join you.”
Margaret let out a small breath, which was not quite a laugh. “Parsons always says that.”
She tilted her chin, half-smiling at the thin glimmer of candlelight inside the house. Sebastian had been there each evening since the chessboard was brought out, a quiet sort of companion, always half-amused at her feints and flusters. She’d grown used to the sound of him breathing opposite her at the table, the dry scrape of his spoon against his plate, the flicker of a look when she teased him about his wine or his dreadful sense of tactics.
When she eventually sat down to supper, the hour drifted by without a sign of him. The clock on the mantel ticked out each minute in patient scolds while Mrs. Fowler’s staff brought in dishes and cleared them half-full again. Margaret made some small show of eating, but her appetite had long since gone cold. He had not appeared. The hall had stayed still and empty but for Mrs. Fowler’s discreet cough and the silver gleaming on the sideboard.
He was busy. Men like him always were; there were a thousand bills and letters to sign, tenants with grumbles and lands to see to. She should be glad of it. She was glad of it. She told herself it was no concern of hers if the Duke chose to vanish behind stacks of letters till he forgot the taste of warm food. He was a grown man. He needed no tending.
And yet, as Jenny set the lantern on the step, Margaret heard herself murmur, “Someone ought to see he’s eaten.”
She turned before the girl could answer, her skirts brushing rain-dark gravel. A duke needed no nursemaid. He certainly needed no wife to hover. Still, her feet found the west corridor of their own accord.
She paused outside the wide oak door, listening for the faint crinkle of paper and the scratch of a quill, one palm braced flat against the panels. The faint flicker of firelight bled through the crack beneath. She could almost imagine him on the other side—coat thrown aside, hair mussed, brows drawn tight over some crumpled bill or half-finished letter.
All she had to do was knock. SayCome to supper, Your Grace. Eat something before you forget what warm bread tastes like.So simple.
And yet her knuckles hovered there, the distance between wood and pulse stretching thin.
She eased the door open instead.
Inside, the hearth glowed low and sullen. Papers sprawled like careless drifts of snow across the table. A glass sat near the arm of a deep chair, and there he was. Sebastian, her husband. His boots were braced wide, head tipped back in unguarded sleep. His coat was unbuttoned at the throat, one hand half-curled in his lap, the other draped over a sheaf of neglected reports. The glass, half-drained, caught the glow of the coals where it rested by his elbow.
She took one step inside, then another. The air here was different.
His lashes cast small shadows on sharp cheekbones. His hair, always so precise, fell slightly forward at his temple. His lips, half-parted, no longer wore that wry slant that made her throat tighten and her heart argue with her mind.
