Page 48 of His Mad Duchess
Sebastian gestured to the fields beyond. “That corner will be drained before the season turns. And here—” He pointed to a hedge line alive with sparrows. “We’ll let this parcel lie fallow till next year.”
She listened, storing every word as though committing a new language to memory. The warmth in his voice when he spoke of yields and hedge lines was not the voice of a distant duke but rather was that of a man rooted to this land. She liked to see it spark in him. She liked to watch it spark, this proof that under the cold title was a man who knew the shape of every hedge and the name of every steward’s child.
“You have walked these fields often,” she observed quietly.
“Every inch of them,” he replied. “A man ought to know what he is responsible for.”
“And you do,” she murmured, almost to herself.
His mouth curved slightly. “For as long as you are here, you shall know them too.”
She glanced up at him, meaning to answer lightly, but found the words faltering. It was far too easy, this pleasure in his nearness. Far too easy to imagine herself a part of it when she had already learned what came of loving too closely: loss, ruin, and the cold ash left behind. Yet even as she told herself to keep the line drawn, a quiet dread stirred beneath her ribs. She pressed her fingers lightly against his arm, not sure whether it was to steady herself or to let go before she forgot why she should.
“Mrs. Penner’s boy there,” Sebastian said, nodding to a squat cottage by the ash grove. “Hard worker. Stubborn as a mule. He’ll have this land after his father if he keeps his nose clean and his back strong.”
Margaret tucked her hands tighter in her gloves. “And do you trust him to do it?”
He glanced sidelong at her, that fleeting grin that slipped out when he thought she couldn’t see. “Not entirely. But it’s a finer gamble than some lords in Parliament.”
She surprised herself with a small laugh. “Low praise indeed.”
They passed under a flowering hawthorn, its scent drifting soft and green. Margaret slowed her step as she caught sight of something through the pale tangle of boughs—a squat building of stone and lime wash, half-hidden by the hedge. It looked too neat for a barn. Too humble for a steward’s house.
“What is that?” she asked, tipping her chin toward it.
Sebastian followed her gaze, then made a sound in his throat, half fond, half resigned. “The parish schoolhouse. If it still stands. The roof’s a patchwork, but the mistress inside could teach half of London their letters and break up a fight with her slipper.”
Margaret’s pulse lifted oddly. A school. She had not seen a village classroom since she was a girl herself… before the fire that took her parents and before the silence that always followed her into every room.
She stepped closer to the gate. “May we go in?”
Sebastian paused, boots crunching on the path. He tilted his head, studying her as if weighing something. Then he lifted the latch himself, pushing the gate open wide enough for her to pass through first.
“Lead on, Duchess,” he said, voice pitched softer than the wind. “Mind your hem; the gravel’s a villain.”
Inside, the air smelled of chalk dust and peat smoke. A single iron stove rattled in the corner while half a dozen children bent over slates at two long tables, heads bobbing as they copied crooked letters.
Margaret paused just inside the door, her fingers brushing the edge of her shawl. She felt Sebastian’s warmth at her back, though he did not crowd her. For once, his nearness did not make the pressure worse; it held it at bay.
The schoolmistress, a wiry woman in a severe gray gown and a cap so crisp it looked starched with iron, caught sight of them and dipped a quick curtsey.
“Your Grace,” she said first to Sebastian, then her gaze shifted, and her brows rose. “And Your Grace.”
Margaret managed a small, genuine smile. “Good morning. Please, don’t let us disturb you.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all.” The mistress rapped a knuckle on the edge of the table, and the children froze, eyes wide at the sightof the Duke and his new Duchess. One small girl near the front had a nose quite black with slate dust and regarded Margaret as if she’d walked out of a fairytale.
Sebastian stepped closer, folding his arms with an ease that said he knew this room and was known here, too.
“Is Miss Pritchard behaving herself?” he asked dryly.
The mistress snorted an unladylike sound that made one of the boys snicker into his sleeve. “Miss Pritchard is learning to mind her sums,” she said. “A miracle in three parts, I might add.”
Margaret hid a laugh behind her glove. “Might I…?” She gestured delicately to the slates.
“By all means, Your Grace,” the mistress said with a spark of approval. “They’re to write the sums twice if they miss a figure.”
Margaret stepped forward, skirts rustling, and bent to look at the nearest boy’s slate. His letters wobbled like a drunk fence, but the numbers were sound enough. He ducked his head shyly when she praised him, the tips of his ears pink.
