Chapter One

 

“Smile, Daniel. You look as though someone has died.”

“No one has died, Rosanne. I am simply standing.”

“You are glowering. There is a difference.” Lady Rosanne Wynthorpe tucked her hand more firmly into the crook of her brother’s arm, as though she feared he might bolt for the house at any moment. Which, to be fair, was not an unreasonable fear. “The tenants will think you disapprove of them.”

“I do not disapprove of them.”

“Then perhaps you might inform your face of that fact.”

Daniel Wynthorpe, sixth Duke of Wyntham, did not dignify this with a response. He was, he felt, being perfectly pleasant. He had arrived at the tenant fair at the appointed hour. He had shaken the appropriate hands, nodded at the appropriate children, and made the appropriate remarks about the weather, the harvest, and the general state of the county. He had even, at Rosanne’s insistence, consumed a meat pie from one of the village stalls, though it had sat in his stomach like a small, resentful stone ever since.

What more could possibly be required of him?

“You might try enjoying yourself,” Rosanne said, as though she had heard the question he had not asked aloud. “It is a fair, Daniel. There is music. There are games. Mrs. Hendricks has made her famous apple tarts.”

“I am aware of Mrs. Hendricks’s tarts. She has made them every year for the past decade.”

“And every year, you refuse to eat one.”

“I do not care for apples.”

Rosanne made a small sound of exasperation; a sound Daniel had become intimately familiar with over her seventeen years of existence. It was the sound she made when she found him particularly impossible, which was, admittedly, often.

He supposed he could not blame her. The fair was pleasant, in its way. The September sun was warm without being oppressive, the village green was festooned with bunting and ribbons, and the air smelled of roasted meat and fresh bread and the particular golden sweetness of autumn. Children darted between the stalls like small, shrieking comets, their laughter rising above the general hum of conversation. Farmers compared livestock with the grave intensity of generals surveying a battlefield. Young couples walked arm in arm, stealing glances at each other when they thought no one was looking.

It was, by any reasonable measure, a scene of simple happiness.

But Daniel found it exhausting.

Not the happiness itself; he did not begrudge his tenants their pleasures. But there was something about all this feeling, all this unguarded emotion on display, that made him want to retreat to the cool silence of his study and remain there until everyone had gone home.

You are a cold man, his mother had told him once, during one of their final arguments. You will die alone, Daniel, with nothing but your precious control for company.

She had been wrong about many things, but perhaps not about that.

“Oh, look!” Rosanne’s grip on his arm tightened suddenly. “Something is happening over there. By the puppet show.”

Daniel followed her gaze and saw a small knot of people gathering near one of the far stalls. A woman was crying, one of the tenant farmers’ wives, he thought, though he could not recall her name, and several others were speaking in the raised, urgent tones that suggested crisis rather than celebration.

“Stay here,” he said, already moving toward the commotion.

“Daniel, I am not a child.”

“Stay here.”

He did not wait to see if she obeyed. His long stride carried him across the green in moments, the crowd parting instinctively as he approached. Being a duke had its advantages; people tended to move out of one’s way.

“What has happened?” he demanded, addressing no one in particular.

A dozen voices answered at once, creating a cacophony of overlapping explanations from which Daniel extracted the following: a child had wandered off, a boy of perhaps four or five years, and his mother had only just noticed his absence. The puppet show had been very engaging, you see, and she had only looked away for a moment, and now the boy was nowhere to be found. What if he had wandered toward the river, what if…

“Enough.” Daniel held up a hand, and the voices fell silent. “How long has he been missing?”

“Only a few minutes, Your Grace,” someone offered. “But he’s so small, and there are so many people.”

“Then we shall find him. You,”he pointed at one of the young farmhands, “check the livestock pens. You, the food stalls. You…”

“I believe I have found him.”

The voice came from behind him, and Daniel turned.

A young woman was walking toward the group, and in her arms was a small, dirt-smeared boy who appeared to be eating a sticky bun with single-minded determination. The child’s mother let out a sob of relief and rushed forward, gathering her son into her arms with the sort of fierce, trembling embrace that made Daniel deeply uncomfortable to witness.

“Oh, thank you, thank you! Where was he? Where did you find him?”

“Behind the cheese stall,” the young woman said. Her voice was calm, her manner unhurried, as though reuniting lost children with their hysterical mothers was simply part of her afternoon routine. “He had discovered a litter of kittens and was attempting to convince them to follow him home. We negotiated a compromise involving baked goods.”

The mother laughed, a wet, relieved sound, and thanked her again, and again, until the young woman gently extracted herself from the effusions of gratitude and stepped back.

It was only then that Daniel truly looked at her.

She was not beautiful. Or rather, she was not beautiful in the way that London society defined the term. She lacked the porcelain delicacy, the artful ringlets, the studied grace that characterized the young ladies who paraded through Almack’s each Season. Her hair was brown and she was simply dressed. Her gown was modest and slightly unfashionable, and her complexion suggested she spent rather more time outdoors than was strictly proper.

But there was something about her face, something in the steadiness of her gaze, the slight curve of her mouth, the way she stood with her weight evenly balanced, as though she were rooted to the earth itself, that made it difficult to look away.

She was looking at the child now, watching as his mother carried him off toward home, and there was a softness in her expression that did something peculiar to Daniel’s chest. A sort of tightening, or loosening, he could not quite tell which.

He did not like it.

“That was well done,” he said, and immediately regretted speaking, because now she was looking at him, and the steadiness of her gaze was considerably more unsettling when directed at his person.

“It was nothing, Your Grace.” She curtsied correctly, if without particular flourish. “He was not truly lost. Only temporarily misplaced.”

“There is a distinction?”

“A significant one, I think. Lost implies genuine danger. Misplaced suggests merely a failure of organisation.”

Her tone was perfectly polite, but there was something in it, a glint of something that might have been humor, that made Daniel narrow his eyes.

“You have a philosophical turn of mind, Miss…?”

“Whitcombe. Lillian Whitcombe.” She met his gaze directly, which was unusual. Most people, particularly women, tended to look at his cravat or his shoulder or some fixed point in the middle distance when speaking to him. Miss Whitcombe appeared to have no such compunction. “And I would not call it philosophical, Your Grace. Merely practical. I have younger cousins. One learns to distinguish between genuine emergencies and temporary inconveniences.”

“I see.”

He should say something else. Something gracious and ducal and appropriate to the occasion. But his mind had gone curiously blank, and he found himself simply standing there, looking at her, while the noise of the fair continued around them.

Say something, he commanded himself. You are a duke. You have been trained in the art of conversation since birth. Say something.

“Your hem is dirty,” he said.

Of all the things he might have chosen to say, this was perhaps the worst. Miss Whitcombe glanced down at the muddied edge of her gown, a consequence, no doubt, of kneeling behind the cheese stall to retrieve the wayward child, and when she looked up again, there was definite amusement in her eyes.

“Indeed,” she agreed. “It is.”

She did not apologize. She did not blush or stammer or offer excuses. She simply acknowledged the fact and waited, as though curious to see what he would do with it.

Daniel had no idea what to do with it.

“Daniel!” Rosanne’s voice cut through his paralysis, and he turned to find his sister hurrying toward them, her cheeks flushed with exertion. “There you are. I told you to wait for me, but you never listen. Is everything…Oh!”

She stopped short, her gaze fixing on Miss Whitcombe with sudden, delighted recognition.

“Miss Whitcombe! How lovely to see you again!”

Again? Daniel looked between the young woman with the dirty hem and his sister, feeling as though he had missed a step on a familiar staircase.

“Lady Rosanne.” Miss Whitcombe’s smile warmed perceptibly. “The pleasure is mine. I did not expect to see you at the fair.”

“I insisted,” Rosanne said, with a pointed glance at her brother that suggested insisted was a rather generous description of the negotiations involved. “Daniel thinks public gatherings are a form of torture specifically designed to inconvenience him, but I maintain that it is good for his character to occasionally interact with other human beings.”

“Rosanne,” Daniel said, in the tone he used when she was being deliberately provoking.

She ignored him entirely. “Did you see the puppet show? It was wonderful. The villain had the most magnificent moustache, he twirled it constantly, like this,” she demonstrated with an imaginary moustache, and Miss Whitcombe laughed.

It was a good laugh. Warm and unaffected, without the careful modulation that characterized the laughs of London debutantes. The sound of it did that peculiar thing to Daniel’s chest again.

He really did not like it.

“I missed the puppet show, I’m afraid,” Miss Whitcombe said. “I was occupied with a small adventure involving kittens and a missing child.”

“Oh, that was you?” Rosanne clapped her hands together. “I heard someone mention how marvelous! You must tell me everything. Was the child terribly frightened?”

“Not in the least. He was rather angry that I interrupted his attempts to establish a feline army.”

Rosanne laughed again, and Daniel watched his sister’s face transform with genuine pleasure; a transformation he saw all too rarely in London, where she moved through ballrooms like a ghost, pale and anxious and desperate to escape notice.

Here, with this woman, she was bright.

The observation settled in his chest alongside the other uncomfortable feelings, and he did not know what to make of it.

“Miss Whitcombe was just leaving,” he heard himself say.

Both women turned to look at him. Rosanne’s expression was incredulous; Miss Whitcombe’s was… unreadable.

“Was I?” she asked, in that same mild, polite tone that somehow conveyed a great deal more than the words themselves.

“I…” Daniel stopped. He had no idea why he had said that. It had simply emerged from his mouth, as though some part of him had decided that the best way to deal with this unsettling woman was to remove her from his presence as quickly as possible.

“Daniel, really,” Rosanne said. “Miss Whitcombe has not even had a chance to try Mrs. Hendricks’s apple tarts.”

“I do not care for apples,” Miss Whitcombe said.

She was looking at him again with that steady, disconcerting gaze, and Daniel had the sudden, absurd conviction that she was laughing at him. Not outwardly, her expression remained perfectly composed, but somewhere beneath the surface, in a place he could sense but not see.

“Neither does Daniel,” Rosanne said. “You have that in common.”

“How fortunate.”

The word was neutral but the delivery was not.

Daniel felt his jaw tighten. “If you will excuse me,” he said, with a stiff bow that encompassed both women. “I have matters to attend to.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Miss Whitcombe curtsied again, and this time there was definitely something in her eyes; something that made him feel as though he had been weighed and measured and found… What? Wanting? Amusing? He could not tell.

He did not stay to find out.

 

***

 

Lillian watched the Duke of Wyntham retreat across the village green, his dark coat cutting a severe line through the cheerful chaos of the fair, and allowed herself a small, private smile.

Your hem is dirty.

In her twenty-three years of existence, Lillian had received a great many conversational remarks from gentlemen of various ranks and temperaments. She had been complimented on her eyes; adequate, her singing voice; terrible, and her dancing; passable, though only when she concentrated very hard on not stepping on anyone’s feet. She had been lectured on the weather, the state of the roads, and the lamentable decline of proper feminine accomplishment in the modern age.

But she had never, in all her years, been informed that her hem was dirty by a man who looked as though the observation caused him physical pain.

“You must forgive my brother,” Lady Rosanne said, her tone a mixture of exasperation and apology. “He is not always so… so…”

“Direct?”

“I was going to say rude, but direct is kinder.” Rosanne sighed, watching her brother’s retreating form with the weary affection of someone who had spent a lifetime making excuses for him. “He does not mean to be. He simply… He is not comfortable with people.”

“Most people are not comfortable with people,” Lillian said. “They merely hide it better.”

Rosanne laughed, but there was a note of surprise in it, as though the observation had caught her off guard. “I suppose that is true. I am certainly not comfortable with people. Not in London, anyway. Everyone is always watching, and judging, and waiting for you to make a mistake so they can talk about it behind their fans.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It is.” Rosanne’s shoulders relaxed slightly, as though she had been holding them tense without realizing it. “That is why I prefer the country. Here, no one cares if I say the wrong thing or wear the wrong dress or forget which fork to use for the fish course.”

“Is there a specific fork for the fish course?”

“Apparently. Though I confess I have never understood why fish require their own utensil. Fish are not that special.”

Lillian found herself warming to Lady Rosanne Wynthorpe. She had met the girl once before, briefly, at a card gathering hosted by the Vicar’s wife, and had thought her shy and rather nervous, with the hunted look of someone who expected criticism at every turn. But here, away from the social obligations that seemed to cause her such distress, she was quite charming.

“I agree entirely,” Lillian said. “Fish are perfectly capable of being eaten with ordinary implements. I have done so, many times.”

“Have you?” Rosanne’s eyes widened. “What was it like? Did anyone faint?”

“No one fainted. The fish did not appear to notice the insult.”

Rosanne laughed again, a real laugh this time, bright and unguarded, and Lillian felt something settle pleasantly in her chest. She liked this girl. She liked her nervousness and her earnestness and the way she laughed as though she had just been given permission to do so.

“I am sorry we have not had more opportunity to speak,” Rosanne said. “After Mrs. Harrison’s card gathering, I mean. I wanted to call on you, but Daniel said…” She stopped, color rising in her cheeks. “That is…I was not sure if…”

“I would be delighted if you called,” Lillian said, rescuing her from whatever tangle of social anxiety she had gotten herself into. “Hartfield is not a big house, but we have adequate tea and a very comfortable settee.”

“Truly?” Rosanne’s face lit up. “You would not mind?”

“I would not mind in the least.”

“Oh, that would be…” Rosanne caught herself, visibly tamping down her enthusiasm into something more appropriate to her station. “That is to say, I would enjoy that very much. If it is convenient.”

“It is nearly always convenient. My schedule is not particularly demanding.”

This was a diplomatic way of saying that Lillian’s schedule consisted primarily of household management, occasional visits to neighbors, and long walks through the countryside during which she thought about very little in particular. It was a quiet life, perhaps too quiet, for a woman of three-and-twenty who had once harbored rather more ambitious dreams, but it was hers, and she had made her peace with it.

Mostly.

“Then I shall call,” Rosanne said, with a decisive nod that suggested she was committing the plan to memory before her courage could fail. “Tomorrow, perhaps? Or is that too soon? I do not wish to impose.”

“Tomorrow would be lovely.”

Rosanne beamed, and Lillian smiled back, and for a moment they simply stood there, two young women on a village green, united by mutual awkwardness and a shared indifference to fish forks.

Then Rosanne’s gaze drifted over Lillian’s shoulder, toward the spot where her brother had disappeared, and her expression shifted into something more complicated.

“He is not as cold as he seems,” she said quietly. “Daniel, I mean. I know he appears… Forbidding. But underneath all that, he is…” She paused, searching for words. “He is kind. In his way. He just does not know how to show it.”

Lillian thought of the duke’s stiff bow, his clipped sentences, the way he had looked at her as though she were a puzzle he had not asked to solve.

“I am sure he is,” she said, because it seemed the thing to say.

But privately, she was not sure at all.

 

***

 

Daniel did not stop walking until he reached the far edge of the green, where a low stone wall marked the boundary between the village and the fields beyond. He placed both hands on the rough surface and breathed.

In, and out.

In, and out.

It was a technique he had developed in childhood, during the worst of his parents’ arguments; a way of steadying himself when the world felt as though it were tilting beneath his feet. He had not needed it in years. He certainly should not need it now, standing alone at a village fair while his tenants made merry behind him.

And yet here he was. Breathing. Because a young woman with a dirty hem and an unsettling gaze had smiled at his sister.

Ridiculous.

He was being ridiculous. Miss Whitcombe was nothing; a neighbor’s daughter, a passing acquaintance, a person of no particular consequence to his life. She would call on Rosanne, or perhaps Rosanne would call on her, and they would drink tea and discuss whatever it was that young ladies discussed when left to their own devices. And then she would fade back into the background of his existence where she belonged.

There was no reason, no reason at all, for the strange tightness in his chest, the peculiar awareness that had prickled along his skin when she had looked at him and the way his mind kept returning, again and again, to the curve of her mouth when she smiled.

Your hem is dirty.

He had said that. To a woman he had just met. As though he were some sort of deranged man who had temporarily forgotten how human conversation worked.

Daniel closed his eyes and resisted the urge to bang his head against the stone wall.

His mother’s voice echoed in his memory: Cold, Daniel. You are so cold.

But that was not quite right, was it? He was not cold. He was simply contained and controlled. He kept himself at a distance because distance was safe, because emotions were dangerous, because he had watched his parents tear each other apart with their grand passions and their violent reconciliations and their endless, exhausting drama. And he had sworn, sworn on everything he held dear, that he would never, ever become them.

Control was not coldness. Control was survival.

And if that meant he occasionally said foolish things to young women at village fairs, well, that was simply the price of maintaining his equilibrium.

He would not think about Miss Whitcombe. He would return to the fair, fulfill his remaining duties, and then retire to his study with a glass of brandy and a book about agricultural improvements. Tomorrow, he would review the estate accounts and meet with his steward and write a strongly worded letter to his solicitor about the drainage problem in the east fields.

He would not think about the way Miss Whitcombe had looked at him; as though she could see straight through his carefully constructed walls to the chaos he kept hidden beneath.

He absolutely would not think about that.

Daniel took one more breath, pushed himself away from the wall, and walked back toward the fair.

The meat pie sat like a stone in his stomach the entire way.

 

Chapter Two

 

“You are certain I look presentable?”

“Lillian, you have asked me that four times in the past ten minutes. If you ask again, I shall be forced to lie.”

Lillian smoothed her hands over her skirt, a nervous habit she had thought herself cured of, and fixed her mother with a look of mild reproach. “I am merely concerned about making a proper impression. Wynthorpe Hall is not the vicarage.”

“No,” Mrs. Whitcombe agreed, setting down her embroidery to give her daughter a considering look. “Wynthorpe Hall has considerably more dust, if the rumours are to be believed. And considerably fewer cheerful people wandering about.”

“Mama.”

“I am simply observing. The late duchess was not known for her domestic enthusiasm, and the current duke is…” She paused, searching for a diplomatic phrase.

“Forbidding?” Lillian supplied.

“I was going to say particular. But forbidding will do.”

Lillian thought of the duke’s stern face, his clipped words, the way he had looked at her hem as though it had personally offended him. Forbidding was perhaps too gentle a word.

“I am not calling on the duke,” she said. “I am calling on Lady Rosanne. She invited me specifically.”

“Yes, but one cannot enter Wynthorpe Hall without encountering its master eventually. The man does live there.” Mrs. Whitcombe picked up her embroidery again, but her eyes remained on Lillian, sharp with maternal scrutiny. “You like the girl, then?”

“She is sweet, somewhat anxious and ill-at-ease, yet possessed of a genuine kindness beneath it all.”

“Poor child. Growing up in that house, with those parents.” Mrs. Whitcombe shook her head. “It is no wonder she is anxious. The things one heard about the late duke and duchess…”

Lillian waited, but her mother did not elaborate. This was typical; Mrs. Whitcombe was a collector of gossip but a reluctant distributor, doling out information only when she deemed it relevant to the matter at hand.

“What things?” Lillian prompted.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” Mrs. Whitcombe’s needle flashed through the fabric with renewed vigor. “Ancient history now. But suffice it to say that the Wynthorpe household was not a peaceful one. The children suffered, as children always do when their parents cannot behave like civilised adults.”

Lillian absorbed this information, filing it away alongside her other observations about the duke and his sister. It explained some things; the tension in his shoulders, the careful blankness of his expression, the way Lady Rosanne startled at sudden noises. The marks left by an unhappy childhood were not easily erased.

“I should go,” she said, glancing at the clock on the mantel. “I do not wish to be late.”

“Heaven forbid.” Mrs. Whitcombe rose to kiss her daughter’s cheek. “Do try not to say anything too clever, darling. Dukes do not appreciate cleverness in young ladies. It makes them uncomfortable.”

“I have no intention of speaking to the duke at all.”

“Intentions,” her mother said wisely, “rarely survive contact with reality.”

 

***

 

Wynthorpe Hall was not, as Mrs. Whitcombe had suggested, particularly dusty.

It was, however, rather intimidating.

Lillian had passed the estate many times during her walks, one could hardly avoid it, given that their land comprised a significant portion of the surrounding countryside, but she had never before approached the main house. Seen from a distance, it had always struck her as impressive but remote, an imposing stone edifice that seemed to hold itself apart from the surrounding landscape.

Up close, that impression only intensified. The house was beautiful, certainly; all elegant proportions and graceful symmetry, with wide windows that caught the afternoon light and a sweeping drive lined with ancient oaks. But there was something about it that felt contained. Controlled. As though the house itself had learned to hold its breath.

Rather like its master, Lillian thought, and immediately chided herself for the comparison.

The butler who answered her knock was a thin, gray-haired man with the carefully neutral expression of someone who had seen a great deal and chosen to have opinions about none of it. He accepted her card, invited her to wait in the entrance hall, and disappeared into the depths of the house with silent efficiency.

Lillian used the opportunity to examine her surroundings. The vestibule was large and well-appointed, decorated in shades of cream and pale blue that should have felt welcoming but somehow did not. Everything was perfectly arranged, the paintings on the walls, the flowers in their vases, the polished floor, with the sort of precision that suggested constant vigilance against disorder.

It reminded her, oddly, of a stage set. Beautiful to look at, but not quite real.

“Miss Whitcombe!”

Lady Rosanne appeared at the top of the staircase, her face alight with pleasure, and hurried down to meet her with considerably more enthusiasm than the setting seemed to warrant.

“You came! I was not certain…. I hoped, but I was not sure…“

“I said I would come,” Lillian reminded her gently.

“Yes, but people say things all the time that they do not mean. In London, everyone says ‘we must have tea sometime’ and then never speaks to you again. I thought perhaps…” Rosanne stopped, color rising in her cheeks. “I am babbling. Forgive me. I am simply pleased.”

“As am I.” Lillian smiled, and was rewarded by Rosanne’s visible relaxation. “Your home is lovely.”

“Is it?” Rosanne glanced around the entrance hall with the expression of someone who had long since stopped seeing it. “I suppose it is. I confess I have never thought much about it. One grows so accustomed to one’s own surroundings.”

“That is true of most things. Familiarity breeds a sort of blindness.”

“Does it?” Rosanne looked at her with sudden curiosity. “What a peculiar thought. I shall have to consider it.” She shook herself, as though physically dispelling the philosophical tangent. “But come; tea is laid in the blue sitting room. It is my favourite room in the house. The light is particularly good, and one can see the gardens from the window.”

She led the way through a series of corridors, chattering as she went about the history of the house which was very old, the state of the gardens that were somewhat neglected since the head gardener had retired, and the temperament of the kitchen cat which seemed mercurial at best. Lillian listened and responded at appropriate intervals, but her attention was partly occupied by the house itself; the way it seemed to grow warmer and less formal as they moved away from the public rooms, the small signs of habitation that began to appear: a book left open on a table, a shawl draped over a chair, a vase of wildflowers that looked as though someone had gathered them on impulse rather than design.

The blue sitting room, when they reached it, was indeed lovely. Smaller and more intimate than the enormous spaces they had passed through, with comfortable furniture arranged around a cheerful fire and windows that looked out over a rose garden just beginning to fade into autumn dormancy.

“This is wonderful,” Lillian said, meaning it.

Rosanne glowed. “I hoped you would like it. Daniel thinks it is too small, he prefers the formal drawing room, but I find it cosy. Is cosy not a worthy aspiration?”

“I believe cozy is among the worthiest of aspirations.”

They settled into chairs near the window, and a maid appeared with tea and an assortment of small cakes that looked considerably more appetizing than anything Lillian might have expected from a household as formal as this one.

“The Cook is very talented,” Rosanne said, following her gaze. “She came from a great house in London; I am not supposed to know which one, but I suspect it was Lady Smith’s, because the lemon biscuits taste exactly the same. Do try the lemon biscuits.”

Lillian tried the lemon biscuits and they were, indeed, exceptional.

“I must confess something,” Rosanne said, after they had both had sufficient time to appreciate the pastries. “I was terribly nervous about today. I have not had many…..I do not often…” She trailed off, her fingers twisting in her lap.

“You do not often have friends call?” Lillian guessed gently.

“Is that terribly pitiful?” Rosanne’s voice was low. “I am the sister of a duke. I should have dozens of friends or hundreds, even. Every young lady in London should be clamouring for my attention. But somehow…” She shrugged, a helpless little gesture. “Somehow, they never seem to want to talk to me. They want to talk to Daniel, or about Daniel, or to position themselves near Daniel in hopes that he will notice them. I am merely the avenue of approach.”

Lillian felt a sharp pang of sympathy. She knew what it was like to be overlooked; not through any fault of one’s own, but simply because the world had decided one was not particularly interesting. It was a lonely sort of invisibility.

“That sounds exhausting,” she said.

“It is. Terribly exhausting.” Rosanne set down her teacup with more force than necessary. “And the worst part is that Daniel does not want their attention. He does not want anyone’s attention. He would be perfectly content to spend the rest of his life alone in his study with his ledgers and his books about crop rotation. But because he is a duke, young, unmarried, wealthy, with excellent teeth, every matchmaking mama in England has decided he is their particular target.” She paused. “The teeth comment was perhaps odd. I apologise.”

“Not at all. Dental quality is an underappreciated consideration in the marriage mart.”

Rosanne laughed, a startled, delighted sound, and Lillian felt something warm unfurl in her chest. She liked making this girl laugh. She liked the way Rosanne’s whole face changed when she was genuinely amused, as though someone had lit a candle behind her eyes.

“You are very easy to talk to,” Rosanne said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Occasionally. Though my mother would say it is because I am an excellent listener, which is simply another way of saying I am not particularly good at filling silences with my own chatter.”

“I am excellent at filling silences with my own chatter. It is one of my few talents.” Rosanne reached for another lemon biscuit, then hesitated. “May I ask you something? You need not answer if it is too impertinent.”

“You may ask.”

“Why are you not married?”

Lillian blinked. It was not the question she had expected, though in retrospect, perhaps she should have. It was the question everyone asked, sooner or later, when confronted with an unmarried woman of three-and-twenty who was neither hideous nor obviously insane.

“I suppose I have not yet met anyone I wished to marry,” she said carefully.

“But surely there have been suitors? Prospects? Young men of suitable character and adequate teeth?”

“A few.” Lillian smiled slightly. “Though I confess I never thought to evaluate their teeth.”

“You should. It is important.” Rosanne leaned forward, her expression earnest. “But truly, was there no one? No one at all who made you feel… I do not know. Something?”

Lillian considered the question. She had received two proposals in her twenty-three years; one from a curate with damp hands and earnest sermons, the other from a widowed farmer who needed someone to care for his six children. Both had been decent men. Both had offered her security and purpose and a place in the world.

She had refused them both.

“I suppose,” she said slowly, “that I have always believed marriage should be more than mere practicality. That one should feel…” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “Connection, understanding, a sense that one’s life would be richer because of the other person’s presence in it, rather than simply tolerable.”

“That is terribly romantic.”

“Is it? I had thought it rather pragmatic. A lifetime is a very long time to spend with someone who does not truly see you.”

Rosanne was quiet for a moment, her gaze drifting toward the window. When she spoke again, her voice was softer.

“Daniel says romance is a fiction. That marriage is a contract like any other; a negotiation of benefits and obligations, to be approached with logic rather than feeling.” She paused. “But I do not think he believes that. Not really. I think he is simply…. Afraid.”

Lillian thought of the duke’s rigid posture, his controlled expression, the way he had retreated the moment their conversation had threatened to become personal.

“Afraid of what?” she asked.

“Of becoming our parents.” Rosanne’s voice was barely above a whisper. “They loved each other, you know. Desperately and passionately. And it destroyed them both.”

The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implication. Lillian did not press for details; she sensed that Rosanne had already said more than she had intended.

“I am sorry,” she said quietly. “That must have been difficult.”

“It was.” Rosanne’s smile was sad. “But it was a long time ago. And Daniel has done his best to keep us both safe. In his way.”

Before Lillian could respond, the door to the sitting room opened, and the Duke of Wyntham himself stepped inside.

 

***

 

Daniel had not intended to join them for tea.

He had, in fact, made a very deliberate decision to avoid joining them for tea. He had work to do, there was always work to do, and the presence of Miss Whitcombe in his home was absolutely, categorically, not his concern.

And yet here he was. Standing in the doorway of the blue sitting room, watching his sister and the woman with the dirty hem, though today her hem appeared to be perfectly clean, look up at him with expressions of surprise.

“Daniel.” Rosanne recovered first, her tone a careful mixture of welcome and warning. “I did not expect you.”

“I was passing.” This was technically true. He had been passing. He had simply been passing rather more frequently than was strictly necessary, and the blue sitting room had somehow become the fixed point around which his trajectory orbited.

He was aware of how ridiculous this was but he chose not to examine it too closely.

“Won’t you join us?” Rosanne gestured toward the empty chair near the fire. “We have plenty of tea, and the Cook has made the most wonderful lemon biscuits.”

“I do not care for lemon.”

“You do not care for anything,” Rosanne said, with a flash of sisterly exasperation. “Sit down, Daniel. You are making Miss Whitcombe uncomfortable.”

He glanced at Miss Whitcombe, who did not look uncomfortable in the slightest. She looked amused. That same quiet, private amusement he had sensed at the fair, as though she were observing a particularly entertaining play and had not yet decided what she thought of the leading actor.

“I would not dream of intruding on your conversation,” he said stiffly.

“You are not intruding. You are joining. There is a difference.” Lillian smiled; a small, serene curve of her lips that did something unpleasant to his equilibrium. “Please, Your Grace. Sit.”

It was not a command. It was barely even a request. And yet Daniel found himself moving toward the empty chair as though his legs had made the decision without consulting his brain.

He sat.

“There,” Rosanne said, with evident satisfaction. “That was not so difficult, was it?”

Daniel did not dignify this with a response. He accepted a cup of tea from the maid, no sugar, no cream, nothing that might soften the bitter edge, and fixed his attention on a point somewhere between the two women, where he could observe them both without actually looking at either of them.

“Miss Whitcombe was just telling me about her approach to marriage,” Rosanne announced, apparently determined to include him in the conversation whether he wished to be included or not.

“Rosanne…” Miss Whitcombe’s voice carried a note of gentle reproach. “I do not think His Grace is interested in my opinions on matrimony.”

“On the contrary.” The words were out before he could stop them. “I find myself….Curious.”

Miss Whitcombe’s eyebrows rose slightly—the first unguarded reaction he had seen from her. It lasted only a moment before her expression smoothed back into its customary serenity, but Daniel felt a small, inexplicable thrill of triumph at having surprised her.

“Curious?” she repeated.

“You have declined to marry, despite being of an age where most young women have accepted, or at least actively sought, a suitable match. That suggests either an unusual level of discernment or an unusual set of priorities.” He paused, aware that he was being more direct than was strictly polite. “I am curious which it is.”

“Perhaps it is both.”

“That is not an answer.”

“No,” she agreed. “It is not.”

They looked at each other across the space of the sitting room; the duke in his chair, rigid and watchful; the country girl on the settee, calm and unmoved by his scrutiny. Rosanne glanced between them with an expression that Daniel could not quite identify.

“I believe,” Miss Whitcombe said finally, “that marriage should be a partnership of equals. A meeting of minds and hearts. Not merely an arrangement of convenience or a transaction of social capital.” Her gaze was steady on his. “I shall not accept anything less.”

“That is idealistic.”

“Perhaps.”

“Most would say it is unrealistic.”

“Most would say a great many things.” She smiled; that small, serene smile again. “I have never been particularly concerned with what most would say.”

Daniel felt something shift in his chest; a crack in the wall he had so carefully constructed, small but undeniable. He did not like it. He did not like it at all.

“Idealism,” he said, his voice colder than he had intended, “is a luxury of the young. Reality has a way of tempering such notions.”

“Perhaps.” Miss Whitcombe did not look offended by his tone. If anything, she looked… thoughtful. “Or perhaps reality is simply what we choose to accept. Perhaps there are those who settle for less because they have been convinced they do not deserve more.”

The words landed like a blow; soft, precise, and devastating in their accuracy. Daniel felt his jaw tighten, his hands curling involuntarily around his teacup.

She does not know, he told himself. She cannot know. She is simply speaking in generalities, as young women often do.

But the steadiness of her gaze suggested otherwise.

“I should return to my work,” he said abruptly, setting down his teacup with more force than necessary. “Ladies.”

He stood and bowed and walked out of the room without looking back.

It was only when he had reached the safety of his study, the door firmly closed behind him, that he allowed himself to breathe.

 

***

 

Lillian watched the duke’s retreating figure with a mixture of curiosity and something that might have been sympathy.

She had struck a nerve. She had not meant to, she had simply been answering his question with the honesty it seemed to demand, but somewhere in her words, she had touched something raw. The way his expression had shuttered, the abrupt coldness in his voice, the rigid set of his shoulders as he left…

He was not simply cold, she realized. He was wounded.

The observation settled into her mind alongside Rosanne’s whispered confession: I think he is simply afraid.

“I apologise for my brother,” Rosanne said, her voice a careful balance of mortification and resignation. “He is not…..He does not…”

“You need not apologise.” Lillian turned away from the door and offered Rosanne a reassuring smile. “He was not unkind. Merely… uncomfortable.”

“He is always uncomfortable.” Rosanne sighed, reaching for her tea as though it might provide some form of fortification. “I had hoped……But no. That was foolish of me.”

“Had hoped what?”

Rosanne hesitated, her fingers tracing the pattern on her teacup. “I had hoped that you might… I do not know. Reach him, somehow. You are so calm, Miss Whitcombe. So steady. I thought perhaps…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “It was a foolish notion. Forgive me.”

Lillian felt a strange flutter in her chest; not quite alarm, not quite interest, something in between. “You thought I might befriend your brother?”

“I thought you might be good for him. For us.” Rosanne’s voice was very low. “This house is so quiet, Miss Whitcombe. So cold. Daniel keeps everything under such rigid control, and I understand why, truly, I do, but sometimes I feel as though we are both slowly suffocating. As though we are trapped in a beautiful cage, too afraid to reach for the door.”

The imagery was striking. Lillian looked around the elegant sitting room, the perfectly arranged furniture, the carefully curated decor, the sense of everything held in careful, measured stasis, and understood, suddenly, what Rosanne meant.

“I cannot promise to reach your brother,” she said gently. “I suspect he does not wish to be reached.”

“No. He does not.” Rosanne’s smile was sad. “But that does not mean he does not need it.”

 

Chapter Three

 

“Your perspective is slightly odd.”

“I am aware that my perspective is slightly odd, Lillian. That is why the tree appears to be falling over.”

“It is not falling over. It is merely… leaning. With great enthusiasm.”

Lady Rosanne set down her paintbrush and fixed Lillian with a look of exasperated affection. Two weeks had passed since their first tea together, and in that time, Lillian had become a regular visitor to Wynthorpe Hall. Frequent enough that the staff no longer announced her arrival, simply nodding their welcome as she made her way to whichever room Rosanne had claimed for the day’s activities.

Today, that room was the morning parlor, where the light came in soft and golden through the east-facing windows and the air smelled faintly of linseed oil and turpentine. Lillian had offered to teach Rosanne watercolors, and Rosanne had accepted with the sort of desperate enthusiasm that suggested previous artistic instruction had not gone well.

She had been right to be desperate. Rosanne painted with more passion than precision, attacking the paper with bold strokes that owed more to determination than technique. The results were distinctive.

“You are being diplomatic,” Rosanne accused. “The tree is terrible. The entire painting is terrible. I have somehow managed to create a landscape that looks as though it is suffering from a digestive complaint.”

Lillian examined the painting in question; a view of the gardens from the morning parlor window, rendered in watercolors that had achieved a curious muddy quality despite starting out as perfectly respectable pigments.

“It is not terrible,” she said carefully. “It simply requires refinement.”

“That is exactly what my last painting master said. Right before he resigned his position and fled to Cornwall.”

“I am sure Cornwall was merely a coincidence.”

“He specifically cited ‘artistic differences’ as his reason for departure. My artistic difference was that I had none.” Rosanne sighed, setting down her brush with an air of defeat. “Perhaps I am simply not meant to paint. Some people are not, you know. Some people are meant to appreciate art rather than create it.”

“That is one perspective.” Lillian reached over and gently adjusted the angle of Rosanne’s brush. “Another perspective is that you are trying too hard.”

“Is that possible? To try too hard?”

“At painting, yes. You are attacking the paper as though it has personally wronged you. Watercolor requires a lighter touch.” Lillian dipped her own brush in the paint and demonstrated, letting the pigment flow across the page in soft, transparent layers. “See? You are not forcing the colour onto the paper. You are inviting it.”

Rosanne watched with the intensity of someone witnessing either a miracle or a confidence trick; she had not yet decided which.

“That seems like a miracle.”

“It is simply patience. The water does most of the work. You merely guide it.”

“I am not very good at patience.”

“Then perhaps this will be good practice.”

Rosanne considered this, then picked up her brush again with renewed, if tentative, determination. Lillian watched her make a few careful strokes, her tongue poking out slightly in concentration, and felt a warm swell of affection. Over the past fortnight, she had grown genuinely fond of Lady Rosanne Wynthorpe. The girl was anxious and self-deprecating and far too quick to assume her own inadequacy, but beneath all that, there was a sweetness that reminded Lillian of a flower struggling to bloom in insufficient sunlight.

She deserved better than this beautiful, empty house. She deserved laughter and friendship and the knowledge that she was valued for herself, not merely for her connection to her brother.

Her brother.

Lillian had not seen the duke since that first afternoon in the blue sitting room. He had been conspicuously absent during her subsequent visits; always in his study, always occupied with estate business, always somewhere that was definitively not wherever Lillian happened to be.

She told herself she did not mind. She told herself it was a relief, actually, not to navigate his prickly silences and cutting observations. She told herself she did not think about him at all.

She was, as previously established, not very good at believing herself.

“Oh, look!” Rosanne’s voice broke through her reverie. “That almost looks like a tree! A proper, non-digestive-complaint tree!”

Lillian examined the new addition to Rosanne’s painting. It did, indeed, look somewhat more tree-like than its predecessor, though it still retained a certain… character.

“Much improved,” she said warmly. “You see? Patience.”

Rosanne beamed, and Lillian smiled back, and for a moment they simply sat together in the golden morning light, two young women united by watercolors and a growing friendship.

Then the door opened, and the Duke of Wyntham walked in.

 

***

 

Daniel had not meant to enter the morning parlor.

He had been on his way to the library, there was a particular volume on drainage systems that he needed to consult, and the morning parlor was not on the route to the library. It was, in fact, quite definitively not on the route to the library. One would have to make a deliberate detour to pass by the morning parlor while walking from the study to the library.

And yet.

Here he was.

Standing in the doorway, watching his sister and Miss Lillian Whitcombe bent over their paintings like conspirators sharing a secret.

Miss Whitcombe looked up first. Her hair was slightly disordered, a strand had escaped its pins and curled against her cheek, and there was a smudge of blue paint on her left hand. She looked comfortable and at ease, as though she belonged here, in this room, in this house, in his life.

The thought was so startling that Daniel nearly turned around and left immediately.

“Daniel!” Rosanne’s voice was bright with surprise, and, he noted with some unease, with something that looked rather like satisfaction. “I did not expect you. Do come in. Lillian is teaching me to paint.”

“So I see.” He did not move from the doorway. He told himself this was because he did not wish to intrude. It was not because Miss Whitcombe was looking at him with those steady, disconcerting blue eyes, which made him not entirely certain what his face was doing in response.

“We are painting the garden,” Rosanne continued, apparently oblivious to his discomfort. “Or rather, Lillian is painting the garden, and I am painting something that may eventually resemble a garden if one squints and has very generous standards.”

“You are too hard on yourself.”

“I am appropriately hard on myself. My tree looks like it has some kind of illness.”

“It does not…” Lillian began, then stopped, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Very well. Perhaps a mild cold.”

Rosanne laughed, and the sound of it, bright and unguarded and real, did something complicated to Daniel’s chest. His sister so rarely laughed like that. In London, her laughter was always careful, modulated, designed to cause no offense and attract no attention. Here, with Miss Whitcombe, she laughed as though she had forgotten to be afraid.

He should be grateful for that and he was grateful for that.

And yet some part of him, some small, shameful part that he did not like to examine, felt something else entirely. Something that felt uncomfortably like jealousy.

“Perhaps you should join us,” Rosanne said, in the tone of someone making a suggestion they fully expected to be refused. “Lillian is an excellent teacher. She might even be able to improve your perspective.”

“My perspective is adequate.”

“I was not referring to your painting.”

The words hung in the air for a moment, pointed and precise. Daniel looked at his sister and saw something in her expression that he had not seen before. A kind of gentle challenge. A quiet assertion that she was no longer simply going to accept whatever mood he brought into a room.

It was, he thought, probably Miss Whitcombe’s influence. Two weeks in her company, and Rosanne was already beginning to stiffen her resolve.

He was not certain how he felt about that either.

“I have work to do,” he said. “The drainage report…”

“It can wait an hour,” Rosanne finished. “Sit down, Daniel. Try not to glower at the paintbrushes.”

“I do not glower.”

“You are glowering right now.”

“This is simply my face.”

“Then your face should apologise to the paintbrushes.”

Miss Whitcombe made a small sound, quickly suppressed, that might have been a laugh. Daniel’s gaze snapped to her, and she met it with an expression of perfect innocence.

“I was merely clearing my throat,” she said.

“Of course you were.”

“Painting can be quite dusty.”

“I am certain it can.”

They looked at each other across the length of the room, and Daniel felt that same strange tension he had noticed at the fair; a kind of a strange awareness, as though the air between them were charged with something he could not name.

“Do sit down,” Rosanne said again, and her voice had softened, losing its teasing edge. “Please, Daniel. It would make me happy.”

It would make me happy.

It was such a small request. Such a simple thing. And yet Daniel could not remember the last time his sister had asked him for anything. He could not remember the last time she had felt safe enough to express a want, a preference, a desire that was not immediately qualified with apologies and disclaimers.

He crossed the room and sat down in the empty chair beside the easel.

“There.” Rosanne’s smile was radiant. “That was not so difficult, was it?”

“That remains to be seen.”

Miss Whitcombe passed him a blank sheet of paper and a brush with the efficiency of someone who had decided not to give him time to reconsider. “Do you have any experience with watercolours, Your Grace?”

“Some. My mother painted.” The words came out before he could stop them, and he felt his shoulders tense in automatic response. He did not talk about his mother. He did not talk about anything personal. And yet here he was, offering information like a man who had forgotten how to guard his tongue.

“Then you know the basic technique,” Miss Whitcombe said, as though he had said nothing unusual. “Start with something simple; a shape, a colour study. The discipline is in the restraint.”

“The restraint?”

“Watercolour rewards a light hand. If you try to force it, the colours become muddy and overworked. But if you can learn to let the medium guide you…” She demonstrated, her brush moving across her own paper in soft, fluid strokes. “You see? The water does the work. You simply provide the direction.”

Daniel watched her hands, capable, unhesitating, slightly paint-stained, and found himself momentarily unable to speak. There was something about the way she moved, the easy confidence of her gestures, that made it difficult to look away.

“The discipline is in the restraint,” he repeated slowly.

“Yes.” She looked up, meeting his gaze, and he had the sudden, disorienting sense that they were no longer talking about painting at all. “Though I suspect that particular lesson requires no instruction from me.”

The words were mild, her tone perfectly pleasant. But there was something beneath them, something knowing, something almost gentle, that made Daniel’s chest tighten.

She sees too much, he thought. She sees far too much.

He looked away, focusing on the blank paper before him with an intensity that was almost certainly excessive.

“I shall attempt a simple study,” he said. “As you suggest.”

“A wise choice.”

“Do not patronise me, Miss Whitcombe.”

“I would not dream of it, Your Grace.”

Her voice carried that same hint of buried amusement that had so unsettled him at the fair; the sense that she was watching him struggle with something obvious and finding it faintly entertaining.

He did not look at her again. He focused on the paper, on the brush, on the careful application of color to the blank white surface. He painted a single flower, a wildflower from a vase on the windowsill, with painstaking attention to each petal, each leaf, each shadow and highlight.

When he finished, the result was…….Adequate. Competent. Technically correct in every respect.

It was also, he realized with a sinking sensation, utterly lifeless.

“Very precise,” Miss Whitcombe said, leaning over to examine his work. She was close enough that he could smell her, something light and floral, like the gardens after rain, and his hands tightened involuntarily on the brush.

“That is not a compliment.”

“It is an observation. The technique is excellent.” She tilted her head, considering. “But the flower itself seems… restrained.”

“Flowers do not have personalities.”

“Do they not?” She smiled, and it was a different smile than the ones she had given him before; warmer, more genuine, as though he had amused her despite herself. “I have always thought they do. Some are bold. Some are shy. Some reach toward the sun as though they cannot help themselves.”

“That is botany, not personality.”

“Perhaps the distinction is less clear than you think.”

Daniel looked at his painting, the carefully rendered petals, the precisely executed shadows, and then at the actual flower in the vase. Miss Whitcombe was right, he realized reluctantly. The real flower had a kind of presence that his painting utterly lacked. A sense of reaching, of wanting, of being alive in a way that defied mere technical accuracy.

Some reach toward the sun as though they cannot help themselves.

The words echoed in his mind, and he pushed them away before they could take root.

“I should return to my work,” he said, setting down his brush. “The drainage report will not write itself.”

“Of course.” Miss Whitcombe’s voice was perfectly polite, perfectly neutral. She gave no indication that she noticed his abrupt retreat, or if she noticed, that she cared.

And yet, as he rose from his chair, he could have sworn he saw something flicker across her face. Something that looked almost like disappointment.

He told himself he had imagined it.

 

***

 

After Daniel left, abruptly, as seemed to be his habit, Lillian turned her attention back to Rosanne’s painting and tried very hard not to think about the way he had looked at her when she mentioned the sun. Apparently she failed because that was all she could think about.

“He watched you the entire time, you know.”

Lillian’s brush slipped, leaving a streak of blue where it did not belong. She corrected it with more force than necessary. “I beg your pardon?”

“Daniel.” Rosanne’s voice was carefully casual, but there was something knowing in her expression. “He did not watch his painting. He watched you.”

“I am sure you are mistaken.”

“I am not.” Rosanne set down her own brush, abandoning all pretense of artistic endeavor. “I have known my brother for seventeen years, Lillian. I have seen him at dozens of social events, surrounded by dozens of beautiful women who would dearly love to catch his attention. He does not watch people. He endures their presence with barely concealed impatience and retreats at the earliest opportunity.”

“He retreated just now.”

“Yes, but not before sitting with us for…”Rosanne glanced at the clock, “forty-three minutes. That is forty-two minutes longer than I have ever seen him voluntarily remain in any social situation.”

Lillian felt her cheeks warm slightly, which was ridiculous. She was not a blushing schoolgirl. She was a sensible woman of three-and-twenty who did not flutter over ducal attention.

“He was being polite,” she said firmly. “You asked him to stay.”

“I have asked him to stay at hundreds of gatherings. He has never once obliged me.” Rosanne leaned forward, her eyes bright with barely suppressed excitement. “He likes you, Lillian. I am certain of it.”

“He does not like me. He finds me irritating.”

“Is there a difference?”

Lillian opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. The question was more complicated than it appeared.

She thought of the duke’s expression when she had spoken of restraint; that flicker of something vulnerable beneath his carefully constructed walls. She thought of the way his hands had tightened on his brush when she leaned close to examine his painting. She thought of the precision of his work, the lifelessness of it, and the way he had looked at the real flower as though seeing it for the first time.

The discipline is in the restraint.

She had meant it as an observation about watercolors. But he had heard something else, something deeper, and for just a moment, his mask had slipped.

“I do not know what your brother feels,” she said finally. “I suspect he does not know either.”

Rosanne’s expression softened. “No. He probably does not. Daniel has spent so long not-feeling that I think he has forgotten how.” She reached out and touched Lillian’s hand; a brief, grateful gesture. “But he feels something when you are near. I see it in him. A kind of… disturbance.”

“Disturbance is not necessarily positive.”

“No. But it is not nothing, either.” Rosanne smiled; a small, hopeful smile. “And that, for my brother, is practically a declaration of devotion.”

Lillian laughed despite herself. “You are incorrigible.”

“I am observant. There is a difference.”

“A distinction without a practical divergence, I suspect.”

Rosanne’s smile widened, and Lillian felt her own lips curve in response. It was difficult to remain stern in the face of such transparent delight, and really, what was the harm? Rosanne was young and romantic and clearly invested in seeing her forbidding brother brought low by the forces of love. It was a harmless fantasy.

Harmless, Lillian told herself. Entirely harmless.

But she did not quite believe it.

 

***

 

Later that evening, after Lillian had returned to Hartfield and the house had settled into its customary quiet, Rosanne sat at her writing desk and opened her sketchbook.

She had not meant to draw anything in particular. She had simply wanted to occupy her hands while her mind wandered; a habit she had developed in childhood, during the worst of her parents’ arguments, when she had needed something to focus on that was not the sound of raised voices through the walls.

But when she looked down at the page, after she had finished, she found that she had drawn two figures: a man and a woman, standing close together but not quite touching. The man was tall and dark and rigid with restraint. The woman was smaller, calmer, with a kind of quiet strength in the set of her shoulders.

They were looking at each other as though neither quite knew what to do with what they saw.

Rosanne studied the drawing for a long moment, then carefully wrote beneath it in her tidiest handwriting:

Lillian Wynthorpe, Duchess of Wyntham?

She stared at the words, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment at her own foolishness. It was a foolish, childish thing to do; the kind of romantic speculation she would never dare voice aloud.

And yet.

She had seen the way Daniel looked at Lillian. She had seen the way Lillian looked back—not with the desperate hunger of a woman seeking a title, but with something more dangerous: genuine interest. Genuine curiosity. A desire to understand.

If anyone could reach her brother, Rosanne thought, it might be Lillian Whitcombe.

And if Lillian could reach him, if she could somehow breach those walls he had spent a lifetime constructing, then perhaps this cold, careful, suffocating house might finally begin to feel like a home.

She closed the sketchbook and tucked it safely in her desk drawer.

It was a foolish, childish hope.

But hope, she had learned, was often the only thing that kept one going.