Prologue

 

 

Seven Years Earlier

 

“You are foxed, Your Grace.”

Benedict Harrington, recently ascended to his dukedom and still finding the title ill-fitting as a borrowed coat, turned from his contemplation of Lord Knicks’s thoroughly mediocre brandy to find a woman watching him with undisguised amusement.

She was pretty enough, he supposed, in that English rose fashion that his grandmother was always pressing upon him. Golden hair twisted into a practical knot, blue eyes that held more intelligence than was strictly fashionable, and a dress of sprigged muslin that marked her as neither guest nor servant but something uncomfortably in between.

“Observant of you,” he drawled, not bothering to straighten from his lean against the library wall. The house party raged on in the ballroom, all crushing boredom and desperate gaiety, but he’d escaped to Knicks’s library in search of solitude and superior liquor. He’d found neither. “Though I prefer to think of myself as merely… elevated.”

“Elevated.” She tested the word, stepping fully into the room and closing the door behind her with a decisive click that should have been improper. Should have been, but somehow wasn’t. “Is that what we’re calling it when a duke hides in his host’s library, drinking his brandy and losing spectacular sums at cards?”

“You have been observing me?”

“Everyone’s been observing you, Your Grace. You’re rather difficult to miss when you’re wagering your cravat pin against Lord Worthington’s mare.”

“I won that hand,” Benedict protested, though he couldn’t quite remember if that was true. The evening had grown rather fuzzy around the edges.

“You won three hands. Then you lost five.” She moved to the bookshelf, running her fingers along the spines with the casual familiarity of someone who spent considerable time in this room.

“You’re now the proud owner of Worthington’s mare but have promised him your matched grays, your mother’s pearl studs, and what I believe was described as ‘that ghastly Gainsborough in the green drawing room.'”

Benedict blinked. “The Gainsborough’s worth a fortune.”

“Yes, well, Worthington’s mare has three legs and a tendency to bite. So I’d say you came out rather behind in the exchange.”

He studied her more carefully, his foxed state making everything pleasantly soft around the edges. “You’re the governess. The one who keeps putting the Knicks pack of insolent cubs through their paces.”

“The Knicks children,” she corrected mildly. “And yes, I’m their governess. Miss Marianne Grey, since you won’t ask and I suspect you won’t remember.”

“Oh, I shall remember.” He pushed off from the wall, pleased when the room only swayed slightly. “You’re rather memorable for a governess. Do you always insult your betters so charmingly?”

“Only when my betters are making fools of themselves so spectacularly.” She pulled a book from the shelf, poetry, he noted with surprise.

“Besides, you’re not my better. You’re simply richer and titled. There’s a difference, though I suspect they don’t teach that at Eton.”

“Oxford, actually. Though they didn’t teach me much of anything there either, except how to drink port and compose terrible Latin.”

“Your Latin can’t be worse than Lord Knicks’s eldest. Yesterday he tried to conjugate Agricola.”

“Pray, forbid!”

“Precisely my reaction.” She opened the book, apparently deciding to ignore him entirely, which was oddly refreshing. Women never ignored him. They simpered…schemed and occasionally swooned, but they never simply dismissed him.

“I fear I have not found favor in your eyes, Miss Grey.”

She looked up from her book, those blue eyes assessing him with uncomfortable directness.

“I don’t know you well enough to dislike you, Your Grace. Though from what I’ve observed, you seem determined to waste every advantage you’ve been given in pursuit of… what? Momentary pleasure? The dubious honor of being the most dissolute duke in London?”

“That’s a highly competitive field,” Benedict said, moving closer. She smelled of lavender and something else, ink, perhaps.

“I’m barely in the running.”

“Give yourself time. You’ve only been duke for, what, six months?”

“Eight.” Eight months since his father’s heart gave out in the middle of a parliamentary session, leaving Benedict with a title he’d never wanted and responsibilities he had no idea how to manage. “But who’s counting?”

“You are, apparently.” She returned to her book, though he noticed she hadn’t turned a page. “Shouldn’t you return to the ballroom? I believe Lady Knicks has designs on you for her eldest daughter.”

“Have mercy. The girl giggles every time I look at her and seems to think conversation consists entirely of agreeing with everything I say.”

“How tedious for you.”

“Extraordinarily.” He moved closer still, close enough to see that her hair wasn’t simply golden but contained strands of darker honey and amber.

“You wouldn’t agree with everything I say, would you?”

“I haven’t agreed with a single thing you’ve said so far.”

“Exactly.” He smiled, the expression feeling more genuine than any he’d worn in months.

“It’s refreshing. Like a cold bath or a slap to the face.”

“If you’re looking for someone to slap you, Your Grace, I’m certain that can be arranged.”

“From you?”

“From Lord Knicks, when he discovers you’re alone with his children’s governess.” She finally looked up from her book, meeting his gaze squarely.

“This is highly improper as you are very well aware.”

“Everything interesting is.” He reached past her for another book, deliberately brushing her arm. She didn’t flinch, didn’t simper, and didn’t even blush.

“What are you reading?”

“Poetry… Byron.”

“‘She walks in beauty, like the night’?” He quoted, falling back on the one poem every gentleman could recite.

“Actually, I was reading ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib.’ Much more bloodthirsty. Less romantic nonsense.”

“You don’t believe in romance?”

“I believe in reality, Your Grace. Romance is what people tell themselves to make poor decisions seem poetic rather than simply foolish.”

Benedict laughed, surprising himself with its genuineness. “Pray, you’re cynical for someone so young.”

“I’m at the age of two and twenty. Hardly fresh from the schoolroom.”

“Ancient, then. Practically in your dotage.”

That earned him a smile, small but real. “Says the man who can barely stand upright.”

“I’m standing perfectly well, thank you.” He swayed slightly, undermining his point. “Though I might stand better with assistance.”

“If you’re angling for me to catch you, Your Grace, you’ll be waiting a long time. I’ve seen you fence. Your balance is considerably better when you’re sober.”

“You’ve watched me fence?” That was interesting. The fencing matches were held at dawn, hardly a time when governesses were typically about.

A faint color touched her cheeks…finally, a reaction.

“The nursery windows overlook the garden. The children enjoy watching.”

“The children.”

“Yes.”

“At dawn.”

“They’re very early risers.”

“That is a gross fabrication.” But he said it with amusement rather than accusation.

“You observed me.”

“You’re rather difficult to ignore, prancing about with swords at ungodly hours. All that metallic clanging. Very inconsiderate of the household’s sleep.”

They stood there for a moment, the space between them charged with something that wasn’t quite attraction but wasn’t quite not attraction either. It was possibility, Benedict realised. The possibility of something different from his usual carefully choreographed seductions.

“I should go,” she said finally, closing her book with a snap.

“Should you?”

“Yes. And you should return to the ballroom before someone notices you are missing and comes looking. The last thing either of us needs is to be found in a compromising position.”

“This hardly qualifies as compromising. We’re both fully clothed and upright. Well, you’re upright. I’m managing a sort of artistic lean.”

She laughed then, bright and unexpected. “You’re absolutely ridiculous.”

“So I have been told. Usually by my grandmother. Though she uses rather more words and considerably more volume.”

“The Dowager Duchess of Tomford? I’ve heard she’s terrifying.”

“She has a formidable reputation for breaking the spirits of her household.”

“Then it’s fortunate I’m employed by the Knicks.” She moved toward the door, but paused with her hand on the handle. “Your Grace?”

“Yes?”

“The mare does have four legs. I was testing to see how foxed you really were.”

“And?”

“Spectacularly. You might want to avoid the cards for the rest of the evening.”

“What else am I supposed to do? The young ladies are tedious, the older ladies are predatory, and the men only want to talk about hunting or politics, neither of which I find particularly fascinating.”

She tilted her head, considering. “You could try being interesting yourself, rather than waiting for others to entertain you.”

“I’m a duke. Being entertaining is not in the position requirements.”

“No,” she agreed. “But being worthwhile might be.”

And with that rather devastating observation, she was gone, leaving Benedict alone with inferior brandy and the uncomfortable feeling that he’d just been seen for the first time in his life.

He should have left it there and should have returned to the ballroom, danced with insipid misses, lost more money at cards, and forgotten about sharp-tongued governesses with golden hair and brutal honesty.

Instead, he found himself seeking her out over the next days. Not obviously, he was many things, but not quite fool enough to openly pursue a governess under his host’s roof. But he noticed when she took the children for walks in the garden. He happened to be in the library when she came for books. He found excuses to pass the schoolroom during lessons.

“You’re not subtle,” she informed him on the third day, when he’d manufactured a reason to be in the morning room while she was teaching the Knicks girls watercolors.

“I’m a duke. I have no need to be subtle.”

“You’re a nuisance.”

“That too.”

It became a game of sorts. He would appear wherever she was, and she would deliver increasingly creative insults to his character, none of which seemed to deter him in the slightest. If anything, her sharp tongue only made him more determined to seek her out.

“Don’t you have dissolute duke activities to attend to?” she asked on the fourth day, when he’d joined her walk with the children, claiming he needed air.

“This is a dissolute duke activity. I’m corrupting the innocent with my mere presence.”

“The only thing you’re corrupting is my peace of mind.”

“Excellent. I’d hate to think I was losing my touch.”

It was harmless, he told himself. A mild flirtation to pass the tedious days of a tedious house party. Nothing more.

But on the fifth night, there was dancing, and Benedict had drunk just enough champagne to make everything seem like a marvelous idea. He found her on the terrace, stealing a moment of cool air away from the closeness of the schoolroom where she’d been mending the children’s clothes.

“Shouldn’t you be inside, charming the masses?” she asked, not looking up from the night sky.

“The masses are thoroughly charmed. I thought I’d share the wealth.”

“How magnanimous.”

He joined her at the balustrade, standing close enough that her skirts brushed his boots.

“Do you ever dance, Miss Grey?”

“Governesses don’t dance at house parties, Your Grace. We lurk in shadows and mind other people’s children.”

“That seems a waste of a perfectly good waltz.”

The music drifted out from the ballroom, a Viennese waltz that would have been scandalous five years ago but was now merely fashionable. Without thinking, or perhaps thinking too much…Benedict held out his hand.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, but she was looking at his hand with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

“No one can see us out here.”

“That makes it worse, not better.”

“One dance. What harm could it do?”

A hollow boast, as events soon proved.

She took his hand.

They danced there on the terrace, in the shadow of Lord Knicks’s terrible topiary, to music that spilled from windows bright with candlelight. She danced well, though where a woman of her stature had learned the waltz was a mystery. Her hand was small in his, her waist warm beneath his palm, and she smelled of lavender and starch and something uniquely her.

“This is a mistake,” she said, but she didn’t pull away.

“Undoubtedly.”

“You are going to forget this tomorrow.”

“Perhaps.”

But he didn’t forget. Not the next day, or the day after, or even seven years later when his life finally caught up with him in the form of a six-year-old girl with his eyes and her mother’s stubborn chin.

The dance ended, and they stood there, still holding each other in the proper form, both breathing a bit too quickly.

“Marianne,” he said, and it was the first time he had used her given name.

“Don’t.” She stepped back, breaking the spell.

“This was… this was nothing? A moment of foolishness. You’re foxed, and I’m tired, and tomorrow we’ll both pretend this never happened.”

“What if I don’t want to pretend?”

She laughed, but it was sad rather than amused. “Your Grace, your entire life is a pretense. You pretend you don’t care about the title you never wanted. You pretend pleasure is the same as happiness. You pretend that being charming is the same as being worthy of charm.”

“You don’t know me well enough to say that.”

“No,” she agreed.

“And I never will. Because in three days, this party will end, and you’ll go back to London to continue your determined march toward dissolution, and I shall go wherever the Knicks’s send me next, and we will both forget this ever happened.”

She was wrong about that part. Benedict never quite forgot, though not for any romantic reason. It was more that she’d been… unexpected. Different from his usual conquests. And what happened two nights later when he found her crying in the conservatory at midnight, having received news that her father had passed on suddenly.

He had held her while she sobbed…what else was a gentleman to do? Even a dissolute one had some standards. She’d clung to him, all that sharp wit dissolved in grief, and he’d thought why not? She was pretty enough, clearly in need of distraction, and he was bored senseless with the house party.

The kissing started innocently enough…comfort, really. But when she’d whispered “Benedict” instead of “Your Grace,” well, that was rather arousing, wasn’t it? A governess using his given name, those prim manners cracking just enough to be interesting. Before he knew it, they were in his chambers, and she was proving that underneath all that starch and propriety was a woman who knew what she wanted.

Capital, he had thought. A liaison with none of the usual theatrical protests.

The next fortnight was quite entertaining, actually. Better than cards, certainly more stimulating than the insipid misses his grandmother kept pushing at him. Marianne, Miss Grey when they passed in hallways…had been refreshingly uncomplicated about the whole arrangement. No tears, no declarations, no hints about matrimony or protection. Just midnight visits to his rooms, afternoon trysts when the young puppies were napping, and one particularly memorable encounter in the library between the poetry and philosophy sections.

She was good company too, when they weren’t otherwise occupied. Sharp tongue, quick wit, and she laughed at his jokes…genuinely laughed, not the practiced titters of debutantes. Made the whole thing rather pleasant. A perfect house party diversion, really. No messy emotions, no expectations, just two adults enjoying themselves with the understanding it would end when the party did.

Though she did have a habit of talking about poetry at the most inopportune moments, he remembered with amusement. Who discusses Byron during…

They’d been careful enough. She always slipped back to her room before the servants stirred, maintaining the fiction of propriety. He’d even won five hundred pounds at cards one night while she was in his bed, which seemed rather lucky at the time. The whole arrangement was exactly the sort of thing he excelled at, pleasure without consequence, companionship without commitment.

Except she’d left before the party ended. He’d woken to find her gone, just a note saying “Thank you for the dance.” Bit dramatic, really, but women were prone to such gestures. The Knicks’s mentioned something about urgent family business. He’d made a few inquiries which seemed the sporting thing to do, but when nothing came of them, he’d shrugged it off.

He’d looked for her, halfheartedly. Made inquiries that led nowhere. But part of him, the cowardly part had been relieved when he couldn’t find her. Because she’d been right about everything. He was exactly what she’d said; a man pretending that pleasure was the same as happiness, that charm was the same as worth.

Best ending to these things, really, he’d thought at the time. Clean break, no scenes, no tears. He’d had a brief moment of… something. Not regret, exactly. Perhaps a touch of pique that she’d been the one to leave first. But there’d been that widow in London to console him, then the opera dancer, then Worthington’s sister-in-law, and Marianne had become just another pleasant memory in a long line of pleasant memories.

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

 

“Your Grace, there is a… situation at the door.”

Benedict Harrington, the eighth Duke of Tomford, did not open his eyes. He remained sprawled in his leather chair with the careless elegance of a man who had perfected the art of aristocratic dissolution. One leg was thrown over the arm of the chair in a position that would have horrified his late mother, while a cold compress pilfered from the kitchen when Cook wasn’t looking pressed against his throbbing temple. The remnants of last night’s brandy…or was it whisky? Or perhaps that unfortunate experiment with gin….churned unpleasantly in his stomach like an angry sea.

“Pembridge,” he said, his voice rough as sand, “unless the situation involves Napoleon himself risen from the grave and demanding tea, or possibly my creditors having finally organised themselves into an angry mob, I am not receiving visitors. I am, in fact, not entirely certain I am still among the living.”

His butler cleared his throat with the delicate precision of a man about to deliver news of some magnitude. “The situation, Your Grace, is approximately three and a half feet tall and claims to be your daughter.”

The compress slipped from Benedict’s fingers and landed with a wet, accusatory thud on the Aubusson carpet, a carpet that had been in the family for six generations and had survived everything from spilled wine to an unfortunate incident involving his cousin Frederick and a potted fern. His eyes shot open, immediately regretting the action as sunlight pierced through his skull like a vindictive deity’s arrow of judgment.

“My what?” He sat up so quickly that several important parts of his anatomy lodged formal complaints. “Pembridge, exactly how much did I drink last night?”

“Two bottles of your finest brandy, Your Grace, half a decanter of port, and what I believe was an ill-advised wager involving gin that resulted in Lord Worthington having to be carried home by his footmen.”

“Ah.” Benedict pressed his palms against his eyes.

“That would explain the sensation that my head has been used as a percussion instrument by an enthusiastic but untalented orchestra.” He paused.

“But it does not explain why you just said the word ‘daughter’ in connection with my person.”

“Nevertheless, Your Grace, there is a young lady of approximately six years at the door, accompanied by a governess who insists quite forcefully, I might add…on speaking with you immediately. She threatened to wait on the doorstep until Judgment Day if necessary, and given her general demeanor, I believe she might actually do it.”

Benedict stood, gripping the back of his chair as the room performed an ungentlemanly waltz around him. His evening clothes were wrinkled beyond salvation, his cravat hung loose like a noose he’d barely escaped, and he was reasonably certain there was a wine stain on his shirt that resembled the Italian peninsula.

“That is impossible, Pembridge. I don’t have a daughter. I would remember having a daughter. It’s not the sort of thing one misplaces, like a glove or one’s dignity.”

“As you say, Your Grace.” Pembridge’s tone suggested he had opinions about both Benedict’s memory and his dignity but was too well-trained to voice them.

Benedict stumbled toward the window, pulling back the heavy curtain with the caution of a man who had declared war on sunlight and was currently losing. Below, he could make out a hired hack, not even a private carriage and two figures on his doorstep. One was a woman in governess grey, the sort of grey that announced to the world that its wearer had no interest in frivolity, thank you very much. The other was small, dressed in black, and possessed a chin tilted at an angle that suggested stubbornness was not merely a trait but a defining characteristic.

“Damnation!” he muttered as memory crashed through his hangover like an unwelcome guest.

Golden hair spread across his pillow like spilled sunshine. Laughing blue eyes that held mischief and intelligence in equal measure. A wildly inappropriate liaison with a governess at the Knicks house party seven years ago. The same house party where he had won three hundred pounds at cards, lost it again at dice, and then won it back in a horse race that had nearly killed him. But none of those victories compared to Marianne.

Sweet, reckless Marianne who had laughed at his terrible jokes, matched him drink for drink and who had made those two weeks feel like something more than his usual pursuit of pleasure.

He had told himself it was just another dalliance. He was, after all, a world-class fabricator, particularly to himself. But Marianne had ruined him for that comfortable fiction the night she had pushed him onto the bed with a laugh, climbed astride him, and whispered, with devastating specificity, exactly what she intended to do with her mouth.

The audacity of her words had been a shock; the reality of her actions was a revolution. He gasped her name. As she lowered herself to fulfill that whispered vow, the world outside his chambers ceased to exist.

Slowly…thoroughly and with a wicked creativity that had left him gripping the headboard so hard he’d cracked the wood , his vision whiting out while she moaned seductively against him…the  searing slickness of her lips wreaked havoc upon him …reducing a grown man to incoherent blasphemy was a pleasant afternoon diversion. He’d returned the favour, naturally and had spent what felt like hours between her thighs, learning what made her gasp, what made her arch, what made her seize his hair and hold him exactly where she wanted him. She’d tasted of salt and sweetness and something uniquely, devastatingly Marianne, and the sound she’d made when she finally shattered, a keening, breathless cry with his name tangled somewhere in it.

It had been the most erotic thing he had ever heard in any darkened chamber where he had sought the solace of the flesh.

The sweet memories still came to him as it was embedded in his tortured mind.

“Marianne,” he said aloud, the name rusty on his tongue.

“I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

“It is of no consequence, Pembridge.” Benedict turned from the window, attempting to summon some vestige of ducal authority despite looking as if he had been dragged backward through a hedge by an enthusiastic pack of foxhounds.

“Send them to the blue drawing room. I need to make myself… less catastrophic.”

“Very well, Your Grace. Shall I have Cook prepare tea?”

“Good gracious, no. The thought of food…” Benedict’s stomach performed an acrobatic feat that would have impressed at Astley’s Amphitheatre.

“Just… keep them occupied. Tell them I am consulting with the Archbishop of Canterbury or wrestling a bear or something equally plausible.”

“I shall inform them you will be with them presently, Your Grace.”

Pembridge bowed and retreated with the silent efficiency that made him worth his considerable wages…wages that Benedict really ought to pay more regularly. Alone, Benedict stumbled to the mirror above the mantelpiece and winced at his reflection.

His dark hair stood at angles that defied both gravity and good taste. His jaw bore two days’ worth of stubble that had passed ‘attractively roguish’ and arrived firmly at ‘disreputable.’ His green eyes, the Harrington eyes, his mother had always called them with pride, were bloodshot and shadowed with the kind of bags that suggested their owner hadn’t seen a proper night’s sleep in years. Which, to be fair, he hadn’t.

He looked exactly as he felt, a dissolute rake who’d spent the better part of a decade avoiding anything that resembled responsibility, commitment, or genuine emotion.

“Well,” he told his reflection, “it seems the bill has finally come due.”

Twenty minutes later, having made himself marginally more presentable, which is to say, he had changed into fresh clothes, attempted to tame his hair with pomade and prayer, and gargled with brandy which probably hadn’t helped his headache but had at least improved his breath Benedict stood outside the blue drawing room.

He could hear voices within. A woman’s, stern and measured, and a child’s, higher and clearer, with a quality that suggested its owner was not easily intimidated.

A daughter, he thought, the word sitting strangely in his mind like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong spot. I might have a daughter.

He pushed open the door.

The governess, a stern-faced woman whose grey dress was so aggressively proper it could have given lessons in rectitude, stood near the window like a sentinel. But it was the small figure perched on the edge of the settee that arrested his attention completely.

The child was undeniably beautiful, with hair the color of autumn wheat that caught the light like spun gold. She wore a black dress, mourning clothes, he realised with a jolt that had nothing to do with his hangover that had been carefully maintained but showed the revealing signs of wear that suggested genteel poverty. Her small hands were folded primly in her lap, but there was something about the set of her shoulders that spoke of courage worn like armor.

But it was her eyes that stole the very breath from his lungs and made his knees nearly buckle. They were green, unmistakably …devastatingly green. Not just any green, the particular shade of sea glass that had marked every Harrington for three hundred years…his mother’s eyes…his eyes.

His eyes were staring back at him from a face that was delicate where his was strong, sweet where his was sardonic, but undeniably stamped with the mark of his bloodline.

“Your Grace,” the governess began, dropping into a curtsey that suggested she had practiced it extensively.

“I am Miss Harwick. I have been in the employ of the late Mrs. Marianne Fletcher these past two years.”

Late. The word hit him like a physical blow, driving what little air remained from his lungs. The room seemed to tilt, and not from the lingering effects of alcohol. “Marianne has passed on?”

His voice came out rougher than intended, and the little girl…his daughter, sweet mercy, his daughter…flinched slightly.

“Three weeks past, Your Grace. A fever took her.” Miss Harwick’s expression softened marginally, suggesting that beneath the starch and propriety beat something resembling a heart. “She fought valiantly, but in the end… Before she left us, she charged me with bringing Lady Rosalind to you.”

“Lady Rosalind,” Benedict repeated numbly, his gaze returning to the child. The name sat in his mouth like something foreign yet oddly right. His daughter. He had a daughter, and her mother was no longer alive and he was quite possibly going to disgrace himself by casting up his accounts in his own drawing room.

The girl’s chin lifted another notch, a gesture so reminiscent of his own stubborn pride that it was like looking through a temporal mirror.

“Mama said you probably wouldn’t want me.” Her voice was clear and precise, with an underlying steel that would have been amusing in a less devastating context.

“She said dukes do not generally care for inconvenient children appearing on their doorsteps like unwanted packages. But she also said I had nowhere else to go …so I am saddled upon you, whether you like it or not.”

Benedict felt his heart perform an odd stuttering motion in his chest, as though it had suddenly remembered it was supposed to be doing something other than merely keeping him alive for the next drink.

“She said that, did she?”

“Yes.” Rosalind’s lower lip trembled almost imperceptibly before she firmed it with a determination that would have done a general proud.

“She also said you have very nice eyes but terrible judgment in women and an unfortunate tendency to wager on things you shouldn’t. I’m not entirely certain what that last part means, but it didn’t sound complimentary.”

Despite everything…the hangover that was attempting to split his skull in two, the shock that was making his knees weak, the grief for a woman he’d known so briefly yet remembered so vividly, Benedict felt his lips twitch.

“Your mother always did speak her mind. It was one of her most alarming qualities.”

“She said it was better to speak the truth badly than to lie beautifully.” Rosalind paused, considering.

“Though she also said that to you once, and you replied that she’d clearly never been to court. She laughed for quite some time about that.”

Benedict’s chest tightened. He could picture it perfectly, Marianne’s laugh, the way she had thrown her head back without concern for propriety, the way her eyes had danced with mirth. “She told you about me?”

“Some things. Not very many. She said you were like a shooting star, very bright and impressive, but not the sort of thing one could rely upon for regular illumination.”

“Ah.” Benedict wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or impressed by the accuracy of the assessment.

“Rather poetic.”

“Mama read a great deal of poetry. She said it was a harmful habit but less expensive than gin.” Rosalind’s composure cracked slightly.

“She has passed on now, though, so I suppose it doesn’t matter what she said about anything.”

The words were delivered with a devastating matter-of-factness that only a child trying very hard to be brave could manage. Benedict felt something inside his chest crack like ice in spring.

Miss Harwick stepped forward, producing a leather portfolio from her satchel. “Your Grace, I have brought her personal effects and a letter from Mrs. Fletcher. She… she wanted you to know that she never intended to burden you with this revelation, but her circumstances changed when her husband passed last year, and…”

“Husband?” Benedict’s voice came out sharper than intended, causing both females to start slightly.

“Mr. Fletcher was a merchant. Quite respectable, dealt in textiles.” Miss Harwick’s tone suggested she was prepared to defend the man’s reputation if necessary.

“He took Mrs Fletcher as his wife when Lady Rosalind was two years old. He was… he was a good man, Your Grace. Treated the child as his own, never made her feel unwanted.”

Benedict absorbed this information, trying to reconcile it with the memories of the laughing girl who’d enchanted him for a fortnight. She’d wedded. Made a life. Raised their daughter without asking him for a penny or using his name for advantage. The nobility of it made him feel smaller than he’d felt in years, which was saying something considering he’d once hid in a dumbwaiter to avoid a particularly persistent creditor.

“I see,” he managed, though he wasn’t sure he saw anything at all through the fog of shock and self-recrimination. “Thank you, Miss Harwick. I trust you’ll stay on as Rosalind’s governess? I’ll triple whatever salary you were receiving.”

The woman’s face fell like a soufflé in a thunderstorm.

“I’m afraid I cannot, Your Grace. I’ve already accepted another position. The Weatherby family in Yorkshire. I leave on the mail coach tomorrow morning.”

Panic fluttered in Benedict’s chest like a trapped bird. He knew nothing about children. Less than nothing. His entire experience with the younger set consisted of occasionally patting his cousin’s offspring on the head at Christmas while privately thinking they resembled underdone puddings.

“Surely you could…”

“Forgive me, Your Grace, but I’ve given my word. The Weatherbys are expecting me.” She paused, then added more gently,

“Lady Rosalind is a remarkable child. Very little trouble. She reads extensively, practices her pianoforte without being asked, and only occasionally puts frogs in people’s beds.”

“That was one time!” Rosalind protested. “And Mr. Jennings deserved it. He said ladies couldn’t understand mathematics, so I proved him wrong with amphibian-based arithmetic.”

Benedict stared at the child. “Amphibian-based arithmetic?”

“Four frogs in his bed, multiplied by the number of times he jumped while shrieking, divided by the minutes it took him to apologise. It was quite educational.”

“Have mercy!” Benedict muttered. Then, louder,

“Miss Harwick, surely there must be something…”

“I am terribly sorry, Your Grace.” She curtsied again, handed him the portfolio, and moved toward the door with the speed of someone escaping a burning building.

“I am certain you’ll manage admirably. Good day.”

And with that, she was gone, leaving Benedict alone with the small stranger who was his daughter. They regarded each other across the expanse of oriental carpet like duelists measuring their opponent, if one of the duelists was six years old and wearing a black dress that had seen better days.

“You do not look like a duke,” Rosalind finally announced with the critical eye of someone who had given the matter considerable thought.

Benedict raised an eyebrow, a gesture that usually sent grown men scurrying. The child appeared unmoved.

“Oh? And what does a duke look like?”

She tilted her head, considering with the gravity of a philosopher contemplating the nature of existence.

“Older, definitely. With more hair in their ears and less on their heads. Considerably more girth around the middle. And they should wheeze when they climb stairs. Mr. Knicks, he’s a duke, Mama said, visited once to discuss some charity matter. He had the most enormous ear hair. Like furry caterpillars had taken residence and were planning to stay for the season.”

Benedict barked out a surprised laugh that made his head pound but somehow didn’t hurt as much as before.

“The Duke of Knicks is three and eighty years old and has not seen his feet in a decade.”

“Are you very young then? For a duke, I mean. You don’t look responsible enough to be old.”

“I am two and thirty,” Benedict said, oddly offended by the accurate assessment of his character.

Rosalind’s nose wrinkled in a gesture so reminiscent of her mother that his chest ached. “That’s still quite old. That’s older than Mama was.”

“Ancient,” he agreed solemnly, moving to pour himself a brandy before remembering that drinking in front of a child was probably one of those things responsible guardians did not do. “Practically decrepit. They shall be measuring me for a bath chair any day now.”

The ghost of a smile flickered across her face before vanishing like morning mist.

“Mama was not old when she passed on. The physician said it was quite young to die, but then Mama told him that death wasn’t particularly concerned with appropriate timing, and he looked very uncomfortable and left rather quickly.”

The words hung between them, heavy and awkward as wet wool. Benedict had no idea how to comfort a grieving child. He could barely manage his own emotions without the assistance of alcohol and an aggressive schedule of social distractions.

“Your mother was right,” he said finally.

“Demise has deplorable timing and even worse manners.”

Rosalind studied him with those unsettling green eyes.

“Are you going to send me away? To school or to live with some elderly relative who smells of camphor and disappointment?”

“I…” Benedict paused, struck by the vivid specificity of the description.

“Do I have elderly relatives who smell of camphor and disappointment?”

“I do not know. Are you not aware?”

“Probably. The Harringtons are remarkably good at producing disappointing relatives. It is something of a family specialty.”

“Like raising roses or breeding horses?”

“Exactly like that, only less useful and more expensive.”

This earned him a genuine, if small, smile.

“Mama said you were funny. She said it was one of your better qualities, though she also said it didn’t make up for your worse ones.”

“Your mother was remarkably free with her assessments of my character.”

“She said honesty was a virtue, even when it was inconvenient. Especially when it was inconvenient.”

Benedict crossed the room and sat beside her on the settee, careful to maintain a respectful distance. This close, he could see the careful mending on her dress, the way her small fingers twisted together despite her attempts at composure, the shadows beneath her eyes that spoke of tears shed in private.

“Rosalind,” he said gently, “this is your home now. You need not worry about being sent away.”

Her eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall, blinking rapidly as though she could will them away through sheer determination.

“Mama said… she said you might not believe I was yours. She said grand people do not like scandals, and illegitimate children are terribly scandalous. She said I might have to be very convincing.”

“Your mother was right about many things, it seems. But she was wrong about that.” Benedict reached into his pocket and withdrew his handkerchief, miraculously clean, which was more than could be said for most of his possessions and offered it to her.

“You have the Harrington eyes. My grandmother will take one look at you and declare you aTomford through and through, probably before criticising your posture and suggesting improvements to your general deportment.”

“You have a grandmother?” A hint of interest crept into her voice, temporarily displacing the grief. “Is she very grand?”

“The Dowager Duchess of Tomford. She is positively terrifying. Eats small children for breakfast with marmalade and toast.”

Rosalind’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“I am but jesting.” he added hastily, realising that perhaps humor about cannibalistic grandmothers was not appropriate for a first meeting.

“She only eats them for dinner. Much more civilised.”

That earned him a watery giggle that sounded like sunshine breaking through storm clouds. “You are very silly for a duke.”

“Another family trait, I am afraid. You are doomed to a life of terrible jests and inappropriate timing. Also, an unfortunate tendency to wager on things we shouldn’t. Your mother was right about that, too.”

Rosalind studied him with those disconcerting green eyes that seemed to see straight through his carefully constructed facade of careless charm.

“You are not what I expected.”

“Dare I ask what you expected?”

“Someone… scarier. With a big voice and lots of rules about things like which fork to use and how young ladies should comport themselves. Mama said you were charming, but that charming men were usually disappointing when you got to know them properly. Like chocolates with lovely wrappers but terrible centers.”

Benedict winced at the accuracy of the assessment.

“Your mother was a wise woman.”

“She was.” Rosalind’s composure finally cracked completely, like a dam giving way to floodwaters.

“She was the wisest, kindest, best mother, and now she has gone forever, and I don’t know what to do, and everything hurts, and I’m scared, and I want her back, but she’s never coming back, and…”

The words dissolved into sobs that shook her small frame. Without thinking, Benedict pulled her against his side. She resisted for a moment, her small body rigid with grief and uncertainty, then collapsed against him, sobbing with the abandon only children could manage. Her tears soaked through his waistcoat as she clung to him, this stranger who was her father, this last connection to a world that had vanished with her mother’s death.

Benedict held her, one hand awkwardly patting her back, feeling wholly inadequate to the task. He’d held countless women over the years, actresses and opera dancers, bored wives and ambitious widows, but this was different. This tiny person needed him in a way no one had ever needed him before. The weight of that responsibility should have terrified him…and it did, but beneath the terror was something else. Something fierce and protective and previously unknown, rising up like a tide.

“It is quite all right,” he murmured, though it manifestly was not all right and might never be all right again.

“You are safe here. I promise. I may be a disappointment in every other respect, but I promise you are safe.”

Eventually, her sobs quieted to hiccups, then to shuddering breaths that sounded too large for such a small body. She pulled back, her face blotchy and tear-stained, her nose running in a way that would have horrified his more fastidious acquaintances.

“I fear your waistcoat is much the worse for my company.” She said with devastating honesty.

“It is an ugly waistcoat anyway. You have done me a favor, giving me an excuse to burn it.”

She examined the offending garment with a critical eye.

“It is not that ugly. Though the color is rather unfortunate.”

“It is puce, Rosalind. Puce is always ugly. It is the founding principle of the color. Someone said, ‘Let’s create a color that offends all of mankind, ‘ and thus puce was born.”

This time she definitely smiled, watery but genuine.

“You’re trying to make me feel better.”

“Is it working?”

“Perhaps.” She accepted the handkerchief he offered again and wiped her face with more vigor than grace, producing a honking sound that would have sent his grandmother into paroxysms. “What happens now?”

Benedict considered the question while his brain attempted to process the complete upheaval of his existence. What did happen now? His life, such as it was, had been built around an endless cycle of clubs, parties, gaming hells, and carefully maintained emotional distance. He had three mistresses in keeping a boxing match scheduled for Thursday, and a standing appointment at his club every evening that usually ended with him being poured into a carriage at dawn.

He had his mistresses patiently waiting to be summoned by him, though none of them stirred anything worth mentioning. He performed his duties in their beds with the mechanical efficiency of a man paying a bill…competent, thorough, and privately wondering whether he had left the candle burning in the study. The last time he had bedded Lydia, she had finished before him and he had been unable to follow. It was an incredible display of pretense, behind his stifled groans and the practiced arch of his spine lay not the unbridled fire of a lover, but the chilling apathy of a man merely checking a ledger.

Somewhere between Marianne and the present, desire had quietly died, and he had not even noticed until its absence became deafening.

He had no idea how to raise a child, no experience with anything approaching domestic responsibility, and his most successful long-term relationship was with his tailor.

“Now,” he said slowly,

“We muddle through. Together. And possibly hire someone who knows what they are doing, because I certainly do not.”

“You will not send me away? You promise?”

“Never.” The vehemence of his own response surprised him.

“You are a Tomford. A Harrington. This is where you belong, even if where you belong is with a duke who can’t remember what day it is half the time and once lost his own carriage in a wager.”

“You lost your carriage?”

“Also the horses. And the coachman’s livery. He was very upset about that last part.”

Rosalind studied him for a long moment with those penetrating eyes, then nodded solemnly.

“All right.”

“All right?”

“Yes. But I have conditions.”

Benedict’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline.

“You have conditions? You are six years old, and you have known me for a scant half-hour, no more.”

“Six and three-quarters,” she corrected with the precision of someone for whom fractional years mattered greatly.

“And yes, I have conditions. Mama said one should always establish terms at the beginning of any arrangement. She learned that from her father, who was a solicitor before he passed on.”

“By all means, enlighten me as to your terms, counselor.”

She straightened her small shoulders and lifted her chin in that way he was beginning to recognise as her preparing for battle.

“First, I want to keep Mama’s things. All of them. Even the ugly bonnet with the purple feathers that she treasured for reasons passing understanding, and the music box that plays off-key, and her books even though some of them are quite improper according to Miss Harwick.”

“Agreed. Though I may need to examine these improper books. For your fortification, of course.”

“Of course,” she agreed solemnly, though her eyes suggested she was not fooled.

“Second, I do not want a governess who smells like cabbage. Miss Harwick was nice, but she always smelled like boiled cabbage, and it was very distracting during lessons. One cannot properly concentrate on French conjugation when one is being assaulted by vegetable odors.”

“No cabbage-scented governesses…noted. Do you have any other restrictions I should know about?”

“Onions are also unacceptable. And fish. Actually, perhaps we should simply specify that the governess should smell pleasant, or at least neutral.”

“A reasonable request. And the third condition?”

She hesitated, vulnerability creeping back into her expression like fog over the Thames.

“Third, could you perhaps… could you tell me about my grandmother? The one who eats children? Only, I should like to be prepared if I am to be dinner.”

“She will adore you,” Benedict said with more confidence than he felt. The Dowager Duchess was not known for her fondness for surprises, and an illegitimate granddaughter definitely qualified as a surprise of the highest order.

“Though we might wait a day or two before making introductions. Give us both time to adjust to… all of this.”

“That seems sensible.” Rosalind yawned suddenly, her small hand coming up to cover her mouth in a gesture that suggested someone had trained her in manners, even if that someone hadn’t been him.

“I am very tired. Is that normal? Mama passed on three weeks ago. Shouldn’t I be less tired by now?”

The matter-of-fact question broke Benedict’s heart all over again.

“Grief is exhausting,” he said gently.

“Being sad takes more energy than being happy. It is terribly inefficient. One would think human emotions would be better designed.”

“That does seem like poor planning.” Another yawn, wider this time.

“Do you have somewhere I could sleep? Miss Harwick and I stayed at an inn last night, but the bed had lumps in unfortunate places, and there was something living in the walls that scratched all night.”

Benedict stood and offered her his hand. She took it without hesitation, her small fingers wrapping around his with surprising trust. Her hand was so small in his, so fragile, and yet her grip was firm. “Let’s find you a proper room. No lumps, no scratching, I promise. We have the highest quality of silence here at Tomford House.”

As he led her toward the stairs, Pembridge materialised from whatever shadow he had been occupying, the man had an uncanny ability to appear precisely when needed, like some sort of domestic spirit.

“Pembridge, this is Lady Rosalind. My daughter.” The words felt foreign on his tongue but not unpleasant, like tasting an exotic food that one might grow to like.

“She shall be living with us permanently. Please have Mrs. Reinhard prepare the rose bedroom immediately and send word to my solicitor that I need to see him at his earliest convenience. Which, given the circumstances, should be within the hour or I will find a new solicitor.”

If Pembridge was surprised by the sudden appearance of ducal offspring, his face betrayed nothing beyond its usual expression of dignified forbearance.

“Of course, Your Grace. Welcome to Tomford House, Lady Rosalind.”

Rosalind studied the butler with the same intense focus she’d turned on Benedict.

“You have excellent posture, Mr. Pembridge.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“My mama said good posture was the foundation of good character. Though she also said that about regular bathing and eating one’s vegetables, so perhaps she believed in multiple foundations. Rather like a house with extra support. Very sensible, really.”

Pembridge’s lips twitched minutely, which for him was equivalent to uproarious laughter.

“Your mother sounds like she was a very wise woman, my lady.”

“She was.” Rosalind’s grip on Benedict’s hand tightened.

“She was the wisest…and the kindest…but… now she’s gone.”

Benedict squeezed back gently and continued up the stairs, this unexpected daughter by his side. The house seemed different somehow, as though her presence had already begun to change it. Or perhaps it was just that he was seeing it through her eyes the portraits of long-departed Harringtons glowering down at them, the slightly dusty chandelier that he’d been meaning to have cleaned for three years, the general air of elegant neglect that suggested a house lived in by someone who didn’t particularly care about living.

His head still throbbed, though the pain had receded to a dull roar rather than the earlier symphonic catastrophe. His life had just become exponentially more complicated. He had no idea what he was doing, no experience with children, and a reputation that would make any respectable governess flee in horror.

But for the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt something other than the restless dissatisfaction that had driven him from one meaningless pleasure to the next. He felt needed. He felt… responsible.

It was absolutely terrifying.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

“Benedict Tomford, you will explain yourself this instant, or I shall have you horsewhipped on the steps of White’s!”

Benedict paused in the doorway of his grandmother’s sitting room, taking in the familiar sight of the Dowager Duchess of Tomford in full fury. At the age of three and seventy, Eleanor Harrington remained a force of nature, her silver hair swept into an elaborate style that had been fashionable during the previous king’s reign, her posture rigid enough to shame a military general.

“Good morning to you too, Grandmother. Lovely weather we’re having.”

“Do not attempt to charm me, boy. I have just heard the most extraordinary gossip from Lady Knicks, who heard it from her lady’s maid, who heard it from your bootblack boy of all people.” She fixed him with a glare that had reportedly made grown men weep.

“Is it true?”

Benedict strolled into the room with affected nonchalance, though his palms were sweating. He’d managed to keep Rosalind’s existence quiet for all of three days, a personal record for discretion, really.

“You shall have to be more specific. Is what true? That I have taken up watercolors? That I have joined a traveling circus? That I have developed a passion for animal husbandry?”

“That you have installed a child in your household.” Each word was bitten off with crisp precision.

“A female child who bears a remarkable resemblance to you and calls you Papa.”

“She does not call me Papa.” Benedict poured himself a brandy from his grandmother’s decanter, ignoring her disapproving tut at the early hour.

“She calls me Your Grace, actually. Very proper. You would approve.”

“Benedict!”

He sighed and turned to face her.

“Yes, it is true. I have a daughter. Her name is Rosalind, she’s six and three-quarters years old the three-quarters is apparently very important and she’s been living with me since Tuesday.”

The Dowager’s face cycled through several expressions…shock, outrage… calculation before settling on something that might have been hurt. “You have had a child for six years and never told me?”

“I didn’t know.” The admission cost him more than he cared to acknowledge.

“Her mother never told me. She passed on three weeks ago and had Rosalind brought to me.”

His grandmother’s expression softened marginally.

“The child’s mother is deceased?”

“Marianne Fletcher. She was… she was a governess. We had a brief liaison seven years ago.” Benedict took a long swallow of brandy, welcoming the burn.

“She wedded a merchant, raised Rosalind as his daughter. Never asked me for anything.”

“And you are certain the child is yours?”

Benedict thought of those green eyes, that stubborn chin, the way she had announced her conditions with imperial certainty.

“She is mine.”

The Dowager was quiet for a long moment, her fingers drumming against the arm of her chair, a nervous habit she’d never quite conquered despite decades of trying.

“This changes things.”

“Does it?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Benedict. You are two and thirty years old, unattached, and have spent the last decade working your way through every widow and wayward wife in London.”

“That is hardly…”

“Your reputation is in tatters, your heir is your dreadful cousin Reginald, and now you have a natural daughter to consider.” She stood, her movements still graceful despite her age.

“You require a wife.”

Benedict groaned. “Not this again.”

“Yes, this again. That child needs a mother. You need a duchess. And I need the assurance that the Tomford line will not die with you or, perish the thought… pass to Reginald and that grasping wife of his.”

“Rosalind is faring well enough. We require no assistance in our domestic arrangements.”

His grandmother raised one skeptical eyebrow.

“Is that so? And who is caring for the child while you’re here?”

“Mrs. Reinhard.”

“Your housekeeper? The same woman who once told me she would rather wrestle a bear than deal with children?”

Benedict winced. He had left Rosalind having breakfast under Mrs. Reinhard’s reluctant supervision. The housekeeper had looked like she was being asked to defuse an explosive device.

“It is temporary. I am interviewing governesses this afternoon.”

“A governess is not a mother, Benedict.” The Dowager moved to the window, her profile stern against the morning light.

“That child needs stability, affection, feminine guidance. Things you cannot provide, no matter how well-intentioned you might be.”

“I am learning.”

“Learning.” She turned back to him, and for a moment, he saw not the formidable Dowager Duchess but his grandmother, who had raised him after his parents had lost their lives in a carriage accident when he was at the tender age of fifteen.

“Benedict, my dear boy, you can barely care for yourself. How many times this month have you come home at dawn? How many mornings have you woken in your clothes, reeking of brandy and shame?”

The accuracy of her assessment stung. “That is different. I have responsibilities now.”

“Precisely. Which is why you require assistance.” She returned to her chair, settling her skirts with practiced efficiency.

“I am giving you an ultimatum.”

“How delightfully medieval of you.”

“Mock me all you wish, but listen well. You will enter into matrimony by the end of this Season, or I will petition the courts to take custody of Rosalind myself.”

Benedict’s glass slipped from nerveless fingers, brandy spreading across his grandmother’s Persian rug. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would and will. That child deserves better than a father who treats responsibility like a communicable disease.” Her voice gentled slightly.

“I’m not trying to be cruel, Benedict. I am trying to save you from yourself. And more importantly, I am trying to ensure that innocent child has the family she deserves.”

“You cannot simply take her. I am her father.”

“You are her natural father, unclaimed and unacknowledged legally. I’m the Dowager Duchess of Tomford with considerable influence and unlimited resources.” She leaned forward. “Do not test me on this, Benedict. You know I will win.”

He did know. His grandmother had never made an idle threat in her life. The courts would take one look at his reputation, his lack of preparation for fatherhood, and his grandmother’s sterling character, and Rosalind would be gone before he could mount a defense.

“The Season has barely started,” he said desperately. “You expect me to find a wife in, what, three months?”

“Ten weeks, actually. I want the wedding before Parliament recesses.”

“Ten weeks? Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“I am practical. You are handsome, wealthy, and a duke. Despite your best efforts to the contrary, you remain one of the most eligible men in England. Securing a bride should be the work of a moment.

“Securing a wife who’ll accept Rosalind, you mean.”

His grandmother’s expression softened further. “Bring her to tea tomorrow. I should like to meet my great-granddaughter properly.”

“So you can assess whether she is worth this manipulation?”

“So I can meet the child who’s finally forced you to grow up.” She rose, indicating their interview was over.

“Tomorrow, Benedict. Two on the hour. And pray tell, make yourself presentable. Both of you.”

Benedict left his grandmother’s house in a fog of frustration and panic. The Dowager’s ultimatum should not have surprised him, she had been pushing him toward matrimony for years. But the threat to take Rosalind had teeth. Real, sharp, devastating teeth.

He walked aimlessly through Mayfair, his mind churning. Ten weeks to find a wife. Not just any wife, one who would accept an illegitimate daughter, overlook his reputation, and presumably possess enough backbone to handle his grandmother. It was impossible. Absurd. Completely…

“Your Grace! Your Grace!”

Benedict turned to find his butler half-running down the street, his usual composure entirely abandoned.

“Pembridge? What on earth…”

“It is Lady Rosalind, Your Grace. There has been an incident.”

Benedict’s blood turned to ice.

“Is she hurt?”

“No, Your Grace. She’s… she’s locked herself in the library and refuses to come out. She says…” Pembridge paused, clearly struggling with whether to continue.

“She says what?”

“She says she will not come out until you promise not to send her away, Your Grace. Apparently, Mrs. Reinhard mentioned something about school, and Lady Rosalind became quite… distressed.”

Benedict broke into a run, leaving his dignified butler behind. He burst through his front door, took the stairs two at a time, and came to an abrupt halt outside the library where he could hear muffled sobs from within.

“Rosalind?” He tried the handle. Locked, as promised.

“Rosalind, sweetheart, open the door.”

“No!” Her voice was thick with tears.

“Mrs. Reinhard says all noble children go away to school. She says it builds character. I do not want character! I want to stay here!”

Benedict glared at his housekeeper, who had the grace to look ashamed.

“It is what’s done, Your Grace. I thought she should know…”

“Thank you, Mrs. Reinhard. That will be all.”

The housekeeper retreated, and Benedict leaned against the door.

“Rosalind, I promise you are not going to school. Not unless you want to.”

“You said I could stay. You promised.”

“And I meant it. No one is sending you anywhere.”

There was a long silence, then the click of the lock. Benedict opened the door to find Rosalind huddled in his favorite reading chair, her face streaked with tears, a book clutched to her chest like armor.

“Mrs. Reinhard said all duchesses send their children away,” she said accusingly.

Benedict crossed to her and knelt beside the chair, bringing himself to her eye level.

“Mrs. Reinhard knows a great deal about linens and nothing whatsoever about duchesses or children.”

“She said it very confidently.”

“People often say wrong things confidently. It’s a terrible habit of adults.”

Rosalind studied him with those penetrating green eyes. “Are you going to get a wife?”

The question caught him unprepared.

“Why would you ask that?”

“Mrs. Reinhard said…”

“Mrs. Reinhard says entirely too much.”

“She said you would need to wed now that you have me. That I need a mother.” Her lower lip trembled.

“But what if your wife does not like me? What if she sends me away?”

Benedict thought of his grandmother’s ultimatum. Ten weeks to find a woman who would not only enter into matrimony with him but embrace his daughter. The task seemed even more impossible when faced with Rosalind’s fearful eyes.

“If I wed,” he said carefully, “it will be to someone who cherishes you as much as I do.”

“You hold me in your affection?” The surprise in her voice broke his heart.

“But you have only known me three days.”

“Sometimes three days is enough.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Besides, you are very lovable. Even when you are commandeering my library.”

She smiled wetly. “It is a nice library. It smells like books and leather and that tobacco you pretend you do not smoke.”

“I do not pretend…how do you know about that?”

“There’s a pipe hidden behind Milton. Paradise Lost, which seems appropriate given the subject matter.”

Benedict laughed despite himself. “You’re too clever by half.”

“Mama said the same thing. She said clever girls make people nervous.”

“Your mama was right. But nervous people need clever girls to keep them honest.”

Rosalind uncurled slightly from her defensive position. “If you do get a wife, could I help choose?”

“Help choose my wife?”

“Well, I will have to live with her too. It seems only fair.”

The practicality of it was oddly touching. “What would you look for in a potential duchess?”

Rosalind considered this seriously. “She should be kind. And she should not mind questions…I have a lot of questions. And she should like books. Oh, and she absolutely cannot smell like cabbage.”

“Your anti-cabbage stance is noted and supported.”

“Also,” Rosalind added, warming to her theme, “she should make you less sad.”

Benedict blinked. “I’m not sad.”

“You are,” she said with devastating certainty.

“You smile and laugh, but your eyes are sad. Mama had the same look after Mr. Fletcher passed”

The observation hit him like a physical blow. He’d spent years perfecting his mask of jovial dissolution, and this slip of a girl had seen through it in three days.

“If I promise to be less sad, will you come out of the library?”

“Only if you read to me first. I have had a very trying morning, and I think a story would help.”

Benedict settled into the chair opposite her. “What would you like to hear?”

She handed him the book she’d been clutching, Pride and Prejudice, well-worn and obviously beloved.

“Your mother’s?”

“She read it to me whenever I was sad. We had gotten to Chapter Three before she… before.”

Benedict opened the book carefully, finding the marked page. “Chapter Three it is.”

As he began to read, Rosalind curled deeper into the chair, her tears drying, her breathing evening out. By the time he reached Chapter Five, she was asleep, her small face peaceful in a way that made his chest ache.

He set the book aside and watched her sleep, this unexpected gift who’d upended his life in the span of three days. His grandmother was right, he did need help. He needed a wife, a partner, someone who could give Rosalind the maternal care she deserved while he fumbled his way through fatherhood.

Ten weeks to find a miracle.

He’d faced worse odds at the gaming tables. Though admittedly, he never had so much hanging in the balance.