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She awoke the next day with the same strange unease in her gut. The only way she could dispel it was to occupy herself with her plan to repel him.

If he regrets our time together, I shall make him want me even less!

She wore another outrageous dress to breakfast, with two sashes slung across the skirts in colors that did not complement one another, but her heart was not really in it.

It did not help that the servants seemed to be getting used to her antics and barely batted an eye when she arrived. Seth, too, simply glanced at her quizzically and made no comment.

They did not discuss the strange shift in his demeanor the night before, and after breakfast, he left for his club.

On the second day, she walked into the library to find him playing with Dove, a happy smile on his face. But as soon as he saw her, he left them alone.

On the third day, he ignored her attempts to gossip. Seth seemed to enjoy hearing the unusual machinations of the ton almost as much as she did.

She was beginning to lose hope of ever finding a topic that bored him. He listened attentively to every word she said.

Even the most ridiculous part of her plan, to pretend to be interested in birdwatching, had somehow become one of her favorite pastimes.

Seth always breakfasted outside when the sun was out, and he had started to teach her all about the birds in the gardens.

He had even introduced her to the robin, who perched on the balcony most mornings, and they had taken to leaving him some bread crumbs to feast on each day.

In short, her plan was working terribly, but her feelings about the marriage had not changed. She was uncertain how she felt about being a duchess and still felt trapped.

Habits were forming in her daily routine that she would never have expected to enjoy.

She walked the grounds, visited the buzzards, planted bulbs, and researched what might grow in the right areas of the garden.

Alicia loved the manor and was beginning to cherish her time in it, but she still missed her sister and her friends and Society.

It was as if, in the time she was spending at the manor, she was losing a part of herself, her character becoming diluted by her duties. No matter how accommodating and fair Seth had been, the fact remained that Alicia had been taken from the life she had always known.

Her father had not written to her once since she had moved to the manor, and every day she waited for the post to arrive, pleased to hear from Katie, Bridget, and her sister, but never fromhim.

She felt as if her father had discarded her. As if he did not care whether she was happy with Seth. To him, her feelings were irrelevant.

She did not know why she cared, but she did. She would often pick up her quill, intending to write to him, but would change her mind at the last minute.

Seth had also started to distance himself the days after the ball.

She passed by his study deliberately a few times a day and could hear him reading aloud to himself or pacing back and forth before the fire.

The carpet in front of the hearth was becoming positively threadbare.

One evening after supper, she had been with Dove in the drawing room for a couple of hours. The kitten sat on the settee, falling asleep when she wasn’t playing with Alicia’s skirts, and Alicia had read her book contentedly until she realized the time, frowning as the clock struck midnight.

Seth’s routines were always fluid, but tonight it bothered her that he was still working and had been reading through his correspondence for so long.

They had not spoken much at supper. He appeared preoccupied and brooding, his responses more clipped than usual, his eyes distant.

Rising from her seat, she went to find him, suddenly nervous about going to knock on his door.

To think I had a plan to disrupt his work and spill tea over his books only a few weeks ago. That thought seems horrifying now.

She knocked, wondering if he might have fallen asleep, and was surprised when the door swung open and his angry glare met hers.

It softened a fraction when he saw her, but not much.

“What is it?” he asked, frowning at Dove, cradled in Alicia’s arms.