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“The wind is picking up,” Grace said. “I shouldn’t want you to get chilled.”

“Did he even tell us her name?”

“I don’t believe so.” Grace sighed, because direct questions made it difficult to pretend she wasn’t a part of this conversation.

“Dear Lord.” The dowager shuddered, and her eyes took on an expression of utter horror. “She could be Catholic.”

“I have met several Catholics,” Grace said, now that it was clear that her attempts to divert the subject had failed. “It was strange,” she murmured. “None had horns.”

“What did you say?”

“Just that I know very little about the Catholic faith,” Grace said lightly. There was a reason she often directed her comments to a window or wall.

The dowager made a noise that Grace could not quite identify. It sounded like a sigh, but it was probably more of a snort, because the next words from her mouth were: “We shall have to get that taken care of.” She leaned forward, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers and looking extremely put out. “I suppose I shall have to contact the archbishop.”

“Is that a problem?” Grace asked.

The dowager’s head shook with distaste. “He is a beady little man who will be lording this over me for years.”

Grace leaned forward. Was that movement she saw in the distance?

“Heaven knows what sorts of favors he shall demand,” the dowager muttered. “I suppose I shall have to let him sleep in the State Bedroom, just so he can say he slept on Queen Elizabeth’s sheets.”

Grace watched as the two men on horseback came into view. “They are back,” she said, and not for the first time that evening, wondered just what role she was meant to play in this drama. She was not family; the dowager was certainly correct in that. And despite Grace’s relatively lofty position within the household, she was not included in matters pertaining to family or title. She did not expect it, and indeed she did not want it. The dowager was at her worst when matters of dynasty arose, and Thomas was at his worst when he had to deal with the dowager.

She should excuse herself. It did not matter that Mr. Audley had insisted upon her presence. Grace knew her position, and she knew her place, and it was not in the middle of a family affair.

But every time she told herself it was time to go, that she ought to turn from the window and inform the dowager that she would leave her to talk with her grandsons in private, she could not make herself move. She kept hearing—no, feeling—Mr. Audley’s voice.

She stays.

Did he need her? He might. He knew nothing of the Wyndhams, nothing of their history and the tensions that ran through the house like a vicious, intractable spiderweb. He could not be expected to navigate his new life on his own, at least not right away.

Grace shivered, hugging her arms to her chest as she watched the men dismount in the drive. How strange it was to feel needed. Thomas liked to say he needed her, but they both knew that was untrue. He could hire anyone to put up with his grandmother. Thomas needed no one. Nothing. He was marvelously self-contained. Confident and proud, all he really needed was the occasional pinprick to burst the bubble that surrounded him. He knew this, too, which was what saved him from being entirely insufferable. He’d never said as much, but Grace knew it was why they had become friends. She was possibly the only person in Lincolnshire who did not bow and scrape and say only what she thought he wished to hear.

But he didn’t need her.

Grace heard footsteps in the hall and turned, stiffening nervously. She waited for the dowager to order her gone. She even looked at her, raising her brows ever so slightly as if in a dare, but the dowager was staring at the door, determinedly ignoring her.

When the men arrived, Thomas walked in first.

“Wyndham,” the dowager said briskly. She never called him anything but his title.

He nodded in response. “I had Mr. Audley’s belongings sent up to the blue silk bedroom.”

Grace shot a careful look over at the dowager to gauge her reaction. The blue silk bedroom was one of the nicer guest bedchambers, but it was not the largest or most prestigious. It was, however, just down the hall from the dowager.

“Excellent choice,” the dowager replied. “But I must repeat. Do not refer to him as Mr. Audley in my presence. I don’t know these Audleys, and I don’t care to know them.”

“I don’t know that they would care to know you, either,” commented Mr. Audley, who had entered the room behind Thomas.

The dowager lifted a brow, as if to point out her own magnificence.

“Mary Audley is my late mother’s sister,” Mr. Audley stated. “She and her husband, William Audley, took me in at my birth. They raised me as their own and, at my request, gave me their name. I don’t care to relinquish it.” He looked coolly at the dowager, as if daring her to comment.

She did not, much to Grace’s surprise.

And then he turned to her, offering her an elegant bow. “You may refer to me as Mr. Audley if you wish, Miss Eversleigh.”