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He saw how her nose wrinkled slightly at it before she put on a smile.

“You hate it,” he said with a small laugh.

“Oh, Graham, it is awful,” she sighed. “Did the late Duchess not think to use a lilac or even a lighter green?”

“My mother did not have a say. This was all my father, or rather, one of the late dukes in our lineage. It is simply how it has always been.”

“I can see that,” she said in thought. “Very well, it is as you said — we both have our things to tend to, and we ought to begin now. There is no time like the present after all!”

“Do you not wish to sit for a while? I could fetch the housekeeper for you, and the two of you could discuss a few matters.”

“I shall do that with time, yes,” she agreed, “but for the moment, I would rather explore alone, so that I do not cause any unintentional offense when the housekeeper shows me things herself.”

“That… might actually be wise,” he agreed. “All right, but do not make it too obvious that you are looking around without a guide.”

“Of course! I can be very good at evading capture when necessary.”

“Somehow, I do not doubt that.”

With a smile, she disappeared from view. Graham wondered if she was hoping to see something to make her feel better about it all, and he tried to guess at how long it would be before she gave in and accepted that the household was a lost cause. There was no light in it, no life, and no amount of trying to see things differently could fix it.

Much like himself, he thought.

“Welcome, Your Grace,” the housekeeper said warmly, appearing at his side. “Had I known you were to arrive this morning, I would have arranged the formal meeting.”

“That is perfectly fine by me,” he smirked. “You know I have never been one for such traditions. My wife and I shall be more than happy to see you all when you have time.”

“You wife,” she echoed. “I almost cannot believe it. I knew that you would find a wife one day, but I certainly did not think that it would be so soon.”

“Well, when you meet the one you are supposed to marry, one cannot help but… marry them.”

He was trying to sound convincing, and he seemed to have done it well enough that his housekeeper did not ask questions.

“Well, I, for one, cannot wait to meet her. Is she a nice girl?”

“The nicest,” he replied, realizing that he meant it, “but she is not the sort to sit quietly and say nothing. If she thinks something, she will ensure that you are aware.”

“Wonderful. That means the two of you may have brighter conversations than the ones I had to hear all of those years.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know,” she said, shifting from one foot to the other. “When your father would comment on the weather, and your mother would respond with an agreement, or he would tell her that his chicken was dry at dinner, and she would nod in a most demure fashion.”

Graham tried to think back to such ‘conversations’, but he could not remember any. He only knew that his father would call his mother disagreeable, which certainly contradicted what he was hearing now.

“I did not eavesdrop intentionally, of course,” she added quickly. “It is simply something that I noticed. You understand, I am sure.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “And you can rest assured that no such thing shall happen between my wife and me. I am hoping, in fact, that there will be some changes to how things have been done here.”

“That will certainly be an adjustment. The way things are done here is the way that things have always been done, even before you and your brothers were born.”

“Which is precisely why they must change. I cannot stand it anymore.”

“The staff will thank you for that. I know that I will, at least, and I do.”

Graham sighed. It had truly been too long since he had left.

“Now, regarding the matter of showing your wife the grounds —”