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“So,” Graham began after a while, “how has your first day here been?”

“Surprising,” she said carefully. “I had not expected to make such fast friends with Mary, and I did not expect to be accosted in the garden by your butler, and —”

“Accosted?” he echoed.

“I do not mean that I was threatened,” she laughed. “Only, well, he seems to dislike me a great deal. Mary told me not to take it to heart, however, because he likes things done in a certain way.”

“And if he continues to treat you that way, he shall leave.”

“Graham, there is no need for such drastic measures.”

“There is. There is, because nobody will speak down to you in your own home. Mister Smith did that to me for years as a boy, and he only changed that because I am his master now. It will not happen under any circumstances.”

Mary was right about the Duke defending her at least. A silence fell between them, not because Samantha was concerned but because she did not know what to say to him. She would have thanked him, but it did not feel appropriate.

“Beyond the butler,” Samantha said, breaking the silence, “I would like to ask you something, and if the answer is no, then it is no.”

“It likely will not be.”

“I was hoping that I could redecorate? I know that it would be a change, and a drastic one at that, but we both dislike it as does your staff, and I thought it might be the right time.”

“Will you be all right doing it yourself? I shall be too busy to help you for the most part.”

“That is precisely why right now is the perfect time. With you having so much to do, I shall need a way to fill my time too.”

“Then do it exactly as you please. I shall like it regardless.”

“But your father —”

“… is a man that I hold no connection to, much like this house. Make the walls magenta and the floors yellow for all I care, but whatever you do, do not make it that awful brown color. It has been that way for years, and I could not be more tired of it.”

For the first time since they had arrived there, Samantha swore that she saw her husband smile out of real happiness. She had been given permission, and she was certainly going to run with that.

Then again, there was Mister Smith to contend with. It did not matter that Graham did not want her to bow down to the butler; he was quite intimidating in spite of his short stature. Not only that, but Samantha wished to belong. Not finding a good footing with such a fundamental member of the household was not conducive to that.

“You are still thinking about him, aren’t you?” he asked her.

“I cannot help it. I want to be good at this, and if I am to do that, then I must make him see things the way I do, or at least try to see things the way that he does.”

“Should you manage to see things in the same manner as him, I shall be more surprised than I ever have been.”

And in spite of the fact that Samantha knew it would be impossible, she wanted to try regardless. The butler would likeher, or at least tolerate her, and then the household would be all the better for it. It was now the only hurdle that she would have to overcome, and then at last, she would be ready to begin her new life as a duchess.

Then she remembered the state of her household and how it was in such dire need of redecoration. Fixing the house or her connection with the butler — which would she try to do first?

CHAPTER 19

Her bed chambers were first, she decided.

She wondered if the staff might see her as selfish for making such a decision, but she knew what she was doing. In truth, she had never had to redecorate before and decided that, whilst she made her mistakes, it was better that they happened to her own private room than anyone else’s.

“Are you ready, Your Grace?” Mary asked. “If you are uncertain, I can find someone to do this for us.”

“No!” she yelped. “No, thank you. I would much rather do this myself. I shall not know what to do with myself otherwise.”

“And what if you hate the room?”

Samantha thought for a moment, looking at the murky gray walls that could have been painted at any time within the previous hundred years.