Page 15 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)

Fourteen

L ogan sealed the letter with a precise stamp of wax and set it aside, careful not to disturb the neatly squared piles of paper that bricked his desk.

He had kept himself occupied with correspondence and ledgers for several days, a feat matched only by his record at Oxford, and he would have congratulated himself for it if he weren’t so aware of the reason for his newfound diligence—he had become an expert in the art of avoiding his own wife.

It had been four days since the wedding. Four days since the world began referring to him as a married man. Four days of Irondale House running like clockwork, precisely because its mistress and master occupied opposite ends of it.

He reached for the volume he had been reading the night before—The Logic of Virtue, an obtuse treatise that he’d always found useful for clearing the mind—and frowned to see it missing from its customary position atop the inbox.

His hand swept the desk, checked the writing shelf, even the battered armchair by the fire, but found nothing.

Odd. He remembered placing it on the desk. He never forgot such details.

He slid open the leftmost drawer. The book wasn’t there either, and the contents didn’t look as he had left them. The tray of pen nibs had been shifted to the back, and someone had tidied away the loose sheaf of parliamentary minutes he’d left for reference.

Logan opened the right drawer. The box of quills had been rotated, the bottle of ink capped more tightly than his own fussy wrists allowed. Even his magnifying glass had been re-polished and returned to its velvet case.

Shutting the drawer with a little more force than necessary, he sat back, surveying the room. At first glance, nothing else seemed amiss. The heavy curtains were still precisely draped. The paperweight, a brass rendering of a crouched lion, sat where he’d left it.

He stood abruptly and called, “Bexley!”

The butler appeared in less than a minute. Logan eyed him for any signs of guilt, but Bexley’s expression remained as stony as ever.

“Who has been in my study?” Logan asked.

The butler considered. “Only myself, Your Grace, to bring the morning correspondence. And Mrs. Paxton, to dust. The housemaid is not permitted to touch your personal effects.”

“Has Mrs. Paxton taken up a new habit of rearranging my things?” Logan pressed.

Bexley’s eyes went to the lion paperweight, as if seeking wisdom in it. “Not to my knowledge, Your Grace.”

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and dismissed him. “That will be all, Bexley.”

When the butler departed, Logan went over his desk once more, thoroughly and methodically.

He found a second book missing—Mr. Hume’s Dialogues—then two issues of The Quarterly Review that he had left out specifically for reference on a brewing debate in the Lords. Everything else was present, but nothing was quite as it ought to be.

Who the devil is pilfering books and tampering with my things?

He retreated from the study and into the main hallway, determined to search the rest of the house for the missing items or, failing that, for a confession.

Logan stalked through the entry hall, then the music room, then the drawing room, his eyes sweeping every surface for a trace of paper, ink, or philosophical argument.

He passed only two footmen and a maid along the way, none of whom were carrying anything larger than a serving tray.

The house was otherwise silent—until a voice reached him from the far side of the hall.

It was singing.

He paused, momentarily thrown. The sound was soft, almost a hum, but it gained strength as he neared the smaller drawing room. The song was unfamiliar, but the voice was not. It was May, and she was singing.

He should have walked away. Instead, Logan approached the open doorway and stopped just outside the threshold, unseen.

May was seated in a low, blue-velvet armchair, her back to the door, spectacles perched on her nose, a baby swaddled in her arms. She rocked the infant in an easy rhythm, singing a gentle, wordless melody—something ancient and unselfconscious.

Sunlight from the window caught the edges of her hair, making it look lighter, almost gold, and her face was tilted down in a way that made her jaw seem softer than he remembered.

Logan watched, frozen.

After a moment, she stopped singing and peered into the baby’s face.

“You are a very fine boy,” she whispered.

“You don’t even scream as much as everyone seems to think.

But if you ever need lessons in making a proper noise, you may look to the Vestiere family for inspiration. We are excellent at it.”

She resumed humming, but Logan felt the urge to interrupt, to make his presence known, to do something other than stand like a statue behind the door.

He cleared his throat.

May startled, then turned and caught sight of him. She froze, her expression caught between embarrassment and annoyance.

He did not speak. He could not seem to manage it.

She raised a brow. “Is there something you require, Duke?”

He shook his head. “I was only passing by. I heard…” He trailed off, refusing to admit that he’d been drawn to the sound of her voice like a moth to a candle.

She gave him a look that suggested she doubted him entirely.

Logan lingered in the doorway, a hand braced on the frame. “I see the child is… well.”

She nodded. “He is perfect.”

“I would not have expected such a high opinion from you, given the hour at which he insists on being awake.”

May smiled faintly. “He is not the only one.”

She adjusted the infant’s blanket, and Logan was struck by the sight of her hands, careful and surprisingly gentle. He was not prepared for how that made him feel.

For decades, he had guarded himself against the thoughts of a wife and a child, but May was unraveling him every time she interacted with Rydal.

“You sing well,” he said, instantly regretting the words.

She looked up, the faintest blush on her cheeks. “That is very kind, Duke, but I am afraid you are mistaken. I sing only to drown out the silence.”

He considered this. “Sometimes the silence is preferable.”

“Not always,” May replied, her voice quiet and more honest than he liked.

Logan nodded, feeling unbalanced, then stepped back from the doorway. “If you see any books about, I am missing a few from my study. Philosophy, mostly. If you come across them, let Bexley know.”

She turned her attention back to the baby and said nothing more.

Logan retreated down the hall, only to be intercepted by Mrs. Paxton, who stood sentinel near the stairs.

“Mrs. Paxton,” he said, fixing her with a stare. “Do you know who has been moving things in my study?”

The housekeeper folded her arms, eyes level and clear. “Yes, Your Grace.”

He waited. “Well?”

“It was the Duchess.”

Logan’s jaw set. “She has been in my study?”

“She has, Your Grace. She asked if she might borrow a book. I told her the library was at her disposal. I did not know she had entered your private study as well.”

He thought about this, wondering what in God’s name May was doing rummaging through his books and organizing his desk. It was not the sort of mischief he expected. Or perhaps, it was exactly the sort of mischief he should have expected.

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

She nodded, satisfied, and went about her duties.

Logan made his way back to the study, closed the door behind him, and regarded his desk anew. The pen tray was aligned, the quill box upright, and the entire place looked more orderly than it had in months.

He found his missing book— Hidden Treasures of the Earth —on a table by a chair in front of the hearth, opened to a page with a piece of rose-colored ribbon marking a passage. He stared at the ribbon, then at the words she had chosen to mark,

From the Far East come tales of extraordinary jewels, like the great robe of a maharaja that was made of emeralds and rubies and said to weigh more than a suit of armor…

Underneath the passage, May had scrawled, I wonder what a man such as Irondale gains from books such as these.

Logan read the words once, then twice, then shut the book with a snap and sat heavily in the chair. He was at war in his own house, and his adversary was a five-foot-nothing creature with spectacles and a penchant for order.

Logan smiled, despite himself.

He had not realized the study was a battlefield, but if it was, he was not sure he minded losing a skirmish now and then.

Logan woke early the next morning and, for once, did not ride out. He poured himself into the work of the day, determined not to think of May.

He moved to the drawing room for a break mid-morning, only to find the entire configuration of furniture altered. Where once his favorite chair had been stationed near the window, it now faced the hearth.

The ottoman, previously at a perfect right angle, had been nudged askew, giving the room a new and suspiciously inviting air. The only clue to the architect of this transformation was a solitary peony in a blue-glazed vase, perched on the mantel like a flag planted on conquered land.

Logan crossed his arms and called, “Bexley!”

The butler materialized. “Your Grace?”

Logan pointed to the chair. “Who did this?”

Bexley surveyed the room. “The Duchess, Your Grace. She had the footmen reconfigure the furnishings to her liking.”

He raised a brow. “And what, precisely, is her liking?”

Bexley seemed to consider. “It appears she prefers warmth and sunlight, Your Grace. And flowers.”

Logan looked again at the peony, then at the way the chairs clustered now, as if expecting company. The room did feel less like a mausoleum and more like a place where someone might actually live. He could not decide if that was a victory or a defeat.

“Very well,” Logan said. “Let her have her—” he waved a hand vaguely “—arrangements.”

Bexley nodded, but before he could leave, Logan added, “If she requests any changes to the library or the wine cellar, notify me at once.”