Page 31 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)
Twenty-Seven
“ I heard you took Rydal out today.” May laid down her fork, watching Logan’s profile over the bank of white tulips in their little-used dining room.
The footman, perhaps surprised by the rarity of both the dinner and the conversation, withdrew in dignified silence, leaving them alone with the roast and the echoes.
Logan, who had not so much as glanced at her since soup, replied, “He required an airing. Mrs. Paxton insists on it.”
She let the silence stretch just long enough to make it clear she did not accept this answer. “You went to see the Beamonds.”
He inclined his head. “I did.”
May pressed her palms together in her lap. “You took Rydal to meet his grandparents.”
Logan smiled faintly, but it was not the smile she had learned to interpret as victory; it was something more brittle, a white flag in the war of domesticity. “I thought they ought to know him, at least once.”
“And did they?” May’s voice was softer than she intended. “Did they… like him?”
He shrugged. “He is difficult not to like. Even when he is chewing on one’s sleeve.” He raised his own to display a faint smear of what was unmistakably mashed carrot.
May smiled. “He is skilled at endearment.”
Logan set down his wine, but did not reach for his fork. “They asked if they might keep him.”
She went still. “Did they?”
“They claimed it was out of duty to their daughter. But I think it was simply that they had nothing left.” Logan regarded her across the rim of his glass. “Would you have given him up?”
May’s voice caught in her throat. “I hope you declined.”
Logan’s mouth quirked, and he reached for the bread. “I did. But not before wondering if I was doing him a kindness.”
May picked at the edge of her napkin. “You think he is not wanted here.”
Logan considered this, weighing the words. “I think he is wanted in more than one place. That is rare for a child.”
They lapsed into quiet, the air thick with unsaid things.
May watched the candlelight dance on the silver and willed herself not to look at Logan’s hands, because if she did, she would say something ridiculous, like, I wish you wanted me as much as you want to be rid of that baby, or I do not think I could bear to let either of you go.
Instead, she cleared her throat. “He is wanted by me.”
Logan’s gaze snapped to hers. For a long beat, neither of them spoke.
He smiled then, lazy and devastating. “Is my Duchess forming an attachment to the Duke’s ungovernable brother?”
She matched his tone. “I believe everyone in this house has formed an attachment, except perhaps the cat in the kitchens.”
“The cat is jealous. He had the house to himself for years.”
May sipped her wine, grateful for the ease in her chest, however brief. “What did you tell the Beamonds?”
“That I would bring him back. For a visit, when he is older.” Logan’s eyes held hers, unwavering. “I did not say I would ever leave him behind.”
She nodded, the ache in her heart settling into a manageable hum. “You are a good brother, Logan. You are… better than you think.”
He gave a low laugh, and the sound rippled through her like a stone dropped in a still pond. “You are an appalling judge of character.”
“And you are an appalling liar.”
His eyes glinted. “Well played.”
They finished the main course in companionable quiet. May found herself wishing the meal would never end, that they might eat their way through every course in the city until it grew too late for anyone to return to their own, separate beds.
After a while, Logan said, “I am not satisfied with the Grosvenor house.”
May blinked. “You did not like it?”
“It is adequate. But I require more than adequacy. I have never cared for half-measures.”
May’s lips curled. “You are very particular.”
“I am,” he agreed. “And I suspect you are as well.”
She considered this, then nodded. “Perhaps. I have lived a long time in borrowed rooms. It is strange to imagine one’s own.”
Logan watched her with something unreadable in his expression. “Then we will wait for the right one. No less.”
She felt her cheeks grow warm and was grateful for the dimness. “You are very determined.”
“So I have been told,” he said, a shade too lightly.
The servants arrived with the pudding. May took a single spoonful and set it aside. Logan did not touch his.
“You wish to ask me something,” he said, voice mild.
May startled. “I do?”
He smiled, slow and sure. “You always do, when you pinch the edge of your napkin.”
She looked at her hands, found herself indeed doing exactly that, and let go at once. “I was only wondering—” She stopped, started again. “Why do you want to move at all? This house is… more than sufficient. And the nursery is already arranged.”
He considered. “It is haunted.”
She blinked. “By what?”
He leaned back, hands steepled. “Memory.”
May waited, hoping he would continue.
He did not.
She found herself speaking before she quite intended to. “Do you think the new house will be less so?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it will simply be a place where the ghosts are more interesting.”
She smiled, small and sad. “I would not mind sharing a house with a few ghosts, if the company were good.”
He gave her a look, half smile, and half challenge. “You would have to tolerate me.”
“I am very skilled at tolerating you,” she said, and meant it.
He grinned. “You may find it more difficult than you expect.”
She wanted to answer him, wanted to say I do not find it difficult at all, but the words would not form.
Instead, she stood. “If you will excuse me, I am very tired. It was a long day.”
He inclined his head. “Of course, Duchess.”
She left the room, feeling his gaze all the way out.
May did not go to her chambers. She went instead to the nursery, where she found Miss Hall asleep on a little chair, head tilted and mouth open, the picture of exhausted virtue. The lamps had been dimmed, but enough moonlight spilled through the window to show the outline of the cot.
May tiptoed across the rug, peering down at the baby. Rydal slept, hands curled into fists above his head, expression impossibly peaceful. In sleep, he looked less like a duke’s problem and more like a promise.
She reached down and smoothed the edge of the blanket. Rydal stirred, but did not wake.
For a moment, May just watched him breathe. Then, on impulse, she picked him up—very gently, as if he might shatter in her arms. He weighed nothing at all, but he was warm and solid, and his cheek pressed against her collarbone with perfect trust.
May sat in the rocker, cradling him. She wondered what it would feel like to hold her own child. She wondered if it would be different, or if all babies felt the same in the crook of one’s arm—hopeful, terrifying, altogether real.
She startled herself with the thought, and nearly laughed. “Not yet,” she whispered to the sleeping boy. “I can barely manage myself.”
Still, she held him for a long time, until her arms went numb and the room began to blur. When at last she stood and put him back in the cot, she bent and kissed his cheek.
“Sleep well,” she whispered, “little duke.”
She tiptoed out, pausing at the door to look back. Rydal was still, the moonlight painting him in silver.
May closed the door softly and pressed her palm to her heart.
She wondered if she had just made a promise, without even knowing it.
“I do not care if Lady Featherstone never speaks to me again,” May said, addressing the pile of ivory cards as if it contained the whole of the ton’s collective judgement. “Let her send all the pointed refusals she wishes. I am through with making myself pitiable for the sake of tradition.”
April snorted from across the table, where she had taken over the arrangement of small blue envelopes and wax seals. “It is very well to say so now, darling, but what will you do when she arrives at your party anyway, in her hideous peacock feathers, and pretends you are her dearest friend?”
“Trip her down the garden path,” May replied. She licked the tip of her pencil, considered her wording, and wrote, “It is my dearest wish that you join us for an afternoon of gentle company and absolutely no theatrics.” She underlined ‘no theatrics’ twice.
June, perched on the windowsill with her legs tucked under her, giggled. “They say you are hosting the most mysterious event of the Season. Every lady in London is desperate to be invited. I think your power has gone to your head.”
May pursed her lips, ignoring the laughter. “They are desperate for the free ices, not for my company. And the power is not nearly as satisfying as it is rumored to be.”
April looked up, hands stilling over the neat row of invitations. “Why are you doing this, then? You never wanted to compete for the ton’s affections. You have always said it was a waste of spirit.”
May set her pencil down, smoothing the stack of cards. “Because if I do not, I will have nothing left. I have tried hiding. It only makes them hungrier. Let them talk. I shall give them something worth their gossip, as Logan always says.”
June yawned and stretched, casting a shadow over the invitation table. “He does say that. Usually, after doing something scandalous.”
May did not rise to the bait. “If I am to be infamous, I will do it on my terms.”
April grinned. “That is more like it. The May I know.” She signed her name with a flourish on an envelope and said, “Have you decided on the menu for the party?”
May reached into the side drawer and drew out a folded note. “I have, in fact. There is a new pastry chef I wish to hire. She works at the little tea shop on Bond Street—Penelope, the girl with the absurdly long braid. She makes the best orange scones I have ever tasted.”
June’s eyebrows soared. “You are recruiting from tea shops, now? What would Mother say?”
“She would say it is beneath my dignity, and then she would taste the scones and change her mind,” May replied.
April clapped her hands. “I adore her already. Is she coming to the party?”
May nodded, a small thrill running through her. “I asked her to prepare the sweets. If the event goes well, I shall offer her a position as full-time baker for the estate. Rydal may grow up to have a dreadful sweet tooth.”
June looked at her over the rim of the teacup. “You are speaking as if you will be there. For the growing up.”
May froze for a half-beat, then forced a shrug. “He is my brother-in-law. Someone ought to look after him.”
The sisters exchanged a look that May chose not to interpret.
April said, “What of the Duke?”
May fiddled with the edge of the tablecloth. “What of him?”
“Is he—” April began, but June cut in “—as impossible as ever?”
May managed a smile. “If he were not impossible, I would not know what to do with him. Logan has never done a sensible thing in his entire life. He is currently house-hunting with the obsession of a man searching for the Holy Grail.”
“Do you think he will find one?” June asked. “A house, I mean.”
May considered. “Not unless he builds it himself, brick by brick, according to whatever mad vision keeps him awake at night.”
April pressed, “And do you wish to live in this vision?”
May’s answer was so soft she hardly heard herself say it. “I would like to see it, at least.”
The subject seemed too raw, so she waved a hand at the invitations. “Enough about me. With whom shall we seat Lady Ramsey? She despises all of Mayfair, but cannot bear to be left out.”
June grinned. “Seat her next to Lady Featherstone. It will be a duel to the death by scone.”
May laughed, surprised by the sharpness of it. “You are wicked.”
April set down her pen and leaned in. “You have changed, May. You are bolder. Less retiring.”
May looked at her hands, found them steady for once. “It is easier to be bold when you have nothing left to lose.”
June tilted her head. “You do not mean that.”
But May did not answer. Not directly.
Instead, she reached for another card and wrote, “To Lady Miriam Applegate, come as you are, and bring no fear of ridicule. You will find only friends here.” She handed it to June, who read it, then looked at her with something like pride.
“You are building an army of misfits,” June said. “It is very like you.”
May smiled. “Every wallflower deserves a dashing gentleman to sweep her off her feet.”
June made a face. “Not me. I would trip him.”
April nudged her. “You are not a wallflower, darling. You are polite society’s nightmare.”
The three of them laughed, the kind of laughter that wound around the ceiling beams and settled, cozy and bright, in the corners of the room.
After a while, the invitations were signed and sealed, and the sisters sat in a circle on the carpet, legs tangled as they had done since childhood.
June asked, “Do you ever regret it?”
May knew what she meant and shook her head. “I have no time for regrets. If I stopped to count them, I would never do anything at all.”
April rested her chin on her knees. “You are happy?”
May opened her mouth, then closed it, feeling the answer catch somewhere behind her ribs.
She thought of Logan’s hands, his voice when he called her by her name instead of her title. She thought of the warmth in the nursery, of the little weight of Rydal on her chest, the slow realization that perhaps she could be more than an arrangement, more than a pawn in someone else’s game.
She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say, I am learning how to be happy.
Instead, she said, “I am… content.”
The sisters were silent, as if listening for the rest of the answer.
At last, June said, “Content is a good place to start. The rest will follow.”
April smiled and reached for her hand. “You always did set your own rules, May.”
May squeezed her hand back fiercely, but she did not feel confident in her marriage. If anything, it seemed to be falling apart.