Page 36 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)

Thirty-Two

“ Y our Grace. If you will place your initial here… and here… and again at the bottom,” said the solicitor, Mr. Larson.

Logan took the quill, rolled it in his fingers, and set it against the first line. Beneath his hand were documents pertaining to the purchase of the townhouse he had viewed with May weeks ago. He signed the first two lines, and when he reached the last, he paused.

He looked around the study—not his but belonging to the house he was about to purchase. It did not feel right.

“Just the final,” said the solicitor, shifting the stack so that the signature box was directly under Logan’s gaze. “This will transfer the property outright. The owner is in Vienna for the Season, so I’ve included a clause for immediate occupancy.”

The quill hovered. “Tell me again what you think of the house,” Logan said, not looking up.

Larson blinked as if he’d been asked to recite the twelve apostles.

“It is—ah—magnificent, Your Grace. One of the best on Grosvenor. The marble in the foyer is Italian, which is to say, not the usual Welsh imitation. The garden faces west, so you get the last of the sun. The neighbors are—well, there are no neighbors, technically. It is entirely detached.”

“I cannot tell whether it is an entirely good decision to purchase it.”

Larson coughed lightly. “The prior owners had three sons. All gone to university, or abroad. The household staff is loyal—Cook has been there for more than a decade.”

Logan waited for something in the words to settle, but nothing did.

“I recall that May liked the view from the upper gallery,” he said, half to himself.

“Very much so,” Larson agreed, too quickly.

Logan’s eyes moved up, fixing on the solicitor with a predatory intent. Larson flinched.

“What else did she like?” Logan pressed.

“Ah,” said Larson, riffling the top page, “the library. She lingered there. I believe there was mention of the built-in globes. And the north-facing parlor. She was…” He paused, his eyes darting. “She was especially animated when viewing the nursery.”

A tightness caught in Logan’s chest. “Was she?”

“Yes, Your Grace. She said it reminded her of her own, growing up, but it is very small.”

Logan did not recall her saying that as they viewed the house, but he knew it was no place to raise a family. “And the Duke of Somerdale—has he been made aware of the sale? I recall he was interested.”

Larson colored. “He inquired after the property, but Your Grace was already in talks with the owner. I sent his man away with a polite note.”

Logan nodded. “That will do. Leave the documents. I will review them before signing.”

The solicitor’s disappointment was evident, but he masked it with a bow. “As you wish, Your Grace.” Larson stood, gathering his hat and gloves. “Will you require further services this week?”

Logan shook his head. “No.” He waited until the door had closed behind the man, then pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, hard enough to see stars.

A home, he thought, is a house that fills itself from the inside. He tried to imagine the Grosvenor house filled with anything but echo. He could not.

He had watched his father buy house after house, fill each with objects, drive out the ghosts with expense and excess, only to be left alone in the same armchair, year after year, with only the clatter of empty rooms for company. He had vowed, at thirteen, never to become his father.

He had failed.

Logan’s hand shook as he reached for the quill again.

He gripped it tighter. What did it matter where you lived if no one would ever call it home?

What did it matter if you could fill every bedroom with servants and every parlor with flowers, but the laughter that was meant to animate it never came?

The memory that rose was not even his own, and perhaps it belonged to May—a sun-drenched room, voices calling up from the garden, a child’s shriek of delight as she learned to walk across the grass, the feel of a warm hand taking his, pulling him out into the light.

He set the quill down and did not sign.

The streets blurred into themselves on the ride home, as if London had decided to collapse all its afternoons into one long, unbroken smear of carriages and chimney smoke.

Logan kept his eyes forward, and did not notice anything, not even when he was walking up the stairs in his own house, and the sound of laughter—real laughter, not the brittle parody of it—broke through the hush like a stone through glass.

He paused on the landing with one hand on the banister. The drawing room door was ajar, and the voices within were high and bright, weaving over each other like the music of a chamber trio tuning before a concert.

Logan edged closer, compelled.

He saw them in a scene so perfect it seared—May, on her knees, her spectacles askew, arms stretched to catch Rydal as he crawled across the rug; June, lying on her stomach and banging the floor with both fists, urging the child onward; April, holding up a slice of orange as a lure and chanting, “One crawl, just crawl, darling, you can do it?—”

Rydal took a hesitant lurch, then a second. He fell on his belly, and the three women dissolved into giggles so honest and so loud it rattled him.

Logan’s chest felt crushed by an iron band.

May looked up, then, her face flushed and alive, and for a moment their eyes met. Logan wanted to flee, or to shout, or to stride into the room and pull her up into his arms and never let her go. Instead, he stood, frozen, every muscle refusing to move.

I could fill a hundred houses with this and never want for more. I could give up every estate, every ounce of power, for one more minute of this.

Logan backed away and found himself in the hallway, unable to breathe.

The walls pressed in, the carpet was too thick, the air too close. He strode down the hall and out the door, past Bexley, who opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it.

Logan was halfway to the stables before he realized what he was doing. He did not care. He needed to be away, to put air between himself and the drawing room, between himself and the sight of what he wanted so badly he could taste it in his mouth.

You are alone.

May let the butler take her pelisse and gloves, but held Rydal herself, perched on one arm like a slightly overripe melon as she walked into the drawing room.

She found her mother and father both present, and the sight of her mother cheerful and her father looking healthier was so rare that May almost left on principle, lest she disturb a moment of cosmic balance. But Rydal, drooling and arching in her arms, made retreat impossible.

“May!” Dorothy’s cry could have been heard in Hyde Park. She sprang up, nearly knocking her teacup onto the Persian carpet. “And little William! Oh, let me see him, let me see.”

She snatched Rydal from May’s arms with the same energy she’d used to snatch May’s fan when she used it too vigorously at the start of the Season. “Who’s the cleverest child? Who’s the very image of a Vestiere? Look at those cheeks—like little buns, fresh from the oven!”

Her father grunted, but did not rise. “The oven’s not the first place I’d look, but I can’t argue the resemblance. Good afternoon, dearest May.” He nodded.

May smiled, if one could call it that, with her heart thrashing in her chest. “Father. Mother. You are both looking remarkably well.” She kissed her father’s cheeks.

Her father’s gaze gleamed. “They tell me I’m in the pink of health.”

Dorothy, still absorbed by Rydal, pressed her nose to his.

“I would have died without my grandchildren, you know. Absolutely died. Your father, the reprobate, refused to believe in the restorative power of babies.” She transferred the child to her husband, ignoring his protest. “This may not be my grandchild, but I am happy nevertheless.”

“I am not sure I believe that yet,” said Albert, but he held the baby with an expertise that belied his words. Rydal, delighted by the lapel of the old Duke’s coat, attempted to eat it.

Dorothy stopped fussing and drew May to the sofa with a conspiratorial air. “Come. Sit by me. Tell me everything. You are too thin. Do you eat? Do you sleep? Is Irondale impossible?”

May sat, because resistance was hopeless and she had not the energy to muster it. She was, in fact, too thin; her stays had gone up a hole in the last fortnight, and sleep was a foreign country she visited only in transit from one worry to another.

“We are well enough,” she said. “The house is… lively.” She did not mention that she had barely seen Logan in the last two days, that when they met at dinner, they ate in silence, and that she had escaped afterward with the excuse of an ill-fitting shoe.

She did not mention the way he looked at her sometimes, as if trying to memorize her face for later use, or the way she had lain awake last night, palms pressed to her belly, counting the seconds between each far-off hoofbeat as he returned, late, from wherever he went.

Dorothy’s eyes narrowed. “You are not telling me the truth. I can always tell.”

May tried a smile, then let it drop. “I am… tired. There is a great deal to do. The party, the baby, and?—”

“Nonsense!,” said Dorothy with a glare. “There is always a great deal to do. If you are not happy, you must say so.” She shot a glance at her husband, who was pretending to be absorbed in Rydal’s efforts to eat his signet ring. “Go on, darling. You may say it. You have always been the honest one.”

May swallowed, hard. “I am not unhappy, Mother. I am only… I need to speak with you. Alone, if you please.”

Dorothy blinked in surprise but quickly recovered and then announced, “We will take a turn in the garden. May has always found the air bracing.”

Her father barely looked up. “If you wish to make confessions, let me know when you return. I’ve a fine bottle of port ready for the aftermath.”

Dorothy swept out with May on her arm, the pair of them a study in contrasts—Dorothy tall, regal, with every strand of hair marshaled into a glossy chignon, May hunched and shadow-eyed, her spectacles a mask against the world.

They passed the clipped yew hedges and the beds of early roses. Dorothy waited until they were well away from the windows before speaking. “Is it Logan? Has he been unfaithful? Has he hurt you?”

May shook her head instantly, and then more slowly. “No. He has not.”

“Then what is it?” Dorothy stopped, blocking the path with her body. “Is it money? Are you unwell? Has your?—”

May took a breath. “Mother. I think I am… expecting.”

A silence dropped between them. Then Dorothy shrieked. “Oh, May! My darling girl!” She seized May in an embrace so fierce it crushed her spectacles against her cheek. “You are with child!”

“Mother, shush—” May hissed, glancing at the house, but it was hopeless.

Dorothy spun her around. “When did you know? How far along? Have you told Logan? Oh, I must write to your sisters at once?—”

May squirmed free, catching her breath. “Mother, please. I am not sure. It is… early.”

Dorothy’s face was flushed with joy, and her hands were trembling.

“But you must tell Logan. You must! He will be beside himself. Oh, I am so proud of you, darling. I always knew you would be the one to give me my first grandchild—so sensible, so—” She stopped, frowning. “But you do not look happy.”

May tried to compose herself. She was happy, in a way—a trembling, high-strung way, like the first note of a string quartet before it resolved. But the fear was a sour undernote, spoiling every harmony.

“I am afraid,” she said quietly.

Dorothy softened. “Of what, dearest?”

May hesitated. She could not say, of being left alone. Of failing. Of what Logan would say, or do, or not say, or not do. “Of the pain,” she settled on. “Of what comes after.”

Dorothy laughed. “Oh, my darling. It is the sweetest sort of pain, I promise. When it is over, you will never remember a moment of it, except for the baby you hold.”

“That is not what June says,” May muttered, thinking of her sister’s melodramatic tales of childbirth as told by the mothers of the ton .

Dorothy dismissed this with a wave. “June is a disaster. She will faint at the first twinge and wake up with a baby in her arms, never knowing how it happened.” She fixed May with a look so piercing that May shrank inside her own skin. “Now, will you tell your husband?”

May’s mouth went dry. “I… not yet. I want to be sure. And I do not want to… raise his hopes for nothing.”

Dorothy’s brow creased. “He wishes for children, does he not?”

The lie almost came, but May choked on it. “He said… he did not expect them. He is content with things as they are.”

Dorothy considered this, lips pursed. “Well. Men say a great many things. Especially when they wish to appear heroic or detached. I remember your father declaring he would never be domesticated. He cried when August was born, and fainted when April, you, and June followed. Now he claims he fathered an army by sheer force of will.”

May almost laughed. It helped a little.

Dorothy took her hand. “You are strong, May. Stronger than you know. You will do splendidly.”

“Does it always hurt? Not just the birth, but… afterwards. The loving of it.”

Dorothy sighed, all the bluster gone from her now. “It is the best pain there is. You give your whole self, and if you are lucky, the world gives back.” She squeezed May’s fingers, hard enough to leave a mark. “I am here, darling. You are never alone.”

But May felt alone in a way she had never been before. The truth was a stone in her stomach, and she could not bring herself to tell it. She could not say, he does not want this, and he does not want me, not truly.