Before Three Hundred Guests, the Duke Declared His Marriage Over, Certain His Wife Would Beg Him to Stay — She Placed Her Ring Beside His Glass, Bowed, and Thanked Him for Letting Her Serve His Family

PART 2

Four days later, the first letter came.

It arrived at the manor’s main correspondence desk because the estate postal office had not yet been informed that the Duchess of Ravenshire no longer lived in residence. The butler brought it to Sebastian’s study with the expression of extreme professional neutrality he had been wearing since the fourteenth.

The envelope was addressed in a tenant farmer’s hand. To Her Grace, Eleanor, Duchess of Ravenshire.

Sebastian opened it.

“Your grace — we are writing to inquire whether the winter distribution of seed stock will proceed as arranged. As Lady Eleanor had informed us, it would begin on the first of October. We are also hoping to confirm whether the arrangement to waive October’s quarterly rent for the three families in the lower quarter is still in effect, as she had spoken with Mr. Hadley directly on our behalf.”

He put the letter down. He picked it up again.

Mrs. Brent appeared in the doorway with a second envelope.

“Mrs. Brent. What is this?”

She was sixty-four years old, had served Ravenshire for thirty-one years, and had perfected the art of conveying enormous information through the precise positioning of her chin. At that moment her chin said: You are asking a question whose answer you should already know, your grace.

“That would be the autumn tenant correspondence, your grace. Her grace typically managed the October cycle personally.”

“Personally.”

“She met with each family quarterly. Your grace.” A pause. “She had a ledger. She kept records of which families needed advanced seed credit, which children needed school fees covered, which widows received additional coal through the winter months.” Another pause, slightly longer. “She also managed the correspondence with the estate physician regarding the families in the lower quarter who could not afford the standard medical fees.”

Sebastian stared at her.

“For how long?”

“Since her second year of marriage. Your grace.”

Eleven seconds of silence.

“She never told me.”

Mrs. Brent’s chin shifted two degrees.

“I believe she mentioned it in the household reports, your grace. You may recall she submitted a quarterly report to your secretary.”

He had read those reports the way he read most administrative documents. The summary paragraphs. The final figures. The items requiring his signature. He had trusted the details to be managed.

He had trusted Eleanor to manage them.

“Sincerely,” he said slowly, “how many families are we discussing?”

Mrs. Brent did not answer immediately, which was itself an answer of sorts.

“There is also a matter in the steward’s correspondence, your grace. Three of the summer tenant contracts were renegotiated in October on terms more favorable to the families. Two of the households had crop losses. Lady Eleanor had the documentation prepared. I am uncertain how to proceed without her review.”

Sebastian set the letter down. Then he stood, walked to the window, and looked out at the grounds — tidy, well-kept, the hedges cut level, the gravel raked. Everything in its place.

He had lived in this house for thirty-two years. He had known the address. He had never once looked at the rooms.

“Mrs. Brent,” he said, still facing the glass. “Get me the household ledgers. The last three years.”

She brought them.

He sat at his desk for four hours.

The reply that came from Dorset a week later — when he finally worked up the nerve to write and ask for her help with the tenant correspondence — was three lines, unsigned by anything he recognized.

Your grace. I suggest speaking with Mr. Hadley, who has been my primary contact. He is fully capable.

E.W.

Not Eleanor. Not the Duchess. Not his wife.

Initials that matched her family name. The name she had been born with. In law she was still his wife, still Duchess of Ravenshire, no deed yet signed — nothing about her situation had changed on paper. But she had already decided who she intended to be, and Sebastian understood, reading those two letters, that the paper would eventually have to catch up to her.