Every woman in London was warned never to sit beside Alistair, Duke of Roth. Yet Lydia Penhallow accepted her sisters’ wager and unexpectedly talked with him until the ball ended. The next morning, everyone was stunned when the feared Duke arrived at her door with an offer that could save her entire family.

PART 7

Alistair slowly looked up from the ledger. He blinked — clearly taken aback. He had expected gratitude. He had expected relief.

“He was going to call the bailiffs,” he said, brow furrowing. “They would have taken the furniture out from under you.”

“And that is my problem to solve.”

Lydia exploded.

Her voice finally broke its careful, measured restraint. She walked around the desk, stopping two feet from him. She did not care that he was a duke. She did not care that he was feared.

“You had no right to step in here and pay my debts like — like I am one of your charity cases. Like I am a helpless child who cannot manage her own ruin.”

Alistair’s jaw hardened. He planted his cane firmly on the floor.

“You were going to give him your cloak.”

“It is mine to give.”

“The only thing that keeps you warm in this miserable, drafty house.” His voice did not rise, which made it worse. “I saw you shivering in the park, Lydia. I will not stand by and watch you freeze because of your father’s incompetence and your mother’s vanity.”

“My family’s incompetence is mine to manage.”

She fired it back, and tears of sheer helpless frustration prickled at the corners of her eyes. She refused to let them fall.

“I have spent five years fighting to keep this roof over our heads. I have sacrificed everything — my youth, my prospects, my very dignity — to hold the line. And you just wipe it away with a toss of a coin. You make me look —” Her voice cracked. “You make me feel entirely useless.”

Alistair stared at her.

The anger drained from his face, leaving behind a profound, aching understanding.

“I did not do it to diminish you, Lydia.”

He said it softly, the gravel in his voice scraping against the quiet room.

“I did it because I know what it looks like when a soldier is out of ammunition, surrounded, and fighting with a broken blade. You are exhausted. You are bleeding out to save people who do not even notice the blood.”

Lydia closed her eyes and turned her face away from him. A single tear escaped, cutting a hot path down her cheek.

“I don’t know how to be anything else.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “If I am not the one holding it together — who am I?”

Alistair took a step closer. The heavy thud of his irregular gait sounded loud in the small room. He reached out and gently grasped her shoulder with a large, scarred hand.

“You are Lydia,” he said quietly. “And you do not have to hold the line alone anymore.”

Lydia opened her eyes and looked up at him. The scent of rain and wool and sandalwood enveloped her. For the first time in five years, the crushing weight on her shoulders felt lighter.

“I will repay you,” she said stubbornly, though her voice was trembling. “Every penny.”

Alistair’s mouth twitched.

“Then consider the sum a loan, Miss Penhallow.” He let go of her shoulder. “I shall permit you to negotiate unusually favorable terms.”

Lydia frowned, sniffing slightly, a reluctant laugh catching in her throat despite herself. “What terms?”

“A conversation. For when you are not actively trying to murder me with your eyes.”

He said it gently. Then he stepped back, deliberately re-establishing the physical boundary between them.

“I will take my leave.” He picked up his hat from the hall table. “Dry your face, Lydia. The butcher is paid. Let yourself rest for one afternoon.”

He turned and walked out, leaving muddy footprints on the Turkish rug — and leaving Lydia entirely undone.

Over the following six weeks, their morning walks in Hyde Park became a quiet ritual, weather and gossip alike ignored. Lydia gradually learned the man beneath the title — his dry, exacting humor, the particular days his leg troubled him worst, the silence he fell into whenever a letter arrived bearing a regimental seal. He, in turn, learned the creak of the third stair in the Penhallow townhouse, and that she took her tea exactly as strong as he took his, and said so the first time without being asked.

The letter arrived on a gray Tuesday morning, six weeks to the day since the Radcliffe Soirée.

It was not sealed with the heavy wax crest of the Duke of Roth. It was simply folded, sealed with a plain drop of red wax. Lydia opened it in the privacy of her small bedroom.

Lydia,

My solicitor informs me that I own an estate in Cornwall that is currently mismanaged, a townhouse that requires staffing, and a fortune that requires sensible allocation.

He also informs me that I am utterly incapable of managing these things without threatening my staff with physical violence.

I require an administrator. I require someone who does not flinch, who understands the brutal mathematics of survival, and who will not tolerate nonsense from me, my doctors, or the town.

My carriage will arrive at two o’clock. If you are inclined to negotiate the terms of your employment — and the terms of our future — be in it.

Alistair

Lydia read the note three times.

It was the most unromantic, practical, beautiful thing she had ever read.

He was not offering to save her. He was offering her a job. He was offering her a partnership. He was recognizing the exact skills society deemed useless and elevating them to a position of power.

At exactly two o’clock, she stepped out of the front door wearing her mended green silk dress and her dark blue velvet carriage cloak.

Charlotte and Georgiana watched from the drawing-room window in stunned silence as the massive black lacquered carriage bearing the Roth crest pulled away with their sister inside.