She Was Invited to Tea, Never Imagining It Was a Blind Date With the Duke—Until She Found Three Cups on the Table, His Mother Missing, and the Most Eligible Man in England Waiting for Her Alone

 PART 7

There remained one problem, and Evelyn discovered it on her first visit to Alderwick Park.

Loving Theodore and becoming Duchess of Alderwick were not the same decision.

The house was magnificent. It was also enormous. There were wings she could not see from the entrance. Dozens of servants. Estates supporting hundreds of families. A succession of rooms whose primary purpose appeared to be leading into larger rooms.

The housekeeper curtsied. Servants lined the entrance hall.

Everyone knew who Evelyn was — or thought they did. The woman the Duke might marry.

She felt herself becoming a possibility before she had decided whether she wished to be one.

Theodore showed her the library. She loved it. He showed her the gardens. She loved those, too.

Then he took her to a smaller terrace overlooking the southern lawn.

“This is where I come when I want to escape everyone.”

Evelyn looked around at the long sweep of grass, the hedges, the far line of a tenant wood, the pale ribbon of the river beyond.

“Your place for solitude is larger than our entire garden.”

“That sounds like criticism.”

“It is envy.”

He smiled. For a while they walked easily.

Then he said, casually, that the east apartments could be altered.

“For what?”

He looked at her. “For you.”

The words were affectionate. Evelyn felt suddenly cold.

“Theodore.”

He stopped.

“You have already considered where I would live, if we — if we marry.”

“Yes.”

“You have not asked me.”

He stared at her. “I know.”

“Then why are rooms being considered?”

“No work has begun.”

“That is not the point.”

He was confused. And because Evelyn loved him, his confusion hurt more than arrogance would have done. To Theodore, preparing a place for her was tenderness. To Evelyn, it felt as though her answer had already been assumed.

She went home troubled.

Three days later, he proposed.

Not at a ball, not before witnesses — in the Pembrokes’ garden, under the beech tree where they had once argued about poetry.

He had no elaborate speech.

“Evelyn. I love you. I would like to spend my life with you. Will you marry me?”

She loved him for the simplicity of it, and nearly said yes.

Instead she looked at the man she loved and thought of the servants lining the hall, and the rooms already being imagined, and the title waiting, and the whole life that seemed to have prepared a place for her before she had chosen it.

“I need time.”

Theodore’s face changed. “Time?”

“Yes.”

“Do you doubt me?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Evelyn swallowed. “I know I want the man who drinks tea with me.”

He stared at her.

“I am not yet certain I want the life that belongs to the Duke.”

Theodore lowered the ring. For once, he had no answer at all.

Evelyn went on, because stopping would have been easier and worse.

“If I marry you, I become something in the eyes of everyone around us. A duchess. A hostess. A representative of your family. People who barely notice me now will suddenly care what I wear, whom I invite, what I say. Your tenants will look to me. Your servants will answer to me. Your world will become mine whether I am ready for it or not.”

“I would help you.”

“I know.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“That you believe helping me means deciding what I need before I have spoken.”

He recoiled slightly. Evelyn hated herself for causing it, and continued anyway.

“The book.”

His expression changed.

“You saw that I wanted it and bought it. It was generous. But you never considered whether I might prefer to save for it myself.”

“I was trying to please you.”

“I know. The rooms — you were trying to welcome me.”

“Yes.”

“I know that, too.”

She touched his hand.

“That is why this is difficult. You are not cruel, Theodore. You are generous. But you have spent your entire life giving instructions and watching them become reality. Sometimes you decide what is best before remembering that someone else might wish to decide too.”

He was silent.

Then she said the thing she had not planned to say.

“I love you.”

His eyes lifted. It was the first time.

The happiness that should have followed was tempered by everything else, and she felt it happen, and said it again anyway, because it was true and because it was the whole difficulty.

“I love you. That is why I cannot answer carelessly.”

Theodore left without her promise.

For several days he was angry.

Then, gradually, he became ashamed of being angry — because Evelyn had done exactly what he had always claimed to admire in her. She had told him the uncomfortable truth.

Constance found him in the library at Alderwick, staring at nothing.

“She refused.”

“She did not refuse.”

“That sounds promising.”

“She asked for time.”

“That sounds sensible.”

He glared at her. Constance sat down opposite him.

“What did you expect?”

“Yes.”

“Immediately?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Theodore opened his mouth. Closed it.

His mother raised an eyebrow. “Oh dear.”

“What?”

“She was right.”

“I did not say what she said.”

“You did not need to.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I love her.”

“Then learn her.”

“I know her.”

“No,” Constance said. “You know Evelyn when she is visiting your world. Have you considered what it costs her to enter it permanently?”

The question remained with him.