They Called Her the Family’s “Invisible Failure”—Until the Duke Said, “Pretend to Be My Fiancée at the Christmas Ball,” With One Impossible Rule: No Real Feelings. But Days Before the Ball Began, He Was the First to Break It.

 PART 2

The servants of Winterborn Manor saw it first.

The footman who admitted His Grace that afternoon: the Duke arrived, was shown to the blue salon — and did not remain there. Before the family came down to dress, he walked the west corridor twice. The second time, he stopped at the end of the hall, where the drawing room door opens onto the passage, and stood several minutes in the shadows, listening to the voices inside. When the lady’s maid Nell passed him, he asked, without looking at her, whether the guests generally remained in the drawing room until the dressing bell. He had no interest in the portraits. He had his back to them the whole time.

The valet who unpacked his trunks: three questions, put while his cravat was being tied. Does Lady Meline ride? Does she keep any correspondence with London? Is it true she reads? — and he smiled at what the valet said of her books, though the man would swear the Duke had never smiled at any mention of a lady before. Then the instruction: a sidesaddle prepared, a gray mare chosen from the string — the gentlest the head groom had, but spirited.

The head groom’s boy: Shadow was saddled at dawn, before the family stirred, and the Duke himself came down to the stable yard at half past six in the cold, alone, in his riding coat. He stood at the corral gate for a quarter of an hour, watching the path from the house. The boy thought he looked anxious. When the boy asked if they should send someone to the house, the Duke said no, she would come, and he stayed where he was until a figure in dark green appeared between the trees.

And the old butler, who has seen forty Christmases at Winterborn: the Duke drank nothing all evening at dinner, glass untouched at his place — save once, when he raised it, a few inches, toward the far end of the table where Lady Meline sat with the deaf old man and the spiteful cousin.

A man with a scheme chooses his performer the way he chooses a horse — for what she can do for him.

But the Duke of Stormhold asked after Lady Meline’s habits before she had ever spoken a full sentence in his company. He stood in a cold stable yard to watch for her. And he drank to her from the seat of honor, where no one was meant to see it.

Schemes do not wait at stable gates in the December dawn.

Something else does.

So I wonder — which was the arrangement, and which was the excuse?