Page 52 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
Maxwell took it without comment, recognizing the hand before the seal was broken.
He opened it slowly.
The contents were as expected.
Arabella wrote of small things. The arrangement of the drawing room. A visit from her friends. Poppet, who had apparently taken to a particular chair and refused to be removed from it. The tone was light, her words moving easily from one detail to the next without lingering on any single thought.
And yet, beneath it, there was restraint.
Maxwell read it once.
Then again.
His gaze paused over certain lines, not for what they said, but for what they did not. There was no mention of the previous night. No reference to the shift that had taken place between them. No acknowledgment of what had changed.
He set the letter down, then reached for paper of his own.
The pen moved easily at first.
He wrote of his arrival. Of the estate. Of the matters requiring his attention. The words were precise, controlled, as they had always been.
Maxell began a sentence, then struck through it before the ink had dried.
He found himself considering what to say beyond the necessary. Whether to say anything at all. The thought lingered longer than it should have.
Maxwell set the pen down.
The paper remained unfinished.
By evening, the matter that had been left unresolved earlier returned with greater urgency.
A tenant had arrived.
Maxwell stood in the study once more, the man positioned several feet from the desk, his posture rigid but not deferential. There was strain in his expression, a quiet determination that had not been present in the steward.
“You have received notice?” Maxwell asked plainly. Knowingly.
“I have, Your Grace.”
“And yet you have not complied?”
The man’s jaw tightened. “I cannot.”
Maxwell regarded him steadily. “That is not a sufficient response.”
“It is the only one I have,” the man said.
The words hung in the air.
Maxwell felt the familiar inclination rise. Resolution through structure.
It had always been enough, and yet, as he looked at the man before him, as he recalled the steward’s careful hesitation, the quiet dissatisfaction that could not be ordered away, he found that the certainty did not come as quickly as it once had.
“You understand the consequences?” Maxwell said.
“I do.”
“And you accept them should they come to pass?”
