Page 97 of Caught by the Forbidden Duke
The line between his brows eased. “Expecting me to return having spoken plainly, or not come back at all. She said before I left: if you return having been diplomatic, I will not speak to you for a week.”
Annabelle pressed her lips together. “She is a very sensible woman.”
“She is.” He was still watching her face. “Will you be all right?”
She considered it honestly. “I don’t know,” she said.
He nodded. He did not tell her she would be. He simply collected his gloves from the settee, took her hand, squeezed it once, and let it go.
She heard the front door close from the hallway below, and then the sound of the street, briefly admitted and shut out again.
The drawing room was quiet.
From directly above her, from the study overhead, came the slow scrape of a chair against the floorboards; the sound of a man standing from his desk.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dominic went out at ten that night and walked.
Not toward any club, not toward Miles or White’s or any of the usual coordinates—justout, coat buttoned, hat on, the city opening around him in the way London opens after dark: lamplit passages and the smell of the river, the sounds of coaches on the larger streets thinning to nothing as he moved into the quieter passages south of the park. He walked east along the river, the tide going out, the mud-smell low and cold. He walked until his legs were tired and the sky had gone from black to the grey that belongs to no hour cleanly.
He arrived back at Silverford House at half past four.
The footman at the door nodded without surprise, as footmen did, and Dominic took the stairs without a candle—he knew the house well enough not to need one—and on the first landing, he stopped.
James’s door was ajar. A thin line of light showed at the gap.
Dominic stood in the corridor. Then he stepped forward and pushed the door open slightly.
James was sitting up in his bed with the ship book open across his knees. The candle on his nightstand had burned to its lower third. He was not reading. He was looking at the door.
“You were out,” James said.
He nodded, “Yes, I went walking.”
“It is very early.” He looked at the candle, then back up. “Or very late.”
At that, Dominic smiled, very slightly. “Both.”
James turned the book over in his lap. He looked at the plate inside—the Trafalgar formation, the wind arrows—and said, without looking up, “You made Annabelle sad.”
Dominic stood in the doorway.
“She is not sad at meals,” James continued, still on the plate. “She is sad at other times. I heard her.” He paused. “She doesn’t think anyone can hear her.”
“James—”
“Do you want Annabelle to be sad?” He looked up now. His gaze was direct, as it always was when he needed a plain answer to a plain question.
“No,” Dominic said. “I do not.”
“Then you should fix it.” He set the book on the nightstand and lay down. He pulled the blanket up. “When Annabelle is happy, the whole house is happy.” He settled his head against the pillow and closed his eyes.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
“Goodnight, Uncle Dominic,” James said, from under the blanket.
“Goodnight,” Dominic said.
