Page 80 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“Thank you. Sit, please. I shall ring for tea.”

He took the good chair, the one her mother had reupholstered in blue damask for exactly this purpose, and settled into it as though the room had been designed around him. He was wearing a new coat, dark green, well cut, and he smelled of starch and bay rum and satisfaction.

“I have been reviewing the household accounts,” he said, before the tea had arrived.

Louisa folded her hands in her lap. “Your household accounts?”

“Ours, soon enough.” He smiled. “My housekeeper is competent but disorganized. I shall want you to take over the management of the household once we are married. I have given the matter considerable thought, and I believe a weekly schedule will serve us best.” He reached into his coat and produced a folded sheet of paper covered in his careful, upright script. “Mondays for correspondence. Tuesdays for kitchen accounts and menu planning. Wednesdays for linen inventory and staff review.”

He held the paper out to her. She took it and unfolded it across her knee.

Every day of the week was accounted for. Every meal categorized. Social obligations ranked by importance and annotated in the margin. A column for household expenditure, another for charitable giving, modest and subject to his approval. A footnote at the bottom, in smaller script, regarding the appropriate frequency of visits from her family.

“You have allotted my mother one visit per fortnight,” Louisa said, trying to keep the shock from her voice.

“I think that is generous. More frequent visits become intrusive, and your mother, though a dear woman, does tend to linger.”

“She is my mother, Frederick.”

“And she will remain so. At a fortnightly interval.” He said it lightly, dismissively, and reached for the biscuit plate. “I have also outlined the dinner rotation. We shall entertain on alternate Saturdays. Formal dress. Eight courses for guests of consequence, six for ordinary company.”

The maid returned, carrying the tea tray. Louisa watched her set it down, pour, and withdraw, and used every second of the interruption to fold the schedule along its creases.

“Have I offended you?” Frederick asked.

“No. I… It is merely that I was not expecting a schedule.”

“You will grow accustomed to it. Most women find they prefer structure once they see the benefits.”

Louisa set the folded paper on the table between them. “And if I do not prefer it?”

He looked at her, mildly startled, the biscuit halfway to his mouth. “I beg your pardon?”

“If I do not prefer the schedule. What then?”

“I am certain you will.” He bit into the biscuit and brushed crumbs from his waistcoat. “Now. I wished to ask your opinion on the conservatory. Glass panels or sash windows? I have been going back and forth for a week.”

She recognized the gesture for what it was. He had offered her the smallest possible question, one whose answer could not challenge him, and presented it as consultation. Glass or sash. As though the choice of window in a room she had not been asked whether she wanted constituted partnership.

“Glass,” she said at last. It did not matter in the slightest, but he didn’t notice—or care to.

“I was leaning toward glass myself. Excellent. We are in agreement.” He looked genuinely pleased. Louisa swallowed. Was this how their marriage would proceed? He would present decisions already made and ask her to confirm them, and he would call the confirmation agreement, and they would both pretend the word meant what it was supposed to mean.

Louisa picked up her teacup and held it without drinking. The porcelain was warm against her palms. “I finished a novel this week,” she muttered, and he looked surprised at the change in subject.

“Did you?” He set down his cup. “Which one?”

“Evelina. I had read it before, years ago, but I found new things in it this time. Burney writes brilliantly about the difficulty of being watched and judged before you have had the chance to speak.”

Frederick nodded. “I have not read it myself. I find novels rather unreliable. They give women peculiar expectations.” He brushed a crumb from his trouser leg. “Now, regarding the gelding I bought. My stable master insists the animal is sound, but I watched it favor its left foreleg twice during the morning ride, and I told him plainly that I will not tolerate incompetence in my stables.”

She set her cup down and looked down. Frederick’s voice faded to a low hum as he continued talking about the gelding for another ten minutes. He described its breeding, its temperament, and the specific failures of his stable master so thoroughly that Louisa could have drawn the horse from memory by the time he finished. He did not return to the novel, or to Burney, or to the subject of being watched and judged. He did not ask what new things she had found in a book she had read before.

At the front door, he took her hand and held it. “I am glad we understand each other, Louisa. A good marriage requires order. My parents had it, and they were contented for thirty years.”

“Were they happy?”

The question surprised him. She could see his features rearrange, his composure briefly stalling before it recovered.