Page 90 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“My mother was a sensible woman,” he said at last. “She understood that a wife’s place is beside her husband, and that the comforts of country life are not a deprivation but a privilege. I do not know why you insist on treating Langley Park as though it were a prison.”

“Because you are describing it as though the doors only open when you decide they should.”

She watched the surprise register, brief and genuine, the look of a man who had expected the conversation to end three exchanges ago and could not understand why it continued.

“You are overwhelmed,” he sighed. “These decisions are large, and they are arriving all at once. Once we are settled, the picture will clarify.”

“The picture is already clear, Frederick. You have drawn it for me. You have told me where I will live, how often I may see my friends, which charities I may support, and which interests I must set aside. You have presented every one of these decisions as settled.” She held his gaze. “At what point does the consultation begin?”

He studied her for a long moment. His composure did not crack.

“I am trying to build us a life,” he said. “I am sorry if the construction is not to your liking. But these are decisions that must be made, and I have made them with your welfare in mind.”

“My welfare,” she repeated. “Not my wishes.”

“Your wishes and your welfare are not always the same thing.”

He said it gently. Kindly. As though he believed every word.

The dessert arrived. A syllabub in glass cups, each one trembling when the footman set it down. Frederick took his spoon and ate. He rested his hand on the back of Louisa’s chair and leaned close enough that the starch in his cravat pressed against her bare shoulder.

“I shall collect you at ten on Monday,” he murmured. “I want us to call on Lady Ashton together. She has opinions about the wedding breakfast that I should like us to manage before they become instructions.”

She nodded and ate the syllabub, tasting nothing.

The ladies withdrew after the covers were cleared. Louisa stood beside the drawing room fire while Lady Cresswell distributed coffee and Mrs. Fenton recounted a story about her daughter’s wedding that Louisa could not follow.

Eleanor was not there. Eleanor had not been invited to Lord Cresswell’s dinner because Eleanor’s family, though respectable, did not rank high enough for Lady Cresswell’s table. Her absence felt like a missing wall.

The carriage ride home was quiet. Louisa let herself in and trudged upstairs. She settled into a chair and allowed a sigh that she had been holding in to escape.

She pulled off her gloves. The sapphire sat on her bare finger, and she turned it slowly, feeling the cool metal against her skin. The band was fractionally too large. Frederick had not asked her size. He had guessed. He had guessed, and the ring sat loose on her finger, and she had worn it for weeks without mentioning that it slipped when her hands were cold.

He did not know her hands. He did not know she took her tea without milk. He did not know she was afraid of horses or which books she enjoyed and why.

He admired her. He admired her capability, her composure, her willingness to listen while he spoke. He admired the parts of her that served his plans. He did not know the parts that did not.

Oliver had known.

She pressed her palm against the arm of the chair. The upholstery was worn thin at the edges.

Oliver had seen her. Not the capable version Frederick admired. Not the restful, sensible, biddable woman who would run a household and manage correspondence and reduce her friendships to twice a month. He had seen the woman who argued about Carthage in front of strangers and held ten-minute conversations with botanists about ferns and laughed until she could not breathe at jokes about a valet’s grief over a lost evening coat.

He had looked at her as though she were already enough. He had never once asked her to be less.

She pulled the ring from her finger. It was a ring selected by a man who had evaluated his options, assessed the field, and concluded that Louisa Fairchild would make a sensible investment. Not because he loved her. Because she fit.

She set the ring on the windowsill.

The truth settled within her and refused to let go.

She did not love Frederick. She had loved the idea of him for so long that the idea had hardened into certainty, and the certainty had carried her through two Seasons of hoping and a third of pretending, and now the pretending had worn through and what lay beneath it was not devotion. It was habit.

She loved Oliver.

She loved him even though he had walked away.

CHAPTER 29