Page 12 of A Bride for the Ruthless Duke

“Naturally.”

Ellen returned to the jug before her face could betray her. The rose in her fingers trembled, which was very unfair of it. It had no business telling tales.

He had dropped away over the summer.

She allowed the thought to touch her, only briefly, the way one might touch the rim of a dish fresh from the hearth and then decide to be sensible. Three months without a line after the family’s troubles had gone about town, and she had filled the silence with reasons on his behalf, kind ones and busy ones and military ones, the sort that kept his silence from curdling into cruelty.

Then, in September, a note had arrived.

No apology, no explanation, nothing that acknowledged the three months at all. She had read it five times before breakfast and had asked nothing, because asking would have meant wanting an answer, and she had wanted the note more.

A knock sounded at the street door.

Ellen’s hand closed too tightly around the stem.

Mrs. Dalton’s quill paused. “There, you see. Either your lieutenant has arrived, or the butcher has become uncommonly dramatic.”

“He is not my lieutenant.”

“Then your arithmetic has been wasted on a stranger.”

“Cousin.”

“I am writing to a bereaved woman, Ellen. Allow me one amusement.”

The heavy tread of the footman's boots sounded in the hall. Ellen heard the door open. She heard a masculine voice, low and familiar enough to make her breath disappear. The morning-room door, which she had left open by accident twice and on purpose the third time, filled all at once with red.

“Miss Middleton.”

Lieutenant Vance bowed.

He had come in his regimentals. Of course he had. He knew she liked them, though she had never said so, and he stood half a moment in the doorway as if the world had been generous enough to frame him for her particular benefit.

“Forgive me,” he said, with that warm, easy smile that made apologies sound almost like compliments. “I am told so often that I am never punctual that I have begun to fear it is a settled feature of my character, such as the color of my hair.”

Ellen set down the rose before she could disgrace herself by holding it too tightly. “It is a fault, Lieutenant. I shall add it to the list.”

His eyes brightened. “You keep a list?”

“Of faults? Naturally.”

“I had hoped I was past the stage of lists.”

“That would require fewer faults.”

“How severe you are this morning.”

“How late you are this morning.”

He laughed softly and came into the room, bringing with him a brightness that seemed to alter the faded paper, the thin fire, and the poor tired roses all at once.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Mrs. Dalton said to her letters without rising.

“Mrs. Dalton.” He bowed to her with the same handsome warmth that cost him nothing and pleased her entirely. “You are a vision of industry. I tremble to think what damage England might suffer if all ladies wrote with such purpose before luncheon.”

Mrs. Dalton looked over her spectacles. “England has survived worse than my correspondence.”

“I doubt it.”