Page 52 of A Bride for the Ruthless Duke

“…the question only of which account it draws upon, Your Grace.” Crewe’s voice, dry and careful. “The duchess’s allowance. Whether it comes off the Wrenfield rents or out of London.”

“From neither.” Theodore, flat. “It comes from my own funds and from no estate. It appears on no rent-roll and in no steward’s book where a second hand might read it. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly, Your Grace.”

“One thing further, and I will say it once. No sum touching the duchess, no figure, no arrangement, nothing at all, is ever discussed with Lord Middleton, nor with any man who comes in his name, nor with any creditor of his who has persuaded himself a duke’s matrimony has made his paper good.” A pause, and the voice did not rise, which somehow made it worse. “If Middleton writes, he is told his sister is well. If he calls, he is told the same and shown the door. He is given nothing. Not money. Not the hour of the day.”

“Entirely understood, Your Grace. And the Hartside beasts for the Martinmas sale, if I may put in a word about the reserve price.”

Ellen did not hear about the beasts. She had stepped back from the door, soundless on the matting, and withdrawn to the foot of the stairs to wait, because the man she had come to find was inside that room, and she was not yet willing to be seen having heard the thing she had heard.

When the study door opened and Crewe came out with his folio under his arm, she was at the stair-foot before he had drawn it shut behind him.

“Mr. Crewe. A word, if His Grace can spare you.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” He had the careful blankness of a man who managed a great deal and committed none of it to his face.

“The Burton roof. The north pitch is down and the patch is failing, and the family cannot carry the cost. I want it rethatched before the hard frost, at the estate’s charge, and begun this week.”

“That is a matter I should ordinarily carry to His Grace, my lady.”

“Then carry it, and he will tell you it is the duchess’s prerogative to keep a tenant’s roof on his head, and you will have saved yourself the walk by simply doing it.” She held his eye. “Or will you tell me the mistress of Wrenfield may not mend a roof without authorisation?”

“No, Your Grace. The mistress may mend what she pleases.” Something almost like respect moved under the blankness. “It shall be begun this week.”

“Excellent. Then the Burton bottom land. Forty acres of river meadow that left the holding four years ago.” She held his gaze steadfastly. “Who holds it now?”

He checked himself before replying. “It was sold through an agent, my lady. Several such parcels were, all along the bottom. I handled the Wrenfield end of the conveyancing as instructed.”

“Instructed by whom?”

“By a firm in London, Your Grace, acting for the purchaser. The understanding was that His Grace had no objection, the land being poor and the price fair.”

“An understanding? Between whom? Did the duke instruct the sales, or did a London firm inform you he had no objection, and you took the informing for the duke’s own word?”

Crewe was silent a moment too long. “I took it that a firm of that standing would not misrepresent His Grace’s mind.”

“And it did not once occur to you to put the question to His Grace himself.”

“It is not my place to carry every parcel of poor meadow to a duke, my lady.” He said it without conviction now, hearing it as she heard it.

“No. I daresay it is not. But somebody has been spending my husband’s name up and down this river for four years, Mr. Crewe, buying the ground from under his own tenants on the strength of an objection he was never once asked to make. I should like to know which firm, and whose money stands behind the firm, and whose name stands behind the money.” She gathered the basket. “Find me that discreetly. Mend the roof. We will speak again when you have the one and have begun the other.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” And then, as she turned to go, lower, “Your Grace will forgive me. You sound very much like the late duchess. She had the trick of the awkward question too.”

“Then I am in good company. Good night, Mr. Crewe.”

She made no mention of anything which had transpired at dinner. She made her answers when they were wanted and allowed Augusta to carry the rest, and was aware, once, of the old woman’s eyes resting on her a beat too long.

“You are very quiet tonight, child.”

“I walked a long way. Two cottages, and the lane is steep.” She made herself smile. “I am merely a trifle fatigued.”

“Mm.” Augusta plainly believed not a syllable of it, and let it lie regardless, which was the second-kindest thing she did and the reason Ellen could bear being cherished by her.

She lay awake a long time, turning it over.

Her brother had sold her to clear his debts, and then, she understood now, had come scratching at the door of the man who bought her, looking for more, and her husband had built a wall around her so high and so quiet that she had lived two months behind it without knowing it stood. He had not told her. He had not asked to be thanked. He had decided, alone in a study, that she should never again be made to share a room with the man who had ruined her, and had made it so, and let her go on believing him cold.