Page 107 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

“But endurable until we get our own new things.”

“Oh, if you are to be satisfied with the mediocre.”

This was too much. He was deliberately provoking. “You know very well I am not!” said Cecelia. “But if you are concerned, we can go around all the warehouses together.”

James couldn’t quite hide a wince.

“I know of one that hashundredsof fabric samples for draperies and chair coverings,” Cecelia added.

James looked queasy, and she felt a flash of triumph. The only sort of purchasing he cared for was at his tailor. And, she supposed, when he had bought his horse. All else had been provided by his landlady.

“There will be so very many things to choose from,” she said.

One of James’s hands jerked as if to ward off a curse. He closed it into a fist.

Mr. Dalton had moved a few paces away. During the years when Cecelia and James argued over trust business, he’d cultivated a sort of motionless invisibility.

“We will take this house,” Cecelia told him.

“I have not made up my mind,” replied James.

She glared at him. Silently. Challenging, not reproachful.Certainlynot apologetic. She knew from long experience that she could outwait him.

After a time James looked away. “I suppose it will do,” he muttered.

Mr. Dalton waited a moment, then said, “I will make the arrangements. The cost is quite reasonable.”

James started to speak. But he seemed to think better of it. His jaw tightened, and he turned to the door.

“Very good. Thank you, Mr. Dalton,” said Cecelia.

“Shall we go?” asked James, impatient now.

“I will stay a little longer,” she answered, feeling contrary. “In case there is anything we need, I want to—”

“Make a list,” interrupted her new husband, the phrase an accusation.

“Precisely so, James. A thorough and intelligent list.”

With a sound rather likepfft, he swept out.

Mr. Dalton of course said nothing. And he had, of course, brought paper and pen, including a clever portable ink bottle. He arranged them on a table in one of the parlors, and then was good enough to sit there and note down items Cecelia called out to him as she paced about the house. Gradually, shouting mundane requirements up or down the stairwell—more saucepans, three proper vases, a larger wardrobe, and some oil lamps—she recovered her temper. James was undoubtedly using whatever method he’d created to do the same. The process was familiar.

But the circumstances were not. This was not the past. They were man and wife. She didn’t want to contend with him. She certainly didn’t want him to see her as an adversary. He looked at life as a continual battle—very well. She might not be able to alter his outlook. But she should be an exception. Surely he wished her to be?

Cecelia stood at the linen press, smoothing a pile of bedsheets with pensive melancholy. The pleasures of physical passion were entrancing, shattering, but they were not all of life. And apparently they did not change everything.

Twenty

They moved into the rented house the following day. Cecelia’s maid and Ned came with them, along with James’s things from his former rooms. Cecelia sent for her clothes and other personal items from her father’s house. She thought it fortunate that neither of them had too many possessions, if one didn’t count the mass left by his great-uncle Percival, which she refused to do.

When her trunks arrived on a cart the next day, Aunt Valeria came with them. She walked through the house as the carters unloaded, her round face sulky. “Really, Cecelia, I do not see why you have set yourselves up in this distant place. You might easily have come home.”

“Papa’s house is no longer my home,” Cecelia pointed out.

“Of course it is. And if you would only return, you might be some help to me. Really, you are familiar with everything that needs to be done, while I am not. The servants miss you sadly.”

Cecelia could easily believe that. Aunt Valeria was an erratic mistress. Cecelia experienced a brief, unworthy temptation to hire the staff she knew away from her father. Of course she could not be so underhanded. Except, there was Janet, the cook’s assistant. She’d thoroughly learned her trade and begun to chafe under Cook’s orders. She would be moving on to another position soon, no matter what Cecelia did. And Archie, one of the footmen, was on the verge of leaving as well. He’d told her he hoped to find a place in a larger household. He might like to come here, as the first of a ducal staff that would be much larger in time. Her father’s household would carry on quite well without these two. Perhaps even more smoothly. And Aunt Valeria wouldn’t even notice they were gone. She never could tell the footmen apart. “I’m sure you will settle in very soon,” she said to her aunt.

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