“You Should Marry My Sister,” the Girl Told the Duke — The Duke Smiled at the Child’s Bold Proposal

Chapter 2

The teacup’s click was a small sound, but Ottilie Vane had spent five years learning exactly which small sounds a room would obey.

She was fifty-one, silver at the temples, dressed in dove-grey silk that had been bought in London and altered twice since, and she had run Elmswood in the Duke’s long absence with the unhurried competence of a woman who had stopped noticing that she was not the mistress of it. She had kept his ledgers. She had dismissed his cook and hired another. She had rewritten the seating at his table so that her own relations sat near the salt and the Thurlow girl sat where the light was worst.

She had also, two years ago, said one sentence to a maid in a corridor, and watched that sentence travel.

“Mrs. Vane,” said Adrian.

“Your grace.” She smiled. It was a warm smile; it had been warm for five years. “How delightful. The child has spirit. One only hopes it is not the sort of spirit that has been encouraged.”