“You seem the type,” he said.
She glanced at him sharply, as though searching for mockery. He kept his expression neutral.
“And financial matters?” The question clearly cost her. Pink touched her cheeks. “Am I to have an allowance? Access to household accounts?”
“You’re the Duchess of Blackmere.” His hands tightened against each other. “Access to whatever funds you require. Spend what you like. I won’t monitor it.”
“I’m not extravagant.”
“I didn’t suggest you were.” Though he knew women who would have already been calculating what a duke’s fortune could buy them. “I’m merely establishing that there will be no restrictions.You sacrificed your freedom for this. The least I can do is ensure you want for nothing material.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“Don’t.” He looked away. “I’m being reasonable. Nothing more.”
The rain hammered harder. Through the window, he could see nothing but darkness and the skeletal shapes of trees bending to the wind. They’d be at Blackmere soon. Then this interminable journey would end, and he could retreat to his study and stop pretending this proximity didn’t unsettle him.
“One more thing.” The words escaped before he’d properly thought them through. “The child. We need to decide on a name.”
Penelope’s breath caught audibly. “Has someone already chosen one?”
“The wet nurse calls her ‘the little one.’ Rather impersonal, I thought.” He shifted. The carriage suddenly felt too small. “I assumed you might have a preference.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice went thin. “It feels presumptuous. She has a mother who should?—”
She stopped. They both knew Marianne wasn’t coming back. Not soon. Possibly never.
“Then we give her something that can be changed later if need be,” Alastair said. “Something simple. Rose, perhaps? Or Elizabeth?”
“Rose.” Penelope’s eyes had gone soft. “Yes. Rose is lovely.”
“Rose it is.”
Their first decision. Made together in a rain-dark carriage while pretending they were nothing to each other.
The carriage slowed. Alastair sat forward, grateful for the distraction. The iron gates swung open. Gravel crunched. And there it was—Blackmere, looming against the storm like every other cheerless evening he’d spent within its walls.
Home. The word sat hollow in his mind. Technically accurate. His house, his estate, his inheritance. But it had never been more than that—never warm, never welcoming. Just stone and duty and the ghost of his father’s disappointment haunting every corridor.
Now he was bringing a wife to it.
A wife who wasn’t really a wife at all.
Hammond appeared before the carriage fully stopped, immaculate despite the weather. “Your Grace. Welcome home. And may I offer congratulations on your marriage.”
“Thank you, Hammond.” Alastair stepped down into the rain, then turned. Penelope stood in the carriage doorway, her face pale in the lamplight.
He offered his hand.
She took it.
Her fingers were cold and small and they fit against his palm with unnerving precision. For a heartbeat, they stood like that—hand in hand in the pouring rain while servants pretended not to stare. Then he released her and gestured towards the house.
“Shall we?”
He led her inside to where the servants stood, their faces impassive. Save for their eyes—eyes watching his new wife with barely disguised curiosity.
Penelope’s spine went rigid, but her expression remained calm. Impressive, that. Most women would have faltered under such scrutiny.