Eliza found herself leaning forward. “She does seem rather formidable.”
“Formidable.” He tested the word then shook his head. “That is too kind. She once made a bishop apologize for his sermon in front of the entire congregation.”
“What had he said?”
“Something about women knowing their place. She stood up in the middle of the service and asked him to clarify exactly where that place was and whether it included managing estates, raising children, and ensuring their husbands did not bankrupt the family through poor investments.” He picked up his wine glass, drank this time. “The bishop has been considerably more cautious in his pronouncements ever since.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. August’s eyes met hers, and for a moment, something passed between them—recognition, perhaps, or relief that the wall had cracked.
“She sounds remarkable,” Eliza said.
“She is.” He set down his glass. “My father knew it, too. That was why he married her, I think. He wanted someone who would not simply agree with him.”
“Did she agree with him often?”
“Almost never.” He smiled properly now, the expression transforming his face. “They argued about everything. Politics, money, the proper way to train a horse. But they—” He stopped, the smile fading. “They were quite matched.”
The servants removed the fish and brought the fowl. Eliza cut into the capon but did not eat, watching August instead. He had begun gesturing as he spoke, his hands moving to illustrate his points, the stiffness in his shoulders gradually loosening.
“He taught me to fish,” August said, “by falling into the stream himself.”
She raised her brows. “Did he?”
“I was seven. He had decided I needed to learn the proper way to cast a line, so he took me to the stream on the east side of the property. Spent half an hour lecturing me on technique—the angle of the rod, the weight of the line, the importance of patience.” He paused, his eyes distant with memory. “Then he demonstrated. Stepped onto a rock that looked solid, cast the line with great authority, and went straight into the water. Boots, coat, hat—everything.”
“What did you do?”
“Laughed until I could not breathe. He came up sputtering, covered in moss, his hat floating downstream. I thought he would be furious, but instead he started laughing too. We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to catch his hat.”
“Did you succeed?”
“No. It washed up three days later in the mill pond.” He smiled at the memory, his expression open in a way she had never seen. “He had it framed. Hung it in his study as a reminder not to take himself too seriously.”
Eliza felt something shift in her chest, a loosening of the careful control she had maintained since entering this family. She sawhim clearly now—not the Duke of Wildmoore, not the man who commanded rooms with his presence, but the boy who had laughed with his father in a stream.
“He sounds as though he was a good man,” she said.
August looked down at his plate. “He was.” The words came out rough, catching on something in his throat. “He was better than I deserved.”
“That is not true.”
“You did not know him.”
“I know you,” she said then realized the presumption in the statement. “That is—I am beginning to.”
He met her gaze, and the candlelight caught in his eyes, turning them gold. “Are you?”
She should have retreated then, should have turned the conversation to safer ground. Instead, she heard herself say, “My father died before I was born.”
August went still.
“My mother told me he was thrown from his horse on the way to town. A loose stone, a skittish animal—it could have happened to anyone.” She kept her hands flat on the table, fingers spreadagainst the wood. “She was with child. Six months. She said he never knew.”
“I am sorry,” August said, quiet.
She shook her head. “It was a long time ago. I never knew him, so I cannot miss what I never had.” The lie sat easily on her tongue, polished smooth by years of repetition. “My mother raised me alone until I was fourteen.”
“And then?”