“Excuse me,” he said. “Annabelle, I must leave.”
His sister looked at him. Whatever she saw in his face made her nod without argument. “Go.”
“What on earth are you doing here?” Elinor stood in the doorway of Morland Hall in a dress showing the wear of more than a single day, her hair pulled back in a simple arrangement, and her spectacles smudged.
Newton sat at her feet, his tail curled around his paws. Behind her, the house lay in a hush of illness.
Lucien stood on the gravel drive with his horse and a leather case strapped to the saddle. “I heard about your father.”
“From whom?”
“Your stepmother. At Lady Telford’s.”
Elinor’s jaw tightened. “I asked her not to say anything.”
“I know. She told me that, too.” He paused. “Elinor, you left without a word.”
Something moved across her face. Not guilt, not regret, but the ache of a woman who had weighed her choices and made the one that mattered most, knowing it would cost her elsewhere.
“My father needed me,” she said.
“I know.” He held her gaze. “I’m not here to reproach you. I’m here because you should not be alone.”
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she stepped aside and let him in.
He unstrapped the case from his saddle and carried it through the entrance hall. Morland Hall was smaller than he had expected, a country house rather than a grand estate, its rooms filled with books and old furniture and the faint smell of woodsmoke and dried lavender. It held a lived-in warmth.
“What is that?” Elinor asked, looking at the case.
“A gift for your father. When he is well enough.” He set it down in the hallway. “It is a telescope. A refractor, from the instrument maker on the Strand. I am told it is suitable for observing the moons of Jupiter on a clear night.”
Elinor’s hand went to her mouth. She turned away from him, and he gave her a moment, listening to the uneven breath she drew before she faced him again.
“He will love it,” she whispered.
“I hoped so.”
“So, you are the duke who has captured my daughter’s attention.” William Caverleigh sat propped in bed, a tray across his lap, his color slightly better than Elinor had described.
His eyes, sharp and warm, moved over Lucien with the assessing gaze of a man who had been waiting a long time for this introduction and intended to make the most of it.
“I am, my lord.” Lucien sat in the chair Elinor had pulled to the bedside, a bowl of broth balanced on his knee because there was no room for a proper dining arrangement and nobody had suggested one. “Though, I believe it is more accurate to say she captured mine.”
Lord Morland’s mouth curved. “Ah. Good answer.” He glanced at Elinor, who sat on the other side of the bed with Newton curled in her lap. “You see, my dear? He has sense. I was worried, given his reputation.”
“Papa.” Elinor’s cheeks colored.
“I am an ill man, Elinor. I am permitted to be direct.” He turned back to Lucien. “Has she told you about the incident with the Earl of Whitby’s orrery?”
“She has not.”
“Papa, do not?—”
“She was twelve years old,” Lord Morland continued, ignoring his daughter’s protest with the practiced ease of a man who had been embarrassing her for two decades. “The earl had a beautiful orrery in his study, a mechanical model of the solar system. He invited us to view it. Elinor was fascinated. She spent twenty minutes examining every gear and planet, and then she informed the Earl, in front of six guests, that his model had Saturn’s rings at the wrong angle and that Mercury was positioned in an orbital phase that was physically impossible.”
Lucien looked at Elinor, whose face was buried in Newton’s fur.
“What did the earl say?” he asked.