Mary stepped inside. She had changed for dinner, but dinner was an hour away. When she had heard his footsteps in the corridor, she had followed them here before she could talk herself out of it.
“I wanted to let you know Tommy had a good day,” she said. “He took all his bottles. Mrs. Bridwell says he’s gaining weight. He slept well after his two o’clock feeding and?—”
“You do not need to report everything to me.” Evander picked up his pen and returned his attention to the letter before him. “If you need something, just let me know. Otherwise, I trust you to manage the nursery.”
Mary stood in the doorway and watched him write. The pen scratched against the paper. He did not look up.
“Don’t you want to know about him?” she asked. “He is your nephew.”
The pen stopped. He exhaled through his nose, a controlled sound, the kind a man made when he was working to keep his patience.
“I am managing a scandal that has reached four newspapers. I spent this morning with my solicitor, this afternoon with a Bow Street runner I have hired to locate Richard, and the last two hours drafting correspondence to every contact I have in the northern counties. I am aware that Tommy is my nephew; I am also aware that I cannot care for him and manage the rest of this at the same time, which is why I married you.”
The last four words hung in the air.
Mary absorbed the blow. She kept her face still.
“Is that all I am to you?” she asked. “A nursemaid with a title?”
“You are the Duchess of Blackholm. That title carries duties and privileges that most women in England would consider more than sufficient.” He set the pen down. “Our marriage was born of necessity, Lady Mary. I intend to honor my obligations to you, but I will not pretend this is something it is not. We will remain in the same house until I find Richard and Charlotte. Then I will arrange for their marriage, secure Tommy’s legitimacy, and ensure your comfort in the future.”
Mary’s fingers tightened on the doorframe. “Ensure my comfort in the future.” She repeated the words as though tasting something bitter. “What does that mean?”
“It means you will want for nothing. And after Richard and Charlotte are found and they marry, we will not need to trouble each other.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath her feet. Mary heard the clock tick on the mantelpiece. She heard her own heartbeat, loud and unsteady.
“We are married,” she said. Her voice was low. “Bound to each other before God until death parts us. Does that mean nothing to you?”
“It means I have given you my name and my protection. I do not recall promising anything beyond that.”
“You are a duke. Surely, you must have an heir.”
Evander leaned back in his chair. His expression did not change, but something behind his eyes closed, the way a door closes in a draft. “Richard’s children will inherit. That was always the arrangement.”
Mary stared at him. The floor shifted beneath her feet, a slow, sickening tilt. “You do not want children?”
“No.”
One word. Flat and final, without apology or explanation.
She thought of the nursery upstairs. Of Tommy’s weight in her arms. Of the song she had sung that afternoon, her mother’s song, and how she had imagined singing it to a child of her own someday. A child with her eyes and his jaw and a laugh that filled a room the way laughter was supposed to fill a room.
That child would not exist. She was married to a man who did not want her and did not want a family, and the door she had not known she was holding open swung shut with a sound only she could hear.
Mary turned. She could not let him see her face. Not now. Not like this.
“We are not finished.”
She stopped. Her hand rested on the doorframe, and she willed the tremor out of her fingers before she turned back.
“What do you want?” she asked.
The Duke rose from his chair. He came around the desk and leaned against its edge, folding his arms. The lamplight caught the sharp lines of his face and threw the rest into shadow.
“Tell me about Charlotte,” he said.
“What about her?”