Chapter 5: The Second Refusal

On Thursday he asked me again at breakfast, between the toast and the marmalade.

"Miss Tallis, I have thought of something better."

"I'm sure you have."

"Your father is injured and cannot work. You are here, and he is alone."

I put down my knife.

"There is a cottage on the home farm with a garden and a good chimney," Everard said.

"I'll have it aired by Saturday. A woman from the village will nurse his wrist."

"He can live there as long as he wants."

"And I would do what?"

"Marry me. Then he is the duchess's father, and nobody asks him for anything again."

I had kept my voice level for two days, and it nearly broke on the next breath.

"You are offering to keep my father," I said.

"I am offering him a cottage."

"In return for me."

"No." He leaned forward. "In return for nothing. I'd give him the cottage if you said no."

"Then give it, and ask me nothing."

He did not answer that.

I stood, and he stood, and the footman by the sideboard became deeply interested in a spoon.

"I won't be saved by a purchase," I said. "Not for my father, not for me."

"That is not what this is."

"Then you will have to find another word for it, Your Grace."

I went back to the music room and worked until my neck ached.

He did not come to hold the lamp.

I told myself I was glad, and I heard that the note under my hand was a shade flat.

At nine I washed, and I put on my plain nightgown, and I wrapped my shawl over it.

Then I went along the east corridor in my stockings, with my candle shaking.

His door was at the end.

It was shut.

I stood in front of it for a long time.

I'm twenty-seven years old, I told myself.

I have been kissed before, and I have been more than kissed.

There was a journeyman, years ago, who was kind and ordinary and went off to Bristol.

It had been pleasant and over quickly, and I had never once lost my place in a note.

This was not the same thing at all.

I knocked.

Not loud.

The door opened at once.

He was in his shirt and breeches with the neck of the shirt open, and his hair was rumpled.

A fire burned behind him.

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