The Lost Son Returns as the Duke novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Duchess Who Wouldn't

"Say it," I said.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you walked away from me to say."

The Hart and Plough was dark and warm, and the fire had burned low in the hearth.

Merewyn had put the benches up on the tables again.

She stood behind the bar with a rag in her hand, scrubbing a spot that was clean.

"I'm not going to Tamworth," she said.

"Nobody asked you to."

"You're about to."

"I was going to say I'm not going either."

"Yes, you are."

She slapped the rag down.

"It's your Duchy, Godric. Eleven lords wrote to you, and you ride out in a blue mantle, and I stand at the back of a hall and watch a woman in silk get chosen."

"I'll choose nobody."

"You'll choose me, and I'll be the alehouse keeper they all wink about over the wine."

"They won't wink."

"They will." She pointed the rag at my chest. "They'll look at your mother's cap and say she weaves for a living, and they'll look at me and say the Duke has simple tastes."

"I don't care what they say."

"I do. I'll be standing right there."

She said it so plainly that I stopped.

"I didn't ask them to make me," she said. "I'm good at what I do. I run a taproom. I know every man in this village by the way he drinks. I won't be a thing at your elbow while hall after hall asks what you saw in me."

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