Percival had been in and out of the study three times before 10:00. The Dowager Duchess Heloise had summoned her personal solicitor from the village, a small, neat man named Mr. Aldous Pritt, who arrived in a very clean coat and disappeared into the Dowager's private sitting room with a leather case under his arm. Caulder found Nora in the library at 11:00. He came in and closed the door and stood for a moment looking at her in that way he had, direct and without management.
And she set down her book and looked back at him with the ease of someone who had stopped being surprised by his attention and started simply receiving it. "My grandmother has been busy this morning," he said. "I noticed Mr. Aldous Pritt arriving. She is updating certain documents. " He paused.
"She wants to meet with you this afternoon, formally. She asked me to tell you it is not an interrogation. Is it an interrogation? Probably slightly, he said. She is thorough.
But she is also on your side, which makes it manageable. Nora almost smiled. I will survive it. He crossed the room and sat down in the chair beside hers and looked at her with an expression that was no longer almost a smile. It was completely one.
Open and real and belonging to a person rather than a duke. I wrote to your mother this morning, he said. Nora went still. You wrote to my mother. I introduced myself.
I told her I had met her daughter at Ashvale Manor and that I intended to speak to her directly about my intentions as soon as the appropriate arrangements could be made. He looked at her steadily. I thought she should hear it from me before it came through other channels. Ketmore being the size it is. Nora thought of her mother, a quiet woman in a small house on the edge of a field that had been worrying them both for two years.
Opening a letter in the morning post with the seal of the Duke of Ashvale on the outside. She's going to sit down very suddenly. Nora said. I anticipated that possibility. Called I said.