She had not expected to be the one he kept. Lady Farroww looked at Nora with an expression that was equal parts fury and calculation. Nora gave her aunt a small, helpless look that said she was as confused by this as anyone. Lady Farroww pressed her lips together. She gathered her three daughters with a single sweeping gesture and led them out of the room with the composure of a woman who intended to speak at length about this later in private.
The other families followed. There were murmurs. There were whispers sharp enough to cut. Percival caught pieces of them as he moved toward the door. "Not even a candidate. " "Lady Farroww will be furious for a month. " "Who is she?
Does anyone actually know her? " "The duke has lost his mind entirely. " Percival lingered near the door until the duke gave him a single look, and then he too stepped out and pulled the heavy doors closed behind him. Inside the receiving room, it was now just the Duke, Mrs. Corbett seated rigidly in a chair near the window as though her spine had been replaced with iron, and Nora Vane standing in the middle of the floor with her hands folded in front of her, and the faint ink stain still visible on her left thumb. The fire crackled. Outside, the first carriages were already being called around because several of the families had apparently decided that waiting for an unclear outcome was beneath their dignity.
Nora spoke first because the silence had gone on long enough, and she had never been good at pretending not to notice things. Your Grace, I would genuinely like to understand what is happening. Sit down, Miss Vane. I would rather stand if it is all the same. He looked at her again, and for a moment, something that might have been amusement crossed his face, though it was gone before she could confirm it.
He sat down himself in one of the high-backed chairs near the fireplace, and folded his hands loosely in his lap with the ease of a man entirely comfortable in his own spaces. Duke Calder Reinhardt was 31 years old. He had inherited the dukedom at 23 after his father died of a sudden fever that had taken three physicians completely by surprise. He had spent the years since then managing an estate that was vast and complicated, a seat in the House of Lords that demanded regular attendance, and a reputation that had taken on its own momentum entirely separate from anything he actually did or said. He was considered handsome by most people, and intimidating by everyone.
He was not unkind, but he was direct in a way that unsettled people who preferred softness in their conversations. He had been engaged once, briefly, at 25, was to a woman named Lady Petra Colen, who had broken the engagement herself 6 months in without ever fully explaining why. Society had speculated. Calder had not. He had not seriously pursued marriage since.
His grandmother, the Dowager Duchess Heloise Reinhardt, had finally reached the end of her patience earlier that year and arranged this selection herself, calling in favors and issuing invitations with the cheerful aggression of a general preparing for battle. She had expected him to cooperate. He had agreed to attend. That was all he had technically promised. "Your name was mentioned to me once," he said now, looking at Nora.
"7 months ago, at the Ketmore Autumn Assembly. Do you remember that evening? " Nora was quiet for a moment, thinking. "I was there," she said carefully. "There was a situation with a horse. That one of the attendants had tethered three of the guests' horses too close together and they had become tangled and frightened.