“You misunderstand,” Anthony said. “Helen hasn’t got a house of her own because she has children to show for her marriage. She has got it because it is what Freddie would have wanted for her. And William—he would have wanted the same for you.” She was meant to have been the duchess, eventually, just as William was meant to have become the duke. For many, he supposed, Esther and Helen would have becomepoor relations, unwanted hangers-on no longer protected by the status into which they had married.
But Anthony had loved his brothers, and these were his brothers’ wives and children. His family, even if he hadn’t been home to claim it in years. It was a simple enough matter to part with bits of the ducal estates he had never expected to inherit anyway, for their future security.
“That is kind of you,” Esther said, though the tone of her voice suggested that she could not understand what would move him to make such an offer. “I suppose I had thought—I had thought that you might wish for me to return to my parents.”
It wasn’tkind; it was the right thing to do. “You are already with your family,” he said. Had she been waiting all this time in anxious silence, expecting herself to be sent away from the family that had been her own these last fifteen years? “I mean to say, if you would prefer to go—”
“I wouldn’t,” she hastened to interject. “I have been a Sharp too long to be anything else. This family has become my own.”
“Good,” he said. “You’ll have an allowance as well, one which will keep you at the standard of living you ought to enjoy. And if you should choose to marry again—”
“I won’t.” Her voice cracked on the words, rife with a sort of pain he could hardly comprehend. “I won’t remarry. William—”
“William would have wanted you to be happy,” he said. “I have got a packet full of his letters in my bedside drawer that will speak to the truth of that. That is not to say that I intend to pressure you into such a thing if it is contrary to your wishes, but only that no one, least of all myself, will find fault with you for choosing to seek out a new love.” Anthony cleared his throat awkwardly. “I only wanted you to know that you will have a home here as long as it suits you. And a home of your own outside of the city, if you would like. Here, I have got a list somewhere.”Somewhere, amidst the wretched mess of documents he’d had strewn across the desk before she had arrived.
Esther, to her credit, hurried to assist him in his search, helping tosort out the mess he’d made. She began to collect the scattered papers neatly, assembling them into some sort of order.
“Oh, not that one,” he said as she came across Lady Cecily’s list. “That one is just—”
“Plants?” Her dark brows lifted at the tidy list of scientific names. “What an unusual list.”
“You recognize them?”
“Some,” she said. “William—” Her breath hitched in her chest, her lips trembled. “William once took me to a scientific symposium given by a famed cultivator of rare and exotic flora. Could I—would it be too presumptuous of me to ask what this list is meant to be?”
“Not at all.” Most especially not if she might be of assistance in locating a specimen or two. “The list is from Lady Cecily Wainwright. She is a collector of such specimens. These are the ones she favors, which she wishes to add to her collection.”
“You are courting her?”
“Not…as such,” he said. “It would be unwise to commit myself to it when my present circumstances preclude it, and while we are all still in mourning. I’ve been in Lady Cecily’s company only a handful of times. But I suppose it is a possibility, at some point in the future, should we decide we suit one another.”
“A good choice,” Esther said, her gaze lowering. “Lady Cecily is a lovely woman. She would make you a good duchess.”
Probably she would, Anthony allowed. A proper duchess, at least. A kind one; an amiable one. Her company would be inoffensive, her conversation stimulating. The trouble of it was that he couldn’tmakehimself want her.
At least not half so much as he was growing to want an entirely unsuitable duchess, which was beginning to be a problem all of its own. How was he meant to choose a wife, when his thoughts were unceasingly occupied with the one he already had?
The one who didn’t want him. The one to whom he had made a promise to give Lady Cecily an honest chance.
Hell. “I don’t suppose you could help me to locate some of these plants?” he asked. “Or perhaps give me the name of the gentleman whose symposium you attended?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “They are quite unusual, these plants.”
“How do you mean?”
“This one here,” she said, and extended the list to him, pointing to aname upon it. “Dionaea muscipula. It is a plant native to America, commonly called Venus’s Flytrap. It’s carnivorous.”
“I beg your pardon,” Anthony said, nonplussed by the assertion. “Did you say carnivorous?”
“It’s in the name,” Esther replied. “It eats flies and other such insects. William and I saw a demonstration of it at the symposium, and it was—fascinating, I suppose one might say. And a bit grotesque.”
“Far be it from me to suggest a lady’s interests ought to lie elsewhere,” he said. Charity certainly would not have allowed something like public opinion to sway her mind; why, then should Lady Cecily be held to a different standard?
“Then of course I shall assist you,” Esther said. “May I borrow the list? Perhaps I might be able to help you locate a few specimens upon it.”
“By all means,” Anthony said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin, myself. And take this, too,” he said, as he at last located the list of properties he’d been searching his desk for and slid it across the desk to her. “None of these are entailed. Choose whichever you like, and I’ll make the arrangements with my solicitor.”
She accepted the list with a small nod, offering a fragile smile. “I hope I do not offend,” she said, “but I think we’ve all been a little…afraid of you, Your—Anthony.” She ducked her head, embarrassed by the slip.
