She felt a faint flush rise in her cheeks.
“It’s how I knew what I wanted.” He wrapped her feet in the towel, tying it off. “It’s how I knew what it looked like to have a loving family and a little sister who sent her brother her first scribbles before she could write. I remember the first letter you sent him.”
“Oh, God.” She put her head in her hands. “This is going to be embarrassing.”
“You dictated it to your father,” the duke continued. “And you said: ‘Dear Oliver, please come home. What are you going to bring me? Love, your Free.’ And I remember thinking…”
Frederica felt herself blush. “How mercenary.”
“I remember thinking,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “that I would give everything that I had for a little sister.”
The heat died away from her cheeks. She found herself staring at the top of his head in surprise and puzzlement.
“For anyone,” he continued, “who rejoiced when I came home for any reason at all. I would have sent you a million presents if you would have agreed to be my little sister, too.” He sighed. “Alas, after the way my father treated your mother, I didn’t think the offer would go over well. So I never made it.”
She searched his face for signs that he was joking. Perhaps poking fun at her a little. He looked serious.
“But you have a family now. Everyone respects you.”
He raised a dubious eyebrow.
“Well, they may call you names,” she amended, “but they’re mostly respectful names. You have a wife, and unless Oliver is completely wrong, it’s a love match. You have children who must adore you. And…” She trailed off and looked at him.
He looked away. “I spent years imagining you were my little sister. Love is not a finite quantity.” He smiled at her. “And yes, I know you’re not my sister—you’re Oliver’s. Still, I’m glad you came to me. Whatever it is you need…” He spread his hands. “It’s yours. Even if it’s just a towel and a room for the evening.”
She hadn’t known quite what she’d been hoping for. She’d imagined posing him a few abstract questions, receiving a few desultory answers. She certainly hadn’t expected…this.
She swallowed hard and looked away.
“I was hoping you’d have dinner with me,” he said. “Minnie is out for the evening with some friends; she’ll be back in a few hours. London is dreadful in the summer, and the children are with Minnie’s aunts for the next two weeks. I’m at loose ends and was just feeling a mite lonely.”
“Your Grace—”
“I wish you’d call me Robert. If you keep Your-Graceing me, I’ll have to stop thinking of you as Free, and as much as Oliver has talked of you, I don’t think that’s possible.”
“But—”
“Or call me Your Grace, if you must, and I’ll invent you a title of your own to match. Something that fits you. If you call me Your Grace, I shall have to call you…” His finger tapped his lip in contemplation.
She felt an unaccountable urge to laugh. She had a title now. She was Lady Claridge, a stuffy, stupid peeress. She’d never wanted anything to do with the nobility. And yet here she was, accepting a duke as her brother and a viscount as her husband. The entire day was completely impossible.
“I shall have to call you Your Fierceness,” he was saying. “Like this: Would you like anything to eat, Your Fierceness? You must be starving, Your Fierceness.”
“Stop, Your Grace.”
“As Your Fierceness wishes.” His eyes twinkled at her.
“Have it your way. But I’ll have to go in stages.” She took a deep breath. “Can I just call you…you for the next little bit?”
“Yes, Your Fierceness,” he said. He stood. “Louisa, is Miss Marshall’s bath ready?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the maid, who’d been standing in the corner, said. “Mary signaled to me not a minute past.”
“Very well, then,” the duke—Robert—said. “If you could conduct Miss Marshall there?”
She wasn’t Miss Marshall any longer. She didn’t know who she was.
The maid bowed her head and then turned to Free. “If you would care to come with me, Your Fierceness?” There was a glint of a smile in the woman’s eyes, just that tiny hint of a sense of humor. And somehow, it was that—that tiny indication that the Duke of Clermont’s servants felt free to express humor in their employer’s presence, rather than turning into empty shells of themselves—that decided her.
Free pushed herself to her feet and wobbled across the room.
“Come along, miss,” Louisa said to her indulgently. “Come along.”
A WARM BATH AND DRY CLOTHING did a great deal to restore Free’s good humor. When she came down the stairs, back into the parlor, the Duke of Clermont—Robert, she reminded herself with a strange feeling—was sitting in front of the fire, slicing bread. It was such an odd thing to see: a man of his stature wielding a knife. He cut a thick, clumsy slice of bread as she watched from the doorway, the crumbs spilling haphazardly onto the carpet.
She paused, not sure what to say.
“Come,” he said, motioning to her. “Sit down.”
She drifted toward him.
“I don’t know anything about cheering up sisters,” he said, sliding the bread onto the waiting tines of the toasting fork. “I don’t know anything about cheering up anyone except children between the ages of six and fourteen. But maybe this will work on you.”
She glanced over at him curiously. “What are you doing?”
“We,” he corrected her. “We’re making dinner. We’ll toast bread and cheese over the fireplace and have some tea.” He gestured with the toasting fork, and the bread dipped perilously close to the flames. He shrugged guiltily. “Oh, dear. I’ll take this one.”
“No, it’s better singed,” Free heard herself say. “I always like that extra smoky flavor.”
His smile grew. “Come on, then.” He patted the cushion on the other side of the fireplace. “Have some toast.”
She’d known she was hungry, but her stomach growled in anticipation at the aroma of toasting bread. After he’d singed one side—only a bit black—he added cheese to the top and leaned in again. The cheese on top began to bubble and drip off the edges. He seemed to have infinite patience for waiting, turning the toast this way and that to try and get an even melt.