A heavy carriage creaks to a halt, and the door swings open.
Chloe’s father steps down in a deep navy cloak. The sun catches his silver-white hair. He is not a man anyone walks up to without being asked.
An attendant takes him up to the doors of House Linden, where his daughter’s betrothed lives. The doors open. Someone comes down the hall towards him at a light, practised pace, and it is Leonardo’s mother, the Duchess of Linden. She is smiling. A duke has arrived at her house without sending word ahead, and the smile is doing a great deal of work.
[It has been so long, Your Grace. You are most welcome in our house.] (Duchess of Linden)
She is a high noblewoman and it shows. Nothing crosses her face — no surprise, no question — and she greets him as though she has expected him all morning. Underneath it she is scrambling.
‘There is only one reason he could be here. Probably…… no. Certainly. He has come to call my son to account for the way he has treated Chloe.’
[Forgive the sudden call. There is a matter concerning your son I should like to discuss.] (Duke of Calendula)
[……Of course. Please, come through to the reception room. I shall have tea brought.] (D)
‘So it is that.’
She had braced for it. Bracing turns out to count for nothing. Hearing him say it squeezes the breath out of her and brings up a cold sweat under her gown, and she lets none of that reach her face as she shows him through.
They exchange courtesies in the reception room and sit. The Linden butler brings the tea and withdraws. The Duke reaches for his cup, slowly — then leaves it where it is. In the quiet he looks at her, and keeps looking.
[……Now, then. I imagine you have heard what society is saying, madam——] (Duke)
He speaks as Chloe’s father and as a duke at the same time, and neither voice gives way to the other. The Duchess says nothing, listens, and catches her breath without meaning to.
[I am told your son has been making a mockery of my daughter…… I should like to hear how you regard the matter.] (Duke)
Low, level, unhurried. She keeps the smile where it is and takes a handful of her skirt.
[……Yes. Of course I am aware. The whole of it is my own failing. I raised a son who treats his betrothed discourteously, and a mother answers for that.] (D)
[Indeed. Your teaching, you say. Am I to understand this house mocks my daughter as a matter of course?] (Duke)
[Never, Your Grace! I swear on the family name, I have never spoken ill of Lady Chloe.] (D)
[Then why has your son never sent my daughter so much as a gown, and sent her junk instead? There is one explanation for behaviour of that kind. He holds my daughter cheap, and my house with her.] (Duke)
He says it gently. It goes through her like a knife, and she goes white.
He has the wrong reason. He believes House Linden looks down on House Calendula and that her son’s conduct follows from it. She scrambles to put him right.
[Surely not——! Never, Your Grace, never! How could this house look down on the house we owe everything to? My foolish son cannot tell right from wrong. That has nothing whatever to do with this family’s gratitude to yours!] (D)
[Then why can he not tell? If my daughter goes on being shamed like this, I shall have to reconsider the engagement.] (Duke)
[…………!] (D)
She bows her head. Her lips shake, and she gets the words out one at a time.
[……I shall speak to him severely, without fail. Only give us…… a little more time. Please.] (D)
[Time. Even so, I cannot spend my daughter’s youth for nothing. …… I agreed to this engagement because I believed your son would treasure her. My wife died and left that girl to me. I thought he was a man who would protect her all his life, and so I consented. And it comes to this. I cannot face my wife now……] (Duke)
He presses a hand to his forehead and looks down, and she has nothing left to say to him. Whatever she offers weighs nothing beside what he feels.
And Chloe has been hurt worse than her father has. She knows that too.
‘I should end it. Let the girl go and be free of my son.’
She also knows exactly what follows if she does. The crown prince dislikes them already. Without this match society shuts its doors, and House Linden goes down behind them.
‘This engagement is the rope the family hangs by. That is why I cannot say one honest word to him. Every word I have is bought and paid for.’
‘And I still do not know why he did it. The daughter of the house we owe everything to, and he insults her without blinking. He is my son, and I have begun to wonder whether something in him has broken.’
She is still looking for something to say when a carriage comes up the drive.
Wheels on gravel. She frowns. Nobody is expected today. Whoever it is will have to wait — she would not leave this room for royalty; nothing in this house matters more than the man across the table from her.
Then the butler hurries in and speaks quietly at her ear.
[——Young Lord Linden has returned.] (Butler)
[……What? Already?] (D)
She stares up at him. Her son went to apologise to his betrothed this morning. She told him, in terms he could not mistake, to bow his head properly and talk the thing through, and he cannot possibly be home yet.
The Duke’s eyebrow moves a fraction.
[Your son seems to be back. I should like a word with him, if I may. Would you send him in?] (Duke)
[Y-yes…… Of course.] (D)
No very nearly gets out of her. She swallows it and agrees, smiling.
‘If Leonardo walks into this room there is no telling what will come out of his mouth. One sentence is all it takes. The Duke will be past reaching, and there will be no mending it.’
She knows it, and she cannot say it, so she sits and holds the fear down while the door opens, slowly.
[Forgive me. I was told His Grace had come……] (Leonardo Linden)
Fear and nerves cross his face together. He turns to the Duke and begins, hesitantly, to bow. His mother speaks across the start of it.
[Leonardo. ——You are home very early.] (D)
She means: did the apology work at all? His eyes slide away from hers, and that answers her.
‘Ah. He was not forgiven.’
Either Chloe’s anger runs that deep, or he has been rude to her all over again. She would much rather it were the first. A headache starts behind her eyes, and under it she is furious with a son who cannot manage a simple apology. If the Duke were not sitting here she would have slapped him.
The Duke sets an elbow on the arm of his chair and rests his cheek on his hand, quite at his ease.
[Forgive me for stopping you the moment you are through the door, Leonardo. I should like to hear something from you.] (Duke)
Leonardo swallows. He looks at his mother, then back at the Duke.
[Y-yes…… What is it?] (L)
His voice shakes. Something sharpens in the Duke’s eyes. He flinches, and the question comes.
[Did you not want to be engaged to my daughter?] (Duke)
It is so direct that mother and son both stare. The Duchess recovers first and fixes her son with a look that says, as plainly as a look can:
“Do not agree with him.”
He misses it entirely.
[Answer me. I arranged this engagement. I have a right to know.] (Duke)
He opens his mouth and nothing comes. The silence stretches. What finally drops into the room is low and forced.
[——I could not…… accept being engaged to her.] (L)
His mother goes white. The Duke’s eyes cool to ice.
[Could not accept it. What is it about my daughter that made you feel so?] (Duke)
Leonardo looks at the floor and closes his fists. Outside the wind gets up and the curtains stir. Nobody in the room is breathing properly. He keeps his eyes down and speaks.
[No — there is nothing wrong with Chloe…… I did not want an engagement arranged for the convenience of two houses. Since the day I was born, even whom I marry has been decided for me. I have spent my whole life short of air.] (L)
His mother makes a thin sound and turns on him, horrified.
[What a stupid thing to say……] (D)
She says it under her breath. The Duke says nothing at all, and lets him go on.
[When the lady is Your Grace’s daughter, everyone tells me it is only natural to accept her for the good of the house. But I could not——I could never make my peace with a marriage without love.] (L)
His fists shake on his knees. His mother is close to fainting. The Duke’s face does not change. He is weighing the young man in front of him, and taking his time about it.
[……So it was the political engagement itself you objected to.] (Duke)
[Yes…… That is so.] (L)
The Duke is quiet for a while. Then he lets out a long breath, and there is no anger in it. It sounds closer to disbelief.
[……I see.] (Duke)
Two words, and they come down like a weight. Leonardo hears them and lets his shoulders drop; he has been understood at last. Then the Duke speaks again, and nobody in the room has anything left to say.
[Forgive me, but I do not understand you in the slightest. A political marriage is a nobleman’s duty. And a second son with no house to inherit has no way of remaining a nobleman except to marry into one. If the duty is so disagreeable to you, you should have gone off and become a commoner years ago…… Why have you not? I cannot make sense of you at all.] (Duke)
He says it lightly, and it is merciless, and mother and son are struck dumb. They look at him and find no sarcasm anywhere — he means it exactly as he said it. His face, in complete seriousness, is asking:
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Leonardo has nothing to give back, and stays standing where he is.
