Society’s fascination with the Duchess of Merrow did not fade.
If anything, it sharpened.
A week after the wedding, an anonymous caricature appeared in the window of a popular print shop on the Strand.
Livia saw it by accident.
She had taken Alice with her to call on a supplier near Temple Bar. As they walked back, cloak drawn against the wind, a cluster of giggling apprentices blocking the pavement made her glance up.
She saw herself.
Or rather, someone’s grotesque idea of her. The print showed a woman in extravagant robes, a coronet perched crookedly on her head, one arm laden with bulging money bags, the other wrapped possessively around the neck of a thin, bewigged duke. At their feet, ragged tenants stretched out supplicating hands; above them, fat merchants counted coins while bishops tutted.
The title—*The Counting-House Cat’s Catch*—sprawled across the top.
Heat shot through her—anger, shame, a flash of something like helplessness.
“Miss—Your Grace,” Alice whispered, horrified, grabbing her sleeve. “Don’t look.”
“It is a little late for that,” Livia said tightly.
People were looking at her now, glancing from the print to her and back, eyes lighting with recognition, mouths curving.
Some with pity.
Some with admiration.
Some with sneers.
She drew herself up.
“Come,” she said to Alice, and walked straight into the shop.
The bell jangled. The apprentices inside froze.
The print-seller, a stout man with ink-stained fingers, blinked as she approached.
“Good day,” Livia said, voice cool. “I should like to purchase a copy of that caricature.”
His mouth opened and closed. “It—it isn’t meant as—beggin’ your pardon, your Grace—”
“As what?” she asked. “As compliment? Insult? Entertainment? Political commentary?”
He swallowed. “Just… a bit of fun, ma’am—your Grace. Folk like a laugh.”
“At my expense,” she said.
“And His Grace’s,” he said, then paled.
“Yes,” she said. “Well. If you are to profit from that expense, I suppose I may as well have my own copy.”
She laid coins on the counter.
He stared, flustered, then stuffed a print into a sleeve and pushed it toward her.
“Much obliged,” she said. “I trust you will sell many. They are very… informative.”
She turned on her heel and left.
Outside, whispers rose.
“Your Grace?” Alice squeaked. “Why—why did you buy it? It’s horrid.”
“Because,” Livia said, breath frost-white in the air, “I prefer to know the shape of my enemies’ thoughts.”
“And what shape is that?” Alice asked timidly.
Livia glanced back at the window, at the caricature of herself with the money bags.
“A very familiar one,” she said. “It has not changed since the first time I walked into the Exchange. It simply wears a different hat.”
***
Rowan’s reaction was… not measured.
“They what?” he demanded, the moment Livia handed him the print in the library that evening.
He had come in mud-splattered from a ride, hair wind-tossed, eyes bright. She had decided, perhaps foolishly, that now, when he still smelled of horse and outdoors, would be the best time.
“A caricature,” she said. “On the Strand. It is hardly the first of its kind.”
He stared at the drawing. Color rose in his cheeks.
“They made you—” He sputtered, then bit off whatever word he’d been about to use. “They made *us* look like—like—”
“Symbols,” she said. “Metaphors. Catastrophes, depending on one’s view.”
“This is intolerable,” he said. “I will speak to the magistrate. To the—”
“The magistrate?” she repeated, incredulous. “And on what grounds will you demand they shut a man’s shop? That he made you look ridiculous?”
He scowled. “That he has libeled my wife.”
“It is not libel,” she said. “It is… caricature. Satire. Ugly, yes. But not, I think, unlawful.”
“It should be,” he muttered.
“That is not how the world works,” she said, more sharply than she intended.
He flinched slightly.
Silence fell, thick and awkward.
He dropped into the chair opposite the hearth, the crumpled caricature in his hand.
“I hate it,” he said. “I hate that they can do this. That they can take you—*you*—and reduce you to… this.”
“They have been reducing me for years,” she said quietly. “To ‘the Harcourt girl,’ to ‘that merchant’s daughter who counts money.’ This is simply ink instead of whispers.”
He looked up, jaw tight. “I did not… see. Before.”
“No,” she said. “You did not have to. It did not touch you. Now it does.”
His mouth twisted. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” she said. “It is meant to make you feel… less alone in your outrage. And perhaps more… cautious.”
“Cautious?” he echoed.
“In how you respond,” she said. “If you storm into that man’s shop and demand he pull it from his window, you will look like a tyrant. They will print another caricature. With you as a bully. And me as your grasping puppet.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “You would have me do… *nothing*?”
She swallowed her own irritation.
“I would have you do what is effective,” she said. “Not what satisfies your pride.”
His eyes flashed. “My pride?”
“Yes,” she said, stepping closer. “You are not only angry on my behalf, Rowan. You are angry because they have struck at your image. At the idea of yourself as a… noble duke reclaiming his estate. You do not like being laughed at.”
He stared at her, wounded and furious.
“That is unfair,” he said quietly.
“Is it?” she asked, gentling her tone. “I do not say it is *only* that. I know you are angry for me. Truly. But you are also… human. And proud. And new to being the butt of public jokes. I have had practice.”
He exhaled, long.
“You make me sound very weak,” he said.
“No,” she said, sitting on the arm of his chair, close enough to touch but not quite doing so. “I make you sound… like a man. One who has been allowed, all his life, to move through rooms without being questioned. Now, people are questioning you. Prodding. Poking. Laughing. It hurts.”
“Yes,” he said, the admission grudged. “It does.”
She reached out then, smoothing a stray lock of hair from his brow.
“I do not enjoy it either,” she said softly. “But I will not let them see it.”
“You walked into the shop,” he said, staring. “And bought it.”
“Yes,” she said.
“God, you’re brave,” he muttered.
“No,” she said. “I am… practiced. There is a difference.”
He caught her wrist, gently.
“Teach me,” he said. “How to stand there and not… explode.”
She met his gaze.
“All right,” she said. “Lesson one: choose your audience. You may explode here. With me. With my father. With Lady Agnes. With Whitlow, if you wish to watch him faint. You may not explode in the Strand. Or at Gunter’s. Or in the House of Lords.”
He gave a strangled laugh. “Very well. Lesson taken.”
“Lesson two,” she went on. “Ask yourself: will answering this barb change anything for the better? Or will it simply give them more noise to feed on?”
“For the caricature,” he said slowly, “answering would… make it worse.”
“Yes,” she said. “So we do not answer. Not directly. We answer by… existing. By doing what we are doing. By making Merrow Park profitable. By investing wisely. By treating tenants and dockworkers and servants with respect. By letting the results speak louder than ink.”
He looked down at the caricature again, then up at her.
“How long,” he asked, “does it take? For results to be louder?”
“Longer than we would like,” she said. “Shorter than they think.”
He smiled faintly, grudging admiration softening his features.
“When did you become so wise?” he asked.
“When people began sneering at my father,” she said. “And I realized that if I let it make me small, they would have won twice.”
He tugged her hand gently, drawing her into his lap.
“You are not small,” he said, voice low. “You never have been.”
She let herself rest against him, feeling the tightness slowly ebb.
“I will confess,” she said, “that I did consider, briefly, marching back into that shop and tearing the print in half.”
He chuckled. “Oh, I am sorry I missed *that*.”
“I did not do it,” she said. “Because of you.”
“Oh?” he asked, amused. “Afraid of my temper?”
“Afraid,” she said, “that if I behaved like your father when a dealer insulted him, I would begin to resemble him.”
He stiffened slightly.
“My father,” he said, his tone flat, “once punched a man in the face because he suggested His Grace’s horse had bowed legs.”
“Yes,” she said. “And the man told everyone. And the tale grew. And soon your father’s temper was notorious. Debtors and brokers knew exactly how to prick it. It made him predictable. Easy to manipulate.”
“There is very little more insulting than being compared to my father,” Rowan said after a beat.
“I did not compare,” she said. “I warned.”
He sighed, his breath stirring her hair.
“Very well,” he said. “No punching print-sellers. No raging in the Strand.”
“Good,” she said. “We will save the punching for men who genuinely deserve it.”
“Anyone in particular in mind?” he asked.
“Lord Fenton,” she said without hesitation.
He laughed, startled. “He *is* very punchable.”
“He made a remark to Amelia yesterday about ‘shop-worn duchesses,’” she said. “Within my hearing.”
Heat flared in his eyes. “Did he.”
“Yes,” she said.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” she said. “Because we were in public. And because Amelia stepped on his foot.”
He barked a laugh. “I must thank her.”
“You may not,” she said. “She would never forgive me for betraying her tactics.”
He smiled, then sobered.
“You know,” he said, “if anyone speaks so in my hearing, I will not be… politic.”
“You will be,” she said firmly. “Or you will pretend. And then we will destroy them in more subtle ways.”
His brows rose. “You terrify me,” he said, not displeased.
“You married me,” she reminded him.
“I keep doing mad things,” he murmured, but his arm tightened around her.
He looked at the caricature one last time, then crumpled it, not in anger but in dismissal, and tossed it into the fire.
They watched it curl and blacken.
“Lesson three,” Livia said quietly. “Choose which fires to feed.”
He glanced at her.
“And which to starve,” he finished.
“Exactly,” she said.
He kissed her temple.
“Very well, my strategist,” he murmured. “Lead on.”
***
Not all lessons were so easily absorbed.
A week later, at a crowded soirée in Grosvenor Square, Livia found herself at the center of a different sort of storm.
She had wandered toward the refreshment table—this time not to avoid conversation, but genuinely in search of lemonade. Rowan had been waylaid near the card tables by an earnest young marquess with questions about crop rotation.
As she lifted a glass, a familiar, cutting voice floated over her shoulder.
“I suppose,” Lady Tansley drawled, “that one must make allowances. He *had* to marry money. Still, one might have hoped he would find someone… suitable. Not a little clerk with a balance book.”
Ice prickled along Livia’s spine.
She did not turn immediately.
“Now, Mama,” came Miss Tansley’s nervous murmur. “You must not speak so. Someone might hear.”
“They already have,” Livia said, pivoting with her glass in hand.
Lady Tansley stiffened.
Several nearby heads turned. A small hush fell in the immediate vicinity.
“Lady Tansley,” Livia said pleasantly. “How good of you to concern yourself with my suitability. I assure you, His Grace has found me *very* suitable indeed.”
A snicker came from somewhere behind a potted palm.
Lady Tansley’s lips thinned. “Miss—Your Grace,” she amended, as if the title were a bitter pill. “We were merely discussing how… *unexpected* your match is.”
“Unexpected things,” Livia said, “are often the most rewarding. Ask any ship captain.”
“Oh, yes,” Lady Tansley said sweetly. “You are so very fond of ship captains, are you not? I hear you spend more time with them than with ladies. No wonder you have picked up such… coarse expressions.”
Livia smiled. “I find I prefer coarse truth to delicate lies.”
Lady Tansley’s eyes flashed. “You presume to call *me* a liar?”
“I would never,” Livia said. “I do, however, question the sincerity of anyone who smiles at my face and sneers at my back. It is inefficient. One might as well save the muscles and do it all at once.”
A ripple of barely suppressed laughter ran through the onlookers.
Lady Tansley flushed, blotchy patches rising on her cheeks.
“You may have captured a title,” she hissed, low enough that only those closest could hear. “But do not think for a moment that makes you *one of us.* You are a merchant’s chit. You always will be.”
Livia’s own temper, carefully schooled most of the evening, flared.
“No,” she said, stepping a fraction closer. “I am not *one of you.* I am better.”
Gasps.
Lady Tansley’s mouth opened.
“Because,” Livia went on, voice still very calm, “I am under no illusion that my value lies solely in the name on my card or the number of generations between me and a man who once had the good fortune to be favored at court. I have built something. With my father. With my own hands and mind. Have you?”
Color drained from Lady Tansley’s face.
“I manage my household,” she snapped. “I preside—”
“Yes,” Livia said, “you preside very well over other people’s accomplishments. Tell me, Lady Tansley, when the corn failed three years ago, did you look at your steward’s figures and choose where to cut luxuries to keep your tenants fed? Or did you simply trust that your husband had done something appropriate and return to your embroidery?”
Lady Tansley’s hand trembled on her fan.
“You insolent—”
“Enough,” a quiet, steel-edged voice said behind them.
Rowan.
He stepped into the circle, his presence suddenly filling it.
“Lady Tansley,” he said, bowing the barest fraction. “I trust you are enjoying the evening.”
She swallowed. “Your Grace. I—”
“I could not help but overhear,” he said smoothly. “I have the misfortune to be cursed with good ears. I am grateful to you for your… concern over my choice of bride. I assure you, I am not concerned. I am, in fact, *delighted.*”
He slid an arm around Livia’s waist, drawing her closer in a gesture that was both possessive and protective.
“And,” he added, his gaze hardening, “I will not have my wife insulted in my hearing. Or out of it. If you find her origins so distasteful, you are at liberty to decline invitations to any gathering where we might be present.”
Silence.
It rippled outward, like a stone dropped in a pond.
Lady Tansley’s jaw worked.
“You—would *ban* me?” she stammered.
“I?” Rowan echoed. “Oh, Lady Tansley, I have no such power. I am merely a duke. Hosts may invite whom they please. I simply state *my* preferences. And I prefer that men and women who speak so of my duchess not do so under the protection of my roof.”
A rustle as other guests shifted.
Lady Vernham, from across the room, watched with open, delighted interest.
Lady Tansley paled further.
She turned stiffly, gathered her daughter with a twitch of silk, and stalked away.
Livia exhaled slowly.
“You did not let me finish,” she murmured to Rowan, half chiding, half relieved.
“Your next remark,” he said under his breath, “was going to involve her husband’s gambling debts. I thought it best to cut you off before someone’s wig caught fire.”
She bit back a smile, the adrenaline of confrontation still humming.
“You should not have threatened her so publicly,” she whispered. “It will make you a target.”
“I am already a target,” he said. “And I will *always* defend you.”
“You must choose your battlegrounds,” she said. “We spoke of this.”
He looked down at her, eyes dark.
“Some lines,” he said quietly, “are not battlegrounds. They are… cliffs. I will not let anyone push you over them. Not while I stand beside you.”
Her heart did something strange.
“Very dramatic,” she said, to steady herself.
“I am learning from you,” he said dryly.
She huffed a breath, both exasperated and… moved.
“You may have won yourself a few loyal allies tonight,” she murmured. “And a few more enemies.”
“Let them come,” he said. “We have numbers. And ledgers. And Lady Agnes.”
She laughed.
Behind her, Amelia sidled up, eyes bright.
“I have never,” Amelia whispered, “been so proud to know you. I nearly applauded.”
“You step on Lord Fenton’s foot again and I shall make you a general in my war council,” Livia murmured back.
“Done,” Amelia breathed.
Rowan squeezed Livia’s waist.
They stood there, together amid the swirl of silk and scandal, and Livia realized something.
She had thought marriage would shrink her world.
It had expanded it.
Not always comfortably. Not always pleasantly.
But undeniably.
***
Back at home that night, the argument resumed.
Not about Lady Tansley. About what had followed.
“You *cannot,*” Livia said, pacing the library, still half in her wrapper, half in her evening gown, “go about threatening to ostracize half of London every time someone looks at me askance.”
Rowan, barefoot and shirt-sleeved, leaned against the mantel, arms crossed.
“I did not threaten half of London,” he said. “Only the half that sneers at you.”
“That *is* half of London,” she snapped.
“Then half of London is welcome to stay away,” he said.
“Rowan,” she said, exasperated. “We need them.”
He stilled. “Do we?”
“Yes,” she said. “For influence. For investments. For politics. For everything we are trying to do at Merrow Park and beyond. You cannot stand in a corner with your arms crossed and your back up and expect wheat to grow and machines to run by sheer force of your disapproval.”
His jaw clenched. “I am not a child sulking.”
“No,” she said. “You are a man whose pride was stung, and who responded like a man who has not yet learned to separate his feelings from his strategy.”
He flinched.
Silence crackled.
“That,” he said after a moment, voice very quiet, “was… cruel.”
She stopped pacing.
Guilt stabbed.
“I did not mean—” she began.
“Yes,” he said. “You did. Or at least, part of you did. And you are not wrong. Not entirely. But you are also not… fair.”
He straightened, stepping away from the mantel.
“When she said you would never be one of them,” he said, eyes burning, “I saw your face. You were steady. Calm. Witty, even. But I know you, Livia. I know it hurt. I know it cut at a scar that was made long before I entered your life. And I—” His voice roughened. “I could not stand and do nothing. I will *never* stand and do nothing when someone tries to make you feel small.”
“I do not need you—” she started.
“I know,” he said sharply. “You do not need me to. That is not the point. The point is that I *want* to. Because I love you. Because seeing you attacked makes me feel as if someone has put a hand on my own heart and squeezed.”
Her breath caught.
He rarely used the word.
“Do not,” he went on, more quietly now, “strip that from me. Do not tell me that part of loving you is simply… a failing to be corrected out of me. I will learn. I will listen when you say I have chosen the wrong moment, the wrong method. But do not ask me to become indifferent.”
She stood very still.
She had not—she realized—seen it that way.
In her mind, anger was a tool. A thing to be harnessed, directed. Not an expression of… care. Or not primarily.
“In my world,” she said, groping, “love… was quieter. My mother… she did not shout. She… endured.”
“And did that end well for her?” he asked, not unkindly.
She flinched.
He closed his eyes briefly. “I am sorry. That was… low.”
“No,” she whispered. “It was… true. She died slowly. Quietly. Doing everything right. And it did not… save her.”
He stepped closer, cautious.
“I am not your mother,” he said. “You are not your father. I am not mine. We do not have to repeat their patterns.”
“I know,” she said. “I am… trying.”
“So am I,” he said.
They stood, inches apart, breathing the same air, their tempers cooling.
“I am… proud of you,” she said slowly. “For what you said tonight. For not pretending it did not matter. I am simply… frightened. Of how much you will be willing to burn, if someone touches me.”
“Everything,” he said without hesitation.
She laughed, a shaky, exasperated sound. “That is what I mean.”
He huffed a breath, then reached out and took her hands.
“All right,” he said. “Let us… make an agreement. A treaty, if you will.”
“Over an argument,” she said, managing a small smile. “How very us.”
“When we are in public,” he said, “if someone says something that makes you wish me to hold my tongue, you will give me a sign.”
“A sign?” she echoed.
“Yes,” he said. “A code. A word. Something that tells me, ‘Not this way, not now.’ I will trust you. I will… curb myself.”
“And if I do not give the sign?” she asked slowly.
“Then,” he said, his hands tightening around hers, “I will do what I did tonight. And you will not… throw it in my face later as a failure of strategy. You will be angry with me if I am cruel or foolish, if I make things harder. But not simply for speaking.”
She considered.
“That seems… fair,” she admitted.
“We are both very bad at instinctively choosing the most prudent action in the heat of the moment,” he said, mouth twitching. “We must… help each other.”
She searched his gaze.
“What shall the sign be?” she asked.
He thought, then grinned suddenly.
“Grain,” he said.
“Grain,” she repeated, incredulous.
“Yes,” he said. “No one will blink if you say, ‘Ah yes, the grain yield this year,’ in the middle of an insult. They will assume you are being your usual practical self. I, however, will know that you are actually saying, ‘Rowan, you idiot, shut your mouth.’”
She laughed, helpless.
“You are ridiculous,” she said.
“And you married me,” he reminded her.
“Very well,” she said. “‘Grain’ it is.”
He sobered.
“And if you,” he said, “begin to… cut too deep, to make points that may feel satisfying in the moment but will poison wells later, I will say… ‘ledgers.’”
Her brows rose. “*Ledgers*?”
“Yes,” he said. “To remind you to count the cost.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
Then closed it.
“Agreed,” she said at last.
“Good,” he said.
They stood there, hands linked, having just negotiated more earnestly over words than some nations did over borders.
“I love you,” he said softly.
She swallowed.
“I am… very fond of you,” she whispered. “In a most inconvenient way.”
He smiled crookedly. “I will accept that. For now.”
He tugged her closer.
“And now,” he murmured against her lips, “let us see if we can redirect all this admirable passion into something that does not involve Lady Tansley.”
“That,” she said, as his mouth claimed hers, “is the best strategy you have proposed all night.”
***