February brought a welcome break in the weather.
The frost retreated; the snow turned to gray, receding islands. The air, while still cold, lost its knife-edge.
With the thaw came letters.
London, it seemed, had not forgotten the Duke and Duchess of Merrow.
“Well,” Rowan said one morning, flicking through a stack of envelopes on the breakfast table. “We are still fascinating.”
“Is that good?” Livia asked, spooning porridge into her bowl. “Or merely… exhausting?”
“Both,” he said.
There were invitations—dinners, balls, a musicale in honor of some minor German prince. There were also, more interestingly, overtures of business.
Channing enclosed a note with the latest packet of legal documents.
*Certain parties,* he wrote, *having observed the stabilization of Merrow’s affairs, are now more inclined to consider joint ventures. I believe your recent decisions regarding Derby have not gone unnoticed.*
Among the invitations was one with Lady Vernham’s distinctive hand.
*You have hidden yourselves quite long enough,* she wrote. *London is in danger of growing sensible in your absence. Come up at once and spoil it.*
Livia smiled faintly at that.
She had not thought much of London these past months.
Her world had shrunk to Merrow’s walls, to the fields, to the school, to the bed where she had nearly died and then learned to live again.
The idea of standing once more in glittering rooms under chandeliers, of hearing whispers and feeling eyes on her, made her stomach flutter.
Not with sickness.
With something like dread.
Rowan watched her face.
“We do not have to go,” he said quietly.
She blinked.
“What?”
“To Town,” he said. “We are expected, yes. It is… practically illegal for a duke not to show his face in London before the Season. But expectations can be… rearranged.”
She stirred her porridge.
“You wish to go,” she said.
“Do I?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “You miss the noise. The arguments. The ridiculousness. You miss Lady Agnes terrorizing bishops and Whitlow complaining about the prices of coal in person to men who cannot escape him.”
He huffed a laugh.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Do you?”
She considered.
“I miss… parts,” she said. “Amelia. The river. The hum. The feeling of… being in the stream of things. I do not miss… Lady Tansley. Or pamphlets. Or men who think my mind is a deformity.”
“Teach Miss Hartley to write pamphlets,” he suggested. “She will out-satire them all.”
Livia smiled briefly.
“Agnes will want to go,” he said. “She has been making noises about missing her gossip.”
“I am sure she has already arranged it,” Livia said dryly.
As if summoned, a letter from Lady Agnes arrived that afternoon.
*I am bored,* it read baldly. *London is full of idiots. You must come and mock them with me. Also, Whitlow’s cousin wishes to show you some new abominable machine that claims to calculate interest in less than a day. I have assured him you will laugh in its face.*
Livia folded the letter.
“Agnes demands our presence,” she said.
“Of course she does,” Rowan said. “She is a tyrant.”
They sat in the blue parlor, the late-afternoon light slanting across the rug.
“Livia,” he said, tone changing. “How would you feel… truly… about returning to London? For a time.”
She traced a pattern on the arm of the chair.
“Apprehensive,” she said honestly. “I left in one… state. I will return in another. The eyes will be sharper.”
“You mean,” he said quietly, “they will… know.”
She nodded.
“We cannot exactly pretend,” she said. “Time has passed. Over a year since the wedding. No child. Then—whispers of an illness. Letters. Agnes. Talbot has a cousin who writes to her neighbors. People gossip. They will see… something. Or rather, *not* see it. And they will… draw conclusions.”
He reached across, covered her hand with his.
“Let them,” he said. “They will draw conclusions regardless. They always have. You cannot… live by their sums.”
“I know,” she said. “But knowing and standing in a room while they do it are not the same.”
He squeezed.
“We could,” he said, “go for a short visit. A month. Six weeks. Attend Vernham’s dinner. Call on Harcourt. Give Whitlow his fix of Channing’s company. Then return before the Season devours us.”
She considered.
In the months since the loss, she had rebuilt herself in Merrow’s quiet.
Could she stand to have that new, fragile scaffolding tested under London’s glare?
“I do not like,” she said slowly, “the idea of hiding. Staying away as if… ashamed. As if we have something to conceal beyond what is already printed in caricatures.”
He laughed, low.
“No,” he said. “Hiding does not suit you.”
“But I also,” she went on, “do not wish to make myself a spectacle for their morbid curiosity. ‘Look, there goes the duchess whose womb failed her.’”
His jaw clenched.
“Anyone who says that within my hearing,” he said, “will require dental work.”
She huffed a breath.
“I cannot,” she said, “control their mouths. Only my… own reaction. And yours.”
“Grain,” he said automatically.
“Yes,” she said. “Grain.”
He watched her.
“You would stand beside me?” she asked quietly. “If they… sniff. Or pity. Or… pry.”
“Always,” he said. “Loudly. Obnoxiously. Inappropriately. I shall terrify them with my devotion.”
She smiled, small but real.
“Then,” she said, “we go.”
He blinked. “You are certain?”
“As certain as I am of anything,” she said. “Which is to say—moderately. Enough to set wheels in motion.”
“Very well,” he said.
He leaned back, exhaled.
“London,” he said. “Prepare yourself. The mildew is coming.”
***
They traveled in March.
The roads, though muddy, were passable. The carriage creaked and rocked, familiar now.
Livia watched the countryside slide past—fields pale with new growth, hedgerows tentative in budding.
Her abdomen, under her gown, felt… normal.
She had half expected phantom kicks.
There were none.
She had half feared some physical reminder of… emptiness.
Her body, blunt as ever, simply… went on.
Alice, opposite, clutched her reticule and peered out the window occasionally, wide-eyed.
“Do you miss it?” Livia asked her. “London?”
“A bit, Your Grace,” Alice said. “Me da’s there. He’ll be right chuffed to see me as a lady’s maid to a duchess. He still thinks I made it all up.”
“You may parade me before him as proof,” Livia said dryly. “Charge him a shilling a look.”
Alice giggled.
Rowan, beside Livia, shifted, the motion drawing her attention.
“You are fidgeting,” she observed.
“I am… stretching,” he lied.
She arched a brow.
“You are uneasy,” she said.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“About?” she prompted.
“Many things,” he said. “Cards. Fenton. Tansley. Harcourt’s reaction to… everything. Agnes’s gloating.”
She smiled faintly.
“You have refused cards for months,” she said. “Fenton can only pester you if you let him. Tansley we can dispatch with barley and ledgers. Father will shout, then hug, in that order. Agnes will gloat regardless.”
He slanted her a look.
“You are very calm,” he said. “Strangely.”
“I am… occupied,” she said.
“With?” he asked.
“Calculating,” she said. “How many times Amelia will say ‘I told you so’ when she sees that I returned to Town after vowing never to care what they think again.”
He laughed.
“Ah, Amelia,” he said. “I have missed her fluttering vengeance.”
“You are the only man who could say such a thing,” she said.
In truth, beneath her levity, there was a humming anxiety.
As the city’s outskirts loomed—chimneys, crowding houses, the smell of coal and humanity—the hum grew louder.
Merrow House in London stood unchanged.
The black-and-white marble of the hall gleamed. The portraits frowned down. Mrs. Talbot had come ahead and bullied a small army of maids into beating back the dust.
“Welcome home, Your Graces,” Fletcher intoned.
“Don’t say ‘home’ yet,” Livia muttered. “I reserve judgment.”
Rowan squeezed her arm.
“London has its uses,” he murmured. “We will wring them out and leave the rest.”
Harcourt arrived within an hour.
He did not knock.
He stormed into the drawing room with as much subtlety as a ship entering dock with all sails unfurled.
“Girl,” he said, arms wide.
She crossed the room as fast as her skirts allowed and let him crush her.
“You’re thin,” he muttered.
“You told me that last time,” she said against his waistcoat. “You are as unoriginal as ever.”
He huffed.
He held her back at arm’s length, studying her.
“You’re… whole,” he said.
“So far,” she said.
His gaze flicked to Rowan, who had risen politely.
“You,” Harcourt said gruffly. “You… wrote. You… kept her.”
Rowan stiffened.
“Of course I—” he began.
“Good,” Harcourt cut in. “Else I’d have punched you in your fancy nose.”
Rowan’s lips twitched.
“Feel free to do so later,” he said. “For other offenses.”
Harcourt snorted.
He strode over and, to everyone’s astonishment, slapped Rowan on the shoulder with something approaching affection.
“You look better,” he conceded. “Less like a card table and more like a man.”
“High praise,” Rowan said.
They all pretended Harcourt’s eyes were not suspiciously bright.
***
Society’s reaction to their return was… exactly what Livia had expected.
Lady Vernham’s dinner was a compressed version of every drawing room in London.
Glitter. Laughter. Understated malice.
“Look at them,” Amelia murmured at Livia’s elbow as they stood for a moment near the refreshment table. “They’re *thrilled.* Misery and scandal all rolled into one convenient couple.”
“We are not scandal,” Livia said. “Merely… unusual.”
“In this town,” Amelia said, “that is the same thing.”
Livia’s dress—dark green silk with an unobtrusive lace trim—skirted the edge of fashion without courting comment.
Her body, to untrained eyes, looked as it had before her brief pregnancy.
Only she and Rowan—and the doctor, Mrs. Talbot, Agnes, Harcourt, Whitlow, and half the staff of Merrow, if she were honest—knew otherwise.
Lady Vernham bore down upon them, fan snapping.
“Well,” she said, eyes sweeping them both. “You’re back.”
“So we are,” Rowan said.
“You look… older,” Lady Vernham said bluntly. “Both of you.”
Livia fought the instinctive sting.
“A year will do that,” she said lightly.
“Not like this,” Vernham said. “Not without… something. You have both been through a war.”
“An unsuccessful skirmish,” Rowan said dryly.
Vernham’s brows rose.
“Ah,” she said, sharp. “So that’s how you wish to play it. Very well.”
She lifted her glass.
“To your survival,” she said. “It is not always guaranteed, you know.”
Livia’s throat tightened.
“Thank you,” she said, sincerely.
Vernham’s gaze softened, almost imperceptibly.
“I expect,” she said briskly, “to see you at my breakfast next week. Channing will be there. And a man from the Bank. And a woman from Manchester with more money than God. We will speak of something other than your womb. It will be… refreshing.”
Livia smiled, relief bubbling.
“Gladly,” she said.
Elsewhere in the room, not everyone was so bluntly kind.
Lady Tansley, of course, could not resist.
“My dear duchess,” she purred as she swept up, her eyes glittering. “I had begun to fear we had lost you to the rustic charms of the country. How… *sad* that you have no little ones to keep you there.”
Livia’s spine went rigid.
Rowan, at her side, inhaled sharply.
“Grain,” Livia said under her breath.
He snapped his mouth shut.
She turned to Lady Tansley, smile thin.
“On the contrary,” she said. “There is quite enough to keep me occupied without adding nappies to the list. But thank you for your concern for my… employment.”
Lady Tansley’s lips curved.
“Of course,” she said. “We all know how you loathe idleness. One wonders, though, whether—”
“Lady Tansley,” Rowan cut in, voice smooth as oiled steel. “One also wonders whether it is wise to speak so of… childbearing… when one’s own daughter’s marriage bed has been empty these three years.”
Tansley’s face blanched.
“Your Grace—” she sputtered.
“Of course,” Rowan went on blithely, “unlike you, I would never dream of suggesting that such a thing were a failing. Bodies are… capricious. As is God. It ill becomes any of us to judge where life does or does not take root.”
A small, sharp silence fell around them.
Several ladies nearby shifted, clearly torn between horror and savage enjoyment.
Tansley’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.
She spun on her heel and stalked away, skirts snapping.
Livia exhaled slowly.
“You did not use the code,” she murmured.
“I did,” he said. “In my head. It said, ‘Grain, yes, but also ledgers: tally her sins before speaking.’ I deemed the balance in our favor.”
She fought a smile.
“Perhaps,” she said. “You may have earned yourself one fewer lecture tonight.”
He inclined his head.
“Progress,” he said.
Amelia appeared, eyes wide with delighted shock.
“You are both terrible,” she whispered. “I am so proud.”
Livia laughed, the tension easing.
***
Not all evenings in London were so fraught.
Some were… almost easy.
At Lady Vernham’s breakfast, Livia found herself in a lively discussion with a Manchester manufacturer’s wife about the best ways to secure workers’ loyalty without bankrupting oneself.
“You pay them decently,” Mrs. Hathaway said flatly. “And you don’t let the overseers beat them.”
“Radical,” Livia said. “You’ll have the whole of Threadneedle Street fainting.”
“They can faint,” Hathaway said. “It is cheaper than replacing hands every six months because you’ve worked them into their graves.”
Rowan, listening, watched Livia’s eyes light in that way he loved when she spoke of systems and people and how to make them less destructive.
He realized, with a small jolt, that London had once meant for him only cards, flirtations, and the hollow sheen of pleasure.
Now, it also meant this.
Connections.
Allies.
Women and men who cared about more than their own gilt-edged worlds.
He sipped his coffee and caught Vernham’s eye across the room.
She nodded once, approving.
***
One rainy afternoon, as they turned into Bond Street, Livia saw something that made her stop.
In the window of a print shop—*the* print shop—the familiar caricature hung.
The Counting-House Cat’s Catch.
Only this time, it had a companion.
Beside it, newly posted, was another.
It showed a woman—her, clearly, though the exaggeration was kind—standing between a sweating, overdressed duke and a snarling, thin-faced moneylender. She held a ledger in one hand and a broom in the other, whacking at rats that tried to steal coins from a labeled “Tenant’s Pot.”
The title read: *The Duchess’s New Game: Beating Back Vermin.*
Livia stared.
Rowan came up beside her, followed her gaze.
His mouth twitched.
“Better,” he said.
“Yes,” she murmured.
There were still barbs in it. The broom. The rats. The implication that she was doing work more suited to a scullery maid than a duchess.
But there was also something else.
Acknowledgement.
A kind of rough respect.
She walked into the shop.
The same man, older now, blinked as she approached.
“Your Grace,” he squeaked. “I—I recall—”
“I should like a copy of that one,” she said, pointing.
He swallowed. “Of course.”
“And that one,” she added, surprising herself, pointing to the older caricature as well.
Rowan raised a brow.
She took both prints when he slid them across the counter.
“Your Grace,” the man blurted. “I hope—these are not… meant… as offense.”
“They are meant as sales,” she said. “You are honest enough about that. You might, in future, consider that some of your subjects have teeth.”
He flushed.
“Yes, Your Grace,” he muttered.
Outside, Rowan took one of the prints from her.
“You bought the first one again,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I wish to see… the progression.”
He smiled faintly.
“The ledger of public opinion,” he said.
“Something like that,” she said.
They walked on.
London, with all its noise and cruelty, felt… a fraction less overwhelming.
Not because it had changed.
Because they had.
They were no longer supplicants at its doors.
They were… participants.
And if the city bared its teeth, they could bare theirs back.
Together.
***