The following morning, Livia woke earlier than she had in months.
Merrow Park was quiet at dawn. The house seemed to hold its breath, light seeping slowly into the corridors, servants moving with muted footsteps. In the small chamber assigned to her, with its plain but comfortable furnishings and view over the east lawn, Livia lay for a moment, listening.
She was not used to this kind of silence.
In London, even at dawn, there was a hum: bells, carts, voices, the distant clatter from the river. Here, the only sounds were birds and the faint creak of ancient timbers.
Her thoughts, however, were anything but quiet.
She sat up, drew the curtains wider, and reached for the sheaf of papers on the small table by the window.
She had read Rowan’s proposal until the candles burned low the previous night, going back over columns, cross-checking sums in her head, scribbling quick notes in the margin when a pattern struck her.
He had not exaggerated. It was grim but not hopeless. If anything, he had understated the potential gains if the manufactory investment came good.
And beneath the ink, she could feel something else: a man trying very hard not to promise what he could not deliver, and equally hard to show that he would not run from the work.
“Miss?” Alice’s sleepy whisper came from the pallet by the door. “You’re up already?”
“Yes,” Livia said softly. “Go back to sleep. We do not breakfast until eight.”
Alice mumbled something unintelligible and flopped over.
Livia smiled faintly, wrapped herself in her robe, and took the papers to the window seat.
She read the section headed *Household and Social Expectations* again.
*We will keep a modest but respectable household at Merrow Park. You will not be expected to host constant parties. I would prefer a few meaningful gatherings—neighbors whose company you enjoy, people of substance rather than glitter.*
*In London, we will attend the Season as necessary, but I do not intend to spend my life at balls. Your presence will be requested at some functions; I will not demand it at all. You will, however, have to tolerate my mother’s relations from time to time. I apologize in advance.*
She snorted softly at that.
Below, in a different ink, another line was written, more hesitant.
*I will stand beside you. When they whisper. When they sneer. I will not leave you to fend them off alone.*
Her throat went thick.
She had not realized how much she wanted someone to say that until she saw it written.
For years, she had stood alone in drawing rooms. Her father had done his best, but he could not always be there; he did not understand the precise, lacerating cruelty of certain ladies’ smiles.
She had taught herself to shrug it off. To wrap herself in the knowledge of her competence, her accounts, her ships.
But alone was still alone.
She traced the words with a fingertip, then snapped the sheaf closed as if she’d been caught in something indecent.
This was dangerous.
She dressed with Alice’s help, choosing a gown of soft gray with blue trim. It was not particularly flattering. She did not trust herself this morning in anything that felt like… invitation.
Breakfast was a relatively informal affair in the smaller dining room. Rowan was there when she entered with her father, already halfway through a plate of eggs and ham. He rose at once, napkin in hand.
“Miss Harcourt,” he said. “Mr. Harcourt. I trust you slept well?”
“Like a log,” Harcourt grunted, dropping heavily into a chair. “You country folk have air like opium.”
“I shall have to bottle it,” Rowan said. “A new source of income.”
“Don’t joke,” Harcourt said, but his lips twitched.
Livia took her seat opposite Rowan. Lady Agnes joined them a moment later, complaining loudly about the hardness of her mattress and the softness of the ham.
As they ate, conversation turned, naturally, to the day’s plans.
“I must see the rest of the fields,” Harcourt said. “Talk to this Whitlow of yours. And that tenant with the bad seeds—what’s his name?”
“Jory Pike,” Rowan supplied. “He sowed late because he was in gaol for brawling. I will arrange for you to meet him. It will not be… inspiring.”
“Good,” Harcourt said. “I like seeing the dirt, not the polish.”
“And Miss Harcourt?” Rowan asked, looking at Livia. “Is there any particular aspect of the estate you wish to inspect further?”
She swallowed her last bite of bread. “I have not yet seen your books here,” she said. “If Mr. Whitlow would permit it, I should like to glance at them.”
Rowan smiled faintly. “He will be torn between horror and delight. I will prepare him.”
“Books,” Lady Agnes muttered. “Of course. I should have known. The pair of you will elope with a ledger and leave the rest of us behind.”
Livia’s cheeks heated. Rowan’s ears did, too.
After breakfast, as Harcourt and Lady Agnes set off with a reluctant Whitlow in tow, Rowan led Livia back to the library.
“This is beginning to feel like a habit,” she said as the door closed behind them.
“There are worse places to develop one,” he replied.
He crossed to the desk and lifted a large, heavy volume. “This is the main account book for Merrow Park. It is less organized than your father’s ledgers, I fear, but Whitlow and I are teasing it into sense.”
She took it, flipped it open.
“You have good handwriting,” she observed.
“My tutors insisted,” he said. “They claimed a gentleman’s accounts should be as legible as his honor.”
“Your tutors were more sensible than most,” she said. “Many men seem to believe neither matters.”
He huffed a laugh. “Will you… sit?”
She sank into a chair, the book on the table before her. He perched at the opposite side, close but not crowding.
For the next hour, they bent over ink and numbers.
He explained how rents had been collected, how his father had borrowed against anticipated yields. She pointed out places where modest increases could be made without exploiting tenants, where consolidation of certain small, inefficient holdings might ease administration.
“You have a knack,” he said at one point, watching as she rewrote a clumsy column into something leaner. “You see patterns.”
“It is not magic,” she said. “It is practice. You could do the same, if you cared to.”
“I care to now,” he said.
She looked up at him. He met her gaze steadily.
“Why now?” she asked. “Why not five years ago? Ten?”
“Because five years ago,” he said slowly, “the estate was not yet on fire. And my father kept me at a distance. When I asked questions, he… laughed. Told me to enjoy my youth, that I would have ledgers to choke on when I was old.”
“And you listened,” she said.
“Yes.” His mouth tightened. “I listened because it was easier and because I enjoyed being a fool. And because, perhaps, some part of me wanted to prove him wrong—that things would work out even if I did nothing. That the world would right itself without my effort.”
“Does it?” she asked.
He gave a flat smile. “It does not.”
She nodded. “Good. Then you have learned at least that.”
“You are merciless,” he said without heat.
“You would not trust me if I were not,” she replied.
They bent over numbers again.
As the morning wore on, small details of Rowan’s character revealed themselves. The way he tapped the quill against his lip when thinking. The little crease that appeared between his brows when he concentrated. The fact that he could, when pressed, add a long column of figures in his head with surprising speed.
“You have been hiding this,” she said once.
“Hiding what?”
“Your mind,” she said.
He blinked. “Have I?”
“Yes.” She tilted her head. “You pretend to be less than you are. Why?”
His face went still for a moment.
“In certain company,” he said finally, “it… eased interactions. No one likes a clever boy at cards. They suspect trickery. And cleverness made my father… uncomfortable. He preferred an audience, not a rival.”
She felt a sudden, fierce surge of anger on behalf of his younger self. “So you dulled yourself.”
“In some ways, yes,” he admitted. “Not entirely. My tutors did not allow complete idleness. But I learned to… hide. To make my thoughts look like jokes. To turn everything into charm.”
“And now?” she pressed.
He looked at her, something unguarded in his eyes.
“Now,” he said softly, “I find I do not wish to hide from you.”
Her breath caught. “Good.”
Silence stretched, thick with unspoken things.
A knock at the door broke it.
“Your Grace?” Whitlow’s cautious voice. “Mr. Harcourt… has requested your presence in the western field. He is threatening to rearrange Jory Pike’s teeth with his fist.”
Rowan sighed. “Duty calls.”
“Go,” Livia said, hastily pushing her chair back. “I will not keep you from a spectacle.”
“You can come and watch,” Rowan offered. “It may be instructive.”
“No,” she said, amused. “My father’s temper is best observed from a distance.”
He paused at the door. “Livia.”
She looked up, fingers still resting on the open ledger.
“Yes?”
He hesitated. “I meant what I wrote. And what I said. All of it.”
She knew he meant more than ledgers.
“So did I,” she said quietly.
He nodded, something settling in his features, then left with Whitlow, the door closing softly behind them.
Livia sat back, exhaled, and stared at the page.
It would be so very easy to say yes.
To accept the challenge on paper and the man who came with it. To step into this house and this life and see what they might build.
It would also be, if she misjudged, a catastrophe.
She closed the book and pushed it away, as if distance might grant clarity.
***
In the western field, Harcourt had Jory Pike metaphorically by the scruff of the neck.
“You sowed *late,*” Harcourt was saying, jabbing a thick finger at the rows of spindly shoots. “You knew the weather was against you and you still waited. Why?”
“Had things to see to in the village,” Pike muttered, sullen.
“Things,” Harcourt repeated. “Things like ale?”
Pike’s jaw jutted. “I work hard.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Harcourt said. “But you work stupid, too, and that costs you. And it costs him.” He jerked his thumb at Rowan, who stood a few paces behind, arms folded, expression grim. “And it’ll cost your children, unless your wife flogs you into sense.”
Pike shifted, eyes flicking uneasily between them.
“Mr. Harcourt,” Rowan interjected quietly, “perhaps—”
“You asked me to speak my mind,” Harcourt said, not looking at him. “So I’m speakin’ it. You’ve got good land here, Pike. Not the best, but better than some I’ve seen. You keep treating it like a sideboard you can sell for brandy every time you fancy a drink, you’ll be in the poorhouse by forty.”
“My father—” Pike began.
“Your father,” Harcourt cut in, “probably did the same damned thing, and where is he now?”
Pike’s mouth flattened. “Dead,” he muttered.
“Aye.” Harcourt’s voice gentled, just a fraction. “And left you a thin plot and a bad example.” He glanced back at Rowan. “You need to tighten the reins here, boy. Raise rents on men like this if you must—*but* give them a way to earn the increase. New seed, new tools. Incentive. You can’t just sit back and hope they remember how to farm on their own.”
Rowan bit back his instinctive defense of his tenants. “I am aware.”
“Are you?” Harcourt challenged. “Then show it. Don’t just walk about nodding and smiling. Put something in motion. Set terms. Clear ones. This isn’t just about numbers. It’s about showing them you’re watching. Folk get lazy when no one’s looking.”
“And stubborn when stared at constantly,” Rowan said. “There is a balance.”
“Find it,” Harcourt said. “Before the land goes sour and you stand in front of that nice girl with empty hands.”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. “I will not stand in front of her with lies, at least.”
Harcourt studied him, something grudgingly approving in his gaze.
“Good,” he said. “Then there’s hope for you yet.”
He turned back to Pike. “You’ll go see Whitlow. Today. Tell him you need better seed. His Grace will front you the cost this once.” He stabbed a finger again. “Once. You waste it, you’re done. You drunk yourself to death if you like, but you won’t take the land with you.”
Pike swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. Your—Your Grace. Mr. Harcourt.”
“Go on, then,” Harcourt said. “Get out of my sight.”
Pike slouched away, shoulders hunched.
Rowan let out a slow breath. “You are… harsh.”
“Yes,” Harcourt said. “But fair. You hand folk rope, they’ll hang themselves if you don’t tell ‘em how to use it. Better a sharp word now than a broken man later.”
Rowan considered that.
“Was anyone ever that… sharp with you?” he asked.
Harcourt’s mouth twitched. “My wife. God rest ‘er. She didn’t have your aunt’s vocabulary, but she had a right hook.” His eyes softened. “She called me on every foolish gamble I ever took. Saved my skin more’n once.”
“And now you are doing the same,” Rowan said quietly. “For me.”
Harcourt snorted. “Don’t grow maudlin. I’m doing it for my daughter. You just happen to be in the way.”
Rowan smiled faintly. “Fair enough.”
They walked back toward the house in a companionable silence.
“Boy,” Harcourt said, as they crested the rise, “you truly mean to give her a say. In all this.”
“Yes,” Rowan said without hesitation.
“And if she says no?”
Rowan looked out over the land. “Then I will… keep doing what I can. Slower. With less margin for error.” He swallowed. “And I will not hunt another fortune like a hound on a scent. Once is enough.”
Harcourt grunted. “Good answer.”
He paused. “And if she says yes, and ten years hence you find yourself longing for the ease of your old life? The cards, the champagne, the girls in white muslin what don’t ask questions?”
Rowan’s jaw clenched. “Then I hope,” he said, “that by then I will have learned to prefer solid ground to quicksand. And that if I… falter, she—and you, and my aunt, and Whitlow, and the entire damned village—will drag me back by my hair.”
Harcourt eyed him. “You give folk a lot of power over you when you say things like that.”
“I know,” Rowan said. “That is the point.”
Harcourt’s mouth tugged upward. “All right, then,” he muttered. “We’ll see.”
***
That evening, after dinner, as the candles burned low and Harcourt and Lady Agnes argued amiably over whist, Livia stood near the fireplace, staring at the flames.
Her father had not yet asked her for an answer.
He would.
She could feel his question hovering like a physical weight in the room.
Rowan crossed the carpet, two glasses in hand. “Brandy?” he asked. “Or will that compromise your calculations?”
She accepted one. “A small measure will not destroy my faculties, Your Grace.”
He smiled. “Good. I’d hate to be responsible for that.”
They stood side by side, not quite touching, watching the fire.
“Your father is… formidable,” Rowan said after a moment.
“Yes,” Livia agreed. “He frightens most men.”
“He frightens me less than he did yesterday,” Rowan admitted. “Which might be foolish. Or progress.”
“He respects you more than he did yesterday,” she said. “Which is progress.”
He glanced at her. “He told you?”
“He did not need to.” She sipped her brandy. “I have watched him browbeat men to tears. He has not yet attempted that with you.”
“High praise,” Rowan murmured. “I shall treasure it.”
They fell silent again.
“Have you decided?” he asked at last, in a voice so low she barely heard it over the crackle of the hearth.
She did not pretend not to understand.
“No,” she said.
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “No… you have not decided. Or no…?”
“No, I have not reached a decision,” she clarified. “Not yet.”
He exhaled, some of the tension easing. “I did not wish to press you. But I also did not wish to leave Merrow Park tomorrow still… entirely ignorant of your thoughts.”
“You wish for *some* indication,” she said, amused despite the seriousness.
“Yes,” he said frankly. “I am greedy. In this, at least.”
She watched the flames. “You have given me much to consider.”
“And you,” he said, “have given me much to hope for.”
She swallowed. “Hope is dangerous.”
“I am acquainted with danger,” he said. “I prefer this kind.”
“What will you do,” she asked, “if I say no?”
He did not flinch. “I will accept it. I will not argue. I will not beg. It would not change your mind, and it would demean us both.”
“And if I say yes?”
“Then,” he said, “I will spend the next ten years—and, I hope, the rest of our lives—proving that you did not misplace your courage.”
She turned her head, met his eyes.
“And if I say, as I do now,” she said slowly, “that I am… inclined… toward yes, but not ready to speak it aloud?”
His pupils flared. “Inclined.”
“Yes.”
“May I,” he asked, his voice roughening, “take that as permission to… anticipate?”
She felt herself flush. “Within reason.”
He stepped a fraction closer. “Define… reason.”
She swallowed. The warmth of the fire blended with the warmth of him, drawing her forward.
“Reason,” she said, “is… no decisions made in heat. No… liberties taken without my consent.”
His jaw clenched. “I will not take what you do not give.”
“And,” she went on, heart hammering, “no… kisses… until I have spoken to my father. Clearly.”
His eyes darkened. “You are determined to make this torture.”
“Torture can be… instructive,” she said softly.
He groaned. “You are *merciless.*”
“And you,” she said, “have spent a lifetime taking what you wanted without thought. You can endure a few days of denial.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered, then tore away.
“I can endure much,” he said hoarsely, “if I know there is an end to it.”
She almost—*almost*—offered him one. The word *yes* hovered at the back of her throat like a morsel she could not swallow.
“Livia,” he whispered.
Her name, spoken like that, wrapped around her like heat.
She took a shaky sip of brandy instead.
“Walk with me tomorrow,” she said abruptly. “Before we leave.”
His brows lifted. “Where?”
“Your woods. Your water. Somewhere that is not fields and cottages and ledgers.”
He searched her face. “Of course.”
“Good.” She managed a small, defiant smile. “I should like to see whether you can speak of something other than drainage and debt.”
“Challenge accepted,” he murmured.
Behind them, Harcourt crowed in triumph as Lady Agnes cursed flamboyantly at the whist table.
“Now, *there’s* a partnership,” Rowan said dryly.
Livia looked, smiled.
“Yes,” she said softly. “It is.”
And she wondered—fiercely, dangerously—what it would be like to have something like that. Someone with whom she could quarrel and scheme and stand shoulder to shoulder against the world.
She felt Rowan’s gaze on her profile, knew he was thinking much the same.
The line between danger and desire grew thinner.
Tomorrow, in the woods, she would have to decide on which side she stood.
***