By the third morning, the counting house was starting to feel less like a tiny chamber atop a tall, lonesome tower, and more like a shared retreat high above the rest of the castle. Noelle no longer feared Silkridge might be present. She secretly hoped he was.

Her disappointment at finding the room empty was quickly eclipsed by her surprise at finding it changed.

Mr. Marlowe’s side of the chamber was the same. Hers now boasted new sconces in addition to daylight from the tower window, and a cushioned chair designed for the comfort of someone of her height. The area looked positively inviting.

She stepped around her desk to the new chair and eased onto the plush cushion. Firm, but not too firm. Comfortable. Not so high that her feet could not reach the floor, not so low that the desk was out of proportion. It was perfect.

She grinned to herself as she rose to fetch the next journal in her quest to improve each one chronologically. She was almost done with the task. With the new chair and the sunnier lighting, it would be a joy to work in the counting house today.

As she turned from the bookshelf, the scent of mint reached her nostrils.

A footman stood in the doorway bearing a teapot, toasted bread, and cheese on a silver tray. “Shall I place this on your desk?”

She nodded in wonder. The tower was too tall for bellpulls, so Mr. Marlowe had never had one installed. As king of the castle, servants brought any repast or libation he might wish throughout the day.

As junior clerk, Noelle was expected to take her meals in the communal dining rooms with the rest of the castle.

The arrangement was more than generous. Mr. Marlowe did not charge a penny from his staff or his neighbors for partaking in the community refreshments. It had become part of her routine. Waking at dawn, trekking to the greenhouse for fresh mint, stopping by the breakfast room for a bit of toast and cheese before heading up the long winding staircase to the counting room.

She had never wanted or expected more. She was still proving herself.

Yesterday, Silkridge had casually mentioned the workers had been renovating the aviary since dawn. He had been there to oversee them. Noelle had not. Her absence had not been intentional. With both Mr. Fawkes and Mr. Marlowe, she was used to being the first to her desk in the mornings. Silkridge’s dedication was a surprise. In order to beat him to the counting house today, she had skipped her morning routine.

He had anticipated far more than her early arrival.

Instead of attempting to spoil her with plates heaping with meat and eggs and the finest tea in the kingdom, he had sent a tray bearing the items she actually preferred.

But how? She hadn’t seen him in the breakfast room before. Noelle doubted herself capable of missing him. Whenever he was close, her skin tingled as if charged with electricity.

Which meant the duke had been forced to actively go find out what she might want. Perhaps he remembered her love of mint tea from their youth, but her breakfast habits had changed after becoming clerk. Silkridge hadn’t relied on half-remembered memories. He had investigated to ensure he presented something she desired.

And oh, did she desire! A shiver tingled along her skin. Try as she might to deny it, the kiss they had almost shared, the one they had no business indulging, was all she could think about.

And now, blast him, every time she sipped her favorite tea she would think of him as well.

Just as she lifted the steaming cup, he strode through the door.

She did not tease him with Happy Christmas. It would break his heart to realize his many acts of kindness were very much in line with the Cressmouth spirit.

“Good morning.” The low caress of his voice heated her more than the tea in her hands.

She blushed. “Good morning.”

He took his seat behind his grandfather’s grand desk as if he belonged there. As if they both did.

“How goes the aviary?” she inquired.

His blue eyes lit with satisfaction. “Almost done.”

Her stomach twisted. His achievement should make her happy. Bidding him a final farewell was what she wanted. Wasn’t it?

He leaned back in his chair, his manner confident. “Shan’t be long now. The only missing piece is a ceremonial bird and a broken bottle of wine.”

Noelle had never felt less like drinking champagne.

“Thank you for the tea,” she said. “And the chair.”

He shrugged this away as if such gifts were an everyday part of any man’s morning routine. “You are good at your post. You might as well be comfortable while doing it.”

The sentiment was bittersweet. As she was helping him leave, he was helping her stay. Nothing had changed.

“What are you working on?” he asked.

She held up one of Mr. Fawkes’s old journals. “Deciphering this.”

“Can I help?” Silkridge asked.

She nearly dropped the book in surprise. “There’s only one left to do after this. It’s the last volume on the right. You’ll find fresh journals on the row beneath.”

Without delay, he retrieved the old volume and its new replacement and returned to the desk to work.

Noelle watched in silence for a long moment. Soon, she couldn’t keep the words back any longer. “Don’t you have more important things to do?”

“Yes.” His clear voice was matter-of-fact. “But all the things I should be working on are hundreds of miles away. As soon as I return home, I will devote myself to catching up on all my responsibilities. Until then, why not be of service to you? After all, it’s just one more day.”

Just one more day.

The words were icy balls of bitter hail, pelting into her with each cold syllable.

She tried to calm the erratic beating of her heart. Why now? Why like this?

The distance between them had been so much easier when she could despise him. Now that she knew him better, she realized she had hated a version of him that had perhaps never existed.

It wasn’t that Silkridge didn’t care about her. It was that he cared about everyone else more. The House of Lords. England, the collective. His duty to every one of this country’s noble citizens. His responsibilities to his dukedom. Noelle could never compete with that. She was an orphan, a clerk, a nobody. Their destinies could never entwine.

But with every moment she spent with him, the more she wished for a future she could never have.

Despite having no interest in Christmas or his grandfather’s castle, Silkridge was seated behind the old man’s desk performing the duties of a common clerk. Not because it would aid the castle, but because it would help her.

That was only the latest in a long string of surprises. From the first, Silkridge had made no disparaging comments about finding a female at the helm of the counting house. The opposite. Rather than try to talk Noelle out of her choices, he respected them. Had gone out of his way to make the small room in which she spent the majority of her time into a cozier place. He was doing his best to make her life better.

She would miss him all the worse.

Her fingers trembled as she toyed with her plume. “Do you like London?”

He looked up. “Have you ever been to the city?”

She shook her head.

“Then you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s definitely not…” He glanced about the cold stone tower. “…this.”

Noelle winced at the reminder that even if Silkridge weren’t expected in Parliament, he still would have no interest in staying here. But even if her village was all wrong for him, she wanted him to understand why it was so special to her.

“I know you hate that Cressmouth is as far from London as possible whilst still being in England, but that’s what I like about it,” she said. “I live in a castle. I work amid a vista of snow-dusted mountains. I, a woman, can be a clerk.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” he said drolly. “Wouldn’t the social whirl of a debutante be more fun than the drudgery of a clerk?”

“I don’t consider it drudgery,” she explained. “I have no particular love for mathematics, but I adore putting things to rights. Creating order. Organizing people and events. It does not matter to me whether I’m arranging welcome biscuits in the common rooms or the transactions that pass through this counting house. The point is helping. I would much rather be useful than useless.”

A startled laugh burst from him. “Are debutantes useless?”

“Not by choice,” she said. “They certainly don’t grow up to be clerks. They aren’t in charge of their lives at all.”

He raised his brows. “Pray tell, who is in charge of debutantes’ lives?”

She could not tell whether he was mocking her or genuinely curious. Perhaps he had never considered a female perspective. Now would be a fine time to start.

“First, the wet nurse and then the governess,” she said slowly. “That covers the first sixteen or so years. After the come-out, the ruling parties become the sponsor and the chaperone. Once a courtship has begun, it changes again. Only her father has the power to accept a suitor’s request. And after that, her husband. The end.”

He frowned. “Hardly the end. Any debutante who follows that path never has to work a day in her life. Once she’s secured heirs, she’s free to devote herself to fashion and parties and social calls. A life of leisure, by any estimation.”

Noelle ran a finger down the spines of the journals she’d worked so hard on these past four years. “Perhaps that’s not what I want.”

“You are opposed to a life filled with pleasures?”

“I’m opposed to an empty life,” she clarified. “I would not wish for idleness to define me. Work and play are not mutually exclusive. I may be up here in this tower six days a week, but seven days a week, I am out in the village with my friends and neighbors. We are all useful. And we all like fun.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Fun like the annual house party with one of your many dukes?”

She narrowed her gaze at him. That tradition had begun well after his last visit. “How do you know about the annual house party?”

She could swear his cheekbones deepened with color.

“Cressmouth Chronicle,” he admitted.

It was her turn to burst into laughter. “You subscribe to the Cressmouth gazette?”

“Of course not,” he protested quickly. “My grandfather insisted upon the quarterly journal being delivered to my home, quite against my wishes. I have never been able to cancel the subscription no matter how many letters I send.”

She giggled at the thought of him responding to each circular with an angry letter for having successfully received it. “You should read the articles. They’re quite dreadful.”

“I know,” he admitted. “Why do you think I wrote so many demands for my subscription to be annulled? Whenever the deuced rag arrived, I could not prevent myself from reading it cover to cover.”

“All is well,” she assured him. “I have heard there are worse guilty pleasures a gentleman could have.”

“Like building launch pads for dirigibles?” he said wryly. “Or stocking a menagerie with precisely one malnourished pygmy goat?”

She could just imagine the duke’s incredulous expression as he read each article. “Was there no mention of Tim in the latest gazette?”

“There was no latest gazette,” he said. “At first I thought delivery was a little late, then shockingly late, then began to fear my cancellation requests had been answered after all. As it happened, Grandfather had fallen ill and the quarterly fell by the wayside.”

Noelle’s breath caught. Silkridge was right. The townsfolk had been focused on Mr. Marlowe’s rapidly worsening condition. In a matter of weeks, their founder had gone from a robust, jovial man to a slot in the castle mausoleum. She froze.

Had anyone thought to inform his grandson? Was the only information he ever received about his own grandfather the snippets he gleaned from a nonsense quarterly journal? Worse, was the real reason Silkridge had not been present for his grandfather’s final days because he had not known anything was amiss until the summons arrived for the reading of the will? Horror gripped her.

“You didn’t know,” she whispered.

His expression shuttered, but he did not pretend to misunderstand. “I would not have come anyway.”

A week ago, she would have believed that. Today, she was not so sure. Silkridge’s strong sense of duty would have won out over past slights. Mr. Marlowe had to know that. Her heart clenched.

The oversight was no accident. A man who would force the Cressmouth Chronicle on his grandson and mention every villager by name in his will would not have left a task as obvious as informing his grandson of his ill health to chance.

Whatever rift had come between them, she could no longer presume Silkridge shouldered the blame. If the duke had not been informed of his grandfather’s condition, it was because Mr. Marlowe had planned it that way. Despite how his grandson might feel.

She swallowed. “Your grandfather should have—”

“He’s gone,” the duke interrupted. “Let’s neither beatify nor vilify him. We know what kind of man he was.”

Noelle was no longer certain she knew what kind of man Mr. Marlowe had been.

This town had been here for her, if not from the moment of her birth than at least ever since her basket was discovered on the castle steps. Silkridge could not say the same. The town had not been there for him any more than his own grandfather had. An eight-page circular four times a year was not the same as having a family.

She suddenly wished she could change that for him. Undo years of estrangement and give him not only a grandfather but an entire town. If he could understand why she felt as she did about Cressmouth, perhaps he would have learned to feel the same.

But that ship had sailed.

No. It had never existed. The past was immutable. Perhaps the duke had strong reasons not to wish to stick around in the present. She straightened her shoulders. All she could do was keep her distance. Protect her heart however she could.

Footsteps sounded on the landing.

She and Silkridge broke their silent gaze and turned their heads toward the open doorway.

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace.” A footman stood at the ready. “The aviary is complete. Mr. Fawkes sent me to inform you that the item you requested has been placed inside, per your wishes.”

Noelle’s stomach sank. The aviary was done; the partridge delivered. There was nothing left to detain the duke from leaving. He could be gone within the hour.

“Just a moment.” Silkridge turned to Noelle, his expression inscrutable. “Since you love to organize events, can you arrange for a bottle of champagne and as many witnesses as necessary to be present outside the aviary at noon tomorrow?”

Tomorrow. He was giving her twenty-four hours to accomplish a task that could be completed in less than one. She swallowed. Perhaps the extra day was for them.

“As you please,” she said quickly. “How many witnesses? The will specified a minimum of four.”

His gaze lowered for a moment before he responded. “The entire town is welcome to attend.”

She glanced up sharply from the notes she was writing. “You’re making the official inauguration a community event?”

He raised a brow. “Did you think I would not?”

“I was positive you would not,” she admitted. “Your grandfather’s will and testament specifically stated that you are not required to do so. You’ve no particular affinity for the project. I would have assumed you’d rather finish the task with as little fuss as possible in order to be on your way more swiftly.”

“And you would be right,” he said. “But the town would prefer to be present. The aviary does not belong to me, but to Cressmouth. Perhaps I’ll even get a mention in the next circular.”

The corner of his mouth gave a self-deprecating quirk.

Noelle did not smile. She couldn’t. Her heart was beating too rapidly at the sweetness of the gesture. He was doing the opposite of what he wished to do for the benefit of her town. Or possibly… for her.

“Very well,” Silkridge said to the footman. “That will be all.”

“Wait.” Noelle winced. Had she just contradicted a duke in front of a servant? She would apologize later. She put the finishing touches on the announcement she had been drafting and ran over to the footman. “Please see that this gets copied and posted throughout town by the end of the day. Put it next to the bills for tonight’s play.”

The footman accepted the papers and headed off with alacrity.

She glanced over her shoulder toward the duke’s desk and nearly jumped out of her skin to discover he was right behind her. Her pulse quickened.

He offered her his elbow. “Shall we visit the recently remodeled aviary?”

“As you wish,” she stammered and somehow managed to curl her shaking fingers about his arm. She did her best to ignore how good the warm strength of his muscles felt beneath her palm.

Silkridge led her down the stairs and through the castle not as if they were en route to visit a partridge, but rather off to attend the finest ball in all the land.

Noelle could not help but wonder what it would be like if that were really true. If at the end of the stroll they did not enter an aviary, but an enormous ballroom filled with dancers and chandeliers and an orchestra. It would be magical.

Cressmouth had no shortage of assemblies, where someone or other would take a turn at the harpsichord, but it must be nothing like London.

Nothing like arriving on the arm of the Duke of Silkridge.

Even if it would only be for one night.

The thought caused her heart to contract. If she could have one night with him, a night of joy and love and magic where anything at all was possible, would she take it? Even if she knew it would all disappear by morning? Knowing she could have him no other way would make it very, very tempting. Who could blame her for seizing onto a moment’s happiness, especially if a single moment was all she could get?

She tightened her grip on his arm and thanked the heavens that she would not be put to such a test. One stolen kiss would have to be enough.

When they reached the aviary, Mr. Fawkes stood at the entrance to greet them with flushed cheeks and the triumphant smile. “The finishing touch has just been delivered.”

He swept open the door.

The aviary was as gorgeous as Noelle remembered. Tall and arching, paneled with angular glass windows that the workers had done a wonderful job of cleaning. Every surface shined to perfection.

Growing up through the dirt floor were dozens of bushes and trees, selected to correspond with the various types of birds Mr. Marlowe had outlined in his notes. They had been watered and trimmed into a true sight to behold.

All that was missing was the bird.

She frowned. Although she knew the aviary contained nothing more than a single partridge, the vast space seemed inordinately quiet and still.

“Do you see it?” she whispered, searching branches for a hint of feathers.

“I had no idea partridges were so good at camouflage,” the duke murmured back. He turned around. “Fuzzy Wig, where is the partridge?”

“Your Grace walked right past it,” Mr. Fawkes chortled. He pointed to a small tree that had not yet been planted.

A tree containing no birds at all.

The uneasy feeling in Noelle’s stomach matched the expression on Silkridge’s face.

He stepped forward. “That’s not a bird.”

“Of course not.” Mr. Fawkes puffed up his chest proudly. “It’s a pear tree, just like you asked.”

“Not ‘pear tree.’” The duke reached for Mr. Fawkes’s ear trumpet. “I said…”

Rather than place the horn to Mr. Fawkes’s ear, the duke handed it back to the old clerk without another word and turned to face Noelle with a desperate expression.

“Pear trees are… tastier than porridge?” she offered weakly.

Silkridge threw up his hands in exasperation. “I shall never escape this town.”

His words were a knife in her gut. The duke might want to kiss her, but he didn’t want to stay.

“Is something wrong?” Mr. Fawkes asked nervously.

“Thank you for your service,” Silkridge shouted into the old clerk’s ear trumpet. “The castle wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Mr. Fawkes beamed at the duke and patted him on the shoulder. “Anytime you need me, lad. I am at your beck and call.”

The duke managed to wait until Mr. Fawkes exited the aviary before letting out a long slow breath.

Noelle felt for him. The old clerk’s ruined hearing had failed the duke not once but twice. Both times, Silkridge had been a remarkably good sport. She doubted his grandfather would have handled the situation with such grace. Silkridge was a good man.

She, on the other hand, was far less noble. A tiny part of her was glad that Mr. Fawkes had failed to deliver as promised. His mistake had given her a reprieve from the duke’s inevitable departure. She could keep him a little while longer. This was a blessing.

The duke swung his frustrated gaze from the pear tree to her. “Recall the announcements before they’re posted. We will have to cancel the christening.”

“Or,” she said gently. “You could let me handle this.”

He stared glumly at the spindly branches devoid of fruit before him. “By tomorrow?”

Her stomach twisted. She might have considered the mix-up a dream come true, but to Silkridge it was a nightmare. He would rather be anywhere else but Cressmouth. He would leave within the hour if he could. She would do well not to forget that.

“I told you,” she reminded him. “I know a partridge expert.”

He slid her a look out of the corner of his eye. “Why would any town have a partridge expert?”

“Bird expert,” Noelle amended. “Virginia loves animals. She can solve this.”

“Can she?” His voice was doubtful. “Doesn’t her cat love birds?”

“Not one whit,” Noelle answered with forced cheer. “Don’t worry. Virginia keeps everything in its place. She’ll know right where to find a spare partridge.”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

Noelle could not quite bring herself to say you’re welcome. She was ushering Silkridge out the door when all she wanted was for him to stay.

For the first time in her life, she wished she weren’t so deuced efficient.

“This is our last night,” the duke said as if reading her mind.

She swallowed. “Yes.”

He nodded slowly. “Then I accept your help under one condition.”

She frowned. Surely he wouldn’t ask her to move the event up even sooner. “What condition?”

His voice grew husky. “Allow me to escort you to tonight’s play.”

She stared at him, her voice faint even to her own ears. “Tonight’s play?”

“The Winter’s Tale,” he said. “Didn’t you say it was your favorite?”

“I said it was in an amphitheater,” she reminded him. “The outdoor kind.”

“It will be worth it,” he said softly, his blue eyes locked on hers.

Her heart leapt. Perhaps he was changing his mind about her. Perhaps she could even change his mind about Cressmouth.

“On one condition,” she said, and bit her lip.

His eyebrows shot up. “Name it.”

“Let me give you a tour of the town first,” she said impulsively. “Show you everything the Cressmouth Chronicle cannot begin to cover.”

He glanced over his shoulder as the wind whistled against the aviary’s many panes of glass. “Right now?”

“One couldn’t ask for a bluer sky,” she said. “We can take a picnic lunch. Fruit and meats and cheeses.”

His expression was skeptical. “A picnic lunch in the back of a carriage?”

“In the back of a sleigh,” she corrected. “Cressmouth is made for sledding. Besides, how can you see the town if you keep yourself sequestered inside somewhere?”

His gaze was unreadable. She had asked for too much. He was going to say no.

“I hope it’s a sleigh with a roof,” he muttered.

“No roof,” she chirped. “I need to fetch my coat from my chamber.”

He proffered his elbow. “Shall I summon a maid?”

“No,” she said quickly. “It’s faster if I do it myself.”

He led her toward the stairs. “Then I shall do the same. My room is down the corridor.”

She knew. It was all she could think about. But how did he know? Her heart pumped faster. Did he lie awake at night thinking of her doing the same at the other end of the corridor?

“I won’t be but a moment,” he promised as he left her by her door to go and fetch his own great coat and top hat.

She hurried into her room and slid on her warmest pelisse, her kid gloves, her prettiest scarf, her thickest muff, her winter bonnet. After a moment’s hesitation, she also retrieved a second scarf. One she had just finished last evening.

When she stepped out in the hall, the duke was already outside her door. She waited until they were outside in the back of the horse-drawn sleigh with a picnic basket between them before handing him the scarf.

“Put this on,” she ordered. “Cressmouth won’t seem near as cold if you are properly dressed.”

“It never seems cold when I’m near you,” he replied softly.

The back of her neck heated with pleasure.

He wound the scarf about his neck and opened the picnic basket. “Tell me absolutely everything about this ghastly village while I gorge myself on fruit and cheese and pretend that I’m listening.”

She looked over at him sharply, but his eyes were full of laughter.

“Beast,” she chastised him. She motioned for the driver to begin a sedate pace.

She and Silkridge enjoyed a leisurely picnic as they wound through the snow-covered streets. The sky was clear, the breeze pleasantly crisp. It was a glorious Cressmouth winter day, perfect for snuggling. Thank heavens there was a picnic basket between them.

Laughing with Silkridge in the back of a sleigh was far more perilous than Noelle had anticipated. She had cared for him once before. Her heart remembered the sensation like putting on warm woolen mittens. If she did not guard herself…

“And there’s the smithy,” she announced breathlessly, forcing herself to focus on the promised tour and not to give over to emotion. “The French family who owns it knows everything about blacksmithing and carriages. The Duke of Azureford swears by their craftsmanship.”

“He would,” Silkridge said. “Azureford is always nattering on about winning phaeton races.”

Noelle grinned as they rounded another corner. “All this open land belongs to Olive Harper, who breeds racehorses. She has several phenomenal stallions absolutely everyone is after, and won’t sell no matter how high an offer she receives.”

“I know,” Silkridge said. “Her family’s stud farm is infamous throughout England. If I have to sit through one more aside in the House of Lords for peers of the realm to discuss horseflesh instead of policy…”

“Do you want to listen to the tour or to give it?” she teased him. But she enjoyed hearing stories about Cressmouth’s influence on London, rather than the other way around.

He waved his hand. “Continue, continue.”

Over the next hour and a half, she managed to point out the majority of the town’s sights and people. That was, between nibbles of food, and giggles at the duke’s constant interruptions.

Everyone they passed called out cheery greetings, and although the duke made certain to mutter humbug under his breath each time, Noelle was increasingly convinced he did so for her benefit rather than his.

By the time they arrived at the amphitheater, being with him felt as natural as the afternoon sun. When they took a seat near the center facing the stage, it was all she could do not to nestle her head on his shoulder and curl into his warmth.

The heated glances he had been sending when he thought she didn’t notice indicated he was feeling much the same.

“Is being a counting house clerk what you want from your life?” he asked suddenly, his eyes searching.

“I’m good at it,” she said simply. “It’s important.”

“To you or to Cressmouth?” he asked.

She frowned. “It’s the same thing.”

“It is not the same.” His expression was intense. “You should not focus on Cressmouth to the exclusion of your own life.”

“I don’t mind,” she assured him. Cressmouth was her family, her home. She wouldn’t abandon their needs in favor of her own. “I don’t need both.”

The duke’s gaze did not waver. “I think you should be able to have it all.”

He made her want it all.

In that moment, Noelle realized the horrible truth. It was too late for shields. Allowing him back into her heart wasn’t the problem.

He had never left.