“I am still deciphering that question, Miss Wood.”
In the next moment, arm in arm, Lord Lampton and the future Lady Lampton left the nursery wing. Marion allowed a breath of relief. She had helped Layton. It didn’t make him love her. But she’d helped.
* * *
“Hartley!” Philip jovially greeted His Grace with the ease of an old friend, one of the growing list of friends Layton and Philip didn’t have in common.
“Still posturing, are you, Lampton?” The duke slapped Philip firmly on the shoulder. “Thought you’d give that up now that you’re settled.”
“Nearly settled,” the Duchess of Hartley corrected her husband with a teasing smile. “If his dame de l’amour does not object to his acting like a babbling fool, why should you?”
“That was not terribly helpful to my cause.” Philip raised an eyebrow at Her Grace.
She returned the gesture with a cold, cutting glance down her very fine nose. Philip laughed and raised his arms in surrender.
“She does that well, does she not?” His Grace smiled affectionately at his wife, much as one would expect a very newly married couple to do, though Layton knew they’d wed nearly ten years earlier.
“She is positively terrifying!” Philip even managed a dramatic shudder.
The duchess, however, had already regained her usual gentle expression. She turned her gaze to Layton. “Monsieur Layton.”
The proper greetings were exchanged, followed by polite inquiries into the health of each other’s children.
“Already quite happily settled in the nursery,” His Grace said of his own brood.
Layton’s mind almost immediately focused on his own ladies in the nursery. Despite his best efforts, Layton’s affection for Marion remained unchanged. If anything, his feelings had intensified. He looked forward to their twice-daily rides to and from the Park. It was the only time she smiled at him anymore. He found he needed those smiles.
He worried about her. Marion hadn’t regained much of her coloring over the last two weeks. She still looked pale, fragile, hurt. While the idea that Marion might be nursing a broken heart was at least a little gratifying, he hated himself for what he seemed to be putting her through. Surely she understood the impediments, the whys of their necessary separation.
Did she know how much he loved her? Layton wondered. That he depended on her enduring cheerfulness? Admired her honesty? Adored her dedication to Caroline?
A rap on the door snapped Layton back to the present. Philip and the duke and duchess had crossed to a far window at some point while Layton had been woolgathering. Only he watched the door as it opened.
Marion! Almost as if he’d conjured her up just by thinking about her.
“Hello,” he quietly greeted, knowing he smiled too largely for propriety.
Her entire face lightened for a moment, an answering smile on her lips. “Might I speak with you about the nursery, sir?”
That “sir” broke his heart, even as he memorized every nuance of her smiling face.
“Of course.” He heard the sounds of Philip and the Hartleys moving toward them.
Marion opened her mouth to tell him something, but the duke’s voice broke in. “Marion!”
Her head snapped up instinctively. Layton watched her, glanced at the duke, then looked back at Marion again. She smiled broadly, and tears gathered in her eyes.
“Roderick!” she exclaimed and positively ran past Layton to the duke’s outstretched arms.
She hugged him enthusiastically then did precisely the same thing to the duchess, who held her far too tightly and far too long to be anything but a dear friend.
Had Marion just called the Duke of Hartley by his Christian name?
“What are you doing here?” His Grace asked, sounding genuinely confused. “We were planning to stop by Tafford after Lampton’s wedding.”
Then Marion unaccountably began to sob. Layton began crossing to her but checked himself.
“Ma pauvre amie.” Her Grace stroked Marion’s hair, an arm reassuringly draped around her shoulders, precisely what Layton would have liked to do. “Come now. We will find you a cup of tea and wash your face. You will feel much better, you shall see.” She looked up at Philip. “Where is Lady Marion’s bedchamber?”
Lady Marion! The look of shock on Philip’s face must have mirrored Layton’s own.
“Never mind.” The duchess waved off the answer she had been awaiting. “She can come to mine.”
Without a single word of explanation or even a fleeting look at Layton, Marion left, crying into the lacy handkerchief the duchess lent her. If she hadn’t returned the one Layton had asked her to keep, she could have used his!