Chapter 13
“Yes.”
Jacqueline rose slowly, offering a brief, practiced curtsy before turning away. Her pace was noticeably more hurried than usual.
She was desperate to escape the stifling atmosphere of the room. Her only desire was to find Colin in the solitude of her quarters and vent her frustrations—complaints that would, in all likelihood, devolve into a scathing critique of Windsor.
As she reached for the door, the sharp, crystalline ring of a teacup meeting its saucer echoed behind her. Windsor was likely finishing his tea, yet the sound carried a jarring force she hadn’t expected.
Stepping out into the hallway, Jacqueline wondered if the Marquess, who had appeared so unshakable, was actually harboring a far deeper resentment than he let on.
Suddenly, she froze. A bolt of intuition struck her, momentarily paralyzing her mid-stride.
Could it be…?
She spun around, her gaze narrowing as she stared at the heavy, silent door she had just exited.
The reasons behind his peculiar behavior began to click together: the way he avoided dining with her, his refusal to dance with the ladies at galas, and his total absence from the exclusive circles of gentlemen’s clubs.
Her thoughts raced. Disparate, jagged fragments of a puzzle began to align, sliding into place until a clear, undeniable picture emerged.
“Surely… it couldn’t be that simple?”
For a second, her eyes sparked with keen intelligence. Then, she let out a soft, weary sigh, a note of genuine pity coloring her voice.
“I suppose no one in this world is truly without their burdens.”
Everyone in the manor carried their own hidden weights. Madam Ritz lived in fear of losing her influence; young Benjamin was suffocating under the pressure of his uncle’s high standards.
Jacqueline herself had been haunted by the specter of poverty—a struggle she was entirely unequipped for—and as for Windsor…
“If I had realized sooner, I would have been more careful with my own funds. Living on the charity of another is never a simple thing.”
The amber glow of the afternoon sun draped over her shoulders as she moved down the corridor, her footsteps ghosting silently over the floor.
Down on the first level, the frantic preparations for the upcoming banquet were reaching a crescendo, marked by the occasional burst of localized chaos. The uncharacteristic noise filling the usually tomb-like mansion felt strangely comforting.
Windsor made his way to the dining hall later than was his custom. Since his years in the military, he had lived by a rigid, uncompromising clock, never deviating by so much as a minute.
Dinner was traditionally served at seven, yet recently, the schedule had drifted by nearly an hour. There was no question that this disruption was the work of Jacqueline, the newest addition to the Preston household.
As a governess—and a former Earl’s daughter—protocol dictated she dine with the family rather than the domestic staff.
However, the source of the awkwardness wasn’t Jacqueline; it was Windsor Preston himself.
“Let us go in, My Lord.”
William stepped ahead to hold the dining room door open.
Windsor, walking with his usual detached air, came to an abrupt halt. William glanced back, his eyebrows rising in silent confusion.
“Miss Somerset…?”
Surprised, the butler addressed Jacqueline. He hadn’t expected to find her waiting there.
She turned her head slowly, her eyes meeting Windsor’s. Under the flickering orange light of the candles, her irises seemed to burn with a deeper, more intense green.
“William, would you grant us a moment? I have a matter of some importance to discuss with Lord Preston.”
“…As you wish, Miss.”
With a quick, questioning look toward Windsor, William withdrew and closed the door. Windsor remained where he was, his expression unreadable as he looked at her.
“Have you not eaten yet? If that is the case, I shall take my meal later.”
“When? Tomorrow morning?”
Jacqueline’s voice held a teasing edge, pointing out the lateness of the hour, but Windsor’s face remained a mask of indifference.
It was exactly as she suspected. Based on her time with Benjamin, she had concluded that the Preston men were largely immune to humor.
“Are you aware of the stories people tell about you, Lord Preston? You’ve become quite as infamous as the ‘impoverished lady’ standing before you.”
Windsor offered no retort, merely pinning her with a steady, silent stare. Jacqueline offered a thin smile and gestured toward the seat across from her.
“This may take some time. Please, sit. My neck is beginning to strain from looking up at you.”
With his usual stoicism, Windsor walked to the table and took his place opposite her.
Watching him, Jacqueline felt a small tug at the corner of her mouth. She saw a glimmer of the same earnestness Benjamin had shown when he had so dutifully toured her through the house.
The boy was quiet, yet he never ignored her. Windsor was just as guarded, but he hadn’t dismissed her either.
Just as she had grown fond of Benjamin, Jacqueline realized she didn’t actually dislike Windsor Preston. He wasn’t the arrogant tyrant the gossip-mongers described.
A truly conceited man wouldn’t have carried a tray for a servant in the middle of the night.
She now held the final piece of the puzzle—and it was a powerful card to play.
“What is it you want to say?”
Windsor was the one to break the silence. Jacqueline spoke clearly, her tone balanced between gravity and ease.
“The reason you don’t dance, the reason you shun social clubs, the reason you won’t eat with me or even take tea in my presence…”
Windsor’s features suddenly went rigid. A shadow of suspicion flickered in his steel-gray eyes.
Confirming her theory through his reaction, Jacqueline’s voice grew more confident.
“Would it be overstepping for me to say that I understand why?”
He remained silent, his gaze sharp and searching, as if trying to dissect her thoughts.
Jacqueline didn’t flinch. She maintained her calm smile despite the intensity of his stare. She knew she held a winning hand.
This was a gamble she had to win.
“If I were to offer my assistance, Lord Preston, would that also be overstepping?”
“What exactly do you think the reason is, Miss Somerset? Tell me that first. We can discuss terms afterward.”
Windsor’s question was blunt. His face, usually a stone wall, seemed even more tense than usual.
Jacqueline composed herself. She understood how delicate this subject was for a man of his standing.
She had no desire to wound his ego. As he said, this was a negotiation.
“I know that before you inherited the title, you were a soldier. You were raised by your mother—an opera singer—and lived a life completely removed from the Preston lineage until you reached adulthood.”
“As you noted, Miss Somerset, that is common knowledge—nearly as famous as your own fall from grace. I assume you didn’t bring me here to recite my own biography.”
He threw the phrase “impoverished noble lady” back at her—perhaps as a final warning to tread carefully.
Jacqueline ignored the barb and continued softly, “I hope you don’t misunderstand. I have nothing but respect for the path you’ve walked.”
“Miss Somerset, you have already delayed my dinner by eight minutes. If you truly respect my time, perhaps you could stop with the pleasantries and get to the point.”
“Very well.”
Flattery was useless here. She suppressed the thought that he was a man of too much principle to be swayed by charm and focused her mind.
A direct strike was the only way forward, even if the nerves in her stomach were twisting into knots.
“When Viscount Jeffrey Preston’s will came to light, you were thrust into the role of Marquess. Overnight, you went from a soldier to a peer, from a commoner’s life to the height of the aristocracy. You were never given the time to learn the absurdly complex and suffocating etiquette of our class.”
“Absurdly complex and suffocating.”
Windsor repeated her words in a low voice. He was remarkably controlled for a man whose secret had just been exposed.
He was a master of hiding his internal state, and Jacqueline couldn’t quite tell if she had angered him or intrigued him.
“Yes,” she continued, choosing her words with precision. “Etiquette was meant to be a gesture of consideration, but it has devolved into a tool for vanity. When wealthy merchants began to rise in status, the old nobility grew terrified. To protect their positions, they invented a web of rules so convoluted that no outsider could ever hope to master them.”
Windsor watched her in silence. This was a scathing critique of the ton she had never voiced before, and a spark of genuine interest finally appeared in his eyes.
“They believed these trivialities proved their blood was superior. It’s nonsense, of course, but they cling to it. They made the rules more intricate every year specifically to trip up newcomers. However…”
She paused, locking her emerald eyes onto his. The candlelight danced in her pupils.
Windsor found himself momentarily captivated by her intensity. Her voice seemed to echo from a distance, pulling him in.
“As you are well aware, Lord Preston, no member of the nobility can truly ignore these customs. Our world is small, and gossip is our primary currency. Your reputation in the drawing rooms dictates your success in every other arena.”
She was right. In their world, social standing was the foundation of politics, finance, and diplomacy.
Windsor had learned this the hard way. He was currently paying for his years of indifference toward high society.
The Crown was making every effort to seize custody of Benjamin, and Windsor needed the support of influential peers and legal experts to fight back.
But he was struggling. Because he had kept his distance from the social circuit, no one was willing to stick their neck out for a man who never attended their parties or bothered with their pleasantries.
He was isolated. And it was too late to simply start attending balls; he lacked the fundamental training in etiquette that Jacqueline had identified.
If he failed publicly, the Preston name would be dragged through the mud.
He refused to let Benjamin inherit a ruined reputation. He wanted to hand the boy a legacy that was as untarnished as the day he received it.
“You were afraid that a single wrong move would expose you. That is why you wouldn’t dance, why you wouldn’t join the clubs, and why you avoided even the simplest social interactions like sharing a meal. In the country, you could hide—but the capital is different. It is a den of wolves.”
Jacqueline had reached into his mind and pulled out his deepest anxiety. Windsor looked at her with genuine shock.
He had dismissed her as a fragile girl raised in luxury, but she possessed a startling depth of insight. And she was brave. It took a rare kind of courage to say these things to a man like him.
“You aren’t the arrogant man the rumors describe, Lord Preston. You are simply a man out of his element.”
Windsor’s gaze wavered. For the first time, he couldn’t look away from her.
Almost despite himself, he asked, “And how exactly do you propose to help me?”
