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Yes, I can see how much you dislike gossip, Amanda thought. “No,” she said. “I didn’t even know His Grace before that day, so I wasn’t expecting it at all.”

“Well, he must have caught sight of you from afar and taken a liking to you, was that it?”

So, people hadn’t heard the story about George and Sampson being friends in the war. “I suppose that might be it,” Amanda said.

“Oh, then he hasn’t explained himself to you? He must be so shy! Although…how could he be, given that he was willing to interrupt a wedding like that? Oh, love really does make a person do remarkable things.” She sighed. “It’s very romantic, when you think about it.”

“Weddings can be that way.” Amanda kept the smile on her face, not wanting to seem as if she was criticizing her modiste.

“That’s very true,” Mrs. Corian said. “You’d know all about it, I suppose—you were married before, weren’t you? I’m not really asking. Everyone knows about your past marriage, and the tragic loss of your husband. Such a sad thing, to lose a young man to war like that…and when it’s someone who was just starting out, getting ready to build a family…well, Your Grace, I would be willing to say the whole town mourned that loss right along with you. It was one of the sadder things I’ve ever seen.”

Amanda nodded. “It was very sad indeed,” she said softly.

“You must have thought your life was over before it had even begun. Did you?”

“I was very sad to have lost the chance to build a relationship with my late husband,” Amanda said, trying to be diplomatic. “You’re quite right to say that losing anyone so early in their life is a terrible tragedy. The cost of war is very high indeed.”

“I’m just grateful my Andrew never had to fight,” Mrs. Corian said. “He’s ill so often, I don’t think they’d ever have let him, but if he was on the battlefield I’d be as worried about pneumonia as anything else.”

Amanda hummed her agreement.

“But you were ready to get married again,” Mrs. Corian went on. “You must have thought it was time to get back to the business of starting a family. Of course, everyone knows you and your late husband didn’t have a child together, or you would have remained in his home instead of returning to your father’s. That must have been difficult, not having anything to show for that marriage.”

“I think it’s fair to say that people gain something from every relationship they enter into,” Amanda said. “I’ll walk away with fond memories of my time in that marriage, and I’m a stronger person for it.” She wasn’t about to talk about the fact that she and George hadn’t had a child together, or the reason behind it.

“Do you know what some people are saying?” Mrs. Corian asked. She sat back on her heels and looked up at Amanda. Amanda sensed that this was the piece of gossip Mrs. Corian really wanted to talk about, and that they had been making their way here for a while now.

“What are they saying?” she asked warily.

“Well, I don’t know how it could be true, of course,” Mrs. Corian said. “But some people are saying that there is a child. Everyone knows that Mrs. Linden was hired recently, and she had been talking for months about her wish to become a governess. They say she works here now and is governess to the secret child you had in your last marriage. I don’t see how it could be true, of course, or you would still be in your late husband’s home. And people would know if there had been a child, surely. And of course, I don’t mean to gossip. That’s the last thing I would want, Your Grace.”

Oh, no, you would never gossip. Of course not. Amanda was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes.

“I just thought you would want to know what was being said, and that you had a right to know it,” Mrs. Corian went on. “I thought…well, if it was me, I would want to know that people were saying those things. So, I thought the right thing to do was to tell you myself.”

“I appreciate that,” Amanda said, though she wasn’t sure she did. The best thing to do here would be to handle this graciously—and to extricate herself as quickly as possible, without confirming anything.

It hadn’t occurred to her that Rose’s existence was something that should be kept secret. She hadn’t been trying to conceal it. But now, suddenly, she looked at things very differently. What if she tried to explain to Mrs. Corian that there was a child, but that the child wasn’t who the ton believed her to be?

Rose was far too old to have been the product of her marriage to George, after all. The moment she showed her face, that rumor would die. And then people would conclude…what?

That she was Sampson’s child from before the war. That was the narrative that would take over. She was suddenly certain of it. The timeline was right for that to be true. People would think Sampson had had a child with someone before going off to fight, and then he had come home and married her to give that child a mother.

As rumors went, it was not a horrible one. But it was one she couldn’t allow to get off the ground, because it wasn’t her reputation that would be impacted, but Sampson’s.

And what if he didn’t like it?

What if he was so angered by the idea that he decided he would no longer tolerate Rose’s presence and throw her out as a means of proving to society that all their ideas were wrong?

Everything had been going so well up until now. It had really begun to seem as though Amanda and Rose would have a safe home.

But whatever Sampson’s reason for marrying Amanda was, whatever he might think he owed to George, Rose had never been a part of the agreement. If she sullied his name, there was every chance he would get rid of her, and Amanda could not allow that to happen.

“I don’t know what could have given rise to such a rumor,” she said. “There’s no child living here.”

And she thanked her lucky stars for the circumstantial fact that Rose had not been present at the second wedding, so there would be nothing to tie her to the duke.

As long as everyone involved kept their mouths shut, no one need ever know that Rose was living here…and if that secret could be kept, then Rose would be safe.