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“I gathered that. You were very thoroughly braced.” He allowed himself a small smile. “I am sorry to disappoint you.”

“You have not disappointed me in the least.” She laughed again, properly this time, the sound bright and startled and entirely unguarded, and Gregory felt something in his own chest loosen at the sound of it, the particular warmth he had come, over these past weeks, to associate specifically and only with her. “I confess I do not entirely know what to do with an argument that refuses to be had. I came prepared with three separate contingencies, Gregory. I had a whole speech ready for the eventuality that you refused outright, and another for the eventuality that you agreed but demanded the guest list be limited, and I have not the faintest notion what to do with the eventuality that you simply agree. Immediately. Without conditions.”

“Would you like me to invent some conditions, to make you feel better prepared?”

“No,” she said, and then, reconsidering, “well, perhaps one. You must promise to actually attend your own ball, rather than vanishing into your study the moment the first guests arrive, which I understand from Augusta is rather a habit of yours at your own entertainments.”

“That,” said Gregory, with mock gravity, “is a very reasonable condition, and I accept it entirely.”

“Good.” She smoothed her skirts, visibly recovering her composure now that the immediate crisis of an argument that had failed to materialize was safely behind her, though a certain lightness remained in her that had not been there when she arrived. Or rather, Gregory thought, watching her, the eagerness that had been there when she arrived had simply been allowed to stay, unguarded, instead of being folded carefully back into something more presentable. “Thank you, Gregory. Truly. I know I have rather thrown this at you without warning, and I am grateful you did not make me fight for it.”

“You need not thank me for agreeing that children deserve a warm winter, Duchess. I should be a poor sort of man if that required persuading.”

She looked at him a moment longer, something warm and a little uncertain still moving behind her eyes, as though she were turning the whole exchange over and finding it did not quite match any shape she had prepared for, and then, apparently deciding the puzzle could wait for later examination, she inclined her head, and smiled, a real smile, wide and unguarded, the kind she so rarely let anyone see, and turned for the door.

“I shall need to speak to Mrs. Glenn about the ballroom directly,” she said, already half out the door, her voice trailing back into the room with a new briskness, already several steps ahead into the practical business of orchestras and guest lists and dust sheets. “And I must write to Madame Voisin about musicians, and to Augusta, who will want to help and will sulk for a week if I do not ask her properly, and.”

The door clicked shut behind her before she finished the sentence, and Gregory caught, through the panel, the quick, light sound of her footsteps receding down the corridor at considerably greater speed than the ones that had carried her in.

He stood a moment longer in the sudden quiet of his study, looking at the door, and became aware, belatedly, that he was still smiling. Had been smiling, in fact, for rather longer than the conversation itself could account for.

He thought of her face when she had first come through the door: flushed, and bright eyed, and so entirely unguarded that he had very nearly forgotten, for the length of several full seconds, that he was meant to be attending to what she said rather than simply to the fact of her saying it. He thought of the careful way she had braced herself for an argument, building her defenses with the practiced efficiency of a woman who had spent a great many years learning that wanting something plainly was rarely enough to secure it. And he thought, with a small, private satisfaction that surprised him with its intensity, of the moment that bracing had dissolved. Not because he had won some contest of wills, but because there had been, for once, no contest to win at all.

He found he wanted, very badly, to give her a great many more reasons to look exactly like that.

He sat back down at his desk, and drew the abandoned ledgers toward him once more, and discovered, some minutes later, that he had read the same column of figures three times over without absorbing a single one of them, his mind still occupied, entirely and rather happily, with the sound of her laugh drifting back to him through a closed door.

“You know, it is rather exciting in a way,” Phillipa said at dinner time.

It was just the two of them at the long table for dinner. The baby had been put to bed early, and they had convened to share a meal together.

It was becoming somewhat of a habit, and Phillipa found that she didn’t mind the routine in the slightest.

“Is that so?” he raised an eyebrow in her direction. “I didn’t take you much for the socialite sort.”

“Oh, heavens no. I shouldn’t like to think I am,” she let out a small laugh. “But you know, there is something rather fun about arranging the whole thing. I didn’t know this much effort went into arranging a ball, and it’s all rather fun. I should like to think. I’m sure you’ll be quite pleased, too, and I can imagine that it would do good for your reputation as well. Not that there is anything wrong currently….”

She was rambling again, and felt annoyed at herself. It seemed to be a routine thing whenever she was in his company.

He seemed to be listening to her, patiently.

And if she allowed herself some delusion for the time being, she might even convince herself that he seemed interested in what she had to say as well.

“I am sure that when you see the figures, you will understand how much good this can do,” she said. “I am so grateful that you agreed. I do hope you know that. And I am certain, once the evening is under way, you will see for yourself how important it is, and how good it will be for the children, and how much it means to...”

“Phillipa,” he cut her off midway, shooting her a pointed look.

She stopped, her fork halfway to her plate. “Yes?”

“Why do you feel the need to say it all like that?”

“Like what?” she said, genuinely confused at the question and raked her brain to determine if she had said something wrong.

“Like you know…” he gestured in front of him, trying to locate the correct words. “As though it’s a petition of some sort. I think you’ve already thanked me enough times, and you keep justifying it to me as though you think I’m about to change my mind.”

She looked honestly puzzled. “But it is a great deal to ask of you so naturally…”

“Naturally, nothing,” he said, a bit more sternly than before. “I told you it was not.”