Chapter 16: THE GRAND DUKE CAME HOME WITH A WIFE

DIANA’S POV

The courier left after delivering the dispatch, but everyone else remained around the table with the same programs and ledgers open before them.

The household steward turned to Diana.

"Then we need a final decision, Your Grace."

Diana disliked how quickly the council’s problem had become hers.

She took her slate.

CAN HIS PRIVATE AUDIENCES WAIT?

"Yes."

FORMAL TERRITORIAL REPORTS?

"Most."

MILITARY ACKNOWLEDGMENT?

The ceremonial officer answered.

"That can proceed without him, though His Grace normally presides."

Diana turned toward the guest keeper.

HOW MANY GUESTS ARE ALREADY HERE?

The woman opened her ledger.

"Two hundred and sixteen individuals assigned guest accommodation, Your Grace. That does not include personal servants."

Two hundred and sixteen.

The guest keeper continued.

"Three northern households remain on the road. The final party is expected before evening."

Diana wrote:

HOW FAR DID THEY TRAVEL?

"Some came from within the inner territory. One or two days."

She checked another line.

"The Morcant household traveled five. Several mining districts traveled four."

Five days through Blackharrow winter.

Diana turned toward the kitchen master.

FOOD ALREADY BOUGHT?

"Yes."

HOW MUCH?

He named a quantity large enough that Alma leaned closer.

Diana did not need to understand every Blackharrow measure to recognize excess.

ROOMS HEATED?

The guest keeper nodded.

"For three days already."

HORSES?

"Stabled and fed as they arrive."

EXTRA STAFF?

The kitchen master answered.

"Called in from two lower households."

The papers in front of Diana explained why the gathering would be awkward without Raigoro.

None explained why awkwardness deserved this much food, labor, travel, and heat.

She wrote:

THEN WHY SEND THEM HOME?

Nobody answered immediately.

The ceremonial officer finally said, "It is not merely a question of sending people home, Your Grace. His Grace is the center of the territorial gathering."

Diana nodded.

That part she understood.

She wrote:

THEN DELAY HIS PART.

The steward leaned toward the slate.

"His private audiences and territorial reports?"

Diana nodded.

The kitchen master looked interested now.

Diana continued.

KEEP WHAT DOES NOT NEED HIM.

The ceremonial officer frowned at the program.

"The military acknowledgment normally leads into the household reception."

Diana wrote:

DOES HE HAVE TO GIVE THE NAMES?

"No."

DOES HE HAVE TO FEED THEM?

The kitchen master made a sound suspiciously close to a laugh and turned it into a cough.

The ceremonial officer ignored him.

"No."

This was not impossible.

They had bundled several different obligations together because Blackharrow had always done them together. Raigoro’s absence prevented some, but it did not prevent all.

The household steward said, "There remains the formal reception of the Grand Duchess."

Diana’s chalk stopped.

She had successfully worked around Raigoro.

She had not worked around herself.

The steward continued.

"That portion was added after the marriage. Blackharrow would ordinarily receive His Grace’s wife with him present."

Ordinarily sounded wonderful.

Diana wrote:

POSTPONE IT.

No one answered.

The ceremonial officer chose his words carefully.

"Your Grace, the marriage itself is one reason attendance has increased."

That seemed an excellent argument for postponement.

He continued.

"Many of these households came specifically because the Grand Duke returned with a wife."

Below the windows, another carriage was entering the court.

The steward said, "If the homecoming continues while your formal reception is postponed, the distinction will exist only on paper. You will still be present as Grand Duchess."

Unless Diana hid in her rooms.

She considered it.

The guest keeper said, "That would also be possible."

Everyone turned toward her.

The woman did not retreat from the suggestion.

"Her Grace arrived after fifteen days of travel. No one could reasonably object if she did not attend the larger household gathering."

The guest keeper had given Diana a respectable reason to remain upstairs. The military acknowledgment could proceed, the guests could stay, and nobody would expect a woman who had crossed the mountains fifteen days ago to stand through a formal reception without her husband.

It would also keep Diana away from forty representatives who believed they were about to meet Selena Valence.

The steward looked toward her.

"The decision is yours, Your Grace."

Diana looked at Raigoro’s empty chair.

Selena had spent years preparing for rooms like this. She knew how to receive foreign households, remember names, carry a conversation through a formal dinner, and let people look at her without wondering what they might recognize.

Diana had learned different skills. She knew which corridors servants used when they wanted to pass unnoticed. She knew when Odran had finished listening before he said so. She knew how long she could stand behind a screen before somebody remembered the gallery was supposed to be empty.

None of those lessons told her how to receive Blackharrow.

The council would accept a refusal. Alma stood freely beside her, the slate remained in Diana’s hand, and nobody had attached a threat to the choice.

Diana looked down at the guest ledger again.

Two hundred and sixteen people.

Three households still traveling.

Third Watch families among them.

If Diana hid tomorrow, it would be safer. It might even be sensible.

But she had already agreed that the gathering should continue because everyone else had come too far to be sent away.

Remaining invisible while they carried the inconvenience felt too familiar.

Diana lowered the chalk.

Then wrote:

IF I ATTEND, WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO?

Mistress Hale answered this time.

"Receive the formal household presentations."

How many?

Diana pointed toward the guest ledger.

"Not everyone individually. Approximately forty household or territorial representatives."

Forty was still an offensive number.

"Most will bow, give their name and district, and offer the customary welcome."

Diana wrote:

I DO NOT HAVE TO SPEAK?

The ceremonial officer looked startled by the question.

"No, Your Grace. Written response is acceptable if you wish to answer personally. The herald can perform the spoken portions."

That helped.

A little.

WHAT ELSE?

"The military acknowledgment."

Diana waited.

"You sit for it."

Better.

"The evening meal."

Sitting again. Blackharrow was becoming more reasonable.

"The opening reception."

Apparently that was where the reason ended.

The ceremonial officer said, "His Grace normally addresses the hall."

Every good quality Blackharrow possessed disappeared at once.

Diana stared at him.

Mistress Hale intervened.

"His Grace is not here."

"Yes."

"So no address from His Grace."

The woman looked toward Diana.

"And no one expects Her Grace to replace it."

Diana suspected Mistress Hale had just earned several years of loyalty.

The steward folded his hands.

"Postponement remains defensible. No one here will question it."

That mattered.

Diana could refuse.

No guard held Alma. No king stood behind her. No one had taken the slate away.

The choice was unpleasant, but it was still hers.

Diana looked down at the program.

Then wrote:

CONTINUE THE GATHERING.

The steward read it.

"Without His Grace?"

Diana nodded.

The ceremonial officer asked, "And your reception?"

Her hand hesitated over the slate.

Forty representatives. Hundreds of eyes. Third Watch families. People expecting Selena.

Diana wrote:

KEEP IT.

The room remained quiet while the steward read the answer.

Then he closed the postponement document.

"Very well, Your Grace."

That was all.

Diana had expected argument.

Instead, the room moved.

The guest keeper began revising accommodation schedules. The ceremonial officer separated Raigoro’s territorial audiences from the household program. The kitchen master wanted confirmation that the evening meal remained at full capacity.

Diana nodded.

One clerk carried away the papers prepared for the cancellation notices. Another replaced the postponement file with a clean program.

A decision Diana had been afraid to make became other people’s work within minutes.

Mistress Hale handed Diana another list.

"You will need to know the principal household routes before tomorrow."

Diana looked at her.

"The guest halls, service passages, infirmary access, family rooms, reception chambers, and household offices."

Diana glanced at the length of the list.

Blackharrow had apparently decided fear was best treated with stairs.

Alma leaned close enough to see.

"You wanted something to do while His Grace was gone."

Diana turned toward her.

Alma corrected herself.

"You wanted room to breathe."

Much more accurate.

Diana stood.

Tomorrow, more than two hundred people would enter Blackharrow’s great hall expecting Selena Valence.

If Diana was going to sit in front of them, she intended to know where the doors led. Particularly the ones that led out.