“I think I’ve finished all the intake forms, Your Grace,” Laura said from behind me.
My shoulders slumped a little as I twisted to face her, tearing my eyes away from the massive stack of papers she’d already given me.
I pressed my lips into a thin line and shook my head. “Really, Laura, I wish you wouldn’t be so formal. How many times have I told you to call me Lenora?”
She chuckled, straightening the edges of the form she had created herself. “My father taught me better than that.”
I smiled at her as she crossed to me, still surprised that such a sweet child had been the product of Marcus Northcott. She took far more after her mother, Cate than him.
Still, the Duke of Stratfordshire knew his place in the world and didn’t let many others forget it despite his American wife’s objections to titles.
“But we are working together,” I argued. “It’s quite cumbersome to constantly call me Your Grace.”
“The staff members seem to do well with it.”
“You very well could be my sister-in-law soon. Will you insist on calling me that even after we are family?”
She slid her sapphire blue eyes to me. They sparkled just like her mother’s. I could easily see how Edwin had become so taken with her. “We are not family yet.”
I raised my eyebrows. Was she hinting that we wouldn’t be? Had the brief time she’d spent with us already made her decision?
“I don’t mean to pry but I feel somewhat responsible for you. May I ask if your interest in Edwin has waned?”
She plopped into a chair after she set the forms on my desk. Her gaze slid out over the foggy moors. The view from my tower room was breathtaking and one I never tired of.
“Not at all. But I would not put the cart before the horse.”
“He is very keen on you,” I said.
The corners of her lips turned up as she settled her focus on me again. Color rose into her cheeks. “My father won’t be pleased, but I am very pleased he is interested.”
