It had been ten minutes since they’d passed through Flixton, the nearest village to Maycliffe Park. Iris tried not to look too eager—or nervous—as she watched the landscape slide by through the window. She tried to tell herself it was just a house, and if her husband’s descriptions were accurate, not even a terribly grand one at that.

But it was his house, which meant it was now her house, and she desperately wished to make a good impression upon her arrival. Richard had told her there were thirteen servants in the house proper, nothing too daunting, but then he’d mentioned that the butler had been there since his childhood, and the housekeeper even longer, and Iris could not help but think that it did not matter that her surname was now Kenworthy—she was the interloper in this equation.

They would hate her. The servants would hate her, and his sisters would hate her, and if he had a dog (really, shouldn’t she know if he had a dog?), it would probably hate her as well.

She could see it now, prancing up to Richard with a silly dog grin, then turning to her, fangs out and snarling.

A jolly homecoming this would be.

Richard had sent word ahead to alert the household of the approximate time of their arrival. Iris was well enough acquainted with country house life to know that a swift rider would be watching for them a few miles out. By the time their carriage arrived at Maycliffe, the entire household would be lined up to greet them.

Richard spoke of the upper servants with great affection; given his charm and amiability, Iris could only imagine that this feeling was returned in equal measure. The servants would take one look at her, and it would not matter if she was trying to be fair-minded and kind. It would not matter if she smiled at her husband and appeared happy and pleased with her new home. They would be watching her closely and would see it in her eyes. She was not in love with her husband.

And perhaps more importantly, he was not in love with her.

There would be gossip. There was always gossip when the master of an estate married, but she was a complete unknown in Yorkshire, and given the rushed nature of the wedding, the whispers about her would be intense. Would they think she had trapped him into marriage? It could not be further from the truth, and yet—

“Do not worry.”

Iris looked up at the sound of Richard’s voice, thankful that he had broken the vicious cycle of her thoughts. “I’m not worried,” she lied.

He quirked a brow. “Allow me to rephrase. There is no need for you to worry.”

Iris folded her hands primly in her lap. “I did not think there was.”