The Duke's Suspicion

by Susanna Craig

  Affronted, the man straightened once more. “He did not. I came of my own free will. Whose fault was it but mine that you were left in Endmoor to begin with?”

  “Oh, you dear man.” Erica turned on a smile of such radiance that, although not directed at him, it left Tristan almost breathless. “But how did you manage it, through the storms and the flood? The bridge at Kendal—?”

  A movement in the doorway caught Tristan’s eye. Guin stood framed in the opening, motioning discreetly with one hand for him to come to her side, to afford Erica and Mr. Remington a few moments of quasi-private conversation. Tristan pretended not to see her.

  “I had to travel further south and west to cross the Kent,” Remington was explaining. “Hence the delay. I should have been back here the next day, otherwise. Despite the rain.”

  Someone in Endmoor would have directed him to Hawesdale. He might have arrived even before they had. Everything about the last few days would have been different, then.

  Tristan stepped toward him. “I was glad to be able to offer Miss Burke my protection.”

  As if he suspected Tristan’s choice of words had not been entirely honest—protection, certainly; perhaps even, initially, glad—Remington sized him up with a sharp-eyed stare, the likes of which Tristan had rarely known. A softer, worried glance toward Erica, then back again, and his voice when he spoke was hard. “Lord and Lady Ashborough will be obliged, sir.”

  “Take me to Windermere.” Erica stepped closer. “I am ready to leave whenever you say.” For the first time, he realized she was wearing her own dress, washed and pressed and almost unrecognizable. She was also carrying her journal. A moment to fetch her pelisse, or have it fetched, and she could walk away from Hawesdale without leaving a trace.

  Not a visible one, at any rate.

  He parted his lips to say—something. He hardly knew what.

  Everyone else believed he had ruined her last night, and he knew of only one way to repair the damage that had been done: repeat his offer, as many times as it took to persuade her of the necessity of accepting it. But he was not entirely convinced he ought to be in the business of persuasion. He despised the sort of man who met a woman’s resistance with persistence, who repeated his offers as if her refusal were only a suggestion. She might have grown used to hearing herself called “shatterbrained,” but Erica knew her own mind, and he saw no honor in trying to make her doubt it.

  Remington too had opened his mouth to reply. But Guin spoke first. “I will not hear of you taking such a risk, Miss Burke. I’m sure Mr. Remington will attest to the poor condition of the roads. I’ve already arranged with Mrs. Dean for his accommodation. You must both wait until we’re certain the rain has stopped for good.”

  Her tone brooked no argument, but Erica was ready to offer one all the same. “My sister…”

  “Would rather see you safe and sound in a few days’ time than not at all,” Guin replied, clearly intending to close discussion of the matter.

  Remington concurred. “I walked every step of more than twenty miles, Miss Erica, through fens that last week were fields.” Of course, Tristan thought. The man would have arrived at Hawesdale wet and muddy. The clothes he wore now must have been borrowed, likely from Armitage. “And I would not think of allowing a lady to make such a journey. Besides, Lord Ashborough ordered me to stay where I found you and wait for them. This rain can’t last forever,” Remington added, with a reassuring look for Erica. “Another few days will see the roads passable by carriage, I’m sure.”

  She set her brow, her lips, her whole body into an answering frown, to which Remington thankfully seemed to be immune. “Now that’s settled,” Guin announced brightly, “I’m sure Miss Burke will be grateful to hear any report you have to give on her family. I’ll send a footman in half an hour to show you to your room. Raynham?”

  The peremptory tone in which she spoke his title was more difficult for Tristan to ignore than the wave of her hand had been. And certainly he ought not to expect that Guin’s talent for meddling would extend to contriving some scheme in which he was to be left alone for a private word with Erica. Still, his answering bow was stiff with disappointment. “Of course. Welcome to Hawesdale, Mr. Remington. Miss Burke.”

  She had not once so much as glanced his way, and she did not now, though he fancied he glimpsed a slight weakening in her resolve when he spoke her name. As if to be sure of her success, Guin laid her fingertips on his arm to urge him toward the door.

  Remington cleared his throat. “Begging Your Grace’s pardon, I wonder if I might have a word with the duke first?”

  Alone. The unspoken word hung in the air for a moment before Guin grasped it. Her eyes darted toward Tristan, and at his nod, she said, “Of course. Miss Burke, will you walk with me? My daughter has spoken of her botany lessons with such enthusiasm, I am eager to hear your thoughts on her progress.”

  He fully expected her to refuse. To once more reject the rules society had laid down in the name of “ladylike behavior.”

  Instead, her shoulders curved inward and her chin dipped. She turned toward the door without a word and was through it so quickly Guin had to scramble to join her. He’d forgotten for a moment how the flare of passion that lit Erica’s core sometimes burned itself out. A coal that a moment before had been glowing, now turned pale and collapsed upon itself, hollowed out by the heat that had consumed it, leaving the hearth suddenly cold.

  Remington watched her leave, a stern, not-quite-fatherly set to his jaw, but he said nothing, not even when the door closed behind them.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Remington?” Tristan asked after a moment, not troubling to keep the edge of impatience from his voice.

  “For me, sir? Nothing at all.” Remington seemed genuinely surprised at the notion. He stood with his hands folded behind his back, and again Tristan had the distinct impression that he must know the man, somehow, so familiar did he seem. “I only wished to warn you that your stable hands and your servants seem prone to indulging in gossip.”

  Tristan had already guessed that rumors were being whispered in Hawesdale’s corners, or perhaps shouted from its many ornate rooftops. He knew he had no right to be surprised at this confirmation. Certainly he had no right to be angry at a stranger for supplying it; he had heaped this ignominy on himself. Still, he snapped, “I fail to see what business that might be of yours.”

  Remington met his heated gaze with coolness, entirely unruffled, not remotely deferential. “None at all, Your Grace. But, as some of what I had the misfortune to overhear concerned Miss Burke and her treatment in this house, I shall feel duty bound to report on the matter to my employer, Lord Ashborough. And I have no doubt he will consider any affront to a member of his family his…business.”

  Remington’s slight hesitation, freighting the word with unsavory connotations, mingled in Tristan’s mind with Whitby’s description of the Marquess of Ashborough. The accusation of treason in particular. But Tristan was no stranger to unscrupulous characters. “The sort of fellow who’d call me out, I gather,” he replied lightly. “Well, I suspect he’ll have to wait his turn.” At this very moment, Lord Easton Pilkington was probably polishing a pair of pistols, and Tristan was not entirely sure that Whitby didn’t mean to take up the matter if Pilkington failed.

  Surprise flickered across Remington’s face, but before he could give voice to it, someone spoke from the doorway.

  “Raynham? A word.” As if the mere thought had called him into being, Pilkington stepped across the threshold and strode into the room, either oblivious or indifferent to another man’s presence. “I expected to see you at breakfast. I suppose you were too busy thanking your lucky stars that Irish wench refused you.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tristan saw Remington shift ominously. “If you refer to Miss Burke, you would do well to remember that she is a guest of this house.”

  The m
an took another step forward, eyes blazing. “As is my daughter, I remind you. My daughter, who has borne the affront of your inattention for days, and who last night was forced to witness a shocking spectacle, the likes of which an innocent girl should never—”

  “Enough.” Tristan paced from the window to the desk and back again, on a spurious quest for calm.

  “Enough?” Pilkington sputtered. “Oh, I’d say we’re at the outside of enough. First your brother, now you. Well, the Laurens family has humiliated my daughter for the last time. I applaud a gentleman who behaves with honor where a lady is concerned. In the case of Miss Burke, however—well, we all heard her refusal, though I’ll wager it came a bit late,” he added in a malicious undertone. “In any case, you’re a free man. You’ll make Caroline an offer. Today.” Beneath the demand, Tristan heard a note of desperation. What exactly lay behind Pilkington’s determination to see them wed?

  Far below, a movement caught Tristan’s eye. Even at this distance, he had no difficulty discerning which of his guests had been desperate for a bit of fresh air, despite the damp. An occasional gust of raw wind twirled the ribbons of Caroline’s bonnet and tugged at her normally careful curls. Beside her, Whitby underscored whatever words he was speaking with an agitated wave of his hand.

  In his mind’s eye, Tristan saw again the flicker of relief cross Caroline’s face when he had declined to guess her charade, her momentary hesitation when he’d taken her hand to say good night. He had readily dismissed the notion of Caroline having given her heart to Percy. Only now did it occur to him that she might have given it to someone else.

  Perhaps pursuit of a spy was not the only reason Whitby had come to Hawesdale.

  Selfish, his oldest friend had called him. Tristan slowly turned to face Pilkington, hands crossed behind his back. “And if I don’t?”

  Pilkington’s chest expanded. But in the time it took for him to draw breath to issue a challenge, he seemed to think better of his words. “You will,” he said, his voice flat with anger, and perhaps just an edge of doubt. “You’ll find her in the breakfast room.”

  Though tempted to invite the man to glance out the window, Tristan merely allowed his mouth to curve in a grim sort of half-smile. Pilkington, ready to read the expression as resignation, gave a nod of satisfaction and left the room.

  Remington had observed the entire exchange from nearer the fireplace, unremarked and unremarking. Now, amusement glimmered in the depths of the man’s eyes. “You offered for Miss Erica,” he said, the ghost of a chuckle in his voice. “And she turned you down flat.”

  Tristan stepped behind his father’s desk—an unlikely refuge, but one he’d been forced to seek more than once lately. “I regret that the offer was necessary. It was never my intention to dishonor Miss Burke.” He reached out a hand to square Davies’s stack of account books. “Will her family have something to say about her refusal?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “And maybe she’ll listen if they do. But I doubt it. She’s got more spirit than sense, that one,” he added with an affectionate shake of his head.

  Instinctively, Tristan rose to her defense. “I’d say Miss Burke appears to be possessed of ample quantities of both.”

  Remington took the correction in stride. “Based on what I’ve seen of Lady Ashborough, I’d say they’re family characteristics.” He paused, obviously considering his next words. “It sounds to me, from what that other fellow said, as if you’ve already got enough to be going on with. Best to let Miss Erica be. You can thank your lucky stars you fared better than the chap in Endmoor, anyway.”

  For just a moment, everything went still, quiet enough that he suspected the other man could hear his mind whirr. “Endmoor?” He’d known she’d passed through there, of course. But he hadn’t imagined any lengthy encounters. Had Whitby been right about one thing? Had she been lurking around the neighborhood after all?

  “She left her journal in the dining room at the inn where we stopped to rest the horses. That was how she got separated from her sister—no one realized she’d gone back inside to get it. Well, a young fellow happened to pick it up. When she caught him poking his nose where it didn’t belong, she gave him a wallop with it.” Another knowing smile, this one a shade more bloodthirsty. “Poor lad’s had naught but gruel since, according to the publican.”

  Tristan mustered a smile. “I might still end up in worse shape if you recommend Lord Ashborough run me through.”

  “Oh, as to that, I daresay he’s got better things to do too.” Remington laughed. “After all, he’s a newly married man, Your Grace. Though on occasion,” he added, tugging the overlarge waistcoat into place over his surprisingly fit torso, “he does let me take matters into my own hands.”

  With little other recourse left to him on what was shaping up to be an absurd day, Tristan laughed. He knew, suddenly, why the other man seemed so familiar. “Were you in the army, Mr. Remington?”

  “I was. The Fighting Fortieth. Until ’77. Injured at the Battle of Germantown and sent home to stay.”

  Tristan knew the regiment by reputation, fierce men whose service during the war against the American colonies had spanned the Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to the West Indies. No wonder Remington spoke with pride, and a hint of regret at the unwelcome end to his career. “An officer?” he ventured.

  “No, sir!”

  Only a certain sort of soldier would issue such a vigorous denial of an officer’s rank. But Tristan had no doubt the man had held a position of authority. A sergeant, then, probably in command of a platoon. Tough as nails. And far better to have as an ally than an enemy.

  Stepping from behind the desk, Tristan offered his hand, which Remington shook firmly. “Welcome to Hawesdale, Mr. Remington.” When he released the handshake, Tristan swept his arm toward the door to usher the other man out. Almost to the threshold, though, he hesitated. “May I ask one more question?”

  Remington cocked his head. “I won’t stop you.”

  Tristan dropped his voice, hoping to prompt the man’s confidence. “What’s in Miss Burke’s journal?”

  The other man rocked back on his heels. “So the fellow down at Endmoor isn’t the only curious fool in these parts, eh?” When Tristan made no reply, he shrugged. “Sketches, so she says. Notes about flowers. But I’ve never seen inside it, you understand.” He laughed to himself as he preceded Tristan through the door. “For all I know, it could contain the plans of the entire French fleet.”

  And that, Tristan thought, a grim smile twisting his lips, was precisely the problem.

  Chapter 14

  Already distracted, even more so than usual, Erica did not immediately realize she was party to a staged distraction. The simple breakfast, enjoyed tête-à-tête in the Duchess of Raynham’s private sitting room, was followed by a comfortable coze about family life, educational principles for young ladies, and Lady Viviane in particular. Tristan’s name was never mentioned.

  Only when the girl failed to appear, despite her mother’s repeated insistence on Viviane’s enthusiasm for her botany lessons, and the servant who came to clear the dishes was waved away, did Erica begin to suspect that she was being deliberately kept apart.

  Did the duchess hope to shelter her from facing the combined scorn of Hawesdale’s occupants? Or were those worthies being protected from further exposure to a woman of dubious character?

  Erica came to her feet so abruptly her journal slid from her lap, and she had to fumble to keep it from ending up on the floor. Her journal. Her anchor. And Tristan had very nearly succeeded in severing that tie and casting her out to sea.

  “Miss Burke?”

  Erica hardly heard her. Inside her head, all was chaos, confusion. Of course. Always. Except…mightn’t there be times when such confusion was justified? And wasn’t this one of those times? Perhaps even the duchess, all smooth good grace in the face of the unexpected, would have met
the events of last night with uncertainty. An intruder. A near-theft. An offer. Had she done the wrong thing? Said the wrong thing? Propriety might demand she accept, but didn’t good sense dictate she refuse a man she couldn’t trust? Besides, Tristan demanded perfection in all things. And no one had ever thought her perfect.

  She was at the door before she realized her feet had begun to wander too. “Miss Burke? Are you all right?” The duchess’ voice came as if from far away. If she followed Erica to the threshold, she let her cross it unaccompanied. Let her go. Where was she going? The conservatory, of course. Its peace beckoned.

  Fate smiled on the decision; she met not a single soul in the corridors, and the glasshouse itself was empty.

  Deep, desperate breaths. One, two, three. A damp, heavy scent that had no name. The smell of growth and decay combined. Weakly, she sank onto one of the benches ringing the orange trees and wondered where she would find the strength to leave.

  She might have been sitting for a moment or an hour when she heard the door open, the protest of its hinges echoing in the glass-ceilinged jungle. He’d found her again. The only real surprise was that he’d been looking. He clearly had not wanted to propose last night and had done so only out of that twisted sense of honor the duchess had described. After his coolness in the library, she had not expected to speak with him again before she left Hawesdale. As she turned toward the sound of his footsteps, the figured metal bench pressed into her skin, giving her back some of its iron resolve.

  The visitor was not, however, Tristan.

  “Captain Whitby?”

  She struggled to rise as he wended his way toward the center of the room. But before she was fully on her feet, he had sunk to the bench beside her, his posture relaxed. A shade too relaxed. The sour odor of brandy mingled with the other scents of the glasshouse.

  When he spoke, his voice had lost some of its usual crispness. What had happened to put him into such a state, and the day not half gone? “I wish I knew your secrets, Miss Burke,” he mumbled.