Never Deny a Duke

by Hunter, Madeline

  “How odd and unusual.” She walked to a shelf, opened a wooden box and removed some bread. She placed it on the table, then brought down a cheese basket and put it there too. “How did you even learn? I would think there were those doing for you from the day you were born, and you wouldn’t know how to dress yourself, let alone shave and do whatever else gentlemen must do.”

  “I will tell you, but you must never tell anyone else.”

  She slid into the chair across the table and cut some bread and cheese. She took some, then pushed the food toward him. “I promise.”

  “When I was first at university, a friend and I slipped out and went someplace we were forbidden to go. Our plans were dashed when we both fell asleep. Morning came and there we were. No valets. No one to do for us. So we figured out how to do for ourselves, slipped back in and no one was the wiser. But for one cut on my jaw, I was as put together as if my valet had done his duties.” He shrugged, and helped himself to some bread. “Granted, it took me a lot longer. So much longer that the slipping back in part was almost thwarted.”

  She bit some cheese, her fine white teeth emerging from her lips for the nip. He tried mightily not to imagine that little bite landing elsewhere. Several elsewheres.

  “That is an interesting story. I think you and your friend visited a brothel.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “You needed to dress in the morning. Also, if you had slept in your garments, you could never have turned yourself out well. You would have been too rumpled. So you slept naked, or almost naked.”

  Damn, she was clever. “I refuse to confirm your outrageous conclusions.”

  “I also think the friend was Langford.”

  “Now you are just guessing.”

  “Amanda said you have been friends for years and years, and that he was always wild and bad.”

  “No more than most men. He is, however, indiscreet in the extreme, so the whole world knows just how bad he has been.”

  She lifted the bucket, stepped outside and threw out the water. When she returned she set it and the mop into a long cupboard. Then she crossed her arms and frowned at the ceiling.

  His gaze followed hers and saw the hole between two beams. “Ah. It rained last night. You have been mopping up the result.”

  “The roof is leaking for certain, and it is coming right through to down here. It has been happening for a long time. See how the wooden floor here is stained and warped? I have refused to go see how bad it is in the upper chambers. To witness the evidence of my neglect would be too disheartening.”

  “I will do it.” He stood and strode out, found the stairs and mounted them.

  He examined the chambers, then went back down. “It is not good news, but it could be worse. The roof is bad in two places, but it can be fixed for now.”

  “I will put the bucket beneath this one here until we are done with our business, then see to hiring a man before I return to London.”

  He gazed at that hole. “It will only get larger with the autumn rains. Nothing will ruin a house faster than water.”

  “Except fire.”

  Her words made his spirit pause, as his heart skipped a beat. “Yes.”

  “It will have to wait.”

  “I will bring you back to the inn and get a chamber for you there. You can’t live here with the house in this condition.”

  “The bed I used last night is back there, and is dry enough. A bucket is all I need, so I am not mopping up rainwater.”

  There had been a light hesitation before she refused, but her refusal had come through firmly.

  “It is far more sensible to stay at the inn.”

  “I will stay here, thank you.”

  “Then let me see what else can be done.” He left her and walked through the house, then outside to the coach.

  “You have some tools with you, I assume,” he said to Napier, his coachman.

  “Of course. Never know when there will be a problem with a wheel or what have you.” Napier walked around to the back of the coach and opened a box there to reveal a hammer, some pegs and an iron bar. “Can I ask why you need them, Your Grace?”

  “The roof of this house has been damaged. I don’t need it fixed. I just need it patched until someone who knows roofs can see to it properly.”

  Napier bit his lower lip. “I’d gladly do it, except that my bad leg has been giving me trouble of late. Can’t be climbing on roofs with that, can I?”

  Napier’s bad leg always gave trouble when its owner did not want to do something.

  “Then I will do it. There must be a barn here or an outbuilding where salvage slates were stored.” He went looking for it.

  Some distance from the house in the back garden, he found the structure that served as carriage house and stable. With a little searching, he discovered the stock of salvage tiles. With several in one hand and a ladder on the other shoulder, he went back to the front. He shrugged off his frock coat and rolled up his sleeves.

  “Move the coach close to the portico so I can use it to get up there. Then you will have to hand me the ladder, tools and this slate so I can get them to the roof proper.”

  Shaking his head, Napier climbed into his seat and maneuvered the horses so the coach seat was right below the eaves of the portico. “If you break your neck, I hope no one will blame me.”

  Eric climbed up and stood on the seat. Damned if he knew what he was doing. He might well break his neck. He had even less idea why he was doing it. Yet here he was, hauling himself onto the portico’s roof. If he could figure out how to do for himself after a night in a brothel when he was seventeen, he could figure out how to do for Miss MacCallum today, was how he saw it.

  He was only being practical. The roof needed to be patched or the house was unlivable. None of this had anything to do with those naked legs.

  * * *

  When the duke did not return quickly, Davina sat down and finished her breakfast. She had forgotten to buy coffee, so she had only well water to drink, but after her labor, it refreshed her. She took the rest of the water into her chamber and washed and changed her dress. Then she took the bowl outside to pour out the water.

  It had been over a month since she had taken care of household duties, and her time in Mr. Hume’s home had spoiled her. If a duke could do for himself, she certainly could too, but she had never liked such chores. Of course, the duke would have water brought to him while living at the inn, and food cooked for him, and a servant would mop up any water on the floor, so his doing for himself was not at all the same.

  She should have accepted his offer that she stay at the inn. She almost had. It was a very sensible solution. Only a second of consideration had her refusing. She did not want to be beholden to him, for one thing. For another—she admitted to herself that the very notion of sleeping under the same roof as Brentworth evoked a very odd reaction in her. A thrilled warning had throbbed through her like a plucked harp string, as if the idea presented danger. Stupid, of course, but it was enough to have her condemn herself to living here.

  Realizing that a good half hour had passed, she ventured outside to see what he was doing. To her surprise, his coach all but blocked her way off the little portico. His coachman stood at his seat, looking up, grimacing.

  She found her way down and turned to see what arrested the coachman’s attention. Up on the roof, the duke walked, his coat discarded, carrying some slate tiles. It was a wonder he didn’t simply slide off.

  “What is he doing?” she asked the coachman.

  “Fixing it,” he said. He shook his head.

  The duke settled down on the roof, worked at something, then cast pieces of slate down into the garden.

  “Does he do this often?”

  The coachman looked down at her, aghast. “Why would he do that? No point in being a duke if you have to fix your own roof, is there?” He looked up to the roof again. “Will be ruining his hands with this.”

  If he had never done it bef
ore, she wondered what possessed him to do it now. She also wondered if he had any idea how to fix a roof, but she expected most of it would be obvious once one was up there.

  Suddenly, he slipped a little. Not much, but enough that he had to brace himself with his legs. The coachman gasped audibly. Davina’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Not for me to scold, Your Grace, but I would be most appreciative if you did not fall off,” the coachman called up.

  “Have no fear, Napier. I am safe, and almost finished. Pity there were no copper nails in that box of yours. It might be fixed for good if I had them. These wooden ones won’t last more than a month or so, and are a bit too small for the holes drilled in the slate.”

  Davina decided she would wait inside, so if he did fall, she would not see it. She returned to the kitchen and rehearsed everything she knew about setting broken bones.

  Chapter Twelve

  “You did not have to fix the roof.”

  Miss MacCallum had waited until they were in the carriage, rolling toward the village, before she said it.

  “You are welcome.”

  “Your rebuke is well taken. I should have thanked you. So, thank you for fixing my roof, even though you might have broken your neck.”

  “Instead of even though, try especially because. Then it will be a proper thanks.”

  She looked embarrassed, then realized he was teasing her. “If you had broken anything besides your neck, I might have been able to help you. A neck, however—well, there is no help for that.”

  “Should I ever break my neck while fixing your roof, please do not allow the newspapers to know how I died. Say I fell off my horse.”

  “Of course. I suppose it would stain your reputation to die while performing such menial chores.”

  “It is not the how but the who that would get the papers interested. Now, where are we going today?”

  “First, we will visit Mr. Portman. Mr. Jacobson wrote to me with his name when I in turn wrote to ask for a reference to someone old enough to have memories of value to me. After that, I intend to visit an old friend of mine. You are welcome to go back to the inn once we are done with Mr. Portman. I will walk home.”

  The walk would be a good three miles from the look of it. He voiced no disagreement, but she would not walk home.

  Caxledge was a good-size village with three main lanes and an assortment of others. On its outer edges, some homes looked newer than those in the center. The industry of Newcastle had begun altering the village because it was close enough to partake of that prosperity.

  Miss MacCallum had the direction to her old man, and they pulled up outside his small house soon enough.

  “I hope he will receive me,” Miss MacCallum said.

  “Don’t worry. He will receive us.”

  Indeed he would. The us ensured it. One look at the duke’s card and the woman who came to the door ushered them inside. “My grandfather is in the garden. Just go through if you like.” She pointed to the back of the house.

  They walked through a sitting room and a dining room, then a kitchen. An abundance of furniture, along with low ceilings, cramped the space so that the duke appeared overlarge for it. A child’s laughter chimed down from above as they exited by a back door.

  “What a charming garden,” Davina exclaimed. She paused to take it in. Small, like the house, it had been planted with an artist’s eye. Vines covered the walls, and one nice fruit tree stood in a corner. The rest showed flower beds with a few last blooms backed by bushes of various sizes and shapes. A stone walkway wound through it all.

  The artist, it seemed, was Mr. Portman. He heard them and stood from where he worked some soil while on his knees. He came toward them, peering through spectacles while he pulled off his work gloves.

  A short, spindly man of at least eighty, he held his ground while the duke towered over him and introduced himself and Davina. “A Mr. Jacobson advised Miss MacCallum to call,” he explained.

  “You know Jacobson, do you? How is the boy doing? Very well, if he has come to know a duke.”

  “He appears contented. He is still making boots,” Davina said.

  “Makes the finest. It is why he left. No one to pay what his are worth here.” He pointedly looked down at a pair of boots owned by someone who could pay for good ones. “Don’t look like his, though.”

  “I have not had the good fortune to meet him yet,” Brentworth said.

  “I have, however,” Davina said. “He thought you might be able to help me. I am seeking information about my family.”

  She received a strong scrutiny. Mr. Portman rubbed his chin. “I thought you looked a little familiar. So, you are of the MacCallums who used to live down south of the village, are you? You resemble the woman the son married.”

  “I am their daughter. My father and I left some years ago.”

  “Not too long after his father died, as I remember. I knew him, though.”

  “Was he born in these parts?” Brentworth asked.

  Mr. Portman shook his head. “He came as a lad. That was well known. Fostered he was, by the couple who had no children. Restless sort, as if he knew he was in the wrong place. I was told he was a bit of a troublemaker when he was a youth. Not what you want to hear, probably.”

  “I want to hear anything at all that you can tell me. Did he have a nickname of some sort?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “Mr. Jacobson said he was at times called the baron.”

  “Ah, well, that wasn’t a nickname. No one addressed him like that. But the older ones, like my parents, sometimes referred to him that way when speaking about him.”

  “A reference to his bearing, perhaps,” Brentworth said. “A private criticism of airs he assumed?”

  “I don’t remember it being like that either. No joking or criticism to it, seems to me. Just a word that was used among them at times. A simple thing, as if maybe when he was young that label was put on him and the old ones remembered.”

  Mr. Portman was as vague as Mr. Jacobson. Davina decided to poke at the memories more sharply. “Did you ever hear anyone say he really was a baron?”

  Instead of scoffing at the suggestion, Mr. Portman turned thoughtful. “No, but now that you mention it, he said it once. Was at the tavern one night. He’d been gone—just up and left, and we all thought he would never come back, that he had abandoned his family—there’s men who do that when they get older and are looking downhill in their years. Go off to grab a bit of life before it is too late.”

  “What did he say? Were you there?” Brentworth pressed.

  “I was there. He showed up late, drank two pints, then said to his mates something like I should not be here. I was born to be a baron. More than his mates heard, and everyone made sport of him, and he even joined in. Well, a man in his cups says lots of stupid things.”

  “Was there anything else similar?” Brentworth asked.

  “Nah. He went home and that was that.” He looked at Davina. “Your father took it hard when he died. He insisted that had a physician come, he might have made it.”

  “We left so he could study to become one,” she said. “We went to Edinburgh and he became a physician himself, so he could help others.”

  “A noble calling. We still don’t have one here, just an old sawbones, but he’s no good for what ails you inside sometimes. Have to send to Newcastle for one, and there’s none who come all this way without the fee being paid. So mostly we make do with the old remedies.” He slapped his chest. “I was born with good blood, though, so I do fine. There was a bad fever late summer that lingered, but I was spared. Some still falling to it, it was that bad, but I’m still working with my friends.” He gestured to the garden.

  “You’ve created a little paradise here,” Davina said.

  “We will take our leave now, so you can continue,” Brentworth said. “You might help us in one other way, though.”

  “I’d be glad to, though it is hard to refuse a duke who is twi
ce your size.” He chortled at his own joke. “What do you be needing?”

  “The name of a man who is very good at fixing slate roofs.”

  * * *

  “We will see this roofer, Mr. Bates, before we leave the village,” Brentworth said once they left the house.

  “You can see him if you like. I am going to visit my friend Louisa.” She gestured down the lane. “Her family home is right past the churchyard. If she does not live there now, someone will know where she is.”

  “I will escort you, in case you need the carriage.”

  They strolled down the lane, past houses that looked like Mr. Portman’s. Davina had not realized how small many of the homes were. As a girl, they were what she knew. After spending several years in Edinburgh, village homes and cottages shrank considerably.

  They passed the stone church, and she called at Louisa’s house. She learned that Louisa had married a farmer and lived about a mile east of the village.

  “It appears you will be needing the carriage,” Brentworth said.

  “It is only a mile.”

  Too late. The carriage had been trailing them and now approached more quickly when Brentworth raised his arm.

  She climbed in and was surprised when he stepped in too.

  “You were going to see a roofer.”

  “I will first see you to your friend’s home. Then I will visit the roofer, and we will return for you.”

  The duke had decided how it would be, and she doubted all the reason she could muster would change his mind.

  “Is this how ladies live, with gentlemen escorting them to and fro everywhere they go?”

  “It might be a footman, not a gentleman.”

  “How sad.”

  “It is only for their protection.”

  “That is not true. It is also to deprive them of freedom to do as they choose.”

  “What a cynical idea. What can’t a lady do if she has the protection of an escort?”

  Davina gave it some thought. “Visit a friend who is not approved of by her family or husband. Or an area of town where she normally would not go. Or—or, a man. She could not simply call on a man without it being known to those who seek to protect her.”