Anyone But a Duke

by Betina Krahn

  “Half-naked men at luncheon it is, then.”

  * * *

  Cook’s famous cottage pie was on the menu for luncheon, which was the fashionable name for what had always been called dinner at Betancourt. It would be accompanied by roast root vegetables and freshly baked rolls with butter . . . preceded, of course, by a fine nutritious broth . . . followed, in deference to Sarah’s penchant for sweets, by a fruit compote with honey-almond biscuits.

  When she entered the long, oak-paneled dining room, Sarah found the great table set at one end with a cloth, candelabra, and full china and silver service. She scowled. Most of the time she took a simple luncheon in the breakfast room, which she’d had wainscoted and repainted a cheerful yellow. Better for the digestion, she told the staff.

  She was on her way to the door leading down to the kitchen to learn why this table was set, when her patient appeared in the arched doorway to the great hall, clinging to the doorframe. To her horror, he was wearing only breeches and bandages.

  His chest and lower legs were bare as birthing day, and he wore a wry smile that was the very picture of insouciance.

  “H-how dare you—wh-where is your shirt?” she sputtered, unable to take her gaze from his chest and that cursed tattoo.

  “I believe you said it was ruined,” he said, his voice raspier than usual. The exertion of coming downstairs had clearly taken a toll. “But you did say luncheon at twelve sharp.” And as if on the dot, the great clock in the front hall struck twelve. “And I’m starved.” He rubbed his belly and her gaze fastened helplessly on that movement until she tore it away and headed for the bellpull.

  She rang several times, furious that he had called her bluff and made it downstairs without assistance. Or clothes. It took a moment for Young Ned and Deidre to come lumbering up the stairs.

  “Where is the shirt you were to find him?” Sarah demanded.

  Deidre looked to the floorboards for help. “I . . . wus . . . um . . . in the kitchen an’ I told Dolly to find one.” She looked up and her jaw dropped at the sight of the half-naked man in the dining room archway. “She didn’t?”

  “Obviously not,” Sarah said irritably. It was one more instance of Mazie and Deidre pawning off their duties on others. “Find Dolly and find out what happened to the—hell’s bells—never mind! I’ll do it myself.”

  She stalked to her flagrantly exposed patient, pointed to a chair, and ordered, “Sit down before you fall down.” The moment he made it to the table, she headed for the upstairs hall, muttering, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

  She glowered as she tromped up the steps. Some days she feared she was turning into her mother, and Heaven knew, one Elizabeth Strait Bumgarten in the world was enough.

  She turned left at the top of the steps and soon was in the old duke’s bedchamber in the west wing, going through the highboy that contained his long-abandoned wardrobe.

  With every drawer she opened her irritation mounted. The old duke’s shirts were gone. She hadn’t packed much when she left London, and found when she arrived at Betancourt that she needed clothing that allowed her to move in ways her ladyish clothes didn’t permit. Those shirts had lain for years in drawers—she had felt safe in assuming they wouldn’t be needed by His Grace. And she hadn’t taken them all, only two or—

  With a nudge from events half remembered, she rushed down the hall to her room in the east wing and continued her search. A folded shirt lay in the bottom of her sewing basket. Success. Clasping it to her, she hurried back down the stairs to the dining room, where her patient was seated at the table . . . with Ned, Deidre, and Old Edgar gathered across the table from him, watching him groan with pleasure as he devoured a warm, fragrant dinner roll. The sight of her sent the servants scurrying back to their stations by the sideboard and dumbwaiter.

  He looked up with a roll in one hand and a mug of cider in the other. “You’re back. Thank the Almighty. I’m starved!”

  “I found you one of the old duke’s shirts,” she declared, holding it out to him. “We will not lunch until you are decently clothed.”

  He might have reddened a bit beneath his tan. He swallowed hard and deposited the rest of the roll on his bread-and-butter plate. He wiped his hands on his breeches and for a long moment, stared at the shirt she offered.

  “A duke’s shirt?” he said, his voice lower and raspier than usual.

  “The old duke,” she said. “Arthur.”

  He looked like he’d been punched. She could have sworn he paled, but after an increasingly charged moment, he broke the silence.

  “Well, if it’s good enough for a duke . . .” He rose and, bracing his side against the table, took the garment and unbuttoned it. As he opened it, he frowned, which became a scowl, and then a glower as he forced his arms into the sleeves and found they fit like a sausage casing. The shirt barely covered his shoulders and bandages, and the front wouldn’t close across his chest. He looked at her in confusion. “The duke—wasn’t a small man. Are you certain this was his shirt?”

  She stepped around him, staring at the strained fabric, and found darts in the back and extra seams taken on the sides of the shirt.

  “It appears someone took a few tucks in it.” She felt heat rising in her face to betray who had done the “tucking,” but she refused to give him the satisfaction of learning she was responsible. She looked away and, in doing so, spotted the perfect solution. She went to the window and removed one of the tasseled crimson cords that held back the drapes.

  “This will do in a pinch.”

  He staggered back a step when she came at him with the drapery cord and uttered an involuntary “Agh” when she wrapped the drapery cord around him and tied it in a great, droopy bow.

  “There.” She tugged the sides of the shirt closer together and then nodded. “Nothing a bit of Yankee ingenuity couldn’t fix.” She turned to the wide-eyed servants who were clearly trying not to laugh at the picture he made in a too-small shirt tied with a bold red drapery accessory with tassels that dangled between his nethers and his knees.

  “Ned, you may begin serving.”

  * * *

  The next time she looked at him he was back in his seat and slathering another roll with butter. He accepted his new fashion accessory with abominable aplomb. Nothing, it seemed, could dampen his appetite. He bit into the roll like a starving man, and groaned and closed his eyes as he chewed. She had never seen a man affected by food in such a drastic way. He made it seem appallingly pleasurable and slightly indecent. Her throat tightened as she watched his jaw muscles flex and the butter glisten on his lips.

  “So, Michael, where are you from?” She claimed the silence, determined to impose some decorum on the meal despite its disastrous start. “What is your surname?”

  “From here,” he responded, reaching for a third roll—not that she was counting.

  “Where, here?” She sipped her lemon water. “Do you mean Betany?”

  “Nearby,” he responded, washing the roll down with a mouthful of cider.

  “And your surname?”

  “Gr—ant.”

  She considered that for a moment.

  “So, Michael Gr-ant. You say you were at Eton with the duke.” An expensive undertaking, a public school education. One needed noble or high social connections, she had learned, to even be considered for admission. If he had such connections to a prominent local family, surely he would reveal them when questioned. But he just continued doggedly chewing. “Would that be the old or the new duke?”

  “Both,” he said, leaning back to allow Young Ned to ladle soup into his bowl. Then he bent forward with an appreciative sniff, picked up a soup spoon, and dug in with a vengeance.

  “So you knew both Ashton and Arthur. What can you tell me about Ashton?” She was determined to test his claim of being an old school chum and hoped that food would distract him enough to let her get at the truth.

  “A scrapper.” He spoke between spoonfuls of sou
p and was half through the bowl in record time. “Used his fists as much as his head. Wasn’t much for book work. That changed when Master Cleese got hold of ’im.”

  “Master Cleese?” she echoed, urging him on.

  “History master. Had a way with stories. Nobody fell asleep in his recitations.”

  “So he liked this Master Cleese and began to study?”

  He nodded, then raked the bottom of his bowl with the spoon.

  “Went on to university, I heard,” he added. “Oxford.”

  “And did you go to university, too?”

  “Nah. After school, I mostly had to teach myself.”

  “And yet, you managed to become a ‘medic’ of sorts.”

  “In practice.” He turned to Young Ned, who stood nearby. “More rolls, please.” He noticed her staring and grinned. “Great rolls. The best I’ve ever tasted, and I’ve tasted plenty.”

  “I imagine,” she responded, forcing a neutral tone.

  When the cottage pie and roast vegetables were served, his eyes widened and he motioned for larger portions as he was served. There was a gleeful, almost defiant appreciation to his consumption that made Sarah want to order him to behave. But then, she didn’t want to reveal just how closely she scrutinized him, or how unsettling she found his appearance and behavior. To eat like this, he must have gone without food or even starved at times.

  “So tell me about your travels abroad,” she said, sitting back primly, watching him stuff himself. He was going to burst if he kept this up.

  “Travels?” he said around a mouthful of new carrots, parsnips, and pearl onions. “How do you know I’ve been abroad?”

  “You said you were aboard a ship and wounded in a sea battle. That would hardly be on the Thames or the Mersey.”

  He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded.

  “I’ve been a lot of places. Egypt. India. Cape Town in South Africa. Morocco. Italy, of course. And the South Seas.”

  “The United States?” she asked, watching keenly for a reaction.

  “Not yet. Always wanted to go out west. Met a few folk from—” He halted and beckoned for another piece of the cottage pie, beaming as a great slice was deposited on his plate. “It’s been a while since I had a proper cottage pie. The sausage and cheeses, and the onion and garlic are perfect. I need to meet this cook of yours.”

  “What are you doing here?” She sat forward, sensing that now was the time to be more direct. “In Betany.”

  Another thoughtful pause came before he answered.

  “I thought it might be time to visit and see what the old place is like.”

  “And see your family?” she prodded.

  “Don’t have much left.” Both elbows were on the table and his cheeks bulged with pie. “My parents died. I had a brother, but I haven’t seen him in years. A few stray aunts and uncles—none I’d care to keep up with.”

  “So you basically came to Betany for the scenery?”

  He gave a huff of amusement. “You could say that.”

  She could say a lot of things, she thought, including the fact that she didn’t believe a word of his story. He was holding things back, important things. And though he seemed to know a few things about Ashton, she wouldn’t bet that he knew either duke personally. Heaven knew, his manners were not the sort that came out of an English public school. And there was that tattoo. She considered asking about it—

  “My turn. I heard you practicing again.” He paused, gesturing with an empty fork to the guns she hadn’t bothered to remove. “What are you practicing for? Not a pheasant shoot—those are strictly long guns. A contest?” He chuckled. “A killing maybe?”

  She looked down at her gun belt as if surprised to see herself still wearing it, then reddened.

  “Protection,” she said, lifting her chin. “There are unsavory sorts about, and I was advised to make sure Betancourt could defend itself.”

  His smile faded as he studied her face.

  “You’re serious,” he said. “And you propose to be that defense?”

  At that moment Edgar shuffled into the dining room.

  “A caller, milady.” His jowls wobbled. “I said you were lunching—”

  Chapter Five

  “I don’t mean to intrude,” came a man’s voice, “but I could not pass Betancourt without stopping to see if everything is all right.”

  In the doorway behind Edgar stood a man in a trim riding coat, breeches, and boots, holding a crop and an expensive topper. He was on the tall side of average, had brown hair and sharp brown eyes, and was in every respect an attractive and gentlemanly looking sort, which made this breach of etiquette all the more surprising.

  “Whom do we have the pleasure of greeting, sir? And why have you come?” Sarah laid her napkin aside and rose to meet the intruder. Her demand for an explanation must have set the fellow back on his heels . . . either that or the fact that she was wearing firearms. He stared, slack-jawed, for a moment, then seemed to recover himself enough to give a polite nod.

  “A thousand pardons for the interruption, but I was told in the village that there was trouble about and the duke is not here to see to the security of the estate.”

  “Betancourt is perfectly secure and all is well, as you can plainly see.” Sarah waved a hand to indicate the placid air of the great house, then drew herself straighter. She had supposed the day would come that someone would arrive to challenge her presence at Betancourt and her care of her brother-in-law’s inheritance. She was all too aware that her role as steward here was self-appointed. And, dearest Heaven, he’d caught her wearing Uncle Red’s guns! She refused to blush. “You have not answered the question, sir. Who are you?”

  “I am the duke’s cousin, George Parker Graham.” This time the deferring nod came paired with a smile so intense that she could almost feel it touching her. “And who, if I may inquire, do I have the honor of addressing?”

  “I am the duke’s sister-in-law, Sarah Bumgarten. I am here at his request to watch over the estate while he is away.”

  “Truly? I wasn’t aware the duke had a sister-in-law—or, indeed, that he was ever married.” A moment later his attention slid down her figure—lingering for a second on those guns—and on to the man still seated at the table. His gaze narrowed on her patient’s broad back and long hair. “In fact, I have been reliably informed that the duke has been missing for some time and that his brother has failed to investigate or even put in an appearance.”

  Sarah followed his gaze to Michael Grant and watched her patient go rigid and turn slowly in his chair. When he looked up there was an intensity to his expression that reminded her of his face outside the Iron Penny.

  “And who is this?” George moved toward Michael with an open look of appraisal. The sight of her patient’s ill-fitting shirt and bizarre crimson belt brought a scowl that quickly became incredulity.

  “My patient, Michael Grant. A local fellow who was shot near Betancourt’s gates.” She hoped her embarrassment didn’t show. A gentleman arrives—quite possibly family to Ashton—and finds her wearing six-shooters and lunching with a half-naked man. Dear Lord. And the big red drapery tassels . . . whatever had possessed her? “He is recovering here.”

  Michael rose, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and turned to face George Graham fully. The silence, as the men took each other’s measure, prickled with tension. George took in Michael’s exposed slice of chest, worn riding breeches, and bare feet.

  “I am surprised to see . . . so much of him.” George raised an eyebrow. “Where are your proper garments, sir?”

  Michael’s response sounded an octave lower than usual.

  “My clothes were ruined in the attack. Miss Bumgarten was kind enough to find me something to wear.” He straightened, emphasizing his height and muscularity, but keeping his face a slate of determination. “She is something of a physician in these parts.”

  “Indeed.” George turned to Sarah, pointedly giving Michael his back. “Charitable
to a fault, as women of worth and refinement are wont to be. But kindness, sweet lady,” he addressed her, “must always be tempered with caution. Especially in these hazardous times.”

  Sarah saw Michael’s face harden and his eyes narrow on George’s back. The men had taken an instant dislike to each other, and she had no idea why or which was being truthful about his identity and reason for being here.

  “We were about to finish our luncheon,” she said, hoping to defuse the volatile atmosphere. “I could have the servants lay another plate if you would stay and join us.” She saw the way Michael’s nostrils flared and his eyes started to burn with anger. Not such a good idea, that invitation, but it was too late to rescind it.

  “A most hospitable offer, Miss Bumgarten, but I must be on my way. I am expected elsewhere. Perhaps you will see me to the door.” He held out his arm and she had no choice but to graciously accept.

  Once they were in the main hall, George slowed his step and put his hand over hers on his arm. His expression glowed with warm regard that grew into a smile.

  “I confess, I did not expect to find so lovely and amicable a hostess here. I feared, from things I had heard, that I would find Meridian’s venerable seat in a terrible state. Fortunately my supposition was wrong.” He looked around the great center hall with undisguised admiration. “I have always loved this place. It does my heart good to see it in capable hands.”

  “I did not know the old duke had such a cousin, sir,” she responded, relieved to find he accepted her presence and role there in such a complimentary way. His response had a rueful ring.

  “I spent my youth on the Continent—at boarding school and then at university in Paris. I came home some time ago, but have been occupied with business in London until now. I confess I was alarmed to hear talk that the duke is missing and the estate was left untended.”

  “Perhaps you do not know, then, that Duke Arthur left instructions in the event he was unable to return to England and Betancourt.”