by Betina Krahn
“I have heard nothing of such arrangements.”
“Arthur has now vacated the title in favor of his younger brother. Ashton Graham is now Duke of Meridian.”
That seemed to unsettle him.
“And where is Duke Ashton now? Why is he not here?”
“He is traveling . . . in New York with his wife and children.”
“For how long?” George’s increasing grip on her hand became uncomfortable. “How long has it been since he was here?”
“Some time,” she hedged, withdrawing from his arm. “I was appointed steward several months ago and am seeing to affairs here.”
He glanced over his shoulder toward the dining room.
“I see that you are earnest in that charge.” He glanced down at her armament. “And formidably equipped.” Stepping closer, he brought his hands up as if to clasp her shoulders, but something in her face stopped him and his hands retreated to his sides. “However, you are quite young to shoulder such a burden. You must guard against being too tenderhearted. With the best of intentions, I am certain, you have taken a man into your household and to your table who doesn’t know how to comport himself decently in a gentlewoman’s company. What do you know about that man?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “But the hole in his shoulder was quite genuine. I assure you, I am more experienced and discerning than I may appear.”
He gazed into her determined face for a moment, then smiled. “I am relieved to hear it. I am intrigued by your capability, Miss Bumgarten, as by your lovely presence. If I may be so bold as to ask, may I call on you from time to time? I would love to get to know you. As family, I feel honor-bound to see that you are safe and Betancourt is secure.”
“You may certainly visit, Mister Graham. Family is always welcome here. But I believe your concern is unnecessary.”
She told herself that his forwardness was the result of interest in her presence and his concern for the family seat. She could understand that things might look quite disturbing from an outsider’s viewpoint, especially since she was found wearing guns and dining with a half-naked man tied up in a crimson bow.
And if he had heard stories . . . Heaven knew what gossips in London were saying about the duke. It hadn’t occurred to her that word of his absence had spread that far. Apparently, it was unknown outside the family that he had made plans for Ashton’s succession to the title if he didn’t return.
“Until later, my dear Miss Bumgarten.” He reached for her hand and placed a kiss on it that was the essence of courtliness.
“Until later, Mister Graham,” she responded as he strode for the door.
He reached it before Edgar was close, opened it himself, and flashed a disarming smile as he stepped out and closed it behind him.
She probably should have been pleased with his admiration and bold approach, but it felt more like flattery to her. And she had vowed that she would never again trust empty compliments, or mistake flirtation and amusement for something of worth.
Turning back to the dining room, she mulled over George’s visit and her cool reaction to him. When she looked up, Michael Grant was leaning against the frame of the dining room doorway, munching a sweet biscuit and watching her. She halted, feeling oddly exposed under his scrutiny.
“Charming fellow, George.” His tone was laden with insincerity.
“Well-mannered, at least,” she responded.
“And you hold to the notion that ‘manners maketh the man,’ do you?”
“A man’s manners are telling,” she said, teetering on the edge of scolding him for his lack of table etiquette and courtesy toward another gentleman. Wait—she was thinking of him as a gentleman?
“He came here out of concern for Betancourt,” she said. “That is an honorable and worthy concern. He left reassured that it is in good hands.”
“He’ll be back.” Michael looked past her, toward the front doors.
“I should think so. He was invited to return,” she said, puzzled by her patient’s animosity toward a man he had just met, though she had to admit that she hadn’t invited George, he had boldly invited himself. “He is family, after all.”
“Is he indeed?” The question didn’t beg a response, but she gave one.
“I believe so. And he seems to be a proper gentleman.”
“He did dress the part. There is another saying: ‘Clothes maketh the man.’ But I can tell you, Miss Bumgarten, that there is always much, much more to a man than clothes and manners. And the truly important parts are never easily seen.”
She had paused near him in the doorway, and for a moment met his gaze. Certainty stared back at her without a hint of dissembling or evasion. He let her search him, as if saying here I am . . . see what there is . . . look your fill.
Gazing into a man’s eyes was not only improper, it was dangerous. Experience had taught her that what she saw might be as much a reflection of her own longings as of the reality of another’s heart. She looked away, struggling for composure and trying to remember where they were before they were interrupted.
“You should go back to bed,” she said, surveying the table.
“I agree.” He yawned, stretched with his good arm, and then patted his half-bare belly with outrageous contentment. Then he stepped back to snatch a handful of biscuits from the tiered server on the table, and lumbered back to her. “I think I may need some help getting up those stairs.”
“Ned,” she called, thinking he couldn’t have gone far. “Deidre?”
No one answered and—of course—they would have forgotten to set out the table bell. When she turned back, he was walking gingerly toward the stairs while holding on to the wall. Muttering to herself, she met him at the foot of the stairs and inserted herself under his good arm. They were both breathing heavily by the time they reached the top of the stairs.
She helped him to the duke’s bed and ordered him to remove the shirt, saying she would see it altered to fit him better. He handed her the biscuits first, which she deposited with a huff on the bedside table, then he peeled the shirt from his body. She found herself staring at that tattoo on his shoulder when he handed her the garment.
He settled back on the bed with a sigh and closed his eyes. He looked exhausted.
She was halfway to the door, irritated by her own excitable impulses, when he stopped her with a request.
“Perhaps, Miss Bumgarten, you could see what they’ve done with my boots. I was wearing them when I was shot and I’m kind of partial to them.”
* * *
Later that afternoon Sarah sat by the open window in her bedchamber, ripping stitches out of the shirt she had assigned to her troublesome patient. Every thread that popped was accompanied by a word that would have sent her mother for smelling salts.
How dare the man take such liberties with her . . . her . . . imagination?
She reddened at her errant thought. It was her own cursed fascination with his exposed body that started this inappropriate dwelling on him. But after he awakened, his combination of confidence, aura of mystery, and unmistakable interest in her had deepened her curiosity. He was a puzzle; rough and demanding one minute, restrained and thoughtful the next.
Or was she imagining such things?
She huffed. It was not her imagination that he ate like a starving ranch hand and afterward paused to offer her worldly advice on the content of men’s character.
Her scissors snipped and fingers tugged threads until the altered sides of the shirt were back to their original dimensions. Fortunately she hadn’t had a chance to finish the alterations she had started. Admittedly, they had been a bit slapdash. She held it up in the afternoon light. A good pressing and it would probably fit him.
She rang for Mazie and then strode down the upstairs hall, intending to hand off the business of freshening the shirt to the housemaid. Then she should check on her patient’s boots. She had finally remembered Ned and Thomas Wrenn pulling them from him in the duke’s bedchamber. They had to b
e somewhere in the house.
She stood at the head of the stairs in the great hall, waiting for Mazie, when the sound of a door opening came from the hallway in the opposite wing. She saw nothing amiss until a familiar figure stepped into the hallway from Duke Arthur’s old room. She clasped the shirt to her as she watched the man who called himself Michael Grant disappear into a stairwell that he shouldn’t have known was there.
“What are you . . .” she muttered, just as Mazie came puffing up the main stairs.
“Yea, mum?” the rotund housemaid said, leaning on the railing with one hand and fanning herself with the other. “I heated up th’ irons, like ye said, an’ when the shirt’s done, I be fixin’to work on polishin’ th’ silver. No time fer lollygaggin,’ I alwus say.”
Sarah looked at the wrinkles her fist was pressing into the shirt, then up at the door where he had disappeared. Her eyes narrowed.
“Oh, I think the shirt is fine just as it is. And tell Ned to lock up the silver. There won’t be any polishing today.”
* * *
Arthur climbed the narrow servants’ stairs, contemplating what he had seen in his old room. Everything was the same as the day he left it. A bit of dust here and there; it looked as if care had been taken to leave his possessions undisturbed. His books still filled the shelves, with his natural curiosities still tucked in around them. His writing desk still wobbled from one short leg, but looked like it was ready for him to sit down at any moment to pen notes on his “finds.” The bed was narrower than he recalled and the highboy that held his clothes didn’t seem as massive, but his mounted and framed butterflies still covered much of one wall. Above his bed hung the sketches and watercolors he had made of insects and flowers.
It pleased him to see it all, but he found it hard to produce a smile. The young man who belonged in this place was no more. He had been content here amid his studies and small treasures, despite the isolation his uncles and aunt had imposed on him. Until he met Daisy Bumgarten. She had barreled into his life like a transcontinental express . . .
He headed out the door and turned right, trying to remember the nearest passage to the third floor. The door he found creaked on its hinges, but he was so intent on mounting those stairs and seeing what had happened to the rest of his world that it didn’t occur to him to be stealthy.
By the time he reached the next landing, he was pulling himself up by the rope railing and gritting his teeth. His injured shoulder was on fire. Clearly, another dose of Sarah Bumgarten’s mysterious powders was in order, but not before he saw what had become of his collections.
The door to his schoolroom-cum-laboratory was closed but, thankfully, not locked. Inside, the floors had been swept and someone had had a go at dusting, but there was still a light film of disuse on the tables and specimen cases. He rolled up one of the window shades and stood watching the shaft of sunlight stretch across the room to his display cases. It was the blues that drew his eyes first: the Adonis blue butterflies he had been so proud to collect and display.
In truth very few others ever saw his beloved collection. He had never had friends at Betancourt—anywhere, really. And his uncles and aunt had always behaved as if he were the village idiot when he tried to share his enthusiasm for the beautiful creatures he found in—
“What in blazes do you think you’re doing?”
He started at her voice and turned to find Sarah just inside the doorway. Her hands were fisted at her sides and she was breathing heavily from the climb. He was so surprised that the truth was all that came to mind.
“I wanted to see what was up here.” He waved a hand at the collection around him. “You were so keen to have me on this level, I wondered why. And I found this.” Before she could reply, he turned aside and strolled around the room, examining the butterflies and insects on display. “So this is where Arthur spent his youth.”
* * *
“There’s nothing pawnable in here, if that’s what you’re after.” She crossed her arms and braced, watching his reaction to being caught—what? snooping? plundering? outright thieving?
“I suppose you’re right,” he answered, seeming remarkably calm for having been caught searching for valuables. “Not that they wouldn’t fetch a pretty penny in some markets. Unless I miss my guess, there are some rare specimens here. Look at this.” He pointed to a darker butterfly with white markings, then went to roll up the shade beside it for a better look.
“Really, this is outrageous. I insist you come downstairs immediately”—she hurried to him and tugged his arm—“or I will be forced to call the law on you.”
“For what? Looking at a collection that should be displayed proudly and seen by all and sundry?” He looked down at her and she experienced a shiver that had to do with the hardness of an arm under her hands and an expanse of bare chest at close range. “Have you seen what’s here?”
“Of course, I have,” she said, feeling her irritation starting to waver under an onslaught of interest. She thrust the shirt she carried into his hands. “Be so good as to put that on, and spare us the sight of your—”
There was no way she could finish that sentence and retain her dignity.
He scowled at the garment, shook it out, and slipped his arms into it. To prevent herself from staring, she turned to inspect the shelves and collection cases that ringed the room. But she could see from the corner of her eye that it fit well enough. Annoyingly well, in fact.
“How do you know these things are valuable?” she demanded.
“I may lack university degrees, but I have been a student of nature all my life,” he said as he buttoned the shirt and tested the fit by flexing his good shoulder and arm. Satisfied, he looked over at the specimens glowing—practically iridescent—in the sunlight. “Even if I hadn’t studied such things, who could miss how beautiful these creatures are? The old boy had quite the eye, if I do say so. You must admit”—he nodded to a particularly striking specimen—“the coloring of that purple emperor is nothing short of extraordinary.”
She hesitated, then stepped to the window and examined the butterfly. Rich, velvety purple, with black and white borders and spots that seemed to have been painted with the skill of an old master.
“It is . . . lovely,” she admitted, the last scraps of her indignation deserting her. He didn’t display the slightest guilt at being accused of thievery, and in fact, seemed oblivious to it. She told herself he could just be very clever and slyly calculating the worth of the duke’s collection.
“People should see these things . . . appreciate them . . . learn from them. There are rambling clubs and birding societies and naturalist associations . . . all kinds of people who would give their eye teeth for a chance to see and study this collection.”
Rambling clubs? Birding societies? She looked up and caught an expression that gave her a strange sense of having seen his face like that before . . . alight with pleasure and wonder.
“I confess, I am partial to the blue ones over there.” He took her hand and pulled her to a large case with a host of blue butterflies. There, he felt along the edges of the case, saying, “There’s usually a way to—” And he came up with a hexagonal key that fit in the lock. She gasped and would have stopped him from opening the case, but her impulses to protect the display and to see what he intended, somehow canceled each other out.
When she saw that he didn’t touch the sky-blue wings, she was glad to have held her tongue. In fact, he tucked his good arm behind him as he bent to study the specimens at close range.
“Wait—” He hurried to the worktable and came back with a circular glass encased in a ring of wood. He rubbed dust from it with the tail of his shirt, used it to look at the butterfly. Every muscle in his body seemed to relax. He studied the largest blue one for a moment longer, then offered her the lens. “A gossamer-winged blue. They glow in the light.”
As she bent to look through the glass, her breath escaped on an “ahhh.” It looked like tiny rainbows had been captured and
fitted together around lush, living tiles of color.
He watched her reaction, then bent beside her to share the view. The warmth radiating from him gave her gooseflesh.
“They’re amazing creatures,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “More than we know.”
She looked up, straight into his gaze, and felt a sudden connection that drew her to him in a way she couldn’t explain. The next moment she sensed that he had a similar reaction as his eyes widened.
“It looks like there are plenty more,” he said softly, the rasp in his voice an ear-tingling whisper. He took her hand and pulled her to another case filled with brilliant yellow and orange butterflies. He opened that case, too, and then another with black and white specimens, some of which had eye-like dots on their wings that made it seem the creatures were looking back at them. Owl butterflies, he called them, and they did look like owls.
As they explored the collection, she marveled at the care the duke had taken with each and every creature. Even the mundane gray moth was accorded a dignified mounting and label. The specimen drawers were set on gimbals that allowed them to be pulled out for examination and made vertical for display. The worktable held a pile of research books and a journal with handwritten entries and drawings depicting what the duke had seen under his microscope. Every aspect of the collection bore evidence of methodical use and care.
By the time they came back to the cabinet near the window, containing the purple emperor, his insights had convinced Sarah he was truthful when he spoke about his study of nature. So, he was a battle-hardened sailor, a self-taught naturalist, and—if he were to be believed— a physician of sorts. He was a puzzle wrapped inside a riddle, wrapped inside an enigma . . . which made her itch to know about him all the more difficult to dismiss.
“Of all of these creatures, I think the ‘emperor’ would be my favorite,” she said, gazing at it.
He smiled. “The beasties worm their way into your heart. Each species has its own life cycle, mating rituals, favorite flowers and other foods, and there are hundreds of species . . . perhaps thousands. Taken in total, that’s a variety that boggles the mind. And that’s just the butterflies and moths. Think of all the other insects . . . birds . . . animals.”
