A Duke by Default

by Alyssa Cole

  “Well. How’s the research for the website going?” he asked.

  Portia waited a beat for him to say something rude, but that was it. It was a real question? Not a trap? She was used to having to force information onto him—and well, most people. She relaxed in her seat a little bit.

  “It’s going okay. I found some leads on the background of Dudgeon House,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Dudgeon House?”

  “That’s the original name of this building. You know, the one you’ve owned for twenty years?” She gestured to the armory looming up beside them.

  “Is it now? Huh. That’s good to know.” He popped a fried shrimp into his mouth.

  Something wasn’t computing.

  “How do you know about all these obscure medieval accords and treaties, but nothing about the place where you’ve lived for so long?”

  “Because I’ve been too busy trying to keep the place up, start a business, and run what’s basically become a community center to give a shite what it was called a hundred years ago.” He shrugged. “Part of the reason I didn’t sell it off is I wanted to show people that a poor kid from Bodotria could do just as well as anyone else if given the chance. And I’ve done okay.”

  Portia wasn’t a therapist, but if she were she might ask him if perhaps he had projected his anger at his biological father onto the building.

  “You’ve never considered selling it?” She’d seen the estimated market value for the building online. Tav would be able to buy a more modern building better suited to his purposes and have plenty left over. The building had already been worth a lot but its value had shot up exponentially compared to everything else in the neighborhood. She wasn’t keen on joining her parents’ business, but she did have basic real estate sense.

  “Of course, I have. I’d be daft not to. Look around,” he said, pointing down the cobblestone street with a sauce-stained finger. “But if I sell, that’s one more building that gets converted into a place where they turn up their nose at the people who’ve lived here all their lives. I want to change the neighborhood for the better in a way that doesn’t involve good people getting pushed out of their homes and stores.”

  Portia made a vague noise of agreement.

  “And it’s the same rich fuck buying everything up and turning it into what he thinks the other rich fucks who move in will want. Selling would be a last gasp effort.”

  She chewed the inside of her cheek, gnawing at the discomfort caused by Tav’s words. She was, after all, a rich fuck. Her parents’ investment group focused on real estate. Her income came from rent from buildings they’d bought for her in neighborhoods that had undergone rapid property value increases. Skyrocketing rents were what allowed her to do things like be a perpetual student and drop everything to be a swordmaker’s apprentice.

  “That sounds . . . not great,” she said.

  “Verra not great,” he replied drily.

  Portia didn’t know what to say then. Banter usually flowed pretty easily between them, but now her family’s wealth felt like a dirty secret. And there was this kernel of a crush, like a pea under her mattress. Her brain bounced like a roulette ball, trying to settle on a topic, but the wheel kept spinning as she stared at Tav, feeling increasingly foolish.

  “Did you know that a tardigrade is a microanimal not a police box?” she asked.

  His brow creased in confusion. “What’s that now?”

  “Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. “Just ignore that.”

  This was why crushes were ridiculous. They sapped you of power and rotted your brain.

  Why isn’t my food here already? Cheryl, please save me from myself.

  “All righty. Ignoring.” He picked up a rib and sucked the meat off the bone, his lips slick as he worked it over. Portia must have made a sound because he paused and his gaze went to her face.

  “Okay, you’ve been staring at me like I have two heads for a minute now. Don’t tell me,” he said, wiping at his mouth with a blue paper napkin. “My eating is uncivilized.”

  “Um.” She was tempted to tell him what she’d really been thinking of—his lips on her body. Then Tavish’s mouth pulled into a slow grin and she realized he’d understood at least some portion of that without her saying a word.

  Shit.

  “Here you go!” Cheryl dropped a tray in front of Portia, her smile faltering a bit as she looked back and forth between them. “Everything all right?”

  “She’s just eyeing my meat,” Tav said. He picked up another rib and worked the meat from the bone in teasing pulls with his front teeth.

  Portia was certain her face had never gone hotter. She was blushing, and Tavish was enjoying the fact that she was blushing, which made her face burn even more. She missed her days of drunken hedonism, when almost nothing could faze her. She’d lost her tolerance for flirting it seemed; just the tiniest sip of one hundred proof Tav had left her dizzy.

  Cheryl’s face scrunched in confusion, but then a group of tourists in Union Jack T-shirts ambled up to the sandwich board menu and she went to greet them.

  Come on. You’ve eaten men like this for breakfast—or had them eat you. Get a hold of yourself.

  Portia picked up one of the fish ball skewers. “Give me one reason not to jab you with this.”

  “I’ll give you two—one, it would be a waste of food, and two, I might like it.”

  She forced herself to relax. This was just talk, and she was fantastic at “all talk, no action.” They were two adults, flirting, and nothing else had to come of it. Besides, he’d say something dickish soon enough, and kill the hum of attraction in her body like a mosquito on a bug zapper.

  She placed the skewer down and began cutting at the fish balls with her plastic fork and knife.

  “Seriously? You can’t use your hands for that?”

  See? Zap.

  “I prefer using my hands for more enjoyable things,” she said before spearing half an orb and popping it into her mouth. “Like making swords.”

  “Why are you here?” he asked suddenly.

  “The human body requires energy to run . . .” She couldn’t remember the rest of the smart-ass response she’d lifted from her friend Ledi. Something about the powerhouse of the cell . . . she shrugged. “I was hungry.”

  “No. Why did you apply for the apprenticeship? Here? And don’t distract me with the spiritual mankiller tripe. You’ve enough experience to get a real, high-paying job. At a museum, or consulting, or anything really. But you’re here, on my arse about learning how to make a sword.”

  He seemed to be genuinely curious and not just annoyed with her.

  “Well . . . I’ve tried working at a museum. And art galleries. And offices. Nothing fit. It was like wearing a pair of too-small heels. You grin and bear it for a while, keep up appearances, try not to be a bother to everyone around you, but one day it’s too much and you have to step out of the shoes or amputate your toes. Know what I mean?”

  “I hope that coming here was the stepping out of the shoes and not the toe amputation part of that,” he said. “But aye, I know what you mean. That’s how the armory started. I was going to work in a shite office every day, hating every minute of it. Coming home to a wife who thought she’d married a reliable office jockey keen on swords, then got met with the truth—she’d married an unreliable sword jockey who hated offices.”

  His smile was rueful, and Portia tried to imagine him dressed in a suit, slogging to an office every day with a grimace on his face as he daydreamed of steel and battle.

  “What happened?” She knew plenty of people who had divorced—it had been one of her reasons for never getting serious. Yeah, there were her parents but the data spoke for itself. Divorce was almost inevitable, but marriage didn’t have to be. It just seemed like a lot of work to end up miserable and trapped. She could get that anxiety for free without putting up with an annoying partner or wedding planning stress.

  Tav chuckled. “Damned if
I know. After making sure I had enough income coming in from the rent here, I quit my job and started apprenticing with a swordmaker I’d met through the martial arts stuff, and it was the first time since I’d graduated that I was happy to get up and go to work.

  “Greer tried to be excited for me, to care because I did, but it just wasn’t what she wanted in her life—to be married to a niche tradesman. We grew apart.” He looked off into the distance, then smiled and shrugged. “She’s a good lassie. Living the life she wants now, just how I’m living the life I want. Which brings us back to you.”

  “Did my parents put you up to this?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “This is their favorite question for me. Asking me what I’m doing with my life, and telling me I should be more like my sister, or more like them, or like . . . anyone but me. But I don’t know what I want,” she said. “I’ve been running from one thing to another for a long time. School, internship, school, fellowship, classes, drinking, and . . .” He didn’t need to know everything. “I’m almost thirty and I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.”

  “I know that feeling,” he said. “Everyone acts like you’re just supposed to find what you love right away, and if you don’t, just do something you don’t love. And if you do neither of those things you’re being selfish.”

  Portia’s throat went a little tight because that was the word that lay at the heart of every discussion with her parents, whether they said it aloud or not. And when all Portia wanted to do was make people happy, every insinuation otherwise was a reminder that no one, not even her family, could see through the veneer of hot mess to the real her.

  “Well, what do you like to do?” he asked. “Besides annoy me?”

  She wasn’t sure anyone besides Ledi had ever asked her that. She hadn’t had the answer before, but now . . . “I like figuring things out, like the website for the armory and how to get people into Mary’s bookshop. I like social media—you’ve gained over two thousand new followers in the past three weeks, by the way. I like . . . helping people. And making things with my hands, too.”

  Tav shifted his bulk, leaning back in his seat. “So you’re just waiting to see which shoe fits, eh Freckerella?”

  She didn’t quite like that comparison. People focused so much on the prince slipping on Cinderella’s lost shoe that they didn’t realize the real happily ever after was the moment she realized she was brave enough to go to the damned ball alone in the first place.

  “I’m not waiting around for some fuckboy to bring me a shoe. I’m here, working for you. I’m finding my own shoe,” she said. “Do you know how hard finding the perfect pair of shoes is? Wait, I’ve seen your shoes. You don’t.”

  “Ha. Ha. All right. I’ve got to go make some deliveries and I have a community meeting tonight, so I might not see you at dinner later.” He took a swig of his bottle of water and then stood, holding his tray. “Tomorrow is a forge day. No sleeping in.”

  A rush of effervescent excitement went straight to Portia’s head. “Forge? I get to make a sword tomorrow? Finally?”

  Her voice came out high-pitched and she would have been embarrassed if she wasn’t so damn souped up.

  “Aye. You like making things with your hands, right? Meet me in the courtyard bright and early because I won’t wait for you if you’re late.”

  “Yes, Sir Tavish, sir!” she said, saluting. He grinned as he walked away, and Portia sat for a moment with the carbonated happiness that fizzed in her.

  She glanced at him as he took the steps up into the armory two at a time, and added Ass Man to the list of supervillain names she was compiling for him.

  “Cheryl! I get to make a sword tomorrow!” She waved her hands in the air, an impromptu celebration dance, and Cheryl laughed.

  “I’m not sure why you’d be happy to spend more time with that wanker, but I’m glad you get to do something that makes you happy.”

  “Thanks,” Portia said. “Hey, do you want to do something this week maybe? Like, away from the armory?”

  Cheryl’s brown eyes lit up. “Of course. There’s so much we can do! The Royal Mile, or a train out to the countryside, or I can take you to my parents’ neighborhood, or—”

  A couple of teens walked up to the window and Cheryl gave her a quick smile that implied they’d finish the conversation later, after the customers had gone.

  Portia reached to grab a fish ball, utensils be damned, and her fingers slid across something sticky and slick. She looked down at her plate and realized Tav had slid the last of his ribs onto her tray when she wasn’t looking.

  She grinned as she bit into it, and told herself it didn’t mean anything at all that it really was the best rib she’d ever eaten.

  Chapter 11

  Okay, I was gonna get you started with something like a knife made with stock removal, but we’ll do this American style. ‘Go big or go home,’ or whatever it is you tossers say. We’re forging a longsword.”

  Tav stood beside the forge, hands on his hips and swagger in his voice to hide his nerves. Yes, nerves. It was fucking ridiculous. He could forge with his eyes closed—or at the very least while squinting. But even prepping the forge had felt odd, like he was using someone else’s hands to gather the lengths of metal and wood, and to light the fire. That was mostly because someone else’s gaze was on him. Portia’s.

  She stood before him now, tablet and electronic pencil in hand, diligently taking notes as he spoke. She was dressed rather casually, for her: a loose gray scoopneck T-shirt and black leggings. Both were made of soft fabrics that hugged her curves, and he was fairly certain that despite their casualness, they were both pricey designer items.

  “Isn’t stock removal the more common technique?” she asked. “Tracing a pattern onto the steel and then grinding away the excess, leaving a blade?”

  “Aye, but grinding away for hours requires a certain level of stamina.”

  Portia’s studious gaze softened to something decidedly naughty. “I would imagine so.” She shook her head and laughed. “It’s going to be really hard to avoid innuendo today, isn’t it?”

  Tav chuckled, felt the mood lighten a bit. “It’s a hazard of the job I’m afraid. Don’t worry, I can handle it.”

  “Well, since the other hazards involve accidentally cutting a finger off or burning myself with molten metal, I’ll take Innuendo for $1,000, Tav.”

  “In that case, here’s my eighteen-inch length of steel,” he said, pulling the thin flat metal from the worktable.

  “Dear Lord,” Portia said, then pressed her lips together.

  “Hey, you’re the one who pressed for these lessons, Freckles.” Tav gripped the steel and pointed it at her. “You had to have some idea they’d be like this.”

  Though he was still firmly against exploring anything with Portia, despite the banked attraction between them, they were both adults who should be able to acknowledge it and move past it.

  “Oh.” Her thin brows rose. “Is that why you kept brushing me off?”

  Tav sighed. “No. I brushed you off because you were annoying and intrusive,” he said gruffly, but Portia didn’t react how she had to his previous insults. She smirked at him.

  “Right.”

  The cheek. He really had lost his edge.

  “I think you were worried about sparks flying,” she said, then tilted her head toward the anvil near the forge. “Sparks? Get it?”

  “I’m the only one allowed to tell bad jokes here, Freck.” But he felt less nervous now that they had in a way, dealt with the horny elephant in the room. Now they could just be normal coworkers. “We’re gonna start by hammering the tang, that is, the handle of the sword that’s going to be embedded in the hilt. I’ve already cut away two triangles of metal at the end of the steel, leaving a pointed handle that will fit into the hilt.”

  He stopped and picked up the hammer, laying the steel down on the work surface. He’d lifted the hammer to strike the tang when she made a sound to get his
attention.

  “Hold on,” she said, tapping at her tablet and then pointing its camera at him. “Okay, annnnnd action! You were about to hammer the tang, Sir Tav?”

  It was hard to be annoyed when she called him that—hard but not impossible. “Why are you recording this?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes, as if the answer should be obvious. “Because it will get people interested in your business. Which is one of my duties as an apprentice. I’m going to post it on social media and in the next post for my sister’s blog.”

  Tav rolled his neck, tried not to show too much annoyance. “I don’t like being videoed, Freckles.”

  She looked up from the screen. “It’s not going to steal your soul, you know. In case that was a concern. And why is this different than the exhibition?”

  “I was performing then. And my face was covered.” He shifted restlessly. “I just don’t like the idea of people watching, making their little cool, snarky comments. I’m not entirely comfortable being reduced to a bloody hashtag.”

  Portia’s stubborn expression softened a bit. “Oh, okay. The #swordbae thing freaked you out. That’s totally understandable. BUT I need to be clear that the comments on this video will not be snarky. They will mostly be, um, appreciative, if I had to make a guess. But you don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”

  Tav remembered her comment from that first day he’d found her watching him at the grinder. He wasn’t the most logical man, but it stood to reason that if she thought others would appreciate watching him, it was because she appreciated it herself.

  “I’ll give you thirty seconds and that’s it,” he said.

  “Two minutes,” she countered calmly.

  “One,” he compromised and remained stoic when she did a little gleeful jump. He kept his eyes above her neckline, too.

  “Okay, and action! Again!”

  Tav tried to frown discouragingly at her. She was having way too much fun with this.

  “The tang. Yeah. Tang. Tangy,” he choked out, then remembered that this was for Portia, not the annoying contraption in her hand. He straightened, and fixed her with his gaze instead of the phone. “We’re hammering out the tang, aye?”