Elsie pushed herself upright. Mindful of Bear at her feet, she swung her legs over the side and climbed down from the half-tester bed. The plush, ornate Aubusson carpet muted her steps as she crossed to the Venetian carved mirror. Plucking her cotton wrapper from the gilded bird along the top, Elsie shrugged into the article and, as she belted it at the waist, made her way to the door.
Panting with excitement, Bear trotted over.
“Aww, pup,” she said gently. Elsie sank to a knee and rubbed the tip of his silken ear between her fingers. “You know the rules.”
He whined in canine protest and nosed at her skirts.
“I venture first and determine if it is safe for the both of us.” It was a rule she’d put into effect after the night their lives had been upended. The then-younger dog had kept pace with her as she’d bolted through dense brush and forests, until he’d been felled by a bullet meant for her. Elsie’s fingers automatically found the scar along his left side. He’d merely been grazed, but the blood loss had nearly killed him. Caring for him had sustained her in those immediate days. She swallowed past a ball of emotion in her throat. “What would I do without you?” she asked hoarsely. Because, when he was gone, then she would be well and truly… alone. Alone in ways she hadn’t been even when her father had perished.
Bear wiggled his massive body and plopped himself down. Leveling his large, dark eyes on her face, he dropped his head between his paws and stared accusatorily up.
Giving her head a shake, she dispelled the useless lamentations. Hadn’t her own father’s murder proven that no one person had the promise of any one day?
“It is for your own good,” she promised and sprang to her feet. With an uncharacteristic obstinacy, Bear planted himself between her and the door. “Oh, fine, you troublesome fellow.” She softened the rebuke with another stroke of his ears. With Bear at her side, Elsie collected the candlestick and set off to explore the duke’s residence.
Holding the delicate, hand-painted porcelain chamber stick close, Elsie wound her way through the hallways. She took in every detail of the duke’s household. Everything, from the pale pink hall carpets, to the matching pink hyacinth silk wallpaper, to the white alabaster statues of The Three Graces, bore an air of femininity that did not fit with the masculine figure who dwelled here.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
She jumped, losing her grip on the chamber stick. It clattered to the floor, splashing wax over the immaculate carpet.
Cursing quietly, she dropped to her knees and patted out the faint flickering of flame. A damning black burn mark met her efforts. At another time, mayhap in the light of a new day, she’d be filled with proper horror and remorse at sullying a duke’s lavish residence. On unsteady feet, she rose, her gaze trained in the direction of the odd pounding.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
There it was again.
Elsie closed her eyes.
Run, poppet… Run…
Bear pushed his nose into her side, and its damp touch penetrated her thin skirts.
She wetted her lips. Return to your rooms. Better yet… leave this home altogether.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
Drawn toward the errant, untimed beat, Elsie drifted silently down the hall and then stopped.
A door hung partially opened, jammed by a branch.
“A branch,” she mouthed. Her earlier terror lifted, and compelled this time by a far safer intrigue, Elsie walked the remaining steps to that door.
Bear, who’d followed at her side, promptly sank onto his heels beside her.
Pushing the panel open, she peeked outside.
Her breath caught.
Bear sat upright with a like appreciation, his entire body poised to rush forward, and yet, he restrained himself.
“Gardens,” she whispered. A tangled, overgrown space of untended trees and flowers and weeds. At first glance, one might even believe oneself upon an uninhabited swatch of land in the wilds of Bladon. Everything from these grounds to belongings scattered throughout the household bore the touch of a woman. Yet there was no duchess? Or had each piece and detail been selected within part of some larger plot at confusing the outside world about the activities that went on in this place?
Bear emitted a small whine.
“What is it?” she whispered, reluctantly drawing the door closed.
His hackles up, his ears raised, Bear stared down the left hall, his gaze fixed.
She shivered, and for the first time since she’d begun her exploration, an uneasiness rooted around her belly. “Come,” she urged. “We’ll return tomorrow, I promise.”
Except, Bear remained fixed not on the outside grounds that had pulled him moments ago, but on something… or someone in the opposite direction.
“Bear,” she urged once more.
He lunged to his feet and took off running.
Bloody hell.
Elsie grabbed her skirts and chased after her dog.
This was the last place one wished to be caught snooping. As she raced down the corridor, her breath came hard not from exertions but from panic. Nor did the unease have anything to do with the fact that a duke resided here, but rather, a member of that ruthless organization. “Bear,” she entreated.
Suddenly, he stopped. The dog nudged his head at the door.
“No,” she mouthed.
He nudged his head again and let out a keening whine.
Oh, blast and damn. Raising a finger to her lips, she pressed her ear to the panel and strained for a hint of sound within the rooms. Only the muted ring of silence met her.
“There is no one in there,” she assured him.
Or I’ve been heard.
As that ominous possibility crept in, another wave of cold racked her, and she drew her robe more tightly about her person. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve merely explored this residence they’d make me call home for the next three weeks.
Wetting her lips, Elsie raised her palm. She hovered her fist inches from the panel.
Rap-pause-rap-pause. Rap-rap.
She waited, breath held, for… something.
When no greeting was called out, she glanced down. His head tilted back, Bear’s wide brown eyes met her gaze. “I told you,” she mouthed. “Now, let us go.”
Except… Bear lifted a paw.
“I knocked,” she insisted in hushed tones.
He gave her one of his familiar accusatory, wide-eyed stares.
“Fine.” Gritting her teeth, Elsie tried the handle.
It gave with a surprising ease, and the door swung wide on well-oiled hinges.
She paused. Had the room been of any importance, its master would have surely seen the door locked…
“See? There is no one here. Nothing here. Now let us—” Bear surged ahead, entering the rooms.
Cursing one of the more inventive words introduced to her by one of her father’s long-ago patients, Elsie hurried into the room and closed the door behind her.
This was all she needed. To be caught snooping about His Grace’s…
She glanced around the well-lit space and cursed again.
His offices. She’d invaded his offices. “It is time to go,” she repeated, this time more firmly, doing a search for her dog.
And finding him.
Her heart sank.
From where he lounged on the leather button sofa, the Duke of Aubrey rested a large, menacing palm upon Bear’s head. A dangerous grin iced hard, unyielding lips. “Miss Allenby,” he said frostily. “How very unexpected to see you here.”
Bloody hell. “Your Grace,” she returned in measured tones. How was she so calm?
“Now,” he went on, swinging his legs over the side of the sofa. “Why don’t you begin first by telling me how you know ‘that’ and then explaining what the hell you’re doing here.”
Chapter 6
Elsie Allenby knew the knock.
It had been a perfectly mastered rap-pause-rap-pause, rap-rap used only by members of the
Brethren.
He didn’t believe for a moment that it was any mere coincidence.
And the mysterious chit traveled with an ugly mutt that was more bear than dog. He flicked his gaze on the bored-looking creature, assessed him, and then shifted his attention over to the more threatening figure.
William stood slowly, and the young woman took one step backward, enough so she needn’t crane her head to look at him, but no more than would indicate she sought to flee.
At her silence, William arched an eyebrow. “How did you know that?” he demanded again when she still said nothing.
“Know what?”
“Your rapping, Miss Allenby.” He drifted closer, stealing the space she’d sought to build between them.
“You heard me.” His early-morn visitor folded her arms at a mutinous set. “Why didn’t you answer if you heard knocking?”
God, she was feisty. It lent an enchanting color to her olive-hued cheeks. “Because I did not want to be bothered,” he drawled.
She didn’t blink for several moments. “Oh. Uh… fair enough.”
That absolute lack of artifice threw into question his immediate opinion of moments ago that she was some recent addition to the ranks of the Brethren. That would have, of course, explained her presence here, why Edward had trusted her and brought her here. But her inability to dissemble made a mockery of his earlier assumption. And yet… how to explain her knowledge of that rapping? He frowned, leveling a hard gaze on her face. “Do you truly expect me to believe the manner in which you announced your arrival was in any way… a coincidence?”
She darted her tongue out, trailing the enticing tip of pink flesh around the seam of her lips. He’d known the woman less than a day and gathered that telltale gesture of her nervousness. It had been essential that he hone such an assessment of a person over his career with the Home Office.
This, however, this pulled at him, sucked him under whatever siren’s spell the damned imp possessed. Small, dark-haired, she bore no hint of the statuesque beauty of his late wife, and subsequent lovers.
It was her spirit. There was no other accounting for the maddening rush of desire that flooded him at her every challenge.
“Hmm?” he urged.
“I did not know there was a question there.”
William collected her forearm, ringing a soft gasp from the lady.
The dog, previously relegated to the forgotten, pricked its ears up between them. “Do not play games with me, Miss Allenby,” he warned, placing his lips close to her ear. Some citrusy scent that was neither lemon nor orange, but a melding of both, wafted about him, and he resisted its pull. “No one,” he whispered. “I’ll repeat just once, no one ever enters these rooms.”
The long, graceful column of her throat bobbed. “Your office,” she said, her voice threadbare.
She’d known as much when she’d set foot inside, then. He abruptly released her, and she drew that limb close to her side, away from his reach.
“Tell me, what business could you have here, in this room, at this hour?”
“I was unable to sleep,” she said softly. The swiftness of that somber admission foretold truth. This stranger his brother had brought into William’s household had demons she fought, too.
“You are not allowed in here.”
“I’m here to see to your care.” She stared at him as if she’d somehow ended the matter with that single pronouncement.
“And, Miss Allenby?” he snapped.
“I cannot properly do so without having access to the areas and aspects of life important to you.”
“Rubbish.”
“If you think it is rubbish, then you won’t trust in my methods, and I therefore cannot help you.”
Which brought him back to the question about who in blazes Miss No-First-Name Allenby in fact was.
“What is your name?”
“My name?” Her eyes flared ever so slightly. “Allenby.” Again, she stared at him with that expectant little expression that suggested he should know who she was.
He searched his mind.
For, no doubt, he should know her through some connection with the Brethren. That would account for her familiarity with the knock and her borderline-mad degree of brashness. He’d pull those secrets from her. “What is your Christian name, madam?” The ease at distracting an adversary fell effortlessly into place, as if he had not spent nearly a year shut away from the world and his work. And how very good it felt. He felt… alive. It had been so very long, and it was surely a betrayal of his late wife.
So why were his thoughts not on Adeline but on the mysterious creature before him?
The young woman’s eyes darkened. “I do not see how my Christian name is relevant.”
“Isn’t it?” he retorted. “Come, Miss Allenby, you cannot have it both ways, needing access to my personal rooms and artifacts and life… while keeping up barriers yourself.”
“Ah, yes. But I neither require nor sought intervention.”
“Don’t you?” He’d wager his duchy and everything unentailed that went with it that she needed help as much as he did. Mayhap more. Her secrets were reflected in a troubled gaze better suited to the most seasoned agents who served the Home Office.
Miss Allenby blanched and fluttered a hand about her chest.
“I at the very least see the struggles I contend with and own them.” He winced. This day, between the minx who tested him at every turn and two meetings with the Brethren, he’d already spoken more than he had in the whole of the damned year. His jaw, mouth, and head throbbed in protest. Feeling the young woman’s too-clever stare on his mouth and recalling her earlier insight into his body’s slightest movements, he forcibly repressed the need to move under that scrutiny.
Another person would have grown indignant and no doubt challenged his presumption, regardless of the level of truth to it. “My name is Elsie,” she said softly.
It was an allowance she’d made out of pity, a hateful, hated, and increasingly familiar sentiment he’d received from all those in his damned life. As such, he wanted to tell her to go to hell with it.
And yet, her lyrical tones continued to work their hypnotic pull.
“Elsie.” He wrapped that word around his tongue and mind.
She lifted her chin. “Elspeth, but I’ve only ever been Elsie.”
She’d taken his lack of response as judgment. Rather, the shorter variant suited her. Far more than that more formal, more common one from which it was derived. Diminutive, delicate, and even with her name, the spirited stranger refused to be constrained by the formality the world would insist upon. No, Elsie Allenby would resist all rules and conventions. “Very well. Elsie, then.” He motioned to the chair occupied earlier by Bennett.
Elsie followed the gesture and hesitated for the span of a heartbeat before crossing the room and settling her slender frame into the oversized chair.
How easily she went where he now led. It challenged the idea that she was linked to the Brethren and stirred all the more questions about her.
William sat and, bracing his steepled fingers under his chin, met her direct stare. “I am William.”
“Does it help you?” she asked.
He puzzled his brow.
“Bracing it as you speak.” Elsie mimicked his positioning and stared at him with that damned inquisitive gaze.
His neck went hot.
“Most would not notice,” she quickly reassured. “I only did—”
“Because you treat horses and badgers and magpies,” he gritted out through compressed lips, forcing the string of words out past the agony throbbing along his jawline.
“Interestingly, I’ve never cared for a magpie.”
“I was being sarcastic, Miss Allenby,” he said coolly.
“I believe we settled on first names, William.” A pleased smile graced her lips and then was promptly gone.
The truth slammed into William with the same force of the carriage he’d been hurled from a year e
arlier. “Why, why… That is what you wanted all along, isn’t it?”
She inclined her head. “It is always better for the patient to believe he… or she is in control,” she said with raw honesty.
William snapped his eyebrows into a single line. By God… “Did you just liken me to your equine patients?” Now, a second time.
Elsie lifted her narrow shoulders in a little shrug. “I indicated they were the only patients I have personally attended without assistance.”
Why, this whole time, the clever chit was the one in control of this discussion, which was not really a discussion. He’d even venture she herself would have wanted them to be in possession of each other’s first names. He narrowed his eyes. “How pleased you must be with yourself.” Outwitted by a… What was she exactly? Who was she? His intrigue grew.
Elsie folded her hands upon her lap in a false display of demureness. “I’d be far more pleased if it was three weeks from now and I was making my return, while you were suffering less from your pain,” she confessed.
He sat back in his chair, and this time, the exertions of the dialogue won out. William cradled his jaw, rubbing it in a useless bid to rid himself of the agony.
All the while, his head swam at the young woman’s directness. He was confused by it. Nay, by her. The spitfire was a rarity, an oddity he didn’t know what to do with. By the very nature of his work and title, those he’d kept company with through the years, his own wife included, treated any discourse with him as though it were a chessboard. Lords and ladies, the men and women he dealt with in the Home Office, did not say what they truly wished, or what they were thinking.
Elsie Allenby, however, did—and did so with an impressive bluntness.
The pulsing in his jaw said he should send her on her way. Only… he was unwilling to end his exchange with the spirited minx. “You do not wish to be here, and yet, my brother compelled you to come anyway.”
“No one compels me to do anything,” she said with a resolute steel in the retort. “I came of my own choice.”
Her Duke of Secrets Page 7
