Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03]

by Duke Most Wanted

“Don’t worry, she is in no danger from wolves.” Tessa’s laugh was mocking. “Dogs, now . . . they chase sticks, don’t they?”

  Graham turned away from the only family he had left in the world, realizing that he had nothing to gain there. Evidently she hadn’t yet heard of his advancement or she would have played the encounter with more fawning and flattery. He shuddered at the thought. Let her remain in the dark a little longer.

  A quick question to Tessa’s long-suffering maid, Nan, gave Graham the information he needed. She also added, sotto voce, that Lady Tessa’s latest lover had just jilted her, striding out that morning under an avalanche of abuse screamed from an upstairs window. Classic Tessa.

  Upon arrival at Brook House—and really, he ought to have figured that one out by himself and probably would have if he hadn’t been so overwhelmed by his own troubles—he was greeted at the door by Fortescue and shown to the family parlor.

  “I shall tell Miss Blake that you’re here.”

  There was already a young lady waiting there. Graham leaned both hands on the back of the sofa and grinned down at the child playing on the floor. Little Lady Margaret was a skinny brat with big feet and too much hair. In a few years she was going to be a right stunner, and Graham for one was looking forward to seeing her flay the young sods of Society to bits.

  “Hullo, evil mastermind. What’s on the agenda for the day—world domination?”

  Meggie spared him a smile. “Hullo, Gray. Sir Mittens is going to chase string.”

  Graham eyed the scrawny black-and-white kitten in her lap. Every time he saw it he found it more unattractive than before. The black-and-white markings were striking, but its enormous ears, crossed eyes and quirked whip of a tail formed a feline nightmare.

  When the beast had been younger, its tininess had been somewhat appealing, but now the baby charm was lost in lanky, wild-eyed youth. Deirdre had rescued it from a tree not long ago. Graham rather thought it might have been the tree that needed rescuing. “Is that the final name, then?”

  “No. I’m just trying it out. What do you think?”

  “Er . . . is that it? Sir Mittens?”

  She blinked at him. “Too boring? I thought about Sir Snow Mittens.” The kitten reached higher during her distraction, snagging her finger with one needle sharp claw. “Ouch!”

  Graham smiled, remembering the bear. “What about Sir Clawsalot?”

  Meggie smirked. “I don’t want him to think he’s too dangerous. It might give him ideas. Dee says he’s going to be a very large gentleman cat someday.”

  Graham considered the current ferocity of the scrawny beastie and his smile slipped. “Perhaps not, then.”

  Meggie sighed, then picked up the kitten and cradled it in her arms. It hung its head upside down and glared at Graham. “I have to put him in my room now. Patricia is taking me on an outing.”

  The cat, now at liberty from the need to stand on any of the aforementioned claws, was free to snarl all four paws viciously into the tangle of string. Just to ensure its complete destruction, he gnashed the wad repeatedly with his tiny baby teeth, purring raspily all the while.

  Graham would have offered to kitten-sit, but honestly, the creature’s maddened attack on the innocent string quashed any thought of such charity. He’d freely pay for the exorcism, though. “You do that.” And lock the door on the barmy little thing. He ought to let it loose on the old duke’s bear. That would fix them both.

  Fortescue appeared in the doorway of the parlor. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but Miss Blake is not available this morning. She asks if you will please call again another time.”

  Graham blinked. Not available?

  But . . . Sophie was always available!

  Not today, apparently, at least, not to him. Damn it, didn’t she realize he needed her? Well, not needed of course, but it would have been very useful to talk to her just now. Vastly irritated and more hurt than he was really willing to admit to, Graham stalked out past a bowing Fortescue, twitching his gloves back on so violently that he pulled a seam.

  Blast it, he wasn’t going to be able to buy gloves for a very long time, if ever.

  Far better to be angry at his gloves, his circumstances and his friend than to spend too much time wondering why her refusal to see him upset him so.

  Instead, he decided to ride out to Sussex. It was high time he took a look at Edencourt for himself. One could only learn so much from a report, after all.

  If Sophie wondered why he didn’t call back . . . well, she could just go on and wonder.

  At the top step, however, he halted. Some impulse caused him to turn about, stride back to the parlor and lay the polished bit of antler from his pocket on the side table like an offering. No, not an offering. A gift.

  Damn it.

  FOR THE NEXT two days, Sophie learned that not only did she not know how to dress or do her hair, but she apparently lacked the ability to stand, sit, walk, nod, carry a fan or hold a glass.

  In the great dining room of Brook House, where a table that could comfortably seat thirty people stretched nearly the length of the room, Sophie was so exhausted and furious that the grandeur and intimidation inspired by the luxurious setting had finally worn off. She plopped down into one of the dining chairs with no respect for its rarity or value.

  “Thank heaven you came along,” she finally barked at her small but terrifying nemesis. “I don’t know how I ever managed to survive!”

  Lementeur, still crisp and dapper, none the worse for wear though the work had been grueling, folded his arms and lifted a brow. “Oh, you survived, but I doubt that you lived. What’s more, there’s no excuse for it! You’ve a natural grace—of a coltish sort, at any rate—and if you’d simply get over your silly fears, you wouldn’t have a bit of trouble!” He threw up his hands again.

  Sophie decided then and there that if he made that gesture one more time, she was going to make monkey noises through her nose. There might also be some banging of her skull against the nearest wall.

  She was exhausted, her spine ached, her neck pinched, her feet throbbed, and she was fairly sure she had blisters on her fingers from trying to flick her fan!

  She gazed across the table at her torturer with unconcealed loathing. “You are a . . . a . . .”

  His eyes narrowed. “A what, pray tell?” He’d begun patiently enough, but somewhere around her ninth sprawl on the floor he’d turned pitiless.

  “A tyrant!” It was the best word she had. Her brain ached and her eyes burned and she longed to lie down. Anywhere. The middle of the street would do.

  Her persecutor smiled thinly. “Tyrant will do for now. Stand, if you please.” She obeyed, lifting her chin, throwing her shoulders back and down, firming her aching spine with stomach muscles that threatened to tremble.

  With an effortless flair, he snapped open his own demonstration fan and sneered. “Now do it again.”

  “But . . .” For the first time in her life, Sophie detected the possibility of a whine rising in her throat. Oh no. Not that. Startled, she barely paid attention when she flicked open her fan yet again.

  Out of habit, she waited for Lementeur’s usual rebuke. When it didn’t come, she lifted her gaze to him.

  He was smiling.

  “Absolute perfection!” His hands clasped as if in prayer—and who knew, for it had been a very long two days—his puckish face creased in smile lines, he bowed deeply to her.

  “Miss Sofia Blake, how lovely to meet you at last.”

  Sophie blinked, then looked down at the hand that held the fan.

  The fan . . . the lovely, graceful, perfectly poised fan!

  She laughed aloud, her relief overwhelming. She closed the fan and did it again . . . and again . . . and again!

  Lementeur stepped forward and swept her in a joyous circle, his hand on her waist, his other holding the one with her fan. Sophie laughed again, whirling with him, her exhaustion and her tiny, hard-won accomplishment making her dizzy with glee.

  Th
en she realized—

  “I’m dancing!”

  Lementeur nodded. “And very nicely, too.”

  He let her go, spinning her out of his arms and into the upholstered chair by the fire. Sophie sat, still dizzy from the motion, her movements still very nearly set to music, her limbs posed with gangling grace.

  Lementeur bowed again, then he lifted her hand and kissed it, pride shining from his bright eyes. “Miss Blake, you are a very good student—once you stop thinking so bloody hard!”

  Sophie blinked to make the room stay still. “So that’s the secret to the delicate grace of Society women—empty heads!”

  Lementeur laughed with glee. “Oh, that you must never change, my sweet! Your wit will carry you through any encounter. Now remember, stand as tall as you can, never move quickly, only smile at those who deserve it and if anyone, anyone at all, gives offense, you must never blush or shy away or let them see even the tiniest hurt. You must stare them down until they shy away from you.”

  That sounded easier than it likely was. “What will I say to people? How will I know what to talk about?”

  He shook his head. “Never ask. Only answer, and only after the briefest, bored pause. Ennui is very stylish at the moment. Don’t worry, you’ll soon see—it’s all quite boring in its way.”

  She frowned. “It is? I’ve always been too terrified to notice that. If it’s so boring, then why go? Why spend night after night dressing and primping and dancing?”

  He grinned. “The players might be boring, but the game is not!”

  With that, he bowed again. “I take my leave now, Miss Blake. I shall return in the morning with everything you’ll need for Lord and Lady Waverly’s masked ball tomorrow night.”

  Oh no. “A masque?” She swallowed. “Already? I’m not—we haven’t—”

  He grinned over his shoulder as he exited. “Miss Blake, have I ever let you down?”

  Sophie looked down at her hands, twisting tightly in her lap. Tomorrow? She could never be elegant, languid Sofia by tomorrow! Did he expect her to work magic?

  She closed her eyes and forced the tempest in her gut to settle. She might not be a magician, but Lementeur was. In one of his gowns, a woman could stand in a corner all night and still shine.

  A normal woman, anyway.

  Well, at least she’d be wearing a mask.

  GRAHAM SAT HIS horse with the ease of long practice. A good thing, too, for if he wasn’t an accomplished horseman he might slither off onto his head at this very moment.

  The great manor of the Edencourt estate lay before him. It was huge, grand, imposing—and in ruins. From where he sat his horse on the low hill just above the house, he could see that the stables had fallen in, the servants’ wing was crumbling and the vast gardens were a tangle of noxious weeds and rubble. The main part of the house seemed intact, but Graham made no move to ride down the hill to enter it.

  How could it be so bad? He’d visited here only . . .

  By God, it had been nearly fifteen years! It had been shabby and unkempt then, and yes, a bit creaky and neglected. Yet, it now looked as though no one had spared a nail or a bucket of mortar for more than fifty years.

  Houses, it seemed, deteriorated quickly once the process began.

  Graham closed his eyes against it. Abbott’s reports had not exaggerated as he’d hoped. In fact, it looked to Graham as though the man had actually been conservative in his estimates. Abbott still believed the estate could be saved. Graham was not so sure.

  As he’d ridden the last several miles on Edencourt lands, the state of the fields and orchards had been very disheartening. Family history held that this had once been one of the most beautiful, productive estates in England. What could have happened to it?

  Graham gazed at the house he’d hated all his life, not for the stones and the windows and the gracefully angled roof, but for the people who dwelt within it . . . people it seemed he was more like than he’d realized.

  He had happened to this place—he and his brothers and his father, and his grandfather and great-grandfather before. Cavendish men liked to play, not work.

  Cavendish men were no better than parasites.

  Graham turned his horse about and urged it into a gallop. Just as in his youth, he could not put enough distance between himself and Edencourt. However, instead of oppression and resentment nipping at his heels, this time it was nothing but the blackest shame.

  Chapter Eight

  Late that evening, back in his father’s study at Eden House, Graham closed his eyes against the papers spread everywhere over the surface of the giant desk. Bafflingly, he’d never seen his father read or write anything on this great barge of a desk.

  Too bad. Perhaps if his father had ever used this room for anything other than smoking and drinking, the Edencourt estate wouldn’t be in its current condition.

  His closed lids couldn’t keep the words from playing across his mind.

  Flooding. Crop failure. Fire.

  Famine.

  That was the worst. The few loyal or helpless cottagers remaining were literally starving. He’d ridden past the cottages on his fine horse, in his fine clothes, sickened by the poverty and squalor he saw. Every time Graham thought about the money he’d carelessly lost at the tables or squandered on wine and women, his stomach turned. In the past, whenever he’d found his pockets empty and his lenders unavailable, he’d cajoled more out his brothers or father, never thinking about where it came from.

  He had avoided Edencourt for years. Even when he had visited, he’d paid no notice to the conditions except to disdain the place for its shabbiness. Selfish idiot that he’d been, he’d only sighed with relief when he’d ridden away from it.

  Edencourt had been his father’s responsibility—but he ought to have known his father too well to think that responsibility had been met with action. I didn’t want to know. I only wanted to amuse myself.

  Which made him just as bad as the old duke—or worse, since he was a smarter and more able man.

  Sophie, you were so right about me.

  Regret ate at him, but he knew he couldn’t take too much time for self-flagellation. After all, wasn’t that just another form of selfishness, wasting his energies on himself yet again?

  He lifted his head from his hands when Nichols announced a visitor. “At this hour?”

  Nichols cast him a sour glance, implying that if Nichols had to be up and about to tend his thoughtless master, everyone in the world might as well be up and about.

  Poor old Nichols hadn’t taken the passing of the Edencourt torch well at all. Graham had hoped the man would take his retirement—though he had nothing to pension him off with—but Nichols doggedly continued to serve, albeit with many a disdainful sniff for punctuation.

  The true test had come when Graham would not schedule a grand lying-in-state for when the old duke and his sons arrived back in England after their three-week voyage by ship.

  Graham didn’t think that the bodies would be viewable after the elephant and the long voyage. Nor had his father so many friends that might merit a great funeral. Graham planned on slipping them quietly into the family cemetery on Edencourt lands the moment the ship made port. The less fuss the better, although Nichols might never bring him hot bathwater again.

  The caller was a stout man whom Graham had never met. The fellow’s name escaped Graham’s memory immediately, for introductions were followed by the presentation of the late duke’s IOUs.

  Graham flipped through the signed sheets, hoping to see some sign of fraud, but it was evident from the scrawling signature that his father had borrowed against the estates profits several years in advance—profits that would never arise if considerable funds were not pumped into the lands at once! It was so much worse than he’d feared! Where was he ever going to find a bride whose family would not only shore up Edencourt, but pay back bloody decades of debt!

  “Are you sure . . .” Graham rubbed at his face. “I mean . . . isn’t there some
way we can come to some sort of agreement?”

  His caller leaned forward and tapped at the documents. “Your Grace, these are the agreements! I’ve made concession after concession for your family. I have no choice but to call these due at once.”

  Graham took a breath. “I have a lot of numbers to tally before I can come up with any sort of . . . Well, there is a solution of sorts in the works—” Would the fellow take a possibility of a wealthy marriage as assurance enough? It sounded pretty damned weak to Graham.

  The man gazed at him pityingly. “Your Grace, I’m not the worst of what’s coming. I know the men your family went to in the end when no honest man would extend them further credit. That’s why I came quickly while you’re still . . . here.”

  Graham looked up at that hesitation. While you’re still alive. Was that what the fellow meant to say? Surely not. Surely his father had had better sense than to sink to dangerous levels?

  Yet where would this better sense have suddenly appeared from, when the old duke had never exhibited a bit of it before?

  Graham spread his hands helplessly. “I fully intend to meet all my family’s debts. How can I assure you of that fact?”

  The fellow cast a glance about him, his eyes greedily taking in the art, the hangings, the fine if dented furniture. “Well, I’ve a cart outside, by chance—”

  Chance. Right. Graham gazed at him with sour resignation. His heritage was going to be peeled right down to the walls before all this was done, wasn’t it?

  An hour later, the fellow left with a cart full of valuables—including the silver, the loss of which had sent Nichols into fits of dour agony—and a satisfied look. In return, Graham had kept back several of the IOUs.

  Now he knelt before the fire, tossing them slowly in, one by one.

  Trying to make them last—make it seem like more? That’s pathetic.

  Ah, but pathetic he was, or at least that’s how he felt at the moment.

  Right now, Edencourt’s people needed him. And he needed a rich bride. There wasn’t a moment to spare, for with the span of courtship and engagement, it might be months before he had anything to put into the estate.