Inhaling, Mrs. O’Malley cast her eyes to the heavens, hoping for aid. She was going to have to open a deep wound, but if she didn’t cauterize it quickly with some common sense and practicality, they were all going to drown in tearstained peels.
Then movement caught her eye through the small front window. Someone was coming down the cliff road, walking with the loose, easy movements of one who’d been walking for a long while. A man, in sturdy homespun wool and linen—a tall, good-looking fellow with his cap tipped back to better enjoy the rare day.
“Who is that, d’ye think?”
Her daughter joined her at the window, gazing dutifully out at the world she’d retreated from. Then Mrs. O’Malley heard a gasp like that of a woman struck to the heart. She turned her head sharply to see that her fine Patty, always one of the prettiest girls in County Clare, had never looked so beautiful.
Mrs. O’Malley turned her gaze back to the man on the road. “That’s never the Englishman!”
Patricia laughed, a trill of pure joy. “Don’t be silly, mum. That’s my Irish Johnny, come home at last.”
Mrs. O’Malley watched as her eldest daughter ran lightly down the road to meet her man, the white wool ends of her shawl flying out behind her like the wings of a seabird soaring in to solid land at last.
Epilogue
Graham walked through the front door of Edencourt without having to touch the latch with his own lordly hand. Of course, that was because the doors had been removed and taken by the carpenter for some much needed repair. They ought to be back in a day or so. When more workers arrived, the progress on the house would go faster.
Graham hoped so. He’d promised Sadie the doors would be back on before the first snowfall.
“Windows!” She’d wielded her scrub brush at him. “Don’t forget to hire a glazier! We have too many broken windows!”
It had been Sadie’s idea to hire Mr. Stickley for the general organization and repair of the main house, and the fellow had turned his zealous efforts to spending the Pickering fortune nearly as fast as he’d grown it.
“I’ve secured the principle,” he’d reassured Graham. There had been some other words in there, like “amortization” and “percentages” so when Graham’s eyes had glazed over he’d waved the man onward in his efforts.
“Good show, old son.”
Stickley had beamed. “This is highly rewarding, Your Grace. I hope I’m to be a guest here someday.”
Graham had gaped at him. “As if we’d ever let you leave!”
The little fellow had become positively misty-eyed. Graham for one couldn’t wait to turn him loose on the rest of the estate!
Still, at the moment, the estate looked worse than before. What had been sagging had been torn down. What had been broken was boarded up. What was repairable had been removed, leaving great gaping holes and rubble everywhere.
They were on their own with the whole mess. He’d cordially invited both Brookhaven and Marbrook to help. They’d regretfully declined. Since then, the old Duke of Brookmoor had died and Calder and Deirdre had taken Meggie and her kitten, Fortescue Minor, and journeyed to take up residence at Brookmoor. Rafe and Phoebe had immediately taken off for Brookhaven, panting to make it their own in custody for the first male son to be born to Calder and Deirdre.
Deirdre had confessed that she was expecting already. Phoebe had demonstrated a previously unnoticed competitive streak by immediately getting into that state herself.
Sadie had smiled happily for them both, then dragged Graham home to get a bit of practice in. Graham dutifully gave it his all. And then some.
Now, standing in the entrance hall, Graham coughed on a cloud of plaster dust. Moira’s husband, John, was gleefully shaking out a tarpaulin from the upstairs balcony. “Sorry, Your Grace!”
Ah, the joys of homecoming. Graham made his way up the stair, avoiding the pitfalls where the crumbling marble steps had been ripped out and were awaiting the new order, which was very late.
Sadie hadn’t been in the kitchens or in the gardens or even in the stables. He snickered at that. Sadie had declared that there was no need for her to learn to ride, for she was never getting on another horse again for the rest of her life. Yet she was always in the stables, sneaking sugar to the sturdy ponies that did the majority of the hauling at the moment.
At the top of the stairs Graham gazed down at his domain. It was astonishing how little memory of his old life here remained. With the ritual bonfire cleansing of every musty, desiccated hunting trophy, less and less of the old duke’s brutality seemed to linger in these gracious halls.
Instead, Graham felt his mother’s presence like a benediction. Was she here? He didn’t really believe that. Perhaps it was only that he sensed the presence of a woman’s touch. Every project Sadie turned her attention to achieved exceptional results, as if the house and the estate longed to be cared for, to be nurtured, to be loved—
Don’t we all?
Finally, frustrated, Graham tossed his head back and roared her name over the din of hammering, sawing and general mayhem. “Sadie!”
“I’m in here, Gray!”
He followed the sound of her lusty shout into the old duke’s bedchamber. She was kneeling in the hearth, cleaning years of ashes from the grate. She looked overworked, exhausted, grubby and grimy and utterly, entirely blissful.
“Sadie, you shouldn’t be doing that yourself! You’re getting filthy!”
She turned to look over her shoulder, then laughed at him. “Look at you!”
He looked down, plucking at his workman’s clothing covered in pitch. “I’ve been directing the roofers at the north cottages,” he explained. “I had to get dirty.”
She sat back on her heels. “Hmm. You loved it. Like a boy in the mud.”
“That’s me, I’m a dirty boy!” He leered at her.
She leered right back. “Want to watch me take a bath later, dirty boy?”
He swallowed. Hard. “Irk.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, please.” Then he remembered why he’d come upstairs.
“Time for your riding lesson.”
She rolled her eyes. “Horses are very useful. They can pull carriages and everything. I hear some people even eat them. I don’t think it’s necessary to burden them with riding as well.”
He knelt before her. “They are very enjoyable to ride, I promise. You needn’t be afraid.”
She snorted, sounding very much like a horse, actually. “I’m not afraid. How could I be afraid of something that is thrice my size and has giant teeth and hooves of iron—”
“Yes, I’ll admit, it’s a fearsome sight when they attack those defenseless flowers and I shudder to think of what the bale of hay goes through—”
The filthy coal-brush struck him in the chest, but she was laughing. “Oh, all right! I’ll come for my riding lesson as soon as I’ve finished here.”
He looked around him dismissively. “What’s so important about my father’s room?”
She tilted her head. “This isn’t your father’s room, you idiot. This is your room.”
He made a long arm and dragged her across his lap. “Our room,” he growled into her ear. “If you spend every single night with me for the rest of our lives, I’ll sleep wherever you like.”
She laughed when his unshaven cheek tickled hers, but sobered as she gazed up at him. “I love you, Gray. I loved you before you were duke.”
He smiled down at her and rubbed at a smudge on her cheek with one finger. It only moved the soot around. “I love you, Sadie, my lady. I loved you before you were one of the richest women in England. I also loved you before you were the most beautiful woman in England. I’m fairly sure I loved you before you were the maddest woman in England, but that’s a close call.”
She smiled then, bestowing her now famous brilliance on only him. That was just the way he liked it. He kissed her, dirty as they both were, using his lips and hands to drive her to gasping.
They made love in the cinders, a duk
e and a duchess in a happily ever after of their very own making.
Don’t miss the first two novels in the beloved Heiress
Brides series from USA Today bestselling author
CELESTE BRADLEY
Desperately Seeking
A Duke
Only a duke will do. But will it be “I do”—or adieu?
ISBN 0-312-93968-X
The Duke Next Door
When fate comes knocking, there’s no turning back . . .
ISBN 0-312-93969-8
AVAILABLE FROM ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Epilogue
Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03] Page 26
