She’d seen Daddy struggle with problematic visitors, too. When one had a great deal of power and wealth, one attracted all sorts. Of course, if the Duke of Halsey had a wife these awkward social situations wouldn’t happen. His wife would see to it that the house was run properly, that guests were only of the invited sort, of excellent character, and assiduously looked after.
Poor, beleaguered duke. He needed to marry.
But Janice wasn’t to be a candidate for the position of duchess. A week wasn’t enough time to win a duke, surely, especially a duke who appeared to want one gone.
And she didn’t want him anyway.
Just as she finished that thought, the object of her musings swept into the room, fully in command, and very regally so.
“My grandmother was demanding the crown jewels,” the duke said, “which I, of course, couldn’t give her. She had to be satisfied with the cup of tea I poured her instead.”
It was a sad situation. And Janice couldn’t help thinking that he was a thoughtful grandson.
“You do your best with her, Halsey,” Lord Rowntree said on a sigh.
“Yes, you do, Your Grace.” Lady Rose batted her eyes at him. “Any woman would love to drink a cup of tea you poured.”
His Grace brushed off the compliments and made sure Janice had been properly introduced to everyone before he sat next to her and observed her with a quiet, confident gaze. “You play the pianoforte, I suppose.”
It was a bald statement, but she was becoming used to his style of speaking—as if her answers didn’t matter and he was merely being polite.
“Yes, I do play. Passably.” She was quite good, actually, but she got very nervous playing in front of anyone who wasn’t a family member.
His Grace accepted the cup of tea she poured him. “I assume you sing as well.”
“Yes, I suppose I do.” She loved to sing. Mama had told her she had one of the most beautiful voices she’d ever heard. Yet Janice was terrified to sing in front of company, too, and never had beyond her immediate family.
Her host stirred his tea. “You’ll play and sing for us tonight after dinner.”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a command. A very ducal one, at that.
Janice felt immediately queasy. “Yes, of course, Your Grace.”
It was the last thing she wanted to do. But he was the Duke of Halsey. What choice did she have? Especially as she was an uninvited guest, in her own way?
There was general conversation for a few minutes, desultory and quite proper, although Janice noticed an underlying tension in the room. But it could be coming from her. After all, she was the newest arrival at this unusual house party—because that was what this gathering apparently was.
Without warning, the duke stood. “I’ll show you round the house now, Lady Janice. The portrait gallery and the conservatory are particularly worth seeing. Your parents can’t have you return home without a few interesting details about the house to share.”
Return home.
She noticed how carelessly he’d injected those two words into his speech.
He probably assumed she’d be flattered that he was showing her so much attention, but it was entirely wrong of her to stroll about the house with him unchaperoned.
Just as it’s wrong of you to kiss a groom, a little voice in her head chided her.
“Shall—shall all your friends accompany us?” she asked him.
“I’ve already given them the tour,” His Grace returned easily.
“And an exciting one it was.” Lord Rowntree nodded, his wattle quivering.
“Indeed,” Miss Branson echoed him. “I look forward to hearing which portrait is your favorite, Lady Janice.”
Janice swallowed and smiled. “I suppose that will be all right.”
But it wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. Mama might want Janice to capture the duke’s attention, but she wouldn’t want her to do anything inappropriate.
“Wait,” she found herself blurting out. “I can’t believe I forgot. I should see the dowager immediately, now that I’ve had my tea and an opportunity to warm up.” She also wanted to retreat to her room to refresh her toilette after her long day in the carriage, but no one seemed to notice she’d not been granted that basic courtesy.
A wife in residence would have noticed, of course.
“Granny’s not going anywhere,” the duke said mildly. “She’s sleeping at the moment, as it is.”
“Very well,” Janice conceded, with some regret. “However”—she looked down at her gown’s rumpled skirt—“I really should remove this travel dirt.”
“You can do that after the tour,” he replied. “You’ll have plenty of time before dinner.”
She was entirely flummoxed. Say no, she thought. Say you need a chaperone and that you need to change your gown!
And then she saw that the housekeeper had disappeared from her corner. Janice hated to make a scene and demand the woman be found and dragged along. Nor did she want to insist on calling Isobel down from her bedchamber. And if Janice demanded to change her gown, it might seem churlish in light of the duke’s efforts to be a good host.
“Well, my lady?” he asked her.
She looked into his alert amber eyes and decided that she was being silly. One little tour of the house … it was such an innocent thing. And he was obviously proud of it, the way a boy is proud when he lines up his tin soldiers.
Besides, he was a duke—a duke who was used to getting his way, as no doubt all dukes were.
“Y-yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, you’re right. Everything can wait until after the tour.”
She could do this. She could survive without a chaperone for a few minutes. His grandmother could wait, too, as could Janice’s travel dirt.
She took a step toward him to take his proffered arm, but the butler came to the door. “A note for Lady Janice,” he said, “from the stables.”
“Oh?” she said lightly. Oscar must need something. Perhaps it was her emergency flask of Daddy’s whiskey. Oscar had been in their employ so long, he was like family and would think nothing of making such a request if his own flask had run dry.
Relief flooded through her. She’d had a temporary reprieve from an awkward situation. Yet it was still a painful sensation to endure feeling all eyes upon her as she walked lightly past the duke and his friends and took the note from the butler’s outstretched hand.
Unfolding it, she read in a careless male scrawl: I found a dog outside the stables—she’s about to become a mother. You’ll want to see her.
It was signed only LC.
Luke Callahan, of course. The name should inspire indignation in Janice. And there he was presuming that he knew how she’d respond—just as the Duke of Halsey did.
But something warm wrapped around her heart. All her annoyance at the groom was temporarily forgotten. How did Mr. Callahan know—how could he have known that she loved strays so much?
There was only one answer to his question: Yes, she thought as she folded the note back up and made a brief excuse to the company.
And she meant it for so many different reasons.
Chapter Four
Four of the stable hands were sitting around a coal stove with Oscar when Janice burst through the door, bringing with her the blinding white light that came with snow, along with a flurry of downy flakes. Behind her was a friendly junior groom named Aaron, who’d delivered Mr. Callahan’s note to the house.
“Hello!” she said with a broad smile to the circle of men.
She was tremendously excited that she’d found a way to leave the house—without her gloves, but she didn’t care. All the grooms stood from their chairs, but she didn’t see Mr. Callahan among them.
“Lady Janice, what in devil’s name are you doing here?” asked Oscar.
“To check on the stray dog, of course,” she said. “And to see if she’s produced any puppies.”
Mr. Callahan stepped forward from the shadows.
Janice swiv
eled to look at him and saw that nothing in his eyes suggested they’d ever shared a long, heated kiss. Of course, that was a relief. She replaced her smile with a contained, formal expression.
“The dog’s this way.” His tone was polite but not at all deferential. “And no, she hasn’t produced puppies. Not yet.”
“Let’s see her then,” Janice said crisply. It was an order. Not a request. The kind a well-brought-up young lady would give a groom.
Oscar stayed by her side—clearly hovering—and the three of them walked back to the remote stall that held a glowing lantern, even though the day hadn’t quite waned.
“Does the duke know why you’re here, my lady?” Oscar asked her.
She chuckled. “I told him a little white lie. I said you were ailing but not enough to need a doctor. Just a reminder of home.” She pulled a flask from her coat pocket.
The driver glowered. “’Tisn’t right for you to be coming to the stables. And I’ve got my own flask of Lord Brady’s whiskey as it is.”
“I know you do,” she said, “but I couldn’t simply walk out and say I was visiting a stray dog.”
“All the more reason you shouldn’t be here,” Oscar admonished her.
“It harms no one that I want to see her,” she chided him gently back, and then saw the animal sprawled in the hay. “Oh, my,” she whispered, and with fumbling fingers tried to pull open the stall door.
“Let me.” With one quick motion of his brawny arm and a deft twist of his fingers, Mr. Callahan opened the door.
“Thank you,” she returned politely, but she remembered those fingers in her hair and that arm wrapping her close. She’d try her very best to steer clear of him, but when she passed in front of him she felt ridiculous enjoyment at his nearness.
Once in the stall, she walked carefully across sweet-smelling hay to crouch near the soon-to-be mother. The dog was a mid-sized, long-haired black-and-white thing of no particular breed, but Janice guessed she might be a shepherding sort of animal who’d lost her family.
“I wonder what your name is?” After petting the dog’s sleek head, Janice looked up at Mr. Callahan. “This is a lovely bed. Thank you for preparing it.”
“I did next to nothing.” Again, it was as if they were meeting for the first time.
Janice was grateful for his discretion, yet a small, hidden part of her was also disappointed. What a shame that people were trapped in their own special roles and not able to do exactly what they wanted. According to her parents, her role was to be a respectable member of the Beau Monde. The thought had never bothered her before—indeed, she’d been grateful that Daddy had saved them from penury—but it certainly did now.
If Mr. Callahan had been dressed by Weston and wore boots by Hoby—if he had a title and properties—he’d be an eligible suitor. But instead, she was supposed not to notice that he existed, beyond the services he provided as a groom, such as lifting her foot into the saddle if she required assistance.
She looked away from him to the dog. “She has to have a name. I think I’ll call her Esmeralda.”
Oscar chuckled.
“Why such an elegant name?” Mr. Callahan asked.
“It’s the least we can do for her,” Janice answered serenely.
“Of course.”
She heard the groom’s light sarcasm but chose to ignore it.
Esmeralda got to her feet. Shook her head. Looked miserably at her visitors. Sat on her haunches, whined, and stood again. Then collapsed and focused on her hindquarters.
“I think she’s ready,” Mr. Callahan said.
“Aye.” Oscar kneaded his hat in his large hands.
“All right,” Janice whispered. “Good luck, dear girl.” She stood and went slowly to Oscar’s side, almost all of her attention focused on Esmeralda. But part of her was constantly aware of the groom—of Mr. Callahan.
“You’ll come back in the morning,” Oscar reassured her, “to a litter of puppies for you to admire.”
“No.” Janice pressed her lips firmly together. “I want to see them being born.”
“It could take hours,” Mr. Callahan said. “The duke will be expecting you back soon.”
“And it’s not fitting for you to stay and watch anyway,” Oscar added.
“Of course it is,” she replied softly. “It’s natural. And I can’t leave her.”
And then it happened, what they’d all been waiting for. At that very moment, Esmeralda gave birth to a black-and-white puppy. She made quick work of freeing the tiny thing of its cord and licking it clean.
Janice pressed both hands to her face, her eyes filling with tears at the sight. “She knows exactly what to do, doesn’t she?”
The squirming puppy sought its mother, and Esmeralda tended to it with calm purpose. “She’s a good little mother. Oscar, isn’t it marvelous?” Janice turned around.
But Oscar wasn’t there. He lay sprawled in a heap on the straw-covered floor.
Chapter Five
“Oh, no,” Janice whispered, and crouched in the straw next to Oscar’s inert form. At least he was breathing. And his color was good. “I can’t believe he fainted.”
Mr. Callahan chuckled and knelt next to her—mere inches from her. “It’s always the toughest who go down at birthings.”
She could feel his heat. Smell his clean, soapy scent, mingled with a whiff of leather and linen. But she must focus on Oscar, not on the groom, who laid two fingers on the older man’s neck.
“His pulse is strong and steady,” Mr. Callahan said. “He’ll come round.”
At that, Oscar’s eyes opened and he looked quizzically about him. “What the devil?”
“You fainted,” Janice told him gently.
“No,” he whispered. “I don’t faint.” He sat up on his elbows. “Last thing I remember, we were watching the dog—” He swallowed hard.
Janice looked over her shoulder at Esmeralda and gasped. “Another puppy!”
Esmeralda once more did what her instincts told her to do, cleaning the wriggling newborn and nudging him to snuggle with his sibling.
Oscar groaned and laid his head back down.
“It’s not uncommon to get a bit dizzy at things like this,” Mr. Callahan told him lightly, which Janice appreciated very much. Oscar had his dignity, after all. “Let me help you up and get you upstairs.”
Oscar winced. “I suppose that’s best.”
Janice laid her hand on the older man’s grizzled jaw. “I want to give you a sip of Daddy’s whiskey right now, and once you get to your bed, take some more from your own flask. Will you promise me that?”
“Aye.” Oscar didn’t even wince as she dribbled some of the potent liquid into his mouth. He swallowed it as if it were the elixir of the gods. “I want to stand up,” he rasped after a moment.
Mr. Callahan helped him to his feet.
“Are you sure you’re fine?” Janice couldn’t help but worry.
“I’m right as rain.” There was gravel—and perhaps a bit of annoyance—in Oscar’s tone.
Mr. Callahan exchanged a brief look with her. The slight upward curve of one side of his mouth mirrored her own amusement—and relief.
Aaron appeared at the stall door and peered around them to Esmeralda and her family. “Look at that, will you?” Then he seemed to notice Oscar’s distressed expression. “What’s wrong? Do you need a doctor, Mr Camp?”
“No, I don’t need a doctor.” Oscar lowered his bushy eyebrows at the boy, who drew back an inch or two.
“Sorry,” Aaron said.
“No need to be.” Mr. Callahan explained in very few words to the junior groom that Oscar needed to be taken upstairs to his bed—but that he was just fine.
“Right as rain,” Oscar said again.
Aaron grinned at him. “Let me help you. I can do it.”
“All right,” the old servant grumbled. “Let’s go, son.”
“His name is Aaron,” Mr. Callahan clarified, then lifted his chin at the boy. “Help Mr. C
amp find his flask when he gets there.”
Aaron nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Janice couldn’t help but approve of Mr. Callahan at the moment. He was good at looking after strays, wasn’t he? Aaron was the lowliest of the grooms. She knew from her walk with him to the stables that he had only a sister and she’d emigrated several years ago. And while Oscar wasn’t a stray, exactly, he needed careful handling.
“All right.” Oscar grimaced. “Let’s go—Aaron.”
Janice looked after both of them as they departed, and when they were a decent length away she actually chuckled. “I know I shouldn’t laugh at Oscar’s fainting.”
“You’re right.” Mr. Callahan had a twinkle in his eye when he looked at her.
“I never imagined Oscar as sensitive,” she said. “He doesn’t come across that way, usually. As you see, he can be quite the curmudgeon.”
The groom extended his palm, indicating that she could exit the stall first. “No man likes to be seen as weak. And no man likes to be fussed over by a woman.”
On the other side of Esmeralda’s wall, Janice said, “But women add a sense of civility and ease to any situation.”
“Ease?” Mr. Callahan pulled the door shut behind him.
“Yes.” Janice knew she sounded lofty, but he brought that out in her.
“I don’t feel ease around you, Lady Janice.” He seemed especially interested in the tendril of hair tumbling down one side of her face.
She wondered if her cheeks were as red as they felt. “You should,” she said, and heard that prim tone in her voice that came when she was in over her head. “I’m perfectly agreeable.”
“Agreeable?” He gave a short laugh. “That’s an interesting choice of words.” He leaned his elbow on the edge of the stall, put his chin in his hand, and looked at her as if he could stare at her for hours.
She’d never experienced such absorbed interest from a man and was entirely flummoxed. “Being agreeable is what I’m best at. Marcia is the great beauty and Cynthia is adorable. I get to be the sister who gets along well with everyone, and I don’t mind in the least.”
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