The Inheritance

by Joan Johnston

  3

  Daisy paced the length of her bedroom and back, wondering what she could have done differently. For one thing, she shouldn’t have stayed in the library alone with the duke. Barbarians were long on action, she had discovered, and short on reason. Oh, Lord. Had she really kissed His Grace? What an idiot she had been to let him corner her like that!

  She could still feel his mouth on hers, feel the tightening grasp of his fingers at her waist, feel his hand cup her breast. Oh, Lord. It was happening again. Her knees were ready to buckle. She sank down on her canopied bed and put a shaky hand up to still her heart.

  She was too vulnerable. That was the problem. If only things had been different with Tony. But after she had lost the baby, and when the doctor said she would never conceive again, Tony had taken a mistress and left her bed. He had told her he didn’t wish to bother her with such a distasteful duty when it would not prove fruitful.

  She knew she was supposed to feel grateful. She had been taught that a husband came to his wife to plant his seed, and any other congress was unnatural. And she had been taught that her husband would likely take a mistress to satisfy his baser urges, and that she should look the other way.

  Daisy had tried, she had honestly tried not to mind.

  But she did. She had loved Tony. When it was plain, after only two years of marriage, that she could never provide him with an heir, she had felt useless. She had needed his reassurance that she still had value to him. She had wanted him to come to her even though she couldn’t conceive.

  It had been a foolish wish, and Daisy had been utterly unable to speak of the subject openly to her husband. She had lost something of herself in the six years that followed until Tony’s death. She had felt undesirable. She had felt less than a woman.

  Until His Grace had kissed her.

  Daisy had been focused at the time on her own feelings, her own sensations. When she thought back to that kiss in the library, she realized that the duke had been no less aroused than she. The signs had been there. The rapid pulse beating beneath his ear as her hand slid up into his hair, the powerful tautness of his shoulders, his ragged breathing as he stroked her mouth with his tongue.

  For the first time in six years she had known what it felt like to be a woman in a man’s arms. She had been desired. It was a heady experience. That was why she had let it go so far. She was a weak creature to have succumbed to His Grace. She understood why she had done it, but she found it hard, nevertheless, to forgive herself.

  Her surrender to His Grace was even more confusing, because the duke had made it plain he had only one use for her. He had neither the time nor the inclination to hear her suggestions regarding Severn Manor. On the contrary, he was bound and determined to sell it!

  Before Tony’s death, Daisy had led a very sheltered existence. Her greatest responsibility had been to host dinner parties and make visits to the tenants each Christmas with a charity basket. All that had changed in the past year.

  At first she had been overwhelmed by the numbers and kinds of decisions that had to be made. The bailiff, the gardener, the gamekeeper, and the housekeeper all came to her for instructions in those first few days and weeks after Tony’s death, when there was no heir to take his place immediately and everything was in such turmoil. Phipps had offered to take charge, but Daisy had desperately needed something to occupy her mind. So she had made the decisions herself.

  She had learned several valuable lessons in those early days. She had learned the satisfaction of a job well done. She had learned the fulfillment that comes from helping others. And she had learned how empty her life had been up to that point.

  The past year had been a revelation. Daisy had discovered that, contrary to what she had been led to believe by the men in her life, she had a quick and agile mind. There was no difficulty she could not manage, no problem she could not solve. She had always known the day would come when an eighth Duke of Severn would come along to relieve her of the responsibility for Severn Manor and its tenant farmers. If it hadn’t been Nicholas Calloway, it would have been a distant Windermere cousin.

  But it had been Nicholas. She needed someone upon whom to vent her resentment at having everything she had come to value taken so abruptly from her. His Grace made a very convenient and especially savory target.

  During the search for the missing heir, Daisy had let herself hope that the new duke might be willing to accept her help. That he might take advantage of her knowledge of the workings of the estate. It had been a devastating blow to discover that not only would her services not be required, but she would very likely find herself out on the street within the year when he sold the dower house out from under her.

  Daisy needed to talk with someone, to put her feelings into words and perhaps find a solution to the dilemma facing her. Unfortunately, the only other female living in the house to whom she might bare her soul was Lady Celeste. In the past, Daisy had found Celeste both judgmental and narrowminded. Consequently, they had never become friends.

  She felt sorry for the older woman, who often seemed lonely and sad. Celeste must have been beautiful once upon a time, and Daisy had wondered occasionally over the years why Celeste had never married. She had fine bones and large, heavily lashed hazel eyes. But as long as Daisy had known her she had worn her gray hair in a severe bun and dressed in somber colors that emphasized her pale complexion so that she sometimes looked like one of the walking dead.

  No, Daisy couldn’t see herself spilling her tale of woe into that spinster lady’s ears. Lady Celeste would be horrified at Daisy’s lack of discretion in kissing the duke and appalled at her freakishly unfeminine desire to remain involved in what were considered male realms of authority.

  There was no help for it. She would have to ride over and visit her friend Priscilla, who for the past two years had been the Countess of Rotherham. Priss would be able to make sense of everything that had happened this morning. Priss had a way of making even the greatest problems seem small.

  Daisy rang for her maid, Jane, and already had her morning dress unbuttoned down the back as far as she could reach—not more than three or four buttons—by the time the young woman got to her. “Get out my plum-colored riding habit, Jane,” she said. “I’m going to visit Lady Rotherham.”

  “But His Grace said—”

  “Where I go and what I do is not the business of anyone but myself,” she snapped. “Do as I say, Jane.”

  Daisy was immediately sorry for taking out her frustration with the duke on her maid. “I’m sorry, Jane.”

  “No apology is necessary, Your Grace. With that man in the house, it’s a wonder anyone’s got any nerves left.”

  Daisy laughed. “That man is His Grace, the Duke of Severn, Jane. Beware lest he catch you calling him otherwise.”

  “Don’t know why I should worry,” Jane said. “He told Thompson to call him Calloway. Just plain Calloway! Can you imagine the Windermere butler calling His Grace anything but His Grace?”

  Daisy shook her head. Nicholas Calloway had picked up some strange habits in the colonies, all right.

  Jane found the plum-colored riding costume in the wardrobe and retrieved matching gloves and a feather-trimmed hat before locating Daisy’s riding crop, which should have been kept in the stable, but which she invariably brought into the house with her.

  The change was accomplished with a minimum of fuss. Daisy adjusted her hat at a jaunty angle, with the feather just touching her cheek, before grabbing crop and gloves. “Thank you, Jane,” she called over her shoulder as she headed out the door.

  Daisy crept down the stairs, lips pressed flat in disgust that she had been forced to slink around the house to avoid a confrontation with the duke. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the library door was closed and quickly made her escape out the front door, which Thompson held open for her.

  “Enjoy your ride, Your Grace,” he said.

  She flashed the butler a quick grin. “It’ll be good to get some f
resh air, Thompson.” Her glance slid to the library door. “The atmosphere has become decidedly stifling.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Thompson replied. The austere butler didn’t crack a smile, but his eyes had an amused twinkle as he shut the door behind her.

  Daisy had forgotten, in her agitation, that Colin Calloway had taken himself off to the stable. Even if she hadn’t forgotten, she wouldn’t have expected to find him there more than an hour after he had left the library. It was hard to meet his eyes, but she forced herself to smile and say “Hello, Colin.”

  “Hello, Your Grace.” He bowed slightly and a little stiffly. “Did I do it right?”

  Daisy’s smile broadened in an attempt to relieve the anxious look in his eyes. “Like a true Englishman.”

  He grinned. “I learned it from Phipps.”

  “The solicitor?”

  “When he came to our ranch in Texas he was forever bowing and calling Pa ‘Your Grace.’ ”

  Daisy made a spur of the moment decision. “I’m going for a ride. Would you like to join me, Colin?”

  “I’ve been wanting to take a look around the place, but I didn’t want to end up lost. Thanks. I’d like that.”

  Daisy eyed Colin’s clothes askance. He hardly looked the well-dressed Englishman. There was no cravat at the throat of his linen shirt and no collar for that matter. The de rigueur waistcoat was missing beneath his black frock coat. His hair was too long, and his boots lacked polish. Yet she felt sure Priss would judge Colin for himself and not his attire. She was less certain how the Earl of Rotherham would react, but she wouldn’t allow anyone to embarrass the duke’s son.

  “What a beauty!” Daisy said as Colin led a gold-colored gelding with a black mane and tail and markings from the stall. The groom was busy saddling her own mount.

  “His name is Buck,” Colin said, “because he’s a buckskin.”

  “I’ve never seen a horse quite like that,” Daisy confessed. “What breed is he?”

  “Buck is a mustang. That’s a horse that runs wild in the West. Pa caught him and broke him for me.”

  “I’ve never seen a saddle quite like that, either,” Daisy said.

  “It’s what we use in Texas,” Colin replied as he hefted the western saddle onto Buck’s back. “This horn here is where we dally a rope after we loop in on a steer. This second cinch keeps the saddle from slipping when a longhorn gets other ideas and heads for the brush.”

  “The designs worked into the leather are certainly beautiful,” Daisy said, unwilling to criticize the saddle, even though she believed it lacked the grace and simplicity of the English model.

  The groom provided a cupped hand, and Daisy settled into the sidesaddle on her Thoroughbred.

  “Oh, Simp did this design on the leather,” Colin said as he threw himself onto the buckskin without touching the stirrup.

  “Simp?”

  “Simp works for my pa, but he’s more like an uncle. He’s the one who helped my pa raise me.”

  Daisy wanted desperately to ask what had happened to Colin’s mother, but bit her tongue on the question. “Where is Simp now?” she asked instead.

  “He stayed home in Texas to keep an eye on the livestock.” Colin grinned. “Said he wasn’t about to set foot off dry land.”

  Daisy liked Nicholas’s son. The young man had a bright, open face and seemed forthright and honest. How had His Grace managed to raise such a friendly son when he was so cold himself? Perhaps Simp—what an odd name—was responsible for Colin’s cheerful outlook on life.

  Daisy took Colin on a quick tour of the grounds around Severn Manor, showing off the green rolling hills and the nearby forest that provided a haven for larger game.

  “These rolling hills aren’t so very different from the ones where I live,” Colin said. “Except the land here is more … tame. I don’t know exactly how to explain it. Nothing grows wild here, like it does back home. It all seems … cultivated. You’ve got hedges and stone walls hemming you in. Texas is all wide open spaces. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes, it does,” Daisy replied. Apparently the land in America was no more civilized than the people living on it. She kept her thoughts to herself. She had no wish to insult Colin with her opinion of the colonies.

  Colin was impressed with Rockland Park, the ancestral home of the Earls of Rotherham. “It’s amazing how the ivy grows over the stone on the house like that. It looks almost like a castle with all those odd shapes at the top.”

  “It looks like a castle because it was a castle, once upon a time,” Daisy said, observing the gray stonework that was shaped into crenels along the topmost edge of the house.

  “Really? No fooling?” Colin’s jaw hung slack. “A real castle. Jehoshaphat! Wait’ll I tell Simp about this!”

  Even though Daisy wasn’t expected, Priss had the butler immediately usher her and Colin to the drawing room, where she was waiting for them.

  Daisy always had to choke back a laugh when she entered Priss’s drawing room, for the countess constantly filled it with every new decorating idea that came into vogue or that might have been in vogue at some time during the past. Right now the sofa had crocodile arms and feet, and the lamp tables were covered with red cloths fringed in gold. Actually, nearly everything in the room sported a fringe or ruffles, including the heavy, wine-colored velvet curtains. Priss had adopted the cluttered look that was popular, and every bit of space on the walls was covered by some piece of framed art.

  Daisy had to confess that the flamboyant decorations matched Priss’s personality. Part of the reason she liked Priss so much was that her friend never based her decisions on what other people thought. She was true to her own muse.

  Daisy envied her that freedom but had no desire to emulate her. She would have felt suffocated living in such crowded surroundings. Instead, she had chosen the furnishings at Severn for their simplicity and comfort. She ignored the trends and kept the furniture to a minimum so every room felt spacious. She not only had no heavy velvet curtains on her windows, several rooms had no curtains at all. Sunlight was allowed to stream in and brighten the space.

  Daisy’s attention was drawn back to the matter at hand when Priss spoke.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, surveying Colin critically.

  “May I present Mr. Colin Calloway, from America. This is my friend, the Countess of Rotherham.”

  Colin practiced his bow again and did a very creditable job of it.

  “Well done,” Daisy praised.

  Colin grinned. “I may just get the hang of this before I return home.”

  Which reminded Daisy why she had sought out her friend. Colin and his father were planning to be in England only long enough to liquidate the duke’s assets. Then they would be returning to Texas. Daisy was wondering how she was going to manage a private conversation with Priss, when the problem was solved for her.

  Daisy watched Colin’s blue eyes widen and noticed the stricken look on his face as Priss’s seventeen-year-old stepdaughter entered the room.

  “I heard a male voice,” the girl said. “Oh,” she said when she noticed Colin.

  Colin stiffened as she approached him and looked up into his face—he was a good head taller than she—with open curiosity.

  “Roanna,” Priss admonished. “Where are your manners?”

  The girl flushed and lowered her lashes demurely. “I’m sorry, Priss.”

  The two young people stood there tongue-tied, unable to move or to speak.

  Daisy could see why Colin was bewitched. Lady Roanna Warenne was an English pocket Venus. She had blond curls that framed her face and wide-set blue eyes with long, feathery lashes and a complexion of peaches and cream. She was tiny, but her body curved in all the right places.

  She was dressed in a princess sheath that was figure-fitting to below the hips. A row of dark blue buttons began at her throat and led the eye down below her waist. The bodice and skirt were powder blue, while the sleeves and overlay of the skirt were done in a
contrasting fabric of dotted blue that matched the buttons. Fine white lace ringed her throat and her wrists.

  However, it was Roanna’s open admiration of Colin, as much as her looks, that held the young man spellbound.

  Priss appeared undecided whether to introduce Roanna or send her away. Daisy took matters into her own hands. “Lady Roanna Warenne, this is Mr. Colin Calloway, from America. Colin is His Grace’s son.”

  Colin’s heels snapped together so quickly they made an audible sound. His bow, only his third so far as Daisy was aware, was as polished as though he had been bowing to ladies for a lifetime.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Roanna.”

  Roanna’s blush turned her cheeks rosy. Her eyelashes fluttered up once for a quick, impish look at Colin before they lowered once more.

  Colin was smitten, Daisy saw. And realized suddenly how she was going to manage her private conversation with Priss. “Why don’t you show Mr. Calloway around the gardens, Roanna,” she suggested.

  Roanna turned to her stepmother for confirmation that a stroll with the young man would be acceptable.

  “Take your maid with you and a shawl,” Priss said. The countess called a footman to find Priss’s maid and to inform the maid to bring the girl’s shawl. Luckily, this was accomplished quickly, or the two young people might have burned up from the series of hot flushes that came and went on their cheeks as they tried not to stare at each other.

  When Colin and Roanna were gone, Priss settled herself on a winged chair before the fire, which burned even in the summer, and gestured Daisy to the chair opposite her. “I’m not so sure that was a wise thing to do, sending them off together,” Priss said. “They’re too attracted to each other for my peace of mind. Although, I must say, it isn’t like Roanna to be attracted to a young man her own age. And in such disreputable attire! Did I hear you say Colin is His Grace’s son?”

  “I suspect Mr. Colin Calloway is more mature than an Englishman his age would be,” Daisy said. “And yes, he’s Nicholas’s son, though not legitimate, apparently.”