His brother and father’s passing had marked the death of his existence as just Graham Linford. From that moment on, lords and ladies and servants, at last, saw him. And yet, they hadn’t. Not truly. They saw one of the oldest, most distinguished titles and carefully averted their gazes in reverence. Unlike Lady Serena who wanted nothing but to be his duchess... and who, one day soon, would be. Therefore, Rowena’s deference to his title shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. In fact, this new, older, quieter, more serious version of Rowena Endicott fit more precisely into the life he’d carved out for himself: a life of calm, order, and logic. The demons he battled made calm more crucial to his existence.
Wind howled and battered the window, throwing the rain at an odd angle into the lead pane, and battling back his own disquiet, Graham shoved to his feet. A rumble of thunder shook the foundations of the inn. He briefly closed his eyes, and then his gaze was drawn back to the plaster between him and Rowena. Another faint whimper penetrated the thin wall. That sound hinting at her restraint.
She does not want my help. She does not want my help. She had been abundantly clear with the whole “Your Grace” business.
Graham dusted a hand over his eyes and returned to his spot on the floor. “Turning to face your opponent on a dueling field and finding your gunpowder is wet,” he called quietly.
As soon as the nonsensical offering left his lips, he cringed. When she was a young girl on the cusp of womanhood, during one nasty summer storm, he’d invented a game in which they took turns providing something far more terrifying than a bolt of lightning. It had been an attempt to distract her until the tempest had passed. It had been so long. Countless years since they’d last played. She probably no longer remembered. Giving his head a hard shake, Graham started for his bed. He made it but one step.
“Sailing in a skiff with a hole and having to abandon the boat when you cannot swim.”
His chest tightened as he came slowly back and wandered over to the spot he’d previously abandoned. Graham slid down into a seated position and angled his head sideways toward the wall. “Throwing a rock at a tree and accidentally knocking a beehive to the ground.”
“Oh, that is a splendid one.”
His lips twitched. She may as well have been the rosy-cheeked young lady, clapping her hands excitedly at his cleverness. Through the quiet, he fixed on the rain striking the roof. “Have you been defeated so quickly?”
“I am thinking. I’ve not played this game in...” Either the wall ate away her words or she allowed them to trail off. When had been the last time she’d played their game? Had it been with the lover she’d left him for, the man who’d ultimately abandoned her? Not for the first time since his return from war, he allowed himself to think about the nameless stranger who’d made her his wife. Had he been kind to her? Had he known the places to tickle her until she was breathless and snorting with laughter?
Lightning streaked through the window.
“Visiting an ancient ruin and finding a banshee following your movements.” Her high-pitched words ran quickly together.
He shoved aside thoughts of the man who’d called her wife. “Riding through the countryside and finding your horse is, in fact, a kelpie.”
She laughed, the sound clear and bell-like. In that instance, she may as well have been the sixteen-year-old girl curled against his side. “You cannot use Celtic lore, after I’ve just used one.”
Graham cupped his hands around his mouth. “Different lore,” he said, waggling his eyebrows, forgetting until he did that she could not see, forgetting the space between them—the tangible and intangible gulfs.
They remained in silence, with the rain trailing off to a quiet, gentle stream, until it ultimately stopped altogether. He looped his arms around his knees and dropped his chin atop them. For in that moment, he was no longer Graham Linford, the Duke of Hampstead, and she Mrs. Bryant, widow, and now esteemed instructor at Mrs. Belden’s, but rather, they were Graham and Rowena—as they’d always been.
“Graham?”
Her quiet voice brought his head up. His heart kicked up its beat. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
What had he expected her to say? What was there to say or offer? Useless apologies and explanations that would change nothing for either of them? His purpose in finding her whereabouts and bringing her to London had been one-fold: to have her serve as companion to a young lady shunned by all.
Sitting here, with her sharing the rooms next door, he readily admitted the truth that bringing Rowena Bryant to London might prove more perilous than any battle he’d ever faced.
He banged the back of his head silently against the wall.
Chapter 8
The following morning, the sun shone with a blinding brightness through the dirty lead windowpanes. But for the occasional noisy gust of wind, the storm that had raged the countryside the night prior may as well have been nothing more than a nightmare.
Except, the midnight conversation with a man she’d spent years cursing for his faithlessness had been so very real it had stolen all sleep in ways no nightmare ever could.
Eyes swollen from her lack of rest, Rowena now sat on the same chair before the hearth she’d occupied yesterday afternoon with a plate of—she glanced down at the cracked porcelain plate and peered at the contents—of... of something that might or might not be fried eggs. She squinted. Well, if she were the wagering sort, she’d bet the coin she had that it was the roast vegetables from last night’s meal fried.
The innkeeper’s wife spoke. “Are you enjoying your potted beef, my lady?” Her question brought Rowena’s head shooting up.
Potted beef? Puzzling her brow, Rowena reexamined her plate, and then lifted her gaze to the older woman. And it was fortunate she was not the wagering sort or she would have lost all her hard-earned coin. “Quite,” she said, and forced herself to take a bite, smiling around the salty piece of meat. She forced her jaw to move, grinding the tough bit of beef. Picking up her napkin, Rowena dabbed at her lips. “It is splendid,” she said, the lie coming out easily. Her mother, once one of the most sought after courtesans in London had flourished in the countryside, away from London, but she’d been a rotten cook. For the lousiness of this kindly woman’s food, it was wonderful for the connection she felt to it. “Please, you may call me Rowena.” Years of employment in Mrs. Belden’s had stripped her of the identity she’d had as a nobleman’s by-blow, leaving her a servant like so very many others. “I am not a “my lady,” I am a mere Miss—Mrs.,” she swiftly corrected. Approaching nine and twenty years, there was no longer anything missish about her. “And I’m employed by the duke.”
The old woman, stained rag in hands, shot her eyebrows to her thinning hairline. “A duke,” she murmured, sliding into the chair across from Rowena.
Yes, an all-powerful, coldhearted duke. Only, he was not the manner of man who announced that lofty position to innkeepers. Instead, he was one on the opposite end of a wall, distracting her from her fear of the storm in a move that was anything but coldhearted. “Yes, he is a duke, and I am a servant in his employ.” Her cheeks warmed. “A companion for his ward,” she hurried to explain, lest the woman believe her one of those indecent sorts instead of a woman who shared the blood of one. “There is nothing romantic at all between us,” she added that last part for her benefit more than for the older woman.
Martha reclined in her chair and layered her arms along the wood. “I have seen the way that gentleman looks at you and you him. There is everything romantic in the way you watch at one another.”
Rowena’s skin burned ten shades hotter, and she damned her creamy white complexion that revealed those telling blushes. “You’re wron—”
Martha leaned forward in her chair and the seat creaked in protest to the shifting weight. “My dear,” she whispered, dropping her elbows on the table. “I entered this taproom last evening when you were speaking to the gentleman to offer you bread and ale, and God Himself running around my i
nn could not have interrupted your exchange.” She finished her statement with a wink.
Then, that is how it had always been between her and Graham. When they were together, the world had ceased to exist except for them.
Martha settled a wrinkled hand on hers, patted it, and then, humming a discordant tune, slowly stood and resumed wiping down the tables. Alone once more, Rowena absently picked up her fork and pushed it around the questionable contents of her plate.
At one time, the woman would have been correct in her speculation about her and Graham. No longer. When he was at war, she’d written him note after note after note. Not a single one had been sent by him in return. She had been so delusional then she’d alternated between dread that something had befallen him and useless assurances to herself that his time and efforts didn’t permit him the luxury of letter writing—even to the woman he’d vowed to wed upon his return.
In the months that had passed, the niggling doubt had grown. If he’d loved her and intended to make her his bride, why had he not done so before he left to fight Boney’s forces?
At the end of the proverbial day, it was his father who ultimately severed the thread between her and Graham. His heir dead and Graham now elevated to that exalted position, the ruthless duke had ordered her gone or her family destroyed.
And even through that, allowing him to send her off like a shameful secret, hidden away at Mrs. Belden’s, Rowena had clung to the hope. The hope that someday when he returned, that she could go to Graham, and he would be the hero she’d painted him to be in her mind. For the agony of being ripped apart from her family, she’d sustained herself with the hope of meeting him once more and hearing from his own mouth how much she, in fact, meant to him.
“I’ve not come to see you... I’ve come to see Graham...”
“I was instructed to give you this...”
With that perfunctory announcement, his father had turned over a note—in Graham’s distinct hand. His non-looped joins of slightly slanted letterings hadn’t contained words of love but rather an offer to make her his mistress. And a curt dismissal from his estate if she declined. In the end, she’d been fortunate to leave with a promise from the duke to preserve her post at Mrs. Belden’s if she vowed to never darken their doorstep again.
That pledge had been far easier to give than the first she’d made him. For with that one, every last hope she’d carried for Graham had died a swift death.
Rowena stared blankly down at the crisply burnt eggs as nausea churned in her belly at the remembered shock and agony of taking that note in Graham’s hand and discovering the truth. How easily he’d treat her as a doxy, not even to be spoken to or with—unless she bedded him. That pragmatic transaction, conducted through his father, demonstrating the same ruthless precision of Graham’s note.
With trembling fingers, she set her fork down. Odd, for all the strength she’d prided herself on these years, for all the walls she’d built about herself and the assurances she’d made that, were she ever to see Graham again, she’d feel nothing more than an icy indifference. How wrong she’d been. Seeing him and reliving memories that were as fresh now as they’d once been reopened wounds she’d thought long-healed.
As if summoned by her ruminations, heavy footfalls sounded at the stairway and, moments later, Graham ducked slightly and entered the dark taproom. His gaze briefly landed on hers. Her heart thumped wildly. His cropped, midnight hair slightly damp hinted at a man who’d just finished his morning ablutions. Those gleaming strands accentuated the sharply chiseled planes of his face, lightly scarred on one cheek, but even more masculinely beautiful for it. A knowing smile danced at the corner of his lips, and he lifted his head in acknowledgement. Her body went warm at being caught staring, and she forced herself to return a slight, aloof gesture before attending her dish once more.
She braced for his approach as his footsteps neared, and then an inexplicable rush of disappointment assailed her as he continued walking.
His voice reached across the taproom. “Your accommodations have been exceptional, Martha,” he praised. He referred to the old woman by her Christian name. Unlike his father, the vile Duke of Hampstead, who would have never dared address a servant. Nay, he’d never so much as look at one. She tried to make sense of the incongruity. The boy, Graham, who’d teased her in the gardens knew the names of servants and the pigs she’d named in her family’s pen. The man who’d returned wouldn’t even deign to meet a person outside his rank. Rowena curled her fingers. But then, even with his title of duke, he was always the charmer. And how very skilled he’d been at the game of pretend. Her ears picked up the dialogue between the still-conversing pair. “Allow me to thank you for your service and...”
“Surely you understand he cannot, given his eventual ascension to a dukedom, marry one of your station.”
Rowena glared at the all-powerful duke. “I don’t care what you have to say about it. I am here to see Graham.”
“My son asked I give you this.”
Her skin burned with the weight of that heavy sack being placed in her palm. And had she been able to cry still, all these years later, this would have been the moment for those blasted drops. Alas, she’d shed her last tear the day she’d stalked off with that coin and note and hadn’t mustered a single drop since.
“Mrs. Bryant.” Graham’s deep baritone slashed into her musings, and she slowly picked her head up. Unlike last evening, when he’d asked permission, now, he simply slid into the seat across from her.
The old innkeeper immediately shuffled over with a plate. With a smile for them, Martin set the dish down and moved on, leaving them their privacy.
A privacy she did not want. Not with this man. She cast a covetous glance at the doorway, eager to begin the journey. And then what? I am a companion off to chaperone a young lady during her London season. Would she again see the friends she’d left behind without so much as a note over the years to explain her absence? Or mayhap they’d not even truly cared that much, either. Her chest squeezed as her past continued creeping forward, threatening the fragile security she’d acquired. Rowena stole a peek at him. Sipping from his coffee, Graham passed a bored glance about their surroundings.
He was a model for cool aloofness, wholly unfazed by her presence, and she’d wager a man incapable of ever being daunted. Then, that had always been Graham. He’d been one who inspired confidence but always managed a smile. Or he had. The grim set of his mouth hinted at an older, more cynical figure. Had his time fighting been the cause of that change? Or had it been something else?
His gaze collided with hers. Cheeks burning, Rowena hastily dropped her stare to her plate. In a bid for nonchalance, she forced her mind to the present, thinking not of regrets of old but rather the task that lay before her. She took a small bite of unflavored eggs and chewed. How long would it truly be for a duke’s charge to make a redoubtable match? Six months, at most? Until the end of the Season. As such, Rowena would endure, at most, one-hundred and eight days in Graham’s household. She would offer tutelage to his ward, and he would carry on his ducal affairs. Their paths would only cross when she apprised him of Miss Hickenbottom’s progress or accompanied him and his charge to ton events—where ladies no doubt clamored for the title of duchess.
An unwanted jealousy stirred low in her gut. She forced down the tasteless eggs.
Martin came forward, and she gave silent prayer for the old man’s interruption. He filled Graham’s glass.
“My thanks,” Graham offered, smiling at the innkeeper.
It was petty and small and all things awful of her, but she despised this show of niceness for servants. Having schooled young ladies below Graham’s lofty station, Rowena had been subjected to their derision and mockery. Yet, ever-charming, Graham spoke so easily to this older servant of the weather and the morning fare with the ease of a man talking to one of his same station. It was nothing more than a crafted façade that she herself had been so deceived by years earlier. And she hated that
all these years later that same false regard was responsible for the admiration glittering in the old man’s eyes. She gritted her teeth, the damning click resonating loudly.
Graham looked to her, a question in his eyes. She hastily averted her gaze and filled her mouth with a heaping spoonful of egg. The last thing she desired were questions of any kind.
He made a clearing sound, and she reluctantly looked up. “The carriage is readied.”
She gave a slight nod, confirming she’d heard that announcement but something in his gaze froze her.
“Given my”—Graham skimmed the empty taproom and, even though finding it empty, dropped his voice to a quiet whisper—“episode yesterday afternoon...” He grimaced. “I will not impose my presence on you in the carriage. It is yours.” The haunted glimmer in his eyes bespoke an altogether different gentleman than the carefree one who’d been chatting with the innkeeper.
She’d spent years wishing his life was as miserable as her own. Some of the fight went out of her. Despite her resentment of him, she never wanted to see his suffering. Not like this. Not in any way. “I’m not afraid of you, Graham.” Not in the ways he worried about. “And I do not fear a carriage ride with you.”
With a methodical precision, he continued as though she’d not spoken. “When we arrive in London, we’ll have limited dealings.” Which was as she preferred it, and yet... limited dealings? Rowena furrowed her brow. She would serve as companion to his ward. As though he followed the silent path her thoughts had traveled, he went on. “My days are primarily spent overseeing business affairs. My evenings are spent at ton functions.” A pang struck. How very... empty his life sounded. Not so very unlike mine... She pushed aside the jeering reminder. “All dealings with my ward are handled by my man-of-affairs.” He paused, and then added almost as an afterthought, “Any questions regarding the girl or concerns or questions, you will speak to Jack.”
She jerked, feeling like he’d run her through. “Jack?” she echoed dumbly. Perhaps there was another. It was a common name. Even as she knew those hopes to be futile.
Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1) Page 10
