by Evie Dunmore
A long, anxious face awaited him when he stepped into the hallway.
“Now, Bonville.”
“Your Grace.” The butler he would normally describe as unflappable had a wild look about him. “I take the fullest responsibility for this . . . situation.”
“I doubt there is a need for that,” Sebastian said, “but do give me an account.”
His housekeeper had become too flustered when he had walked through the front door without notice. She had managed to produce the guest list, and he had set off after the first name, the name of a woman he did not know.
“A dozen gentlemen arrived unannounced last night,” Bonville said, “and Lord Devereux, he clapped me on the back and said, ‘Bonville, be a good chap. You’re already preparing the big house party, there should be plenty of food and drink.’ A dozen, Your Grace! The kitchen staff . . .”
Ah, Peregrin, Peregrin. Briefly, Sebastian entertained the idea to hunt his brother down, to drag him to his study and give him a beating after all. Later. He would deal with his brother later, when anger wasn’t running through his veins like a live current. And he had to play host to his uninvited guests, for to do anything else would be to admit to the world that an eighteen-year-old had just run roughshod over the Duke of Montgomery. Iron self-control kept him from grinding his teeth in front of his butler.
“And more arrived this morning.” Bonville continued his harried tale. “Three young ladies and their chaperone, and we are not sure one of them is even a lady.”
“She is not,” Sebastian said grimly.
Wait. A chaperone?
“I thought so,” Bonville said. “Why would the daughter of the Earl of Wester Ross don a ghastly plaid and stroll about like a Jacobite . . .”
Sebastian raised a hand. “Lady Catriona is here?”
“Presumably, Your Grace.”
Damn. He should have heard the guest list to the end before setting out to find Madam.
“You mentioned three ladies,” he said. “Who else?”
“Miss Harriet Greenfield and her aunt, Mrs. Greenfield-Carruther. We gave them the apartment with the gilded ceiling.”
A Greenfield daughter and Lady Catriona. Neither of them would keep inappropriate company. So apparently Peregrin hadn’t lodged his paramour under his roof. And considering how Miss Archer had attacked him, she was hardly a professional.
Sebastian frowned. Travel fatigue must have scrambled his brain to make such an error. None of it explained this woman’s presence in his armchair, though.
“They are all at Oxford,” he said suddenly.
“Your Grace?”
“The women,” he said. “Greenfield’s daughter and Lady Catriona, and I suspect the third one, too—they are bluestockings. Their manners and dress sense can be . . . atrocious.”
“I see.” Bonville sniffed, sounding much more like his usual self.
“Bonville, you are one of the most competent butlers in England, are you not?”
A modest flush spread over Bonville’s haggard cheeks. “I aspire to be, Your Grace.”
“You are. Now be competent and handle this situation. And inform kitchen staff that they will be paid double for the next two days.”
He watched Bonville’s back assume its usual straightness as he strode off.
That left the other issue: he had just booted a guest off his estate who, her impertinent mouth notwithstanding, had a right to his hospitality. Grand. He very, very rarely reversed a decision. He decided that the little shrew could stew awhile, and he told a footman to send for his groom. Nothing quite smoothed his temper as a long ride over the fields.
* * *
You will leave my estate . . .
The words, so quietly spoken, were clanging around in Annabelle’s head like a fire bell. The Duke of Montgomery had thrown her out of his house.
She had not even unpacked yet.
When she entered her chamber, she realized that her things had been unpacked for her. The bottle with jasmine perfume and Mama’s old brush sat on the vanity table, her books and papers on the desk, including Debrett’s Etiquette Manual, which she had painstakingly studied to avoid slipping up during the house party.
Her gaze narrowed at the binder with profile sheets on men of influence.
With three quick strides, she reached the desk.
General description of the gentleman’s character.
She unsheathed the fountain pen like a rapier.
The Duke of M: Impossible, arrogant, high-handed, the pen scratched, a pompous arse!
Panting, she swiped a curl from her face. Unexpectedly, she caught her reflection in the mirror and gasped. There was a hard gleam in her eyes, and her mahogany locks were snaking in all directions: a Medusa, not Helen of Troy.
She pressed her palms to her hot cheeks. What had happened? She knew how to handle a rampant male, knew what to say and more importantly what not to say. A fool would know not to goad a peer of the realm, even if he was an arse. Especially not if he was an arse.
Her reflection looked back at her, chagrined. But you do have a temper, don’t you; in fact, you have just shown your true nature.
She closed her eyes. Yes, her emotions had got the better of her before. And no, she had never really known her place. Where others were appropriately intimidated, she seemed oddly intrigued by the challenge.
She had dug deep to bury that flaw.
But the duke had known. Any gentleman would be mortified to insult an innocent woman, but he had stared right into her, and had seen something rotten.
Oh, no. Hattie and Catriona . . . what would she tell them? The bonds of friendship were so fragile, and she had only just found them.
I have to leave.
There was an inn in the gingerbread village they had passed; she could clearly picture the wrought-iron sign. How far could it be? Not more than seven miles. Seven miles was perfectly doable.
A bundle would suffice for now—jasmine bottle, brush, papers, her night rail, and the spare chemise. The books came last. Her hands were fast and meticulous, her face still afire. The duke’s presence was pressing upon her; there was no evading him within these walls, where he owned every stone and creature.
She had to leave the girls something, so out came the papers again.
“How about this,” she muttered. “I insulted the Duke of Montgomery to his face and he thinks I’m a strumpet, so I considered it best to take my leave.” Imagine the confusion that would cause . . . She scribbled a few innocuous lines and left the note on the desk.
She laced up her boots and moved to the window. The sun had just passed the zenith; she’d have three, four hours of daylight still. Perfectly doable.
Two riders came into view in the courtyard below, dotting dark lines across the pristine white blanket.
The leading horse had sprung straight from a winter’s tale, a gleaming white stallion, the play of its powerful sinews and muscles so graceful it seemed to be dancing over the snow. No doubt Hattie would have it sit for the mount of her blasted Sir Galahad.
It should have been a pitch-black beast to suit its master, though, who was no other than Montgomery himself. Her hand curled into the thick velvet curtain. His ducal posture, the adroitness with which he controlled the prancing animal . . . it made her whole body pulse with fresh anger. Would that the pretty horse tossed him on his rump.
He turned his head toward her sharply then, and she stiffened, her breath frozen in her lungs. For a moment, a rather vivid memory of his scent had brushed her nose.
She grabbed her bundle and fled.
Chapter 8
It would have been wiser to claim an indisposition and hide in her room. It certainly would have been more pragmatic—trudging through knee-deep snowdrifts made that perfectly clear. Unfortunately, both wisdom and pragmatism had abandoned her in the
space of half a day. That was what happened when the past unexpectedly collided with the present: it roused the ghosts and one became erratic.
Seven years had passed since she had stood in another grand library and another aristocrat had torn her limb from limb. She would have thought that seven years was a long time, but the duke’s voice, with its superior vowels and easy disdain, had gripped and shaken her like a fist.
She still shouldn’t have sniped at him. Gallic pride, Aunt May had used to call it, Gallic temper . . . rein it in, lass; you can’t afford it. Gallic pride had been silent as a snared rabbit seven years ago, when her lover’s father had called her a money-grabbing harlot and she had been sent to live with Aunt May. She hadn’t really been prideful since.
Panting, she paused to adjust her bundle. The path ahead was barely distinguishable from the white rolling fields on either side, but the clouds had lifted, and the wind had ceased. The trees on the ridge stood black and still like paper cuttings against the fading sky. Another five miles remaining, she knew; she was good at estimating such a thing. She had to be. Women such as herself went everywhere on foot.
She had barely managed another mile when the muffled thud of hoofbeats sounded behind her.
She turned.
A large brown horse was thundering along the path toward her, the rider flattened against its neck.
Her body went rigid. This was an expensive horse, one from a nobleman’s stable. Her stomach was churning by the time it reached her.
“Miss. Miss Archer.” The young man slid from the saddle and took off his cap, his sweat-dampened red hair sticking up. “McMahon, groom-gardener, at your service. I’ve been sent to retrieve you, miss.”
No.
No, she would not go back there.
“I appreciate your troubles,” she said, “but I’m going to the village.” She pointed her thumb back over her shoulder.
Surprise flitted across his features. “To Hawthorne? But it’s far still. It’s cold; you’ll catch the cough.”
“I’m warm enough, and I walk fast.”
“You’ve walked much farther than we expected; you must be exhausted,” he said. “I’m to bring you back to the house.”
He wasn’t listening; they never did.
She gave him a wide smile, and he blinked the way men blinked when she smiled widely at them.
“McMahon, there’s only one horse.”
His face brightened. “Not to worry, miss, you’ll have the horse.”
“But it’ll take us two hours walking to the house, and it will take me little more to get to Hawthorne.”
McMahon assessed the situation with a deepening frown, probably realizing that he could not just bundle her onto the horse if she refused to cooperate.
“His Grace will not be pleased,” he finally said.
His Grace? Why did he send for her at all, when he wanted her gone?
Because he wanted it all on his own terms, the domineering autocrat.
“Tell His Grace that I refused.”
McMahon’s mouth fell open.
“And that I was awfully obstinate about it,” she added, “a veritable shrew.”
The groom slowly shook his head. “I c-can hardly tell him that, miss.”
“He won’t be surprised, not one bit.”
“See here, miss—”
“Good afternoon, McMahon.”
She did not turn her back on him, because she did have manners, excellent manners, actually.
Still McMahon looked unhappy. Would the duke take it out on the lad? She pressed her lips together; this was a matter of self-preservation.
Muttering something under his breath, McMahon finally doffed his cap, mounted, and turned the horse around, soon becoming a dark dot against the white landscape.
She pushed onward with redoubled effort, a restless urgency coursing beneath her skin. The duke wanted her back, and he was a man who got what he wanted. She needed to be faster. Also, she was coated in sweat, gluing her chemise to her back and forming crystals on her cold face. She needed to get out of the cold.
Not even half an hour had passed when there were hoofbeats again.
She turned, prepared to see a large brown horse.
The horse was gleaming white.
Hell’s teeth.
The rider was approaching rapidly, and there was no mistaking that erect posture. It was Montgomery himself. Another horse, riderless, was hard on his heels.
She spun around, her wits suddenly as frozen as her face.
Montgomery himself had come for her.
He was upon her like a gust of wind, a flurry of motion and stomping, steaming muscle as he maneuvered the horses across her path.
As if she’d be so foolish as to run at this point.
When she rose from her curtsy, he was staring down his nose at her from the lofty height of his saddle. That was how his forefathers would have looked on the battlefield, imperious men on mean warhorses, their voice the signal that made soldiers raise their swords and hurtle toward peril and glory. Peril it was for her, no doubt. He was stone faced.
“Good afternoon, Miss Archer.” His tone was deceptively idle. “Now, what exactly were you hoping to achieve with this?”
His index finger made a circular motion around her and the snowy path at large.
“I’m following your orders, Your Grace. The road permits travel, so I left your house.”
“And as you could have safely assumed, that referred to travel by coach, not on foot.”
“I wouldn’t dare to make assumptions about your orders, Your Grace.”
His jaw tightened. “So had I made my order very, very clear, that it precluded travel on foot, you would have stayed put?”
She could say nothing at all now, or blatantly lie. They both knew she would have taken off regardless.
Montgomery nodded, that tight little nod again, and then he smoothly swung from the saddle. Riding crop in hand, he advanced on her, the snow crunching menacingly under his boots.
Her heels dug in to hold her ground. They were under the open sky now, a more equal stage than his library, but he still looked disconcertingly unassailable in his heavy navy topcoat with the double rows of glaring silver buttons. He hadn’t even bothered to secure his horse. It stayed put, the poor beast no doubt long harangued into submission.
Montgomery planted himself a mere foot from her, his eyes piercing bright with annoyance.
“I would never order a woman to walk anywhere,” he said, “so mount up, if you please.” He pointed the crop at the spare horse.
She eyed the beast. It was the size of a small house and looked nervous; besides, she would not go back with him had he shown up in a plush four-in-hand.
“I will reach Hawthorne in an hour, Your Grace.”
“You won’t,” he said, “but it will be dark, and you will be ill.” Said with a certainty as if he weren’t just foreseeing but steering the course of nature. “You might also lose a few toes,” he added for good measure.
Her feet curled in her boots at his mentioning of toes; botheration, she hardly felt them.
“I appreciate your concern—”
“I will not have a woman come to harm on my land,” he said. “Concern plays no part in it.”
Of course not. “I have no desire to come to harm, merely to get to Hawthorne.”
He gave her a cold, cold look. “You are putting pride above your safety, miss.”
Well, there was no arguing with that. She gritted her teeth, struggling to control the unfamiliar urge to snarl.
“Get onto the horse,” Montgomery ordered.
“I prefer not to, Your Grace. It’s huge.”
He slapped his riding crop against his boot, and she had a feeling that he’d quite like to slap something else instead.
“There’s an inn in Hawthorne where I plan to stay,” she said quickly, “and—”
“And then word gets around that I cast my guests out into the cold?” Montgomery snapped. “Certainly not. You are not even wearing a proper coat.”
She looked down at herself. “It’s a most regular coat.”
“And utterly useless for an eight-mile march in these conditions,” he shot back; ridiculous woman were the unspoken words. He’d never say it out loud, of course, and he didn’t have to. He inflicted enough damage with the contempt coloring his cultured voice.
She considered his wide-shouldered form, clearly superior to hers in weight and strength, and wondered what he would do if she tried to walk around him.
“Very well,” he said, and then he did something unexpected. He took off his hat.
“It is not the appropriate setting,” he said, “but it appears that we will be here a while.”
He tucked the hat under his arm and met her eyes. “Miss, I apologize for handling our last encounter in an overly high-handed manner. Please do me the honor of staying at Claremont until the party concludes tomorrow.”
It was very quiet on this windless hill in Wiltshire. She heard the sound of her own breath flowing in and out of her lungs, and the slow thump of her heart as she stared back at him, with his hat so formally held under his arm. His breath, like hers, was a white cloud.
No man had ever given her an apology.
Now that she had one, she found she was uncertain what to do with it.
Montgomery’s brow lifted impatiently.
Well. He was a duke, after all, and probably not in the habit of apologizing. Ever.
“Why?” she asked softly. “Why would you invite a woman like me into your home?”
The look he gave her was inscrutable. “I won’t have any woman come to harm on my estate. And our earlier conversation was based on a misunderstanding. It is clear that my brother is quite safe from you.”
She cringed. Had he questioned Peregrin about the nature of their relationship? Or worse, Hattie and Catriona? The questions that would cause—
“No one told me,” he said. He wore a new expression, and it took her a moment to class it as mildly amused.
