He seemed mildly horrified by the idea.
“Did you and your brother never get up to mischief?”
But he was not in the mood to share even an inch of his memories with her. “No more or less than any other children. Tell me, do you mean to start on the east wing tomorrow?”
*
The duke was always catching Holly unawares, before she had even a chance of making herself look somewhat presentable. Holly was in the middle of a short break from the cleaning, looking over lists by the window of her study, when a voice from the doorway startled her.
“Holly?”
She turned to find the duke standing behind her, so tantalisingly close, an unreadable look on his face. She wondered why he had come.
Holly raised a hand awkwardly to her cap, which was a little dishevelled and really terribly plain.
“Yes?” she asked huskily, suddenly very aware of the nearness of him, more and more so with every passing second, in fact.
His eyes trailed to the portrait on the wall.
“I see you have found my mother,” he said in surprise.
With baited breath, she wondered if that would annoy him. And would it even matter if it did?
“Is that she, then? I wasn’t entirely sure – the name plaque is missing.”
“Yes. There are more in London.” He looked at the painting a bit longer, then sighed. “This is a good place for it. We must see about having another plaque engraved.”
And just like that, Holly’s heart swelled, because he thought that his mother’s painting belonged in her study, and perchance that meant a little bit that he felt that she belonged there too.
“I shall see to it,” she said, aimlessly brushing at a tendril of hair that had fallen into her eyes.
The duke nodded, then reached out with an agonising slowness and brushed the hair out of her face.
“It was in your eyes,” he said softly, by way of explanation, his gaze still trained on hers.
Holly didn’t respond, heart somewhere in her throat, and a delightful tingle where his hand had brushed her cheek.
Then he seemed to remember himself and stepped away, and it was as though the air was suddenly full of frost: cold and bleak. “If you can spare a moment, I wished to go over some of the accounts.”
“Accounts?” Holly echoed dazedly, before finally coming-to. How did he have such power over her? “Oh, yes the accounts! Certainly.”
“You do not mind? I hope Pontridge has not bored you so much that you have turned to keeping the books as your sole source of entertainment.”
“Not at all. I have been mostly occupied with restoration – the house is so very beautiful, it is a great shame to see it in ruin.”
Strathavon inclined his head. “I am glad to hear it – I have always loved Pontridge, much more than any of the other estates. It is, I think, the best home I have ever had.”
Holly felt touched at this intimate confession. Home… Lost for words, she merely gazed back into his impossibly blue eyes, before moving to retrieve the books.
He drew a chair to sit next to her at her desk, and it was all Holly could do to focus on the ledgers, when what she really longed for was reach out to him. To brush his sleeve with tentative fingers, to feel the warmth of his hand.
His scent and warmth teased her, and she hoped she did not say anything absurd, because after he was gone, she had trouble remembering anything of what had happened, except for the flood of feelings that had coursed through every fibre of her being.
*
Leaving Holly’s study, Strathavon felt unsettled and confused. Neither was a state that he wore well. It was why he had left as quickly as he had done. He had not wanted to leave, which was precisely why he’d had to.
The house around him buzzed with a life he had not seen in it for years. Servants went about their business, and the place came to life under Holly’s expert touch. There was warmth in the windows and a sense of comfort. She had even managed to get rid of the white soup.
But the house was not the only thing thawing under her guidance – more and more he’d found himself caught up in her stories, in the sparkle of her eyes or the tilt of her wrist. His heart was waking up as if from a long slumber in some forgotten crypt, and he was not at all sure how he ought to approach this new problem.
For a problem it was – the Duke of Strathavon could not afford to love. He had learned already the harsh realities of losing the people one cared about the most. Love was… inefficient. Careless. Unnecessary. He had seen too many times the chaos it caused and the wreckage it left in its wake.
He could not remain at Pontridge for much longer: the risk was too great. He did not trust himself to resist the undeniable pull of her rosy lips, the temptation of her soft skin.
Strathavon hated being chased out of his own house. But he had no choice – he knew without the least shred of doubt that it was her wide innocent eyes that would finish him off.
Despite the unpleasant edges of his temper, to which she had borne witness despite the distance which he had tried to keep between them, Strathavon had seen that one emotion in her eyes which had the power to undo him entirely.
Just then, in the study, while she explained the accounts to him, she had glanced up briefly with an achingly wistful expression painted across her lovely face.
She had looked at him with a sweet, trusting love – an affection he had neither wanted nor expected in the eyes of the woman he had married simply because of her exemplary domestic management. And she had been so close to him. He’d smelled her orange blossom scent, which would likely haunt him for days…
But, no. Alas that such a thing could never be. Love opened him up to possibilities of pointless pain which he could not in good conscience inflict on her, on himself – on anyone! It was a thing best lived without.
He had believed that keeping his every hour occupied with the estate would chase out any thoughts of the woman he had so carelessly married – but the opposite had happened instead.
He’d caught himself wondering what she would say to this, or think of that. And what she was doing up in the damnable attic, when he was miserably barricaded away in his own study.
Sylvester’s late father had considered idleness to be the source of every vice. He’d often said that those who have nothing to do always unfailingly endeavour to entangle themselves in folly merely to pass the time. That was why Sylvester had endeavoured to throw every effort into learning the running and repair of his holdings. That was why he had chosen to marry a woman who could be a helpmeet in his quest.
Yet, here he was, caught in a tangle of sheer folly all the same. He hated feeling uncertain.
But when she had looked at him, smiled her shy smile, and said his name, something inside him had broken or warped. It was as though his soul knew hers: a connection beyond mere human knowledge. He’d known in that moment that her trust and gentle kindness would be the undoing of him.
He’d known that he could not touch her or look at her, no matter the desires that coursed through him at her nearness.
But most importantly, he could not kiss her. Yet this was exactly the urge that had suddenly taken sway of him in the study: to taste her lips, and to pull her into his arms, to feel her softness against him.
It was as though he had been utterly possessed by her.
Undeniably, there were many women more beautiful, but it was not mere prettiness he admired in Holly. It was her manner, her liveliness, and her bright eyes that had first captured his attention. She had a spirit that was truly remarkable.
She was to him more lovely than any celebrated society beauty ever could be. This was not a turn he had ever expected, when picking himself a plain, practical bride.
He needed space and distance so that he might make sense of this unexpected new turmoil.
“Your Grace, there has been an urgent letter,” Strathavon’s valet informed him, interrupting his reverie and the tortuous silence of the library.
“Ah, good. Give it here, Nichols.” The duke could not hide the relief in his voice. Whatever it was would doubtless prove a most welcome distraction.
Mr John Nichols, his lordship’s most esteemed valet, seemed to sense his master’s agitated spirits, because he had been only half as acerbic as usual that morning, when commenting on his lordship’s sorry-looking, crumpled coat.
He wondered what it was that had so agitated his usually unflappable master, and had even ventured a guess that it had aught to do with the young lady upstairs.
Sylvester found that the note was from his cousin Avonbury, scribbled in the man’s unmistakably frightful handwriting. According to the frantic missive, Avonbury had got himself into yet another absurd romantic scrape, from which Strathavon was now obliged to disentangle him.
That, at least, would serve as some distraction.
Really, with the estate in shambles and Avonbury in a whole new set of trouble, poised on the brink of social disaster, the least thing on Strathavon’s mind should have been whether or not he felt something unusual for the mousy girl raising dust in the old yellow parlour.
She was neither a beauty nor an original, after all. Passingly pretty at best, surely. The rest was just imagination, and the inevitable consequence of being cooped up in the country.
She would never turn heads at Almack’s, or gather an army of loyal followers at her side. And yet there was something…
This really wasn’t the time for such nonsense, he told himself firmly.
He ordered his valet to pack his things and for his carriage to be brought out immediately. Nichols only raised a single eyebrow when informed that they would be departing for London within the next two hours.
“Very well. Then I must arrange your wardrobe, Your Grace,” he said, conveying volumes of disapproval with those simple words, and promptly proceeded to do just that.
The duke watched him a moment. “I’ve said it many times, but I shall say it again – you’re wasted in this profession, Nichols. You would have done much better arranging troops than cravats.”
“Thank you, Your Grace. But I do not like to consider the state of your silk shirts if I were not here to oversee them.”
The duke sent up a quick note to Holly, apologising for his sudden departure. She was a practical girl – she would not think anything of it.
The Pontridge grooms dressed the horses and stopped their feet with surprising briskness. Before he knew it, the duke was on his way to London, stubbornly ignoring the peculiar sense of loss that inexplicably shrouded his heart.
If he felt a little like a coward for fleeing his own seat in this manner, then he made a point of reminding himself that he was on his way to help a cousin, and that distance was his only salvation from the malaise of the heart. Distance, and London with its many amusements, would surely keep his mind elsewhere.
Sylvester arrived at his townhouse on St James Street in a great confusion of spirits and, for the first time in years, could not fall asleep. Was his bed larger and colder than it had been before? He had even checked that it was the same bed, which it was, of course. But then what could possibly have been the matter with him?
The next morning, while awaiting word from his cousin, he proceeded to write necessary letters pertaining to the repair of the roads through Pontridge Brook. Next, he instructed his valet to bring in any invitations or calling cards which may have been left at the house in his absence. The necessity of a busy social calendar would keep him well occupied.
And a good bout at the Fencing Academy on Piccadilly would not go amiss.
Truly, he could not understand his sudden fascination with his new duchess. He was flattered, gratified and even obliged at the gentle affection with which she regarded him. And yet he knew that he was not in love with her: he would never permit himself to be in love with anyone.
But what was it about her that drew his attention every time she happened to enter a room? A plain girl, made more so by that deplorable lace cap of hers. How had she succeeded in capturing his imagination?
And how could he explain to her that he could never return her love, or anyone’s? He felt ashamed, because he did owe her something.
Even the greatest passion will turn to nothing in the end, the Duke reminded himself firmly. Nothing.
Chapter 3
The sky was drained of all traces of colour, and that was just vexingly fitting, the Duchess of Strathavon thought grimly, as she raised her face heavenward, wondering if it would rain.
Her petticoats would be muddy again, if it did, which would be a pity. But that would not keep her indoors.
Holly pulled her warm woollen shawl tighter around herself. It had not taken her any time at all to conclude that, like all stately houses of its pedigree, Pontridge Abbey was perpetually cold in the summer, no matter the weather outside. It would be chilling in the winter.
She was very fortunate that His Grace could afford to have the fires lit all year round.
She sighed and trudged on, wondering if there was anything new or interesting left for her in the world, or if life would always go on as it had done these past weeks.
“Like being buried alive, surely,” she murmured to herself.
The nature of Holly’s malady was a very simple one, but all the more painful for this: she suffered from a love entirely unreciprocated, and a loneliness that seemed to eat away at her spirit.
Probably, Strathavon was to blame, for being what he was; for making it so easy to love him and so difficult to stop. And for being wholly unable to return her love.
Hers was an impossible, hopeless passion, Holly knew with a mad sort of clarity. It was like being pulled down by the tide – there was no escape, no real choice. And if she were perfectly honest, she hadn’t the least desire to escape. That was the very worst of it.
Perhaps she was to blame, too. Had she been too meek, too quiet? Ought she to have thrown a fuss, waxed wild at him until she broke through, to catch even a glimpse of what was hidden beneath his stony façade?
But the moment she managed to get even a step closer to him, he would cut her off completely, become cold and reticent.
And she had not a friend in the world to talk to. Loneliness was not a state she had ever known before.
Now she knew it all too well: there was no state more grim and intolerable than loneliness, as the days dragged on.
And lonely she was, in a house full of servants and a village full of ladies with whom she had not a thing in common except the ability to run a household with skill and economy.
That hardly served as the foundation for a friendship.
She felt angry at herself as tears threatened, blurring her vision and making her sniffle. This whole arrangement was unbearable.
She felt a little as if she were drowning and this was an entirely new feeling for Holly too. She was generally not given to melancholy and she had never really had any true cause for it before now.
All alone at Pontridge, Holly felt deserted.
This must be what it was like for all those Tudor nuns, banished from the glorious world of the court.
She had been reading history books to pass the time, because novels left her sadder still, longing for a world that was better, kinder and fairer than her own.
There were many books yet to read, which was a comfort, and the house still wanted a lot of work. There was even a piano in the front parlour, but Holly did not really play and it held no attraction for her.
It only served to make her miss Cassandra, who was wonderful at music. She would always let Holly sit on the piano bench next to her, and watch as her hands fluttered over the ivory keys like birds.
But pianos, books and houses were all things, and it was people she missed. People with whom she could freely talk, joke, and laugh. People in general, and one person in particular, though he did not really deserve to be missed.
No doubt she had never belonged in the duke’s fast, glamorous world – but was she such a disgra
ce that he’d felt he had to leave her behind while he returned to London?
Would a wife have been merely a nuisance to him? She had heard of the Duke of Strathavon long before she’d met him. She’d read a little about his exploits in the society journals to which her mama subscribed: the races which he had embarked upon, the light o’ loves and the many parties which he had attended.
A likeness of his handsome face had even graced one piece – the sketch had depicted a man of inexplicable charisma, and unexpected gravity. His life had been so removed and different from hers that she had already been half in love with him because of that.
It might have been fate, or just a very lucky turn that led her into the village that day. She had made a habit of her daily gambols in that direction, because it was the only entertainment to be had away from the house.
But that morning was to present her with an entirely unexpected treat.
A lady in her early sixties stood in the middle of the path that led down past the vicarage and towards the village. She looked greatly perplexed by all the mud.
She looked up at Holly’s approach and regarded her out of very amused blue eyes.
The lady was dressed in the most marvellous ensemble Holly had ever seen, though she had always been an ardent peruser of her mother’s fashion plates.
Holly had had no idea so glamorous a creature could even exist in the dreary emptiness of Gloucestershire. Surely she was just an illusion: or had she been swept in from Paris or London on some sort of magical breeze?
Her hat alone was nothing less than a dashing work of art. Holly was still lost in admiration of the lady’s daringly floral satin bonnet when the lady issued a friendly greeting.
“Good morning. Deplorable, isn’t it? It’s been nothing but mud all the way from my front door, but this is the absolute worst of it, I declare. My maid will give notice when she sees the state of my gown. I think I have taken up the whole path, too. I must apologise – but I find I am rather lost. Would you be so kind as to direct me to Woodley Court?”
Lady Adventuress 01 - His Wayward Duchess Page 6
