Mr. Lightfoot assumed because he was rich that she would follow along with his schemes. He was rather like the Duke in that regard.
Although where Mr. Lightfoot was portly and starting to go bald, the Duke of Montford was as fit as they came and possessed of a splendid head of hair that was the precise color of chestnuts bathed in an early morning dew …
Astrid stumbled to a stop and stomped her foot on the ground.
She would not compare Montford’s hair to chestnuts. Or his eyes to stormy seas.
And she would not imagine any part of his anatomy covered in early morning dew.
She slapped the stick as hard as she could against an old oak tree, and the stick shattered.
“Psst. Pssssst!”
She spun around, trying to locate the sound.
“Miss Astrid!” came an anxious whisper from behind a neighboring beech tree.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
A head poked around the tree tentatively, reminding Astrid of a turtle. Stevenage – or Roddy, as he was called now, pushed up his bent spectacles on his nose and peered up and down the path.
“It’s me, Roddy. Is … er … he’s not with you, is he?”
“Who, His Bloody Grace? No.”
Roddy winced, as if afraid her colorful appellation was in danger of being overheard by the despot in question.
“Mr. McConnell is looking for you,” she said.
“I was on my way. Just wanted to avoid … well, running into him.”
“You’ll have to face him some time, Roddy, as you still technically work for him.”
Roddy looked abashed and nervous, and Astrid sighed in resignation. It had taken the Duke all of twelve hours to undo the past two weeks’ worth of progress with Roderick Stevenage. The poor man had been wound up tighter than an e string on a violin right before it snapped when he’d first arrived at Rylestone. He’d talked exclusively about crazy things like terms of contract and property laws and inventories, made lists ten pages long, and jumped every time he saw Aunt Anabel’s wig. He’d been distraught when all the laborious reports he sent to the Duke received no response and began to accuse them of all manner of perfidy (which, of course, was quite accurate).
After Ant and Art ruined most of the man’s extremely morose wardrobe by cutting them up to use as costumes in their production of Agamemnon, Astrid thought the man was going to spontaneously combust. But the men down at the brewery forced some brew down his throat, Flora took a shine to him, and Roddy had begun to emerge, shocking them all.
Roddy liked ale. Roddy loved Flora. Roddy, in fact, planned on never returning to London or his employer.
“I know,” Roddy replied bleakly. “I just can’t believe His Grace has come here.”
“Can you not?”
Roddy gave her a dry look. “I know the Duke better than most. He despises traveling. So that means he must be extremely put out at your family to have made the journey.” His face paled. “Oh, and me. He must be put out at me!”
“I think he thought we had murdered you, which is why he came.”
“Murdered …” Roddy looked baffled.
She decided to enlighten the poor man. “Roddy, you must know I intercepted every report you sent to the Duke, and every letter he wrote to you. He must have been very worried not to hear from you.”
The Stevenage of a week ago would have keeled over at this news, but the Roddy of the present moment looked startled for a moment before allowing a slow, appreciative grin to spread across his face. “I guess I must have known it all along, Miss Astrid. You’re a canny piece of work.”
She returned his grin. “Thank you, Mr. Stevenage. But after yesterday, I would have to agree that he is now officially put out with you. But don’t worry, we won’t let him hurt you.”
Roddy looked despondent. “Oh, he’d not hurt me. I mean, he would not physically harm me, he’s not like that.”
“That’s good to know.”
“But to see the disappointment on his face, the disapproval … oh, Miss Astrid! Did I tell you about the time His Grace made a roomful of ladies weep by just looking at them? He is quite the master of the cutting look.”
“It is only if you care what he thinks that such looks could affect you.”
Roddy sighed miserably, his shoulders sagging. “That’s just it, Miss Astrid, I do care what he thinks.”
“What? Still? But you are so happy here, Roddy. You’re not thinking of returning?” Meaning, you aren’t thinking of turning traitor on us now, are you?
“Of course not. Flora and I … well …” Roddy cleared his throat and blushed, suddenly bashful. “Well, quite frankly, Flora’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. That and coming here. It’s like … I don’t know. For the first time in my life I am actually living. And it feels wonderful. Oh, I’d not go back, Miss Astrid, not for all the tea in China.” His expression grew wistful. “But I can’t help but feeling … Miss Astrid, I’ve known the Duke since he was in leading strings. My father was his father’s man-of-affairs, and my grandfather was his grandfather’s man-of-affairs …”
“Family loyalty. I understand.”
Roddy shook his head. “No, it’s more than that.” Roddy looked on the verge of saying more, but then seemed to think better of it. “Anyway, I suppose my business with His Grace is my business, and I shall have to face up to it eventually. I’ll not burden you with it.”
“That’s quite all right.”
“I don’t know what you’re going to do.”
“Neither do I, but something shall come to me. Look how well I handled you.”
Roddy chuckled at this then grew sober, more sober than she’d seen him in a week. “Don’t think you can do the same with Montford. You thought I was a stuffed shirt.” He exhaled deeply. “His Grace is the most remote man to walk the earth.”
This struck a chord in Astrid. Not so much what Roddy had said – she had garnered as much from two seconds of the Duke’s frosty company – but the way he had said it, with such deep, nearly tender despair. She realized in that moment that Roddy loved the Duke. Something she would have not thought humanly possible for anyone. She had thought Roddy feared the Duke, held him in awe, but she would have never guessed the truth.
“And it’s not his fault,” Roddy continued, reading her thoughts. “The way he is … well, you’ll think me ridiculous for saying it, but he deserves our pity.”
She snorted. “Pity! What? By all accounts he is the richest, most powerful man in the kingdom. Pity him indeed.”
“He did not choose to be who he is, you know. He was but four when he inherited the title after the tragedy.”
Astrid did not want to be interested in Roddy’s revelations, but she was. Very interested. “What tragedy?” she couldn’t help but prompt.
“Why, the accident that took his parents’ lives. A carriage accident.” Roddy shivered. “Very gruesome. Killed everyone except for His Grace. They were on their way northward to a summer estate in Scotland. No one found them for two days. My father was one of the party that came upon the wreckage. He found the child in …” Roddy trailed off, his eyes unfocusing, his features bunching up into a grimace of revulsion. After a long pause, he seemed to come back to himself. He shrugged his shoulders as if attempting to dislodge an unwelcome memory. “Well, suffice to say the boy was in very bad condition. We all thought he would go the way of his parents, and that it wouldn’t have been such a bad thing in the end, if you know what I mean.”
Astrid didn’t know what he meant at all, but the tale had left a hollow feeling in her gut. Clearly, the accident had been an unspeakable horror, and for the child to have been left alive on his own for two days … with the corpses of his parents…
Astrid shivered, despite the morning’s unseasonable warmth.
Roddy looked suddenly thoughtful, as if he’d just realized something. “I suppose that is why he doesn’t like to travel,” he said, more to himself than her.
�
�Well, yes, I suppose that would do it,” she murmured.
“But it’s a fine thing he survived, though I wouldn’t wish his upbringing on my worst enemy. Not that he had an upbringing. He was Montford before he could read, and he’s been Montford ever since. And he’ll crush you, Miss Astrid, if you try to play fast and loose with him.”
Astrid bristled, coming back to her senses. “I’ve already done so. He doesn’t frighten me.”
“Yes, well …”
“Miss Honeywell!”
Roddy froze, and so did she, at the sound of a booming voice coming up from the path leading from the Hall.
“Stevenage!”
Roddy’s face drained of color, and he turned on his heels and ran into the shrubbery, his courage once more fleeing in the presence of his soon-to-be ex-employer.
“Coward,” she hissed.
“Miss Honeywell!” the Duke intoned, closer now, and sounding even more displeased than usual.
She turned around and pasted a false smile on her face. The Duke strode up to her side, outfitted in a gray cut-away jacket and fawn breeches tucked into high Hessian boots, their glossy surface marred by the mud from the path, the only aspect of his person not perfectly in order. She marveled at the crisp, unwrinkled fabrics, the starch of his collar, the spotless gleam of his top hat and silver-tipped walking cane.
She raised a hand unconsciously towards her head, and only by great effort forestalled her fingers from attempting to put her hair to order. She had, of course, forgotten her bonnet in her haste this morning, and she could feel the damp, curling tendrils of her hair beginning to sag out of its pins in the back.
She did not care what she looked like. Not one jot.
If only he did not look so blasted … perfect.
And if only Roddy had not told that blasted story. How was she supposed to think straight about anything now?
“Miss Honeywell, was that Stevenage who just hied off into the shrubbery?”
“What? Who? Oh, was there someone?” She glanced around her, looking perplexed.
“Yes, there was … oh, for the love of … never mind.” He stabbed his cane into the ground and glared at her.
She met his glare with one of her own and told herself not to think of the last time she had been in his company. When he had stared at her breasts.
Too late. She cursed inwardly as she felt the blush creep over her cheeks. She hated being a redhead. “Your Grace. Did you want something? Directions, perhaps, back to London?”
“I am not going anywhere.”
“I would have thought Ant and Art had quite convinced you that it would be in your best interest.”
“Ant and Art.” Something twitched in his jaw. “Your sisters, I presume.”
“Yes. Antonia and Ardyce.”
“They shall not run me off.”
“Damn. I mean, fiddlesticks.”
His jaw twitched again.
“Nevertheless, if you deem it necessary to stay in the area, you should be more comfortable at the Thirsty Boar,” she said breezily.
He looked at her as if she had grown a tail.
“The coaching inn in the village,” she elucidated.
His eyes grew as wide as saucers, and he blinked once, twice. Apparently she had grown hooves, wings, and a snout to accompany her tail, from the look on his face.
“Good God, no,” he breathed, as if she had suggested he dig a hole to China. “I never stay at coaching inns.”
“Then is this your first time out of London?” she persisted.
“Of course not.”
“Then how have you not had to put up at a coaching inn?”
“Madame,” he said in that haughty, condescending ducal tone she had already grown to hate. “I own thirty seven properties in England alone. I hardly need to stay at a coaching inn when I can sleep in my own bed.”
“How very convenient for you to have so many beds.” She paused. “Have you thought that you might be inconveniencing us to stay at Rylestone Hall?”
“I am sure it is no inconvenience,” he said in that superior tone.
She snorted. “Have you thought that we might not want you to stay at Rylestone, Montford?”
“Of course. But that is beside the point. I own it.”
“Ha! Do you indeed?”
She picked up her skirts and started past him.
“Which is precisely why I am here,” he continued, falling into step beside her.
“If you own thirty seven properties, what need do you have for this one?”
“Again, beside the point. It is the principle of the thing.”
She shot him a fierce glare. “Rylestone Hall is our home. The Honeywells have managed this estate for centuries.”
“And made an appalling hash of it. The Hall is crooked, madame, if you haven’t noticed.”
“The towers need some work, granted …”
“And I can’t imagine the state of the tenant farms. Or the poor sods under your shoddy management.”
She stopped up short and turned to give him an earful. But he was not expecting her sudden movement, so he kept on walking, right into her. She collided with a solid pillar of manly and sartorial excellence, her nose smashing against the ruffled perfection of his cravat. She inhaled the scent of him – clean linen, a hint of sandalwood – and felt the splendid heat emanating from his body. Something deep inside of her melted, turning her insides to goo. She had the oddest desire to reach up and bury her fingers in the folds of his jacket and push herself closer, ever closer, into his warm, hard body.
She jumped away with an abruptness that left her teetering dizzily on jelly-like legs.
He jumped away as well with a sharp intake of breath.
“Miss Honeywell …”
His voice was soft, as it had been this morning in the corridor.
She looked up and met his startled glance. His brows were arched, his mouth slacked, and his silver eyes bored into her own as if divining her soul.
Her insides melted all over again. She licked her lips unconsciously.
His gaze dropped briefly to her lips, and his eyes darkened to an opaque, satiny gray. Then he glanced back to her eyes, looking as baffled as she felt. “Miss Honeywell,” he repeated. “Your eyes …”
“Yes?”
“Your eyes … don’t match.”
The last two words were little more than a pained whisper.
She crashed back to herself with a thud, her body suddenly cold and rigid. His observation was a blatant accusation. He seemed disgusted – horrified, really – by her eyes. And who could blame him? They were uncanny and offputting to most people. Some even thought she was cursed. But it was not as if she could help her hideous appearance, any more than he could help being so damned beautiful.
She had thought herself beyond the point of being wounded by comments about her looks. But her vanity was struck very low indeed in that moment. “I am sorry to offend you, Your Grace,” she ground out, stalking ahead, not wanting him to see how he had affected her.
She heard him groan behind her and lengthen his stride to catch up with her. “Miss Honeywell, wait.”
He put a hand on her arm. She felt it as keenly as one felt a bee-sting, even though his glove and the fabric of her dress stood between their flesh. She tried to shrug him off, but he held on tenaciously until she was forced to stop. But she didn’t look up at him. She couldn’t.
Her eyes felt hot and wet, and she tried to convince herself it was an allergy.
“I am sorry, I didn’t mean …”
“I know exactly what you meant. You don’t have to explain. I am quite used to rude comments from you,” she said in a surprisingly even voice, considering her inner turmoil.
He was silent for a long while, and she was forced to listen to the rhythm of his breathing above her. It was as uneven as her own. He still held onto her arm, as if afraid she would slip away if he didn’t, which was probably true.
“You make it very hard for
a man, Miss Honeywell.”
She didn’t know what he meant, yet at the same time she knew precisely what he meant, and she didn’t like the implication of that at all. She wanted no insight into him, and she certainly didn’t want him to know her at all.
“Please, let me go,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
His hand fell away. He backed up a pace or two. He began smoothing out his cravat, tucking and folding with a nearly obsessive intensity. “Miss Honeywell, this is ridiculous. I do not want to insult you. Indeed, I do not even want to be here.”
“And yet you are. And yet you intend to stay.”
“I want to know what the bloody hell is going on. You’ve already lied about your father …”
“I never lied. I simply forgot to inform you.”
He raised an eyebrow, looking smug. “Ah, so then it was you. You are A. Honeywell. You are the blasted letter writer who’s plagued me for years.”
“Of course I am. Who did you think was in charge around here?” she demanded.
He held up a hand in a gesture of pure defeat. “Madame, to be perfectly honest, I’ve had a great deal to sort out in the past four days. Carriages. Mud. Lame horses. Hysterical valets. Mud. Pigs. And you. You, Miss Honeywell, are quite a lot to sort out. As you refuse to give me a straight answer to anything, it is all I can do not to throttle you,” he said in a dry, level voice. “I am … unused … to such treatment.”
“Clearly.”
“However, I promise to refrain from throttling you, if you would start cooperating,” he finished, flicking invisible lint from his sleeves and looking as if this offer of conciliation should solve all of their problems.
And for some bizarre reason, all of her anger at him and all of her hurt feelings over the incident with her eyes drained out of her in that moment. He looked, facing her in the lane, wearing an expression of such smug arrogance, precisely like a ten-year-old boy determined to have his way.
Which made the ten-year-old girl inside of her dig her heels in.
Roddy had warned her not to grouse the Duke. But she was already in too deep. She was now quite glad she had run into his chest rather than contradict his assumption about the condition of the estate. For if he discovered the truth – that it was flourishing, not languishing – then he was bound to figure out that her family had been bilking the dukedom for generations.
The Duke's Holiday (The Regency Romp Trilogy) Page 8
