Duke of Thorns (Heiress Games 1)

by Sara Ramsey

  Men could believe anything if they put their minds to it. And Thorington had the discipline necessary to convince himself even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

  So she was just a bit too pleased that his morning wasn’t arranging itself precisely to his demands.

  “I will deal with Anthony,” he said. “Pianoforte or singing. Now.”

  Callie sighed. She thought of leaving; his tone had turned too preemptory to amuse her. But if she left, there was no better entertainment to be found in the house.

  And she wouldn’t examine the fact that she’d rather spend time with Thorington than return to her solitude.

  “Come, Miss Briarley,” Thorington said, in a voice he might use to cajole a child. “I’m sure you have some musical talent. This is not the time for cowardice.”

  She knew she had been manipulated into action, but that wasn’t enough to stop her from reacting. She took the first sheet of music from the pile Portia had made — it was a Gypsy tune adapted by Haydn, difficult but by no means impossible. “Turn the pages for me, will you?” she said to Thorington.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Forgetting the ‘please’ in addition to the ‘your grace’?”

  He hadn’t mentioned the moment when she’d called him ‘your grace’ the day before. In fact, he hadn’t mentioned the day before at all. It was as though it had never happened. Had she dreamed how his face had looked, in that moment before he told her that he was an awful person? Had she imagined that he was capable of something more tender than coercion?

  She shrugged, knowing insolence piqued him more than anger. “You’ll know within a few bars that this exercise is superfluous.”

  He smirked. She exhaled, bending over the keys.

  Then she began to play. She wasn’t a virtuoso. A former teacher had told her she had the soul for it, but she didn’t have the patience for consistent practice. Still, she was competent enough to play straight through the first sheet of music by sight without missing more than a few notes.

  When she stopped for wont of someone to turn the pages, she found Thorington staring at her. “Will that suffice for the third son of a duke?” she asked sweetly.

  He waved a hand. “For now. I trust you’ll teach your daughters better. They will be ladies when Anthony inherits my title.”

  It was her turn to stare. “Why wouldn’t your son inherit?”

  “Have you seen a son in evidence?”

  Portia snorted. “Pay him no mind. He’s being overly dramatic about his widower status.”

  “What?” Callie asked.

  There was a beat of silence, then another. Portia flushed. “Did you not know…”

  Thorington cut her off. “Another excellent example of why you must learn more about the ton, Miss Briarley. It wouldn’t do to confess your ignorance about such matters in the future.”

  Callie felt like she’d been punched in the chest. “You’ve been married?”

  “Yes. How is your skill with watercolors?”

  She moved away from the pianoforte. “How did I not know you were married?”

  “You should have read your Debrett’s instead of engaging in whatever provincial entertainments you found in Baltimore. It’s quite common knowledge, I assure you.”

  She wanted to slap the amused look off his face. Instead, she went for his gut. “Did you have to force her into marrying you like you tried to force Lady Salford? You don’t seem the type to make nice to anyone.”

  As his jaw hardened, she immediately regretted the jibe. It was an ill-considered joke, especially as she knew nothing of the situation. And before he even had the space to answer, her conscience whipped around. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

  “I am so…” she started to say.

  “Before you apologize for something you fully intended to say, know that I do not care whether you are sorry or not,” Thorington said. “At the moment, I only care about your skill at watercolors.”

  How could a voice that calm make her feel so small? “I am still sorry,” she said stiffly. “It was unfair for me to make an assumption of your past based on your current behavior.”

  “An odd sort of apology,” he said.

  She shrugged. “You are correct. I intended to say it, although I didn’t consider how it would sound. Still, while you’ve told me that you aren’t a very nice man now, I should do better than to assume you were never one.”

  He didn’t respond immediately. They stood only a few feet apart, with Portia there to protect her virtue. His green eyes sparked as he looked her over. And she wondered if the circumstances were different — if Portia wasn’t there, if Maidenstone didn’t stand guard over them like a prison rather than an inheritance — he might have closed the distance between them.

  Might have shown her the man she thought he could be.

  Instead, he inclined his head. “I accept your apology, Miss Briarley. Perhaps we can move on from watercolors and explore your dancing skills.”

  “I’m quite capable,” she said.

  That may have been a slight exaggeration. She had hired a dancing master in Baltimore, before she had realized that she would not attend very many assemblies, but she was out of practice. Still, she knew the steps of all the dances they were likely to have at Maidenstone.

  “So you say,” he said. “But I think there will be waltzing some night soon. Lucretia means to have a ball for the local gentry. And you must be able to waltz.”

  “Do you really think this is necessary?”

  He nodded. “I had planned to watch you dance with Anthony. It would be easier to give you instructions if I watched from afar. But since he is late to our little party, I shall do the honors.”

  Portia took the place Callie had vacated at the pianoforte. “I’ll play while you attempt the steps,” she said.

  There was something suspicious in her voice — something that sounded too eager. But then Thorington bowed to Callie and offered his hand.

  She curtsied on instinct. When she looked up, his smile was back — a real smile, just for a moment, before he twisted it into something else. “I knew you could curtsey to me when given the proper incentive,” he said.

  She placed her hand on his arm. “Do not let it go to your head, sirrah.”

  He squeezed her other hand, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles he’d threatened before. “You play a dangerous game, madam.”

  Portia began to play. The music lifted around them and he pulled her into the heart of it, their steps perfectly timed to the beat of the waltz.

  Callie had waltzed before. She had even enjoyed it. But this experience — the feeling of being held, surrounded, overwhelmed — was entirely different. She felt every brush of his leg against hers, every bit of pressure from his hand against her back.

  The music swelled. She was no longer a girl in a borrowed dress, still slightly fatigued from her journey, uncertain in a new country. She was herself again. But she was the best version of herself — the confident, joyful Callie she had been on her ship during a sea battle, not the hesitant Callie she’d been when she had arrived at Maidenstone.

  She made the mistake of looking up. Thorington was watching her. Their gazes locked, becoming a tether that was unbreakable even as they spun around the room. His green eyes had lost whatever hardness she’d expected to see there.

  All she saw was heat.

  He somehow pulled her closer. And still she didn’t stop looking — she couldn’t have stopped, even if she’d been told that she’d be condemned to death for looking directly at him. She was too fascinated by the man she saw lurking in those eyes.

  All his outrageous words and mercenary schemes should have sent her running from him. But there was more to him than that. And none of his warnings were enough to stop her from wanting to see who he could have been.

  When the song stopped, it took a moment before either of them remembered to separate. They took several steps in silence before he suddenly brought them to a halt. T
hey stayed there for another few seconds — a few endless seconds, in which every emotion seemed to flash through his eyes, even as his face stayed remarkably impassive.

  At least she remembered to step back before he did. She curtsied again. “Thank you for the dance.”

  He bowed. “You are more than I expected, Miss Briarley.”

  It didn’t occur to her until later that it was a strange choice of words. He should have said that she was better than he expected, if he was talking about her ability to waltz.

  But she didn’t think that was what he had meant.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  After dinner the next night, Thorington realized he had avoided her for over twenty-four hours.

  It felt like twenty-four days.

  Of course, house parties often dragged on interminably. Not that Thorington had been invited to one with proper ladies and gentlemen in an age. Society wouldn’t trust him with their daughters, and he wouldn’t have accepted even if they had. If this were any other August, he might have been at Fairhurst, tramping through the fields and woods, talking to his tenants. Or he might have been at another gentleman’s country estate — some gathering of rich gamers and high-flying courtesans, with not a wife or debutante in sight. Either way, he wouldn’t have been quite so bored.

  Surely it was his own boredom, more than any of Callista’s charms, that had made him want so badly, throughout the day, to see her.

  He’d wanted to see her the previous day as well. They had parted ways after their lesson in the music room with an entirely proper farewell — and then he had burned for her the rest of the afternoon.

  He had known she was magnificent already, but knowledge was nothing compared to the feel of her, strong and supple, as they waltzed together. The attraction of her body was something he could ignore — he’d ignored other attractions before, while keeping his vows to Ariana. But he couldn’t ignore how she’d made him laugh, or how her dark eyes had been so full of light.

  Perhaps he’d cursed himself again just by touching her.

  But he had resisted the temptation of her company through the previous day’s annoying entertainments. And today he had pursued business instead of pleasure. While the rest of the party had spent their Sunday engaged in more pious endeavors, Thorington had spent the day with his financial ledgers, looking for a way out of his predicament.

  It was a wasted effort. His ledgers merely reminded him that he was completely destroyed. He could slow his fall into ruin if he made the worst cuts — refused dowries for Serena and Portia, eliminated Anthony’s allowance, stopped paying the extravagant pensions and annuities he’d promised former servants and retainers when his money had seemed limitless. But that would only slow the bloodletting. If his luck didn’t turn around — and at this point, he had no reason to believe it would — he would still lose everything eventually.

  So he had tossed his ledgers into his trunk and returned to the original plan.

  “Anthony,” he said, catching the boy as they walked out of the dining room after Sunday dinner. “A word.”

  If Thorington had been steadfast in his avoidance of Callista, Anthony had been just as determined to avoid Thorington. Since the moment Anthony had learned that Thorington had selected Callista for him, Anthony had barely said two words to him. He’d ignored or refused all invitations to spend time with him and Callista. And he was too deep in Lady Maidenstone’s pocket to talk to before or after any of the dinners.

  But the boy was still loyal enough that he couldn’t ignore Thorington’s direct demand. He sighed, though, to make it clear that he felt put upon. “What is it?” Anthony asked.

  Thorington waited until the last of the men had passed them on their walk from the dining room to their next pursuits. Then, in a low voice, he said, “I have arranged a room in which you may become better acquainted with Miss Briarley.”

  Anthony turned to him with a scandalized glare. “Don’t say you mean for me to compromise her?”

  “Of course not,” Thorington said. “I mean for you to have a conversation with her. I think you’ll quite like her once you speak to her properly.”

  “Is she capable of speaking properly to me? I must say she didn’t seem to know the first thing about propriety at breakfast.”

  “She’s a quick study.”

  Anthony snorted. “Why would I marry someone who still requires lessons? In fact, why would I marry anyone at all? I’m too young for it.”

  “You’re the same age as Lady Maidenstone. You seem interested enough in her.”

  Thorington didn’t want to encourage that connection, but he needed Anthony to see the situation from a different vantage point. Anthony wouldn’t be baited, though. “Lady Maidenstone is entertaining for now. But she has even less desire to marry than I do, from what I can judge. Widows are fair game, are they not?”

  It was a common viewpoint — one Thorington might have even subscribed to when he was Anthony’s age. But hearing his younger brother say it, when Thorington still sometimes thought of him as a child, was shocking.

  He tried to remember that Anthony was a man now. Still, there was too much at stake to let Anthony pursue pleasure instead of prudence. “You need money more than you need entertainment. Now, come upstairs with me.”

  He laid a hand on Anthony’s arm.

  For the first time, Anthony shook it off.

  “I promised Lady Maidenstone I would attend to her,” he said.

  Thorington’s first instinct was to drag Anthony upstairs by the ear. But Anthony wasn’t a child anymore. His jaw was set — perhaps not as firmly as Thorington was capable of, but there was pride and determination there that Thorington recognized.

  Anthony would never marry Callista willingly.

  And if Thorington forced the issue, Anthony would never forgive him.

  “Are you sure you can’t give half an hour of your time?” he said. “She is a better prospect than you would imagine on first meeting.”

  “If she’s such a good prospect, marry her yourself,” Anthony retorted.

  Thorington sighed. But he let Anthony proceed on to the drawing room as his plans churned in his head. He could ask Rafe to marry Callista…

  He dismissed that idea immediately. Rafe was too far gone for marriage, and Callista didn’t deserve the task of fixing him — or the pain of burying him.

  Or Thorington could marry her himself.

  He dreamed of it for a moment. In truth, he’d dreamed of it the previous day as well — he never would have gone back to his ledgers, looking for a new path, if he hadn’t. She was magnificent. And she would be even more magnificent as a duchess.

  Perhaps she would be so magnificent that she could change his ruined luck.

  He shook his head to dislodge the thought and walked toward the Gothic wing and the rendezvous he’d arranged. Ferguson would never let him win Maidenstone. And her dowry, if that was all he gained from her, wasn’t enough to cover his debts. Granted, her ships might be worth something, but he couldn’t count on them to survive the war. She’d be left impoverished, and leg-shackled to him besides.

  Callista didn’t deserve that fate. She’d hate him for subjecting her to it.

  And he couldn’t bear for her to hate him.

  * * *

  Callie was almost glad it was Sunday. Lucretia had suggested, after less than an hour in the drawing room, that they all retire for an evening of quiet contemplation.

  Quiet contemplation was good. Callie could quietly contemplate murdering Lucretia. Or she could quietly contemplate how to shock the party into talking about something other than the weather.

  Or she could quietly contemplate Thorington.

  That path led to madness. He hadn’t come into the drawing room with the other gentlemen after dinner. In fact, he had seemed to avoid her all day. As much as she thought their lessons over the previous two days had been farcical rather than helpful, she found that she’d already begun to look forward to them.

&nb
sp; And she was just the slightest bit hurt that he’d made no move to teach her something that day.

  Callie didn’t let herself wallow. She’d spent her time in the drawing room staring out the window and trying to name every flower she could see. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much for gardening. She thought she saw some roses, and perhaps some kind of ivy, but it was really too difficult to tell.

  She was going to go mad before Anthony ever got around to offering for her. Not that it seemed likely that he would, now. When he’d arrived in the drawing room after dinner, he’d immediately lured Lady Maidenstone out into the gardens. The two of them probably knew every flower for miles. Their blonde heads were bent together as they walked, and he kept whispering things that made Lady Maidenstone laugh.

  Lord Salford had been right the first night — house parties were awful. She needed the sea, or a dockyard misadventure, or even a badly balanced ledger to set to rights.

  Where the devil was Thorington?

  Like a besotted fool, Callie had been reading old editions of the Gazette all afternoon, seeking more information about Thorington’s past in the society pages. What she’d read so far hadn’t put him in the best light. She thought she might as well return to the library and continue her studies, even though she felt a vague sense of shame that she was so interested in his past when he seemed to have no interest at all in her. But as everyone filed out of the drawing room after Lucretia sent them to bed, Lady Serena trailed after her.

  “Will you walk with me, Miss Briarley?” Serena asked.

  Callie didn’t want to engage in the hundredth inane conversation of the day. She kept walking. “Lucretia has the right idea — Sunday is better for contemplation.”

  “If Lucretia is as pious as she claims to be, I will give you all the remnants of my pin money. I think she sent us all to bed so she wouldn’t have to think of yet another way to entertain us.”

  Callie laughed. “That isn’t very charitable of you.”

  “Little annoys me more than inhospitable house parties.”

  Callie could think of a whole host of issues that annoyed her more than inhospitable house parties. The war’s effect on shipping, for one. Or the lack of current knowledge about where her ships were and what trouble Captain Jacobs might have gotten himself into. But if Serena’s life had been so sheltered that house parties were the worst of her problems, Callie tried not to begrudge her that fact.