Mina might have spent her whole life trying to be ladylike and biting her tongue and living up to her father’s expectations, but no one she’d ever met pretended as well as the Duke of Tremayne.
As long as one didn’t get a good look at his eyes.
Striding briskly toward the stables, one would think he’d just left a meeting over upcoming repairs or his plans for leasing the property. No one would guess they’d just spoken of the most painful memories of his childhood. Nor would anyone have an inkling any intimacy had ever passed between them. That he he’d touched her, kissed her. That moments before his body had melded against hers.
Mina, on the other hand, couldn’t calm her racing heartbeat or smell anything but his scent on her clothes. She could still taste him on her lips, but she wasn’t sure if her lungs were burning from their breathless kisses or her struggle to keep up with his long-legged stride.
Thank heavens she wasn’t wearing a skirt.
She nibbled the inside of her cheek and cringed. She’d pushed him too hard. Asked too many questions.
“It’s Tobias.” She recognized one of the bellowing male voices as they drew closer. “I’ve never heard him so angry.”
As they rounded the corner of the house and started toward the stable yard, Mina’s heart dropped into her boots and she let out a gasp.
Gregory.
His bronze hair glinted in the sunlight. He stood behind his father, Lord Lyle, as the older man shouted at Tobias. She’d feared the viscount would come for his horse one day, but she never dreamed he’d bring his son, the man who’d broken her heart.
Their attachment had blossomed quickly. Looking back, she knew it hadn’t truly been a courtship and wasn’t sure why it had begun. A bit of charm on his part when they met at a village auction, and too much eagerness on her part to be charmed by a handsome viscount’s son.
Gregory had seemed a way to change her stars. To be more than the steward’s daughter. She cringed now to recall the possibilities she’d imagined. But it had all been as solid as dandelion fluff.
She hadn’t seen Gregory Lyle since the day they’d met at the conservatory on his family’s estate and he told her they must never see each other again.
A bit of fun he’d called their stunted romance that ended almost as soon as it started.
As with all things, she’d rushed in.
Beyond where Gregory stood near the Enderley stables, two men were scuffling on the ground. One Mina didn’t recognize. The other was the enormous unmistakable outline of Tobias.
“Enough!” Lord Lyle’s shout drew their attention, but as the man wrestling Tobias stepped away, the nobleman moved in menacingly.
“Oy! Mind yourself, my lord.” Tobias scooted back when Lyle raised a cane as if to strike.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Nicholas bellowed as he strode into the melee.
Lord Lyle immediately straightened and turned to face him. “Ah, Tremayne.”
Even from a distance, Mina made out Lord Lyle’s ugly sneer. The man looked down on everyone, but he’d never shown this level of disrespect to Eustace or the old duke.
“Or should I call you Nick Lyon?”
“Call me whatever you damn well please, but get the hell off my property.”
“Property is precisely why I’m here. Your lad filched my stallion, and I mean to see justice done.”
Nick cast a glance at Mina over his shoulder. She bit her lower lip. He had every reason to be angry at her about the stallion, but all she saw in his eyes was concern.
“Do we have Lord Lyle’s horse, Tobias?”
The young man flicked his gaze from the duke to Mina and then Lord Lyle but didn’t utter a word.
Mina noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and spied Gregory slinking into the stable. It wouldn’t take him long to find Hades. She broke into a run, found him inspecting the stalls with two fingers pinched over his nose, and latched her hand around his arm.
“How dare you?” He elbowed to dislodge her, and then his eyes rounded when he turned and saw her face. “Mina?”
He trailed a glance down her body. His gaze flared with the interest she’d seen many times in his cool gray eyes. “You’re wearing trousers.”
“Please, Gregory. I’m asking you not to do this.”
“Retrieve Lyle property? Of course, I must.” He indicated with his chin toward where Nick and his father stood arguing. “Not even a duke’s groom can steal another man’s horseflesh. Tremayne’s stable boy must be made to pay for this.”
“I’m the one who brought the stallion into the stables.”
“Don’t speak nonsense. Your pathetic attempt to protect Tremayne’s ragtag staff won’t do.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’ve been fool enough to remain on this wretched estate. Get yourself a husband or a keeper. You need a man to show you your place.”
Mina tensed so fiercely, a spike of pain shot across her shoulders and up her neck. She ignored the supreme irony of Gregory Lyle chastising her, when he’d been the one who’d tried convincing her that her place was on a stone bench in his family’s conservatory under his heaving body.
Thank God she’d been sensible enough not to let matters between them go that far.
“The stallion was bleeding when I found him. Your father beat the horse viciously.” Mina waited for a reaction, but the news didn’t seem to surprise him.
He leaned in, the shapely lips she’d once kissed peeled back in a hideous smirk. “He’s my horse. Father never rides him. The beast’s too willful and needs to be broken.” He dropped his gaze to her neck, to the swath of skin and peek of cleavage Nicholas had exposed. “Just like you, Mina. We both know I should have been the man to break you.”
Her fingers curled instinctively and her fist flew like an arrow straight to its target, the small, perfectly sculpted nose in the center of Gregory Lyle’s arrogant face.
“You bitch!” Blood trickled between his fingers. He swiped for her with his free hand and Mina stumbled back.
Her hand stung, but Mina didn’t regret striking Gregory’s arrogant face. Only the rage in his eyes scared her. And not for her but for Nick, especially if Gregory and his father chose to make trouble. And for Hades too, if the poor creature ever fell back into the Lyles’ hands.
A thud against the stable’s outer wall made them both jump. It sounded like the chaos of a scuffle. Bodies crashing against wood.
Mina spun away and darted toward the yard. Tobias sat on his backside, fingers pressed against a swollen cut on his lip. The burly man who worked for Lord Lyle loomed over him, smirking with brutal satisfaction.
“Leave him alone.” Mina started over, prepared to intervene, but she also scanned the yard for Nick.
A few feet away, he and the viscount stood inches apart, speaking in low, menacing tones. Then, in a flash, Lyle turned violent. Raising his walking cane above his head, he snarled at the duke.
“You bloody bastard.”
Mina changed course, rushed over, and squeezed her body between the two men. With her bottom pressed to Nicholas’s groin, she reached a hand back to hold him at bay and found her fingers wrapped around the hard, shifting muscles of his thigh. Even in this chaos, the solid feel of his body against hers ignited all Mina’s senses.
“I took the horse,” she confessed to Lord Lyle.
“You?” The viscount arched back, lowering his cane an inch. “Aren’t you the impertinent chit who tried to seduce my son?”
“How dare you?” Nicholas’s arm shot out around her, gathering the lapel of Lyle’s coat in his fist.
Mina spun to face him, nudging him back, her hands braced on his chest. “Don’t do this. You’ll regret it.”
“I’m at my best when I’m doing things I’ll regret.”
“Father, leave them,” Gregory called as he entered the stable yard. He’d taken a Tremayne saddle and bridle and led Hades by a short rein. “The beast seems to have been well cared for. I’ll ride him bac
k.” He locked eyes with Mina. “No harm done, I’m sure.”
“We shall not leave until this matter is resolved. This man”—Lord Lyle pointed at Tobias—“filched my horseflesh. I won’t rest until I see him hang for it.”
Mina sighed and pivoted back toward Lord Lyle. “I’ve already told you. I’m the one who found Hades.” She shot Gregory a fearsome glare. “We tended his wounds and gave him time to recover.”
“You’re a meddler, Miss Thorne. What would Magistrate Hardbrook say of your thievery?” Lord Lyle grimaced as he took in her rumpled shirt and dirty trousers.
“We’ve retrieved our property, Father.” Gregory cinched the saddle on Hades, put a boot in the stirrup and mounted the horse. “Let us leave the gambling club owner and his trouser-wearing steward to whatever business they were conducting before we arrived.” He tugged sharply at Hades’s reins but the horse shied back, resisting his rider’s lead. “Come on, you wretched cur.”
Nick could barely see the man or the horse through the waterfall of red fury clouding his vision.
Lyle’s son was the one. The knowing glances between Mina and Gregory Lyle hinted at the tale. Whether love or lust or something in between, the man had hurt her. Now the blighter thought he could cast her dismissive glances across the stable yard.
Rage flooded Nick’s senses, firing his blood, pushing every rational thought into the flames. He’d never had any patience for bullies. They were irritating sparks to the dry tinder of his anger.
But it was Mina’s gasp of horror at how the younger Lyle treated the horse that sealed the beast’s fate.
“How much?” Nick strode past her, wishing he could reach for her, reassure her. Instead, he confronted Lord Lyle’s cad of a son.
“Good God, you’re a duke now, Tremayne.” The young man turned his nose up. “I thought perhaps a title might have cured your fixation on lucre, but everyone at your club says you’re a greedy rotter.”
Nick remembered the young man vaguely. He was one of those pampered noblemen who expected the world to fall at their feet and whined when fortune frowned instead.
“Lord Calvert says your tables are rigged,” he continued in a whine high enough to make the horse’s ears flick back.
“Calvert is a poor loser.” Like you. “How much for the stallion?”
The buffoon cackled, a comical attempt at masculine confidence. “He’s not for sale.”
Nick couldn’t imagine what Mina ever saw in the lordling. Except, of course, that he was pretty, with a delicate, almost girlish face that hadn’t been slashed open by his father’s penknife.
“Everyone has a price.” Nick grabbed the slack line of rein hanging under the horse’s snout. “A thousand pounds.”
Ah, the fancy-faced nobleman liked that. Younger Lyle gulped visibly, his haughty grin folding like a house of cards. “You’re a madman, Tremayne.”
“Possibly.” Nick cast a glance over his shoulder at Mina.
She wore an unbearably hopeful expression, and Nick didn’t want to disappoint her. What he wanted was to kiss her more thoroughly, take whatever she offered, and never let his wretched past intrude again.
“Probably,” he admitted when he turned his attention back to Gregory Lyle.
“You cannot buy your way out of this.” The elderly Lyle wagged a bony finger at Mina, and Nick barely resisted the urge to break it free from his hand. “What this woman has done is a crime. The law will decide her payment.”
“Two thousand pounds,” Nick said with the last thread of calm he possessed. It was a very thin, quickly fraying thread. He sighed as he waited, darting his gaze between Lyle, who was flapping his gums like a fish flopping on the shore, and the son who’d been struck dumb, his mouth hanging agape.
“The horse isn’t worth half that sum.” Lord Lyle’s voice had lowered to little more than an astounded squawk.
The man’s honesty was a pleasant surprise. It meant the old rotter had stumbled on an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“Is that a yes?” Nick had made enough deals in his life, seen enough desperate men, to know when he’d won.
The younger Lyle leaned over in the saddle as his father approached and whispered in the old man’s ear. The father grimaced and clasped his hands around the lapels of his frock coat, puffing out his chest and lifting his chin.
The coward couldn’t look Nick in the eye. Bested noblemen rarely could.
“I’d heard you were quite the man of business, Tremayne, but you’ve proven yourself a rather hapless negotiator.” The tremor in his voice turned what he intended as a victory speech into a pathetic display. “I demand two thousand pounds and the surrender of my son’s vowels.”
Nicholas inhaled deeply, pretending to give the matter due thought. In truth, he knew Lyle the younger would ask to have his debts forgiven. Spencer, the factotum at his club, would know for certain, but he suspected they were worth a good deal more than two thousand pounds. Drawing out the suspense longer seemed cruel.
So he waited another sixty seconds, rolled back his shoulders, and fixed Lord Lyle with a hard stare. “Done.”
Nick dug deep for any impulse to be the better man, to let Lyle and his progeny turn tail and strut away as if they’d won the day. But Gregory Lyle still sat on the horse like a king on his throne, sneering at Nick.
“Come down now, boy,” Lord Lyle said as if speaking to a child version of his heir.
“Let me help.” Nick gripped the younger Lyle’s boot, ripped it from the stirrup, and shoved. The man flailed, arms pinwheeling in the air, and then tipped over the horse’s side. He landed with a squelching thud in the muddy stable yard.
“How dare you?” Lyle the younger stared up at him in disbelief.
Nick leaned closer, battling the urge to haul the man up by his muck-splashed shirtfront. “I dare because everything you see before you is mine.” Out of the corner of his eye, the father crept closer. Nick straightened, ripped the walking stick from the old man’s hands, and slammed it against his bony chest. “Go, Lyle. Get off my land and keep your son out of my club.”
Nick shot Mina a glance over his shoulder. “Miss Thorne, go inside and prepare a check for Lord Lyle along with a note indicating my agreement to destroy his son’s vowels.”
She didn’t obey his command. Instead, she stood rooted in place, eyes wide, throat working as if she had something to say.
But then younger Lyle got to his feet, wiped himself off, and tucked his head and shoulders as he charged forward like a perturbed bull.
“You’re nothing but a by-blow,” he screamed. “A charlatan. Go back to London. You don’t belong here.”
Nick struck an arm out, grabbed a handful of shirt, and dragged the puny nobleman close. “I do belong here, you whinging nob. I’m the bloody Duke of Tremayne.” He shoved hard and Gregory Lyle staggered back toward his father.
Tobias immediately came forward to retrieve the stallion. Nick waved him off and took the horse, leading the beast toward Mina.
“Here,” he said, surrendering the reins to her. “Now one of the horses in Enderley’s stable is yours.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning Mina paced the small confines of her father’s office until her legs ached. She’d never been one to waste time treading a straight line back and forth to nowhere when she had lists upon lists of tasks that needed doing.
Maybe she was picking up the duke’s habits.
Nick, Lord Lyle had called him, and the name fit. In less than a fortnight, he’d managed to score himself on her heart.
And now he was gone.
When she looked across the hall through the half-open door, he wasn’t there as he’d usually be, matching her pacing with his own. He wasn’t in the house at all. She’d risen early, eager to see him, and learned from Mrs. Scribb that he and Wilder had gone into the village to meet with Mr. Thurston about repairs to the tenant cottages.
She’d started the morning by penning a letter to two masons in the vill
age who might have use of the stone from the old tower. If they were willing to demolish the structure, she’d have it done immediately. Part of her wanted to take a maul and hack away at the stones herself.
Enderley would never be the same. She knew its secrets now. Ugly truths she’d never wanted to imagine. This morning, for the first time, the halls felt cold and empty. She sensed a pall over the house, and she began to understand that was how Nick might always see Enderley.
Footsteps sounded from far off down the hall. Mina held her breath, shoved a few stray strands of hair into the bun at her nape, and then swept her palms down the front of her bodice and skirt.
Was it him? The tread sounded lighter, the gait shorter than his long-legged stride.
“Mina?” Colin appeared in the doorway, a smile lighting his face. Then his grin immediately dropped into a frown. He’d always been far too perceptive. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Come in. What brings you to Enderley this morning?” She tried for cheerfulness and hid her unease by fussing with the pen and ink pot at the corner of her blotter.
“I was supposed to come by yesterday. Don’t you remember? A project delayed me, but I heard there was trouble with Lord Lyle and his son. Are you all right?” He flopped into the chair in front of her desk and regarded her with a knitted brow. “I know you and Gregory Lyle have a bit of a history.”
Good grief, had the rumors spread so widely in the village that even her cousin, who usually kept his head buried in books and experiments, knew of her foolishness?
“Thought I should come check on you, and discover whether you’re expecting me to call him out for a duel.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Mina pressed her lips together to stifle an unbidden chuckle. Nick had made sure Gregory got his comeuppance. She’d never forget the sight of him flat on his arse in the mud.
“Word around the village is that the duke was had.” Colin regarded her skeptically and lifted a paperweight from her desk, flipping the smooth stone in his fingers. “Heard he paid an enormous sum for an ebony stallion that’s barely broken.”
“He also forgave Gregory’s gambling debts at his club.” Mina still mused over Nick’s actions, and her heart nearly burst in her chest when she recalled the look in his eyes as he’d handed her Hades’s reins.
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