When a Duchess Says I Do

by Grace Burrowes

  I am not your neighbor. “It was of no moment, Mr. Wentworth.” I frequently take the air in woods I don’t own and wave a pistol at ruffians. “I really must be going. Good day.”

  She gathered her skirts and would have moved off toward the river, but Mr. Wentworth’s hand on her arm stayed her.

  “I must insist, madam. Midday has arrived, and I neglected to break my fast. My cook will be wroth with me if I similarly disregard my luncheon. You did me a great service, and the least I can do is offer you some sustenance.”

  His invitation balanced a vague plea with a vaguer threat. Matilda did not believe the plea for one moment, no matter the sincerity in his blue eyes.

  She didn’t dare ignore the threat, however, not when he could have her arrested for breaking and entering. With that air of gravitas, he’d easily convince the magistrate that Matilda had been intent on poaching.

  Then too, his threat came with an offer of free food.

  By tonight, she’d be ten miles away, though she had hoped to winter at Brightwell. The property had belonged to an aging duke who’d died without sons. She and Papa had visited the duke years ago, making Brightwell a regular stop on their summer travels. His Grace would part with a painting in exchange for a manuscript or figurine, and Papa would come away richer for having imposed on ducal hospitality for a fortnight.

  In the past week, Brightwell’s gatehouse had been a sanctuary, though, of course, Matilda was trespassing. Another activity for which a lady’s education hadn’t prepared her.

  While Matilda sorted through options and mentally bemoaned a lack of criminal skills, Mr. Wentworth pretended to admire the autumn foliage. He was tall, brown-haired, and looked of a piece with the trees shedding the last remnants of their summer finery. Matilda put him at “indisputably mature.” Well north of thirty, still south of forty. He would age well and slowly, and most women would consider him handsome.

  Matilda considered him a serious problem.

  “The house is in that direction,” he said, gesturing away from the river. “The day is cold enough to justify a toddy, though I’m also in the mood for beef and barley soup. My tastes are not refined, which doubtless drives Cook to despair.”

  Oh, ye winged seraphs. A hot, spicy, restorative dose of spirits, a steaming bowl of beef stew…Matilda’s feet started moving without her giving them permission to do so. She hadn’t had fresh bread in weeks, hadn’t had butter since losing her post at the inn.

  “I cannot stay long, Mr. Wentworth.”

  “All the ladies say that, which is a polite way to remind me that I’m poor company. I set a humble table, my conversation is dull, and my favorite society is that of long-dead philosophers. You may limit yourself to two bites of ham and a single spoonful of compote, then be on your way, if you’re still awake. Ladies have been known to catch up on their slumber when assigned to be my dinner companion.”

  He was making a jest of himself, though Matilda found no humor in his remarks. Desperation did this—stole humor, rest, pleasure, all the blessings in life. Then came autumn, when pilfering by moonlight from neglected gardens was no longer possible and orchards were stripped of their fruit. Every ounce of Matilda’s energy was often spent piling up deadfall to burn at night.

  Her plan—take a job in service, save money, and eventually take passage from England—had turned out to be no plan at all.

  “I have bored you already,” Mr. Wentworth said. “I’d discuss the weather, but that strikes me as belaboring the obvious when in the out-of-doors.”

  “Tell me what brings you here from London.”

  “How can you tell I’ve come from London?”

  Oh…piffle. “You arrived last night from somewhere. Your attire—but for your hat—is exquisite. One assumes your clothing came from London even if you did not.”

  She had all but admitted that she recognized Bond Street tailoring—woefully foolish of her.

  “I originally hail from Yorkshire,” he said. “Several years ago I moved to London to be with family, and until last month I considered London my home.”

  They emerged from the trees into the park that stretched from Brightwell’s back terraces. The formal gardens were a wreck, separated by overgrown hedges and punctuated with toppled statuary and cracked urns. For several mornings past, Matilda had found peace behind these hedges.

  “A metaphor of some sort,” Mr. Wentworth said, surveying his gardens.

  Despite the sunshine, the scene was melancholy. Dead leaves carpeted overgrown beds, lichens encroached on the walls, and the scent of wood smoke hung in the air. Winter approached with the relentlessness of a funeral cortege.

  “Some would say these gardens are romantic,” Matilda replied. A lady’s attempt at conversation.

  “Some would be idiots. The cost alone…but one doesn’t discuss finances. I promised you a meal. This way.”

  He set a brisk pace down the gravel walk, no pretense of matching his steps to Matilda’s or offering an unneeded arm for her to lean on. She had no grasp of foul language. Mr. Wentworth, she concluded, had little gift for social dissembling.

  A fine quality in a man. She’d learned too late to appreciate it.

  He led her to a door that opened onto a wide stairway landing. A flight of steps descended into what Matilda knew to be the kitchens, cellars, and pantries; another flight led up to the floor that housed many of the public rooms—parlors, library, music room, gallery.

  Between the sun beaming through the tall windows, and the heat wafting up from the kitchens, the space was blessedly, wonderfully warm.

  “May I take your cloak?” Mr. Wentworth asked.

  Matilda did not want to part with her cloak. Her dress was decent enough—she’d traded away her Paris finery within a week of leaving home—but with every item of clothing she removed, she became easier to describe. A purple velvet cloak was simple to identify. Pair that with a gray wool dress, plain cuffs, half boots with frayed and knotted laces, and she became a specific woman, with specific people looking for her.

  Mr. Wentworth’s steady gaze suggested he knew all of that, and lying would be pointless. Matilda unfastened the frogs of her cloak.

  “One does wonder how Brightwell came to be yours,” she said. “The house has good bones, and the locals recall it as a lovely property.”

  “The locals who claim more than their threescore and ten years, perhaps. The estate was imposed on me. The dining room is this way.”

  An evasive answer, which cheered Matilda. A man with secrets was less of a threat to a woman with secrets. She followed Mr. Wentworth down a corridor free of dust and cobwebs, and equally devoid of art, furniture, or flowers.

  “The previous caretaker all but looted the place,” Mr. Wentworth said, ushering her into a small parlor. “The excuse of record is that assets were liquidated to pay expenses, but what expenses does an empty house incur? Fortunately, the thieves hadn’t grown bold enough to help themselves to larger items of furniture, and they were too ignorant to steal the best of the art.”

  What would Mr. Wentworth think of a woman who’d helped herself to apples, eggs, beans, and other overlooked produce?

  That question was rendered irrelevant by the scent of fresh bread, beef stew, and cloved ham. Hunger had made Matilda’s senses sharper and turned Mr. Wentworth’s “humble table” into a feast.

  “Ladies first,” he said, pouring water from an ewer by the hearth into a porcelain basin on a side table. Linen cloths had been arranged in a quarter-fan beside the basin, and for the first time in weeks, Matilda prepared to wash her hands in warm water.

  “I ought by rights to send you to a guest room for this ritual,” Mr. Wentworth said, “but my staff wasn’t expecting company.”

  While Matilda washed her hands and surreptitiously patted a warm, damp cloth against her cheeks and brow—bliss without limit—Mr. Wentworth went to the door and addressed somebody who remained in the corridor.

  Matilda’s host washed his hands, as a fo
otman set a second place, bowed, and withdrew. Mr. Wentworth had no sooner seated her than a maid bustled in carrying a quilted shawl lined with flannel.

  He took the garment from the maid and draped it around Matilda’s shoulders. Somebody had hung the shawl near a hearth, for the flannel was warm.

  She hadn’t eaten for three days. She hadn’t rested well for weeks. She hadn’t been truly comfortable in an eternity, and the sheer delight of a warmed shawl nearly had her in tears.

  “Let’s start with the soup, shall we?” Mr. Wentworth said, ladling Matilda a generous portion. He set the bowl before her, and for a moment, she wallowed in the sensation of steam wafting up to her chin. The scent was hearty, the taste…oh, the taste. Salty—salt was necessary for life—rich, aromatic, with a hint of some spice. Tarragon, perhaps, though pepper was well represented too.

  Matilda consumed her food slowly because she’d learned what came of gorging after a fast. Mr. Wentworth ate prodigious portions, though his manners were fastidious. The meal should have been awkward—a lady did not dine in a gentleman’s exclusive company, much less with a gentleman to whom she hadn’t been introduced.

  A lady also did not have to debate whether to shiver all night or waste another day’s energy collecting wood. She never viewed winter as a mortal enemy, never stared at some farmwife’s laundry while considering whether to commit larceny. Ladies were lucky creatures.

  “Another roll?” Mr. Wentworth asked, holding up a basket.

  “No, thank you.”

  When Mr. Wentworth went to the sideboard for a second helping of ham, Matilda secreted a pair of buttered rolls in her dress pocket. If she’d been told that each roll consumed meant spending a month in the underworld, she could not have given them up.

  She managed to purloin a thick slice of ham to go with the rolls, but forced herself to stop at that. Of the pear compote, she took only three bites—sweets were dangerous on a deprived stomach—but she had two cups of hot China black tea, perhaps the most fortifying aspect of the whole meal.

  She was contemplating a third cup when Mr. Wentworth rose and brought a plate of tea cakes to the table.

  “I have a sweet tooth,” he said, as if confessing a penchant for excessive wagering. “If you are similarly afflicted, take all you like now. The rest will not go to waste.”

  He moved around the end of the table, pausing by the door. Did his wrist pain him? He’d certainly eaten with dispatch, and had not relied on a footman to serve them. Many gentry maintained only a minimal staff, though Mr. Wentworth struck Matilda as something other than—more than?—gentry.

  He’d not asked her any more personal questions, which was fortunate. All Matilda had to offer him was a widow-in-difficulties story that he’d recognize as a hastily concocted fiction. He resumed his seat at the head of the table and poured himself another cup of tea. “I trust you enjoyed the meal?”

  “Very much. Your cook is to be commended.” And if this was his idea of humble fare, then what menu would he put forth for a dinner party?

  “And you are warm enough?”

  What was he up to? “I am quite comfortable, and I thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Wentworth, though I must be on my way. The meal—despite the irregular circumstances—was much appreciated.”

  And please God, would he seek the company of his dead philosophers rather than escort her from the property? Her belongings, meager though they were, were at the gatehouse, and she could not leave the area without retrieving them.

  She tried for a gracious smile, though doubtless, desperation shone from her eyes.

  Mr. Wentworth ran a finger around the rim of his wineglass. “The door to this dining parlor is locked, madam. No servant will intrude. You have the privacy of the confessional, more or less, and I suggest you use it to your advantage. My first footman has retrieved a haversack from the gatehouse containing a few effects such as a lady fallen on difficult times might possess. My best guess is that you intended to steal the poached rabbit from the snare, but I ruined your plans.”

  Oh.…Perdition. The key was in the lock—Mr. Wentworth hadn’t locked her in so much as he’d locked his staff out. The impropriety of that gesture was equaled only by the perceptiveness that had inspired it.

  Matilda could dash his wine into his eyes—a tavern maid had taught her that trick—and bolt, but her cloak was somewhere in the house, as were her belongings. Decamping without them would be mortal folly.

  She could fall to weeping and spin a tale, though Mr. Wentworth did not strike her as susceptible to tears.

  She could offer her rehearsed story and leaven it with a bit of truth. A pickpocket had explained to her that a little honesty made the mendacity more convincing. The child could not have been more than eight years old, but had had good health to show for his light fingers and lying.

  “I thought I could kill the rabbit before the poachers returned,” Matilda said. “I couldn’t do it. I stood in the trees for a good quarter hour, arguing with myself. Then you showed up in the shadows at the edge of the clearing.” The small recitation left a lump in her throat, not because holding a gun on armed men had been upsetting—she’d very nearly gloried in those moments, and that was upsetting—but because the rabbit had gone free.

  She’d been spared the terrible decision to kill the rabbit, and the little creature had gone free.

  Mr. Wentworth poured her a third, hot, lovely cup of tea. “A tender heart can be an endless burden. Do go on.”

  Chapter Two

  Duncan’s wrist throbbed, and such was the inconvenience of his injury that even lifting a teapot worsened the pain. More fool he, for using a sharp blade in the vicinity of a desperate creature—two desperate creatures. The lady had eaten with the measured focus of the newly starving, and her hands had trembled through her first and second cups of tea.

  “I might be able to shoot game roaming freely,” she said, “but to see that poor beast ensnared…and that was my fault, you see.”

  “You set the snare?”

  She dropped a small lump of sugar into her tea, the first he’d seen her sweeten her drink. “I disturbed the rabbit on my rambles and drove it into the snare.”

  Her afflictions included a conscience in addition to a tender heart, and yet, she’d stuffed a gun into the pocket of her cape and buttered rolls in the pockets of her dress. The part of Duncan that had delighted in the novelty and variety of the Continental capitals took notice of that.

  She was interesting, an anomalous element in an otherwise dreary landscape of responsibility and drudgery. Damn Cousin Quinn for his dubious generosity anyway.

  “Shall I ring for more tea?” Duncan asked.

  “No, thank you. I must be going.”

  “Madam, you must be staying. My footman’s mother’s knees are aching, incontrovertible proof that our first snow of the year will soon arrive. The temperature dropped even during the two hours I spent inspecting my home wood.”

  Two hours devoted to avoiding the home farm, the gardens, the dairy, the laundry, the tenants, the vicar, the vicar’s nosy wife…

  “Then the sooner I’m on my way, the better.” She cradled the teacup in her hands, as if she’d take the warmth rather than the sustenance with her.

  “That I cannot allow. You are a guest in my home and, I suspect, a damsel in distress. Permit me to impersonate a knight errant and set right what I can.”

  Every sensible knight knew that damsels in distress merited aid so that they might take their problems, drama, and difficulties elsewhere. Duncan did not want this woman to leave, though, which was very bad of him.

  She was an antidote to boredom, a distraction from the weight of resentment. When Quinn’s next letter arrived asking for a progress report, Duncan could reply that his home wood had become a hotbed of violence and intrigue, with armed felons and intrepid maidens lurking behind every tree.

  Though of course, that would bring dear Quinn charging up the drive, for the Wentworth family would not allow D
uncan to hoard drama for his own entertainment.

  Then too, the lady might not be a maiden, though that didn’t signify.

  “I am loath to impose,” she said, hunching over her teacup. “You have been most generous already.”

  She did not set aside her last cup of tea, rise, and curtsy, and Duncan knew why. That locked door, the blazing fire in the hearth, the evidence of a hearty midday meal, made this cozy dining parlor a haven from the cruelty of a harsh world. She longed for sanctuary, which yearning he would exploit shamelessly to ensure she didn’t take a precipitous leave of him.

  “I have merely provided a meal from stores that are more than ample. You, on the other hand, provided timely intervention at a delicate moment. I am in your debt, and Wentworths always repay their obligations.”

  Duncan had been about five seconds away from disabling the first poacher and disarming his mate, but a moral creature would need a morally sound reason to accept aid.

  “I would have done the same for anybody,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

  Duncan had been careful not to touch his guest, other than to drape the quilted shawl about her shoulders. He hadn’t offered his arm as they’d paraded through his ruin of a garden, hadn’t bowed over the lady’s hand, hadn’t helped her to remove her cloak.

  Now, he patted her wrist, which was alarmingly boney. “My life, while insignificant in the greater scheme, is not nothing. I could at this very moment be lying in that clearing, a knife in my ribs, blood pooling beneath me. My fate might have been a painful expiration from loss of blood, or the more protracted agony of succumbing to the elements. My assailants would never have been held accountable, and then I’d have had no choice but to truly haunt that forest.”

  Her hands cradling the teacup were too thin, the veins a blue tracery beneath pale skin. Her smile, though, was a study in warmth. Her whole face became illuminated, her gaze softened, her mouth curved to reveal straight white teeth. Her smile conveyed shared delight and a tantalizing hint of mischief.

  “You have a dramatic imagination, Mr. Wentworth.”