by Sophia James
He was so bored with the game.
Supremely aware of the vixen on the chesterfield, he waited for her to make her move, supremely confident he already knew them all. Any second now, she would try to engage him in conversation. Flirt a little. Perhaps even push the boundaries of propriety to their very limits in the hope he might be daft enough to take the bait.
She wouldn’t be the first to try and ruin herself in order to marry him and, depressingly, she probably wouldn’t be the last. Dukes seemed to bring out the worst in some women. And thanks to his meddling mother’s unsubtle attempts at matchmaking—here in the sanctity of his own damn house—they had plenty of opportunities.
He flicked his suspicious gaze to the intruder. She didn’t look like his mother’s usual type of minion. Mama always sent him diminutive effervescent blondes with irritatingly tinkling laughs, even though blondes had always appealed to his brother Julius more than to him.
Not that his mother knew that.
Marcus had always been very careful about letting her know his taste ran towards brunettes in case she sent him irritatingly tinkling brunettes instead.
He blamed his eyes for his love of dark hair. Marcus had never been able to discern colours properly. What others called red or green looked much the same to him. He recognised yellow—vaguely—but it was so muted and insipid to his eyes it tended to blend into the background. But dark colours popped and dazzled against his odd canvas.
Surreptitiously, he watched her very fine pair of dark, almond-shaped eyes follow the words on the page in front of her and conceded perhaps she was reading while she awaited the right moment. But when one minute ticked by, and then five, the waiting started to drive him mad and much to his chagrin, she began to intrigue him.
‘It is rude to stare.’ She didn’t even bother to lift those fine eyes from the book as she told him off. ‘And most disconcerting.’
‘My apologies.’
Why was he apologising? This was his house. His library. She was pretending to read his damn book!
‘Are you not enjoying the entertainments?’ His mother always put together a punishingly packed schedule at Christmas. Everybody, bar him, always raved about it.
Her head lifted. Two beguiling dark brows edged together in consternation at the interruption before she realised what they were doing and ruthlessly ironed them flat in order to appear polite. It was an entirely different tactic from what he was used to and, all credit to her, it had captured his interest.
‘I was promised a walk...’
She seemed put out, but resigned. Wistful, even. Those lovely eyes wandered briefly to the window to gaze out before she dragged them back.
‘But, alas, charades won out and instead of spending a pleasant couple of hours wandering these beautiful grounds and gazing at the superior scenery, I was on the verge of being saddled with the sight of two dozen silly girls ferociously outshining one another in the vain hope they might be the lucky one to catch the eye of the Duke.’
She rolled her eyes as she said the word ‘Duke’, as if it were offensive, then grinned as if dukes in general were all a big joke.
‘Or his dashingly handsome and charming brother. So I did the sensible thing and escaped.’
‘Because you didn’t find Lord Julius dashingly handsome nor charming? I hear he is quite the catch.’
‘I am sure he is considered quite the catch in certain circles—but, alas, they are not the circles I move in, so I really could not care less about impressing either him or his illustrious elder brother. I hate these sort of society parties—all enforced and false gaiety, when really most people are simply determined to outdo everybody else.’
He lay down his quill, both misguidedly fascinated by and pragmatically cynical about her unique and original approach. She was either a very good actress indeed or, unbelievably, she really was blissfully oblivious of his identity.
‘And which circles do you move in, Miss...?’
Because he was certain they had never crossed paths before. He would have remembered. This minx had the sort of face and body any hot-blooded man would remember long after they had parted company.
‘Harkstead. Miss Eliza Harkstead.’
She smiled then, and it transformed her face from exceptionally pretty to breathtakingly beautiful, although not in the fashionable way. She was too dark. Her features too bold. Her intelligent eyes too animated and amused. The thick, rebellious tendrils of hair framing her face curled in their own way, rather than being curtailed by the conventional ringlets favoured by the masses nowadays. He could tell already those rebellious curls mirrored her personality.
Miss Harkstead was different. Alluringly different.
‘I am companion to Lady Violet Trumble.’
He instantly recalled Lady Trumble. She was a regular and raucous fixture in society and a frequent guest at his mother’s parties—but she had never come with this fascinating creature in tow.
‘Have you been her companion long, Miss Harkstead?’
‘Four months...give or take a week here and there. Although as you can see, I am not a particularly good one.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Using her index finger as a bookmark, she waved his father’s favourite, overused and well-loved copy of Don Quixote at him.
‘Because the purpose of a companion is to be present. Not to gleefully abandon her employer at the first available opportunity to pursue her lifelong love affair with books. Give me a book over a tedious house party or duke any day.’ She grinned as she said this. ‘Although, in my defence, I did check to see that Lady Trumble was occupied before I initiated my break for freedom—and, to be frank, she has no real need of a companion.’
‘Then why does she have one?’
‘I am still not altogether sure.’ She discarded the book and leaned forward, dropping her voice conspiratorially. ‘Other than the fact we are family and she feels sorry for me. Although I am not supposed to mention that here, so kindly keep it to yourself.’
‘Lady Trumble disowns you in public?’ How appalling.
‘No—Great-Aunt Violet doesn’t give two figs about my background. But my aunt Penelope does and as the original invitation came to her, and because we all travelled in her carriage, she made me promise not to report the connection.’
Now she really had him intrigued. ‘Why on earth would she do that?’
‘Because I hail from the shunned and scandalously impoverished side of the family. Although I am not supposed to mention that either so kindly keep that to yourself, too.’
He nodded solemnly, though he was vastly amused by the way she tossed about refreshing honesty like confetti. ‘Shunned and scandalously impoverished? How did that come about?’
‘My aristocratic mother fell head over heels for a lowly bookkeeper and rashly eloped with him within a week of meeting him. To Gretna Green, actually. It made all the newspapers—or so I am told—and caused quite the scandal in its day. My aunt Penelope—my mother’s dreadful snooty sister—has never got over it.’
‘Because your mother recklessly married a fortune-hunter?’
‘Not in the slightest.’ She seemed unoffended, as if the very suggestion was absurd. ‘Whilst I will admit the elopement was uncharacteristically reckless for him, Papa is a man of substance who cares little for material things. He also loves my mother to distraction and she him. They claim it was love at first sight—although I am not sure I believe all that nonsense—and when they were denied permission to marry they were forced to take matters into their own hands. Which did not go down well with my mother’s side of the family for obvious reasons. Her father wanted her to marry someone with a lofty title, not a lowly bookkeeper.’
She shrugged, unperturbed at the circumstances of her birth, and he admired her for that.
‘But thank goodness they did, else I wouldn’t
be here. And by “here” I mean here on this planet, rather than here at this tedious house party.’
‘We shall blame Lady Trumble for that travesty. Curse her kind heart for feeling sorry for you.’
She leant forward, those bewitching dark eyes dancing, and he found himself doing the same and enjoying it.
‘Between you and me, I suspect the real reason my great-aunt Violet insists on having me as her companion is purely because it irritates my aunt Penelope so very much.’
‘You don’t say...?’
‘Oh, I do.’ Amusement made her eyes sparkle in the most attractive way. ‘Having such a lowly mongrel as a niece is a frightful embarrassment to Aunt Penelope, and one which might prevent her vigorous social climbing.’
If she was trying to seduce him, confessing her lowly connections while simultaneously insulting his hospitality seemed an odd way of going about it. Although it was working. Against all his better judgement, Marcus was already thoroughly seduced.
‘Not that I am allowed to call her Aunt Penelope while I am here of course. Here I have to call her Lady Broadstairs, in case anyone learns of my shameful parentage and it somehow taints her. And, of course, she is of the firm opinion that my mere existence under his illustrious roof might put off the Duke...’
‘From what?’
‘From marrying my cousin Honoria, of course.’
She laughed at that. And it didn’t tinkle in the slightest. It was brash and loud and gloriously abandoned.
‘Aunt Penelope has quite set her mind to it, regardless of the fact poor Honoria is as dim as she is beautiful.’
‘Do you think Honoria stands a chance with...um... His Grace?’
‘You might know the answer to that better than I, sir.’ She flapped one elegant hand towards his ledger. ‘You work for him after all.’
‘I do...’
Was it wrong to lie when she was speaking so freely and would undoubtedly clam up the moment she realised who he was? Or, worse, begin to fawn and defer to him when he adored it that she didn’t.
‘As a bookkeeper, Mr...?’
‘Bookkeeping is one of my many duties here at Manningtree.’
‘More an estate manager, then?’
‘Yes...’ He experienced another pang of guilt. ‘Sort of...’
‘And what is he like?’
‘Well...’ How to describe himself without sounding like a braggart? ‘He’s a decent sort...by and large.’
She laughed as if she didn’t believe him. ‘A very diplomatic answer, sir. I am heartily impressed by it. You are a much better employee than I could ever aspire to be, Mr...?’
‘Why do you say that?’ He was not ready to tell her who he was, but he was curious to know what people really thought about him when they weren’t being crushingly well-behaved and polite. ‘Do you doubt he is capable of being fundamentally decent?’
‘Well...he is a duke.’
There it was again. That dismissive, heartily unimpressed roll of her eyes.
‘I am not entirely sure we can blame him for that any more than we can blame you for being scandalously impoverished, Miss Harkstead, can we? He was born to be one after all.’
‘Indeed. But like all men of his ilk, I suspect he is probably imbued with arrogance and perhaps prone to be a little pompous, as all dukes inevitably are.’
‘I take it you speak from a wealth of experience with the breed?’
‘Not with any dukes, specifically, but I have collided with more than a few earls and viscounts—not that I expect any of them to remember colliding with me. I am far too lowly for them to notice. Which is exactly the problem with titled men. They cannot help it. It is in the blood. And what isn’t is learned in the crib. Fed to them by their similarly entitled ancestors along with their milk until they believe they are better than everyone else.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying, that’s a rather sweeping generalisation to make about the Duke of Manningtree specifically, based on no evidence whatsoever. Especially when you have already admitted you haven’t yet met him.’
Although technically she had and was unlikely to be very happy about it once she found out.
‘Or any other duke, for that matter.’
‘You are quite correct. I haven’t met him. Yet already I have the evidence to corroborate my suspicions. Even in his absence the eminent Duke of Manningtree lords it over everyone else and probably does not even realise he is doing it.’
‘He does?’
This was news to him. He had never consciously lorded it over anyone in his entire life. He had neither the time nor the inclination and he abhorred all those that did.
‘In what way?’
‘For a start, there are close to fifty people in the drawing room eagerly awaiting him. They have been there two hours already and as far as I know, he hasn’t said hello to a single one of them. What is that if it isn’t lording?’
The way she said it made him feel a tad guilty for purposely avoiding them all.
‘Surely you have to concede your employer would never get away with such poor manners if he wasn’t a duke?’
‘I suppose that is a bit rude, now you come to mention it... Although, as I understand it, he is frightfully busy...’
His eyes drifted to his pocket watch again, his heart plummeting when it told him his time here was almost up. He’d promised his mother faithfully he would be there at three.
More binding and unbreakable still, he had made a solemn pledge to his brother he would relieve him from all the fawning of the determined husband-hunters at precisely three o’clock, too. Julius had done his allotted two hours of torture and now it was Marcus’s turn. It was the only way the pair of them could tolerate all the nonsense. Worse still, he’d now have to work by candlelight till the small hours to get the accounts done.
A very long, dull day of ducal duty stretched before him.
‘Too busy to say a quick how do you do? When they are all here expressly for him?’
‘He did not invite them. They are his mother’s guests. I am fairly certain he has little interest in any of them—your beautiful cousin Honoria included.’
Seeing as she was being brutally honest, he would be too.
‘Between you and me, the Duke knows this whole tedious affair is his mother’s ruse to thrust a bride upon him and he is merely rebelling by disappearing. It can be hard work, being a duke.’
She tilted her head and studied him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘You like him, don’t you?’
‘He is an easy fellow to like.’ Marcus shrugged, feeling oddly keen to defend himself from her indiscriminate and wildly incorrect assumptions. ‘I have never found him to be the least bit arrogant or pompous. If anything, he is decent and rather self-effacing, truth be told. Forward-thinking and egalitarian, actually. A model employer and a generous landlord. In fact, he prides himself on being so. He recognises the individual worth of all the many people who toil so diligently for the Manningtree estate because the place wouldn’t work without them.’
A sound piece of advice his beloved father had drilled into him from the crib.
‘The Duke judges the measure of a man—or a woman, for that matter—by the strength of their character and by their deeds rather than their titles. In fact, he is not the least bit obsessed with his rank.’
If he was, then his trusty and efficient bookkeeper would be here now, balancing the accounts, rather than enjoying a well-earned Christmas holiday with his family hundreds of miles away in Northumberland, and Marcus wouldn’t have to be working until goodness knew how late to balance the books in his stead. But, because he had been taught diligence by his father, and because he believed in fair play to the roots of his soul, the accounts needed to be settled so that the many suppliers to the estate were not out of pocket and the weekly wages still had to be paid. His loyal army
of people depended on him.
She blinked, then scoffed in disbelief. ‘He might think himself an egalitarian—and perhaps he is as far as his staff are concerned—but he certainly doesn’t practice what he preaches with those not in his employ. From the second we arrived we all knew exactly where we fitted in the pecking order.’
‘I doubt there is actually a pecking order—’
He found himself staring at the suddenly raised palm of her hand and realised he hadn’t been so ruthlessly cut off mid-flow by anyone—not even his mother or brother—since he had succeeded his father. Dukes were not interrupted.
‘Clearly you have not been apprised of the dining arrangements, then, for I can assure you they are all the proof any of us needs to thoroughly know our place.’
Of course he hadn’t been apprised of the dining arrangements! Any more than he had been apprised of any of the blasted arrangements. His mother had presided over all the arranging like Wellington at Waterloo, cloaked in Machiavellian secrecy, and now only deigned to tell him and his brother what was happening on the day, in case they fled screaming from the proceedings or, more likely, created a pressing engagement elsewhere well in advance.
‘I am not sure I follow, Miss Harkstead. Surely the Duke feeds all his guests equally?’
He’d seen the bills. Was still wading through them all. They were feasting on the best beef and salmon tonight, a veritable glut of it, and certainly not on humble pie.
‘He might feed us all the same food—but the way it is to be served is most definitely different. Those of us who are not deemed worthy enough to dine with the Duke have been relegated to take separate repasts in the Oriental Room every mealtime, where I am told one of his uncles is to host.’
That brought Marcus up short. And left a bad taste in his mouth. It also explained why his ever-present Uncle Horace was never present at dinner during one of his mother’s never-ending duke-snaring house parties.
Why had he never noticed that before? Or paid enough attention to ask why? He should have known that. Was heartily ashamed of himself that he didn’t. Had thought himself forward-thinking and egalitarian.
