The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Linfield, Emma

  The was nothing obsequious in his response, rather he spoke with a sort of evenness to his tone that did not allow for argument.

  Owen was in no mood for pleasantries. His nostrils flared as he sucked in a massive breath before answering. “Did you or did you not send a group of workmen to fix the wall in the south field today?”

  “I did. I saw on our tour the other day the necessity of it. It seemed there were cattle grazing in the field beyond.” Jacob shrugged and picked up his quill again. “Was there anything else? I am quite busy. There seems to be some discrepancy regarding the number of cheeses listed as being sold in the last three years. I am wondering whether there are needed repairs to the dairy, to prevent such high loss. Is the cheese room secure?”

  “The cheese room.” Owen straightened with obvious effort. “Walls and cheeses. You come in here thinking that you can manage the estate as you would a ship, with high-handed orders, when you clearly have no idea how things are done here!”

  “Then perhaps you should take the time to teach me, rather than to leave me with a pile of musty books as the sole means of explanation as to the estate,” Jacob replied, unable to keep the frustration from his voice.

  Owen shoved a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “You could try asking. When you were told to leave the wall alone, what did the man say to you?”

  “To talk to you—”

  “Did you? Did you bother to come find me?” Owen threw up his hands. “Did you even think to ask where I was? No, of course not. My great and mighty brother had to prove his mettle by overriding my own orders, thinking he knew better.” He slammed his hands down on the desk again. “I will have you know that field was left open for a reason!”

  Jacob felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “It was?”

  “The field is fallow. We were allowing the cattle to graze over yonder that they might fertilize the field and so bring the soil back for planting next year. Do ye understand the first thing about animal husbandry or crop rotation?”

  For the life of him, he could not answer. He remembered reading something, while in school, in the Old Testament about letting a field lie fallow but he could not remember the details now. And that was ancient tradition. Old laws that were outdated in this modern age.

  “Of course you do not. Any more than you knew that I needed those men today to dig a channel before the next rain so that the chicken house is not flooded again.” Owen’s hands clenched into fists. “I canna get a single man of them to come and work that project, though I tell you for certain it shall rain tomorrow. Think about that when ye have no eggs for your breakfast!”

  With that, Owen rose and moved toward the door where he paused to look at his brother with open contempt. “As for your precious cheese, you might ask yourself how many cattle we had, and how much milk they were giving, before you think to rebuild the dairy. We had a spate of sickness that greatly reduced the herd. You will find less butter and cream in the entries as well, if you keep reading your precious ledgers.”

  Jacob jumped to his feet. “Why do you criticize when it is the teacher himself that is at fault? You take me for a tour of the estate and set me at these books and leave me alone here. How do you expect me to take command over Ravencliff when you give me no guidance at all?”

  Owen paused with his hand upon the door. “Why would it be necessary? Attend to your guests, Your Grace. Enjoy your grand ball. You have an overseer to the estate. Leave it at that. You have made it perfectly clear in the past that this was not your home, nor would it ever become so. There is no profit in spending time teaching a man who has no interest in staying.”

  “I am the Duke, and Ravencliff is my estate. Not yours,” Jacob said quietly. “I am here with every intention of staying here. It is what Father wanted.”

  “Father was a fool!” Owen reeled around to face him fully. “It was I who ran the estate for years as his health declined. “You left the family. You were not here!”

  “Custom dictates—” Jacob began.

  “Custom. But not law. A younger son might inherit.” Owen swore half under his breath. “There is no point in discussing the matter further. What is done is done. But I will not see you run this estate into the ground after everything I have put in place to make Ravencliff the largest estate in Northern Ireland. You will leave the running of it to me, or you will force me to take stronger measures.”

  With that Owen left, slamming the door behind him hard enough to cause the ornaments scattered about the room to rattle upon their shelves.

  Jacob stared at the closed door for a long time, feeling strangely hot and cold at the same time. For a moment he could not breathe, nor could he escape the look of absolute hatred and contempt in his brother’s eyes.

  When he moved, it was to the glass decanter upon the sideboard where he poured himself a strong drink with hands that trembled.

  It took several drinks before they stopped shaking altogether.

  Chapter 16

  The Duke would betray her. Of that she had no doubt.

  Alicia darted a quick glance behind her, half expecting to see pursuers quickly closing in on her. The message had come for her that morning, to meet her father here at sunset. Now, as the lengthening shadows crept across the lawn, she could not help but think how foolish this errand was, and what a great chance she was taking in coming out here so late.

  She had not seen the Duke since their discussion last night, when he had given her the list that crackled now in her pocket as she pressed her hand there. She supposed he was at dinner with the rest of his guests. Thankfully, those selfsame guests had given her the excuse she needed to get away. Having missed dinner to be of service to them, no one would expect to see her now.

  Though admittedly, Alicia was getting sore tired of missing her evening meal.

  Just this once. This last time. I will give Father the list and be done with it. I will tell him I cannot do more.

  In truth, she had hoped to avoid having this conversation altogether. She had wanted to give the list to the boy selling ducks this morning.

  She’d recognized the child as a favorite messenger of her father’s. Thankfully, she had been in the kitchen when he had appeared with his message to her, else she might have missed him completely. When she’d tried to press him to take the list, he’d informed her that his job had been to give her the message, not to take a reply in return. She supposed the child was scared to be caught carrying it.

  She sighed now as she rounded the bend in the gathering twilight. The ruins of the castle were dark and ominous against the sky. In another hour it would be true night. She hoped her father would arrive soon that she might give him the message and be off quickly, so she could return before it became too dark to see.

  In the rolling fog that drifted over the landscape, like gray ghosts haunting the twilit world, she could just make out the dark figure of a man seated upon the broken wall. He seemed to be watching the sunset through the trees.

  She started forward joyously, happy to have the errand so easily over and done. “Father, I am glad to see you are early. I have…”

  Alicia’s voice died away. The man seated on the wall was clearly not her father. In fact, the dark hair, the way in which he sat, seemed to imply someone much younger. Thinner. More like…

  The Duke.

  Alicia reeled back in surprise. “Your Grace…” She faltered, unsure what to say. To be caught here would be most unseemly, and would utterly destroy her reputation. To be caught here by her father would be ten times worse. “Your Grace…I am sorry to intrude upon your…quiet. Please excuse me.”

  She ducked in a deep curtsey and turned to go, praying that her father would be late. He would see the Duke and understand the situation. He would find another way to obtain the list from her. Perhaps the child could be induced to return and take the list. A pretty coin would do much to allay fears. The old miser would simply have to part with one for the sake of his precious list.


  Alicia did not get far. The Duke said something behind her, words that were too indistinct to hear properly.

  “Your Grace?” Alicia turned, trying to suppress her impatient sigh. “If you were looking for a report, I have not seen your brother.”

  “My brother…is an absolute…nitwit.” The Duke rose and raised something in his hand to the setting sun as though in salute. “May my father rot in blazes for what he has done to this family. I never…never…wanted this pile of rocks in the first place.”

  He reeled against the ruins of the castle, the glass decanter in his hand coming down hard upon the wall and smashing. He stared at the shards, his palm open before him, muttering a word that she was sure a fine lord had no business saying.

  “You seem to be drunk, Your Grace,” she said and threw up her hands for there was no way she could leave him here like this. “Let me look at that. You have cut yourself.”

  She started forward but he reeled away from her unsteadily, tripping on a rock and sitting down hard on the very wall he had initially abandoned.

  It seemed the Duke was not going to co-operate. Alicia glanced back the way she had come, hoping to see someone, perhaps one of his guests, that could take responsibility for the Duke. Someone, anyone other than her. But the trees closed around the path and to go back to the manor would be to leave him alone in the woods, which likewise seemed a bad idea.

  With nothing else to do for it, she stepped forward to take his hand, trying to study the gash upon his palm in the fading light. There did not seem to be glass in it when she probed with her fingers. He winced and pulled away.

  “Stop that,” she chided him as she would one of the neighborhood boys. “You must keep that clean until it can be bandaged properly.” She groped for a handkerchief in her pocket but it caught on the list, which came free with such a suddenness that it took her a moment to realize the list had tumbled to the ground when she had done so. She saw it now, gleaming brightly in the shadows.

  “Botheration!” She bound his hand quickly with it and was about to bend for the paper when she felt his fingers upon her arm. Startled, she looked up, finding them standing very close, far too intimately.

  “Stay a moment…” he said and she pushed against his arm. Thankfully, he let go immediately and she was able to leap out of reach.

  “Your Grace, we have had this discussion already. I am not…” She paused, struggling for the right words without having to resort to being crass. “I am a Lady and I will act as such.”

  There. That should settle it. But he seized upon the word and when he looked at her it was with an intensity that would have been unsettling had he been sober. “You have always…been too good to be in service. You have the delicate hands of one who should not work at all.”

  “’I have always’,” she mocked and shook her head. “You have known me for the entirety of three days. And you know very little of ladies. Even the finest ladies have their work to do, or do you have no knowledge of how a household of that size is taken care of?”

  His expression darkened. “That is too much the truth. I know nothing of manor houses or estates. I know the sea. I can tell you the story that can only be found in wind and wave. I have seen what lies in the depths, and have known the different winds in the Caribbean and the typhoons of the Far East. I have been all the way around the world, and I cannot determine which wall should be left and which to be fixed.”

  His shoulders slumped as his arms raised, so he might hold his head in his hands. “I have never failed at anything in my life, not without getting up and trying again until I have mastered it. But this…this seems to escape me.”

  “Three days,” she reminded him. “You have likewise been here three days. I suspect you need to give yourself time.” She stood beside him still, her hands firmly planted upon her hips as she considered the problem. Had he been sober she would have left him. But to abandon him drunk, with her father coming soon, would be to leave him vulnerable in the hands of one who would be an enemy.

  Not that he would hurt him. At least I do not think he would.

  But the Duke had humiliated her father in front of those whose opinion mattered most to him. Was there a chance that in retaliation he would arrange an ‘accident’ to befall the sodden Duke?

  She thought of the way her father had struck her last night. The way he had grabbed her arm. Her father was not a gentle man.

  “Let us get you home,” she said finally, thoroughly resigned to the task. “But we must hurry.”

  The problem, once the matter was decided, was to convince the Duke to go with her. He was sitting in the gathering dusk, morose and silent, not paying any attention to her at all. In exasperation she looked around, hoping that he had ridden up here. A horse might have been easier. She could have perhaps convinced him to mount.

  The shards of glass told her a different story. He had carried the decanter with him. Obviously, he had walked. She circled him warily. To touch a Duke was wildly inappropriate. To be here was inappropriate. Manners, it seemed, were a thing to be dispensed with out of necessity.

  “A good servant would take care of his Duke, I suppose,” she muttered somewhat facetiously. “So be it.” With that, she put her hand upon his arm and shook him a little. “I need you to come with me.”

  He never so much as looked at her. “Why?” he answered, his voice barely audible. “That I might play at being Lord and Master of the great estate and make an utter fool of myself? The very fact that I invited my men here has proven to me that I know nothing of what I am doing. An entire house party without planning? I can only imagine the work it must put you to.”

  “I have little to compare it with,” she reminded him, taking a firm grasp on his good hand and pulling until he came to his feet. “I am new here.”

  “I am likewise…as you put it…new here.” He staggered a little and looked around. “I seem to be walking. Am I walking?”

  “Indeed, Your Grace, you are walking. You are taking a fine evening stroll with the great Lady Alicia Price, late of Ballyroyal Estate.” She gave a half curtsey, as she drew him down the path, still holding her hand.

  Her foot trod on something that crackled underfoot. That paper! For a moment she hesitated and bent to retrieve it, only to hear a horse somewhere nearby.

  Her father!

  Alicia’s entire body went cold. For a moment she was frozen before dashing into action, pulling the Duke behind some trees, pressing him into the brush with her hand over his mouth to silence him when he protested.

  No more than a minute later a well-lathered horse came into the clearing, prancing and snorting, moving sideways on the path as it came past where they hid. Her father cursed every bit as eloquently as the Duke had earlier, but with earthier reference, as he looked about the clearing.

  “Alicia, gal, where be ye?”

  Alicia held her breath, feeling the warmth of the Duke beside her, feeling his hand upon her shoulder steadying her. Her hand fell away from his mouth, her fingertips still tingling from the impression of his lips upon them. Her entire body coursed with a subtle awareness of the man beside her as she waited for her father to give up and go home.

  Robert Price dismounted and stomped around the clearing, pausing at the wall. Had his sharp eyes noted the broken glass decanter? Surely he smelled the spilled whiskey, or had the smell already dissipated? He turned to go, his eyes falling on the same paper she’d stepped on only moments before. He cursed again as he bent to retrieve it.

  Let him be satisfied. Let him see that it is what he wanted and then go.

  Someone must have heard her silent prayer for her father unfolded the paper and glanced at it before tucking it in his waistcoat pocket. “Alicia?” he called the name again once before mounting. His expression was dour, unhappy that he had been disobeyed. For a moment she thought of leaving the Duke there, under the trees and running forward, to let her father known she had not disobeyed him after all.

  “Stay. It
is better this way.”

  The Duke whispered the words in her ear, his hand still holding hers, warm and sure and strong in the darkness. She nodded, waiting him out.

  Robert turned the horse in a slow circle, as though trying to find her in the shadows of the forest. Once he faced them, staring so long she wondered if he could see her through the branches after all, though she was fairly positive he could not. Finally, he gave the horse a savage kick, sending it back down the road at a gallop that risked both their necks.

  Alicia let out a breath she did not realize she was holding. “He is gone,” she said, somewhat unnecessarily.

  “I think it is safe to let go of my hand.”