‘Even so, you must charge me a fair rent,’ she said, appearing slightly mollified.
‘And as to inviting you here to help my sister, she was quite determined to decorate the barn, and I knew it would be beyond her. I saw your decoration at the cottage yesterday, and knew you would be just the person to help her.’
‘Why is it so important to her?’
Eli laughed, glad to be on safer ground. ‘Susan, as you will already know if you’ve been in her company for above half an hour, is delightfully high-spirited. She has received several offers from eligible partis, but I have rejected them all on her behalf because she has her interest fixed on my friend, Lord Johnson.’
‘And he doesn’t return her regard.’ Athena wrinkled her brow. ‘I find that very hard to believe.’
‘Johnson is in a similar position to myself in that he’s unsure if he’s ready for matrimony.’
‘In your case, I understood it was more by way of a…shall we say, contractual arrangement between suitable partis.’
Eli harrumphed. ‘Well put, Athena.’
‘But if Lord Johnson has feelings for Lady Susan and is free to do as he pleases, then what—’
‘He needs a little encouragement, nothing more. He doesn’t know Susan that well, and might mistake her lively manner for flightiness. The reverse is actually true. Johnson is a very keen farmer, and—’
‘Ah, now I understand.’ Athena nodded and smiled. ‘If she can claim to have decorated the barn imaginatively to reflect the importance of the harvest, it might be enough to win his favour.’
‘She hasn’t admitted as much, but I believe that is her ulterior motive.’
Athena tilted her chin. ‘Then we must ensure she succeeds.’
‘So you will help her?’
‘For her sake, not yours. ‘Athena frowned at him. ‘Don’t imagine I’m that easily persuaded as a general rule.’
Eli shuddered and was rewarded when her lips twitched into a reluctant smile. ‘Believe me, I do not.’
‘I dislike being manipulated as though I’m incapable of thinking for myself.’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘Especially by dukes who ought to know better.’
‘I feel suitably chastised.’
‘As you should. But you still haven’t explained why you didn’t tell me who you were.’
Eli stopped walking and waved a hand towards the house. ‘I don’t expect you to believe this, or for my problems to excite your sympathy,’ he said. ‘I know just how fortunate I am to have all of this, but it’s also a heavy responsibility.’
He expected a lecture about not knowing when he was well off. Instead, she nodded. ‘Strange as it might seem, I can understand that.’
‘You can?’ Eli allowed his surprise to show. ‘Most people who heard me speak that way would accuse me of being spoiled and petulant. They would probably also offer to exchange places with me in a heartbeat.’
‘I am not most people.’
No, you’re not. But who are you, my beautiful, mysterious lady?
‘Do you know, I can’t remember a time when anyone spoke to me with anything other than deference, or downright obsequiousness. Everyone wants something from me, and it can become damned wearing, excuse the language.’
He paused beside the lake. Athena snatched her gaze from his face and looked out over the calm water, its surface gently rippled by a breeze, a few aquatic birds paddling lazily about. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘So peaceful. I love lakes.’
No, you’re lovely. ‘I thought you might enjoy it.’
‘I’m still very vexed with you, your grace, and won’t be fobbed off with pretty vistas. You have yet to offer me a satisfactory explanation for your peculiar behaviour.’
‘You treated me like a normal man, sweet Athena.’ He lowered his voice as he drowned in the depths of her fathomless eyes, falling ever more rapidly beneath her spell.
‘Anyone would have done the same,’ she replied, sounding distracted.
‘I disagree, and believe me, I am in the best position to know.’ Eli steered her towards a bench on the lake’s bank, waited until she had seated herself and arranged her skirts to her satisfaction, and then took the seat beside her. ‘You put my interests ahead of your own, even though it cost you time and money to do so, and expected nothing from me in return.’ He drilled her with a look. ‘Have you any idea just how unusual that is?’
‘I dare say it is, but it still doesn’t explain things.’
‘I’ve never slept anywhere except the softest of beds—’
‘Except when you go carousing with your friends,’ she said, clearly fighting a smile.
Eli was less circumspect, threw back his head and laughed. ‘Except then. I have never cleaned my own boots, prepared my own bath—’
‘Chopped logs?’
‘Precisely.’ He fixed her with a dazzling smile. ‘It was a liberating experience.’
‘You will have blisters.’
He lifted up his hands and showed her his palms. ‘You’re right about that.’
‘Ouch! I can mix you some herbs that will help with those. Speaking of which, how is your head?’
‘Doing remarkably well. My valet is astounded at how quickly it’s healing. He thinks I should be able to dispense with the bandage in another day or two.’
‘That will be for the best. The fresh air will aid your recovery.’ She offered him the ghost of a smile. ‘Besides, we can’t have your prospective brides put off by an ugly bandage.’
He scowled. ‘Nothing will put them off, believe me.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it will.’ She sounded slightly sorry for him, which surprised Eli, especially since he hadn’t spoken with the intention of engendering her sympathy. ‘Were you awake when I found you in the woods?’
He wanted desperately to lie, because he knew the truth would anger her, but couldn’t bring himself to be anything other than honest with her. ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘I woke almost immediately.’
She bristled with indignation. ‘And yet you allowed us to struggle…to almost break our backs…Why did you do that?’ She glared at him, her eyes flashing artic fire, her beautiful lips taut with anger.
Eli sent her a puerile grin. He simply couldn’t help himself. ‘I was about to regain my senses when I heard you say you would push me onto Byron by my backside. Well, I—’
‘Of all the outrageous, disrespectful…Do you have any idea how heavy you are? We could have strained ourselves.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t have permitted that to happen. And I did give you some help when you weren’t aware of it.’ He tried for a remorseful expression, but suspected he failed miserably. He was a duke, unaccustomed to showing remorse. It would take practice to perfect that expression. ‘Athena, I was being treated like a normal person. Besides, I was enjoying myself far too much to go back to being myself.’
‘You do realise that your enjoyment could have resulted in permanent damage to your thick head.’
‘You see. You’ve just proven my point. No one outside of my immediate family has the courage to accuse me of being thick-headed.’
She arched a delicate brow. ‘Even when you are?’
His lips twitched. ‘Even then.’
‘You really are impossibly arrogant,’ she said, a deeply capricious expression replacing her earlier condemnation. ‘But, I suppose, in your circumstances I might have behaved in a similar fashion.’
‘So I’m forgiven.’
‘I shall have to think about that.’
‘While you’re thinking, may I ask another huge favour of you?’
She looked surprised. ‘Yes, I suppose so. What is it?’
‘I have a brother, Harry—Lord Shelton. He has a weak chest, finds it difficult to draw enough breath into his lungs, and often can’t leave his chamber for days at a time. He’s particularly bad at the moment, and my mother is on the point of sending for the physician, who will bleed him.’
‘For an infection of the lung!�
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‘Precisely my reaction. I wondered, given you saved my life—’
‘To say nothing of your beauty.’
‘Are you teasing me, Mrs Defoe?’
‘I believe you deserved to be teased, Mr Franklin. I doubt many people dare to attempt that, either.’
‘You’re right. However, you now own me, you see—’
She widened her eyes. ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘You saved my life and so, according to ancient folklore, I am now your responsibility. This area is full of suspicious people. It wouldn’t do to upset them by ignoring superstitions that have been handed down through the generations.’
She sent him a quelling look. ‘Are you laughing at me?’
‘No, sweet Athena. I’m desperately trying to persuade you to help me.’
She looked away from him. ‘I have already said I will. I absolutely don’t own you, your grace, nor do I have any wish to, but I will see what I can do for your brother.’ She stood up. ‘Shall we go?’
Relief swept through Eli as he stood and offered her his arm again. ‘By all means.’
Chapter Eight
‘This is the quickest way.’ The duke led her back to the house by a different path. ‘By the way, you never did tell me where Mr Defoe is, or why he has abandoned you and your sisters in such an unlikely location.’
‘That is no concern of yours, your grace.’
‘Touché!’ A wicked smile flirted with his lips. ‘Still, you can’t take me to task for being curious. If you were mine,’ he added, lowering his voice to a seductive purr, ‘I would not leave you unattended for five minutes.’
‘If I was yours, we wouldn’t see anything of one another.’
He blinked. ‘Whatever do you mean by that?’
‘Do not dukes and duchesses lead separate lives?’
‘That,’ he replied, with a smile, ‘would depend entirely upon the duke’s choice of a duchess.’
‘I definitely should have left you to bleed to death,’ she muttered, averting her face so he couldn’t see her blush.
The duke chuckled but had the good sense to fall silent.
Although the grounds were beautiful, Athena still felt too dazed to fully appreciate them. Was it shock that still afflicted her, or could her light-headedness be attributed to the close proximity of a devastatingly attractive duke who seemed determined to make her think well of him? Perhaps he had only just realised how close he had come to death and felt obliged to her. That was a natural enough reaction, she supposed, but not one she would have expected from an aristocrat accustomed to having an army of servants dancing to the beat of his particular drum.
There again, he seemed genuinely fond of his sick brother. A shadow had passed across his countenance when he spoke of his illness, and it was apparent just how frustrated he had become with traditional medicine. Hardly surprising if the physician’s only answer was to bleed the poor man, Athena thought in exasperation.
She was touched by the duke’s faith in her ability to help Lord Shelton. Faith or desperation? Either way, she would do her very best for him, even if it did make her more visible than she would like. Athena had made an art form out of being a wraith. She also had a gift for healing and owed it to those in need to lend them her aid, provided no one attempted to interfere or brand her as a witch. That had happened before, when her methods triumphed over the conventional, because people could be so narrow-minded.
The duke didn’t say anything more to break the silence that had sprung up between them as they walked towards the house. He cast frequent glances in her direction, his expression now brooding and unreadable. She found it difficult to equate this commanding, elegant sophisticate to the shirtless rogue who had lain in Millie’s humble cot and then taken considerable pleasure in chopping logs outside their tumbledown cottage. How Millie would laugh when she learned the truth about their visitor. She had said from the start he wasn’t what he appeared to be and, not for the first time, her judgement had proven to be sound.
An air of expectancy hovered between herself and the duke, interfering with her tangled reflections. He was aware of it, too. She could tell by the manner in which he frequently glanced at her face, casting her long considering looks as though he didn’t quite know what to make of the charged atmosphere, either. His beauty, his sheer animal magnetism, stole her breath away, filling her body with forbidden desires. The situation didn’t please her one jot.
Why, oh why, had he come into her life? She needed no such complications, even if she was secretly grateful for his intervention in her affairs. She did not share his view that she would have sold all of her lace, or for such a good price, had it not been for his seal of approval. She believed him when he said he didn’t know Whispers’ Hollow had been let, and that he wouldn’t allow anyone to inhabit it in its current state. So for that, too, she had reason to be grateful.
But as for the rest—for being here at Winsdale Park to aid Lady Susan and Lord Shelton—was that really necessary? She persuaded herself that with regard to Lord Shelton it very likely was, and Lady Susan had been a convenient ruse to get her here. Presumably, Athena would be treating Lord Sheldon without the duchess’s knowledge. She was sure his mother was unaware of the part she had played in saving the duke’s life. If she was content to allow some butcher to bleed her son, further reducing his strength and causing him unnecessary distress, then she would hardly approve of Athena’s methods. That must be why they were entering the house by a side door.
Numerous gentlemen had been keen to claim Athena’s hand over the years, several of whom had been brought to her attention by her avaricious relations for reasons of their own. None had excited her passions, and she had rejected them all. Athena saw no reason to surrender her independence and place herself and her activities beneath the control of a man, unless she felt a deep-seated love and respect for him. None of her suitors had aroused those feelings. Glancing at the duke’s noble profile, and recalling her extreme reaction to him the previous day, she finally understood the exquisite nature of carnal desire. Unfortunately, the gentleman who had awakened that emotion within her was quite simply out of her league.
The duke was about to select a wife from amongst the most eligible, best-born ladies in England. The pathos in his tone when he explained it was his duty had dented Athena’s soft heart. Yes, he had money, power and all the privileges associated with his elevated rank but, unlike Athena, he wasn’t free to follow his own heart.
Recalling what was expected of him snapped Athena out of her momentary regret. What possible interest could the duke have in her, and why would she encourage such an interest, even if it did exist? She was a runaway lace-maker, definitely not duchess material. She had managed very well for the first four-and-twenty years of her life without a tyrannical male dictating her every move and had no wish to alter that state of affairs.
‘I wish I knew what you were thinking.’ The duke looked down at her through eyes that gleamed with unsettling intelligence, recalling Athena’s attention to him. ‘You look so very distant and remote.’
‘I can’t imagine why my thoughts would be of the slightest interest to your grace.’
‘Will you please stop your gracing me,’ he said, his tone edged with annoyance.
‘Then how would you have me address you?’
‘My name is Eli.’
She laughed. ‘You are a duke of the realm. I can’t possibly use your name.’
‘That’s precisely the point I was trying to make earlier. If we were still at Whispers’ Hollow, and you thought I was Mr Franklin, would you have objected to using my name then if I asked you to?’
‘I see what you mean.’ Athena mangled her lower lip between her teeth as she thought the matter through. ‘It would have been unconventional, but then so were the circumstances, so I suppose I wouldn’t have demurred.’
‘Then take pity on a humble duke who is about to marry a stranger when he would much rather not. Allow me to hear my
name spill from your lovely lips, at least when there’s no one around to overhear us.’
Lovely lips? ‘Let’s be clear on one thing. There is, your grace, absolutely nothing humble about you.’
He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘What did you just call me?’
‘Oh, very well, there is nothing humble about you, Eli.’ His mood appeared to have taken a capricious turn, and she felt herself being swept along by it. ‘There, does that satisfy you?’
‘Not nearly, sweet Athena,’ he replied softly, eyes burning dark and intense into her profile. ‘But it’s a start.’
‘Tell me more about Lord Shelton’s condition,’ she said quickly, searching for a change of subject. One that wouldn’t make her insides surge with intense longing when he fixed her with a look that heated the air between them, depriving her of the ability to think straight.
‘His weak chest has plagued him since his school days,’ the duke replied, frowning, all flirtation absent from his expression. Good. That was her intention, was it not? ‘The best doctors have attended him, but nothing they do gives him any lasting reprieve.’
‘Do you know what methods they have tried?’
‘Besides recommending sea air, or bleeding him, nothing that’s been effective.’
‘Well, just so long as you don’t expect me to work miracles.’
‘Where did you gain your knowledge of herbs?’
‘From my mother, who learned from her mother before her. Both were accused of being witches.’
‘Just as you have bewitched me.’
He spoke so quietly, she thought at first she must have misheard him. Then she saw the scorchingly intense longing in his eyes as he rested his gaze on her face for far longer than was necessary. Desire pooled deliciously deep within Athena’s core, and a small gasp of surprise slipped past her lips. She disciplined herself to ignore her arousal, aware just how dangerous it would be to engage in a flirtation with this experience roué. She straightened her spine and tore her gaze from his.
To Defy a Duke: Dangerous Dukes Vol 1 Page 9