Tristan looked from one to the other in open incredulity, but Mr. Davies did not seem to notice. “Oh, The Wild Irish Rose is delightful. I’m no’ sure I can bear it until the next installment is released.” In his excitement, t’s began to drop from his otherwise proper speech. “I dinna suppose you know…?”
“Whether Lord Granville is the villain he seems? Even if I were so fortunate as to know the story’s outcome, I would not dare reveal it, sir. My sister would—” She hesitated. Cami was going to have her head, either way.
“Of course, of course.” Mr. Davies nodded, disappointed but resigned. “You may rest assured, Miss Burke,” he said, “that my son will do all in his power to find her and to set her mind at ease.”
“I would advise him to go on foot rather than risk a horse.” Tristan quickly reclaimed control over the conversation with that commanding tone of his. She doubted he ever offered mere advice. “And tell him to take the eastern path, through the wood. The main road appeared to be under water.”
“I’m not surprised to hear it, Your Grace. Some of Her Grace’s guests told quite a harrowing tale about the state of the roads. And that was well before last night’s rain.”
“Guests?” The echo of that single word hung on the air long after the steam of his breath dissipated.
“Aye,” said Mr. Davies, though the affirmation rose like a question, and his lips gave a nervous twitch. “She planned a grand welcome for you—and here I’ve gone and spoiled the surprise.”
“For which I can only be grateful, Mr. Davies. The surprise would be all hers, and not a pleasant one, were I to step into the drawing room looking like this.”
Mr. Davies dared to give a rusty laugh. “Aye, Your Grace. That it would.”
Despite his claim of gratitude, however, Tristan still looked vaguely unsettled by the other man’s revelation. He dipped his head once more, a sign Mr. Davies evidently read as dismissal, for that gentleman at last jumped into action.
“Very good.” He bowed sharply, nearly poking them both with the spines of his umbrella. “I’ll send Kevin out straightaway. Miss Burke is welcome to wait here for any news.” The enthusiastic glimmer in his eye foretold a few more questions about the plot of her sister’s novel if she accepted his invitation.
Without looking at her, Tristan offered Erica his arm. “I will not impose upon you, Mr. Davies. I made a promise to Miss Burke. She is my…responsibility.”
That hesitation. She felt certain he’d been about to say “my problem.”
Except she was neither his responsibility nor his problem. Not his in any sense.
She glanced toward Mr. Davies, but even if he wished to, he obviously believed he dared not contradict his employer. Why was Tristan so determined to take her to Hawesdale Chase? His behavior smacked of something more than simple hospitality.
Then an earlier question jostled its way to the forefront of her mind: Why had he stopped at the cottage to begin with? It was as if he didn’t want to go home alone. Or perhaps he didn’t want to go at all. What awaited him in that enormous, ornate mansion? A sister, he’d said. And a stepmother. Was that all? With five siblings, Erica hardly knew what solitude was.
Loneliness, however, was another matter entirely.
An unexpected—and no doubt unwarranted—ache of sympathy coiled within her, and she knew it would find its release in ill-advised words if she did not give it some other outlet. She had to move.
Pinned between Tristan’s outstretched arm and his horse, however, she had few alternatives. Suppressing a tremor that had nothing whatsoever to do with the icy rain, she lifted her hand and settled it on the sleeve of his greatcoat.
* * * *
When they arrived at the stable block, Tristan found it full of horses and the mud-spattered carriages belonging to his stepmother’s guests. Grooms stood in a knot near the back, and for a moment, no one broke away to take his horse. At last the huge hand of James, the head groom, caught a passing boy on the shoulder, nearly bringing him to his knees. “G’on wit’ ye, Dick.” The boy righted himself, tugged at his forelock, and scampered forward to take Lady Jane Grey’s reins.
A cold reception, no question, and though different from Mr. Davies’s strange obsequiousness—as a child, Tristan had played with the man’s son, for God’s sake—he could not help but wonder whether the behavior stemmed from the same source. Distrust. For a duke who ought never to have become one.
Fortunately, Major Laurens could fall back on the rank he had earned. He had years of experience in establishing his authority and maintaining proper order.
“James,” he barked to the head groom. “You’ll look after my horse.” Not waiting for an answer, he turned to Miss Burke, who stood beside him in the pungent warmth of the stable, breathing quickly. Her rapid stride for the last half-mile had given Tristan no excuse to check his own. “Come. We’ll go to the house,” he said, though he did not relish facing anyone in his present condition.
Her bare hand lay pale against the darker sleeve of his muddy greatcoat, highlighting the dirt under her nails. What a pair they made. What would his guests make of such a display?
“Are you displeased with your stepmother?” she asked, catching unexpectedly at the thread of his thoughts and withdrawing her hand from his arm.
“I am…” He reached for Davies’s word. “Surprised.”
Oh, how he despised surprises. And he was about to escort the living embodiment of one into his home.
If only he had not given in to the impulse—not sentiment, surely—to stop at the abandoned gardener’s cottage. But he had, and so had she, and he could not, in good conscience, have abandoned her there. Still, he might easily have avoided bringing her here. A man of sense would have accepted Davies’s offer to keep her. And he was nothing if not a man of sense.
But this morning, he had not acted like one. Perhaps a part of him had hoped, in a most ungentlemanly fashion, that her appearance would distract attention from his own. The better part of him, however, had begun to suspect that something interesting lay beneath Miss Burke’s rough exterior, like an unpolished gem…
His mind tossed aside the cliché. She had more in common with a challenging bit of code. The cultured voice, the educated mind, a well-made dress—if one overlooked the filth. Almost certainly a young lady of good breeding, despite her protests. So why did she resist the label so strenuously? And if he succeeded in cracking the code, would he uncover something dangerous after all?
Almost instinctively, he ushered her toward the servants’ entrance near the kitchen garden. As a boy he’d made frequent use of it on escapades not unlike this one.
Until sneaking past the kitchen had lost its appeal.
“Now,” he said as they moved quietly along the empty corridor, “we shall enlist the help of Mrs. Dean.”
The housekeeper was not, however, the first to greet them in the servants’ hall. A dark-haired girl, the very image of her father, peeked from a doorway, squealed “Tris!” and barreled toward them, throwing her arms around his waist, heedless of dirt or damp. “Is it really you?” Her voice was muffled against his coats. “It’s been weeks since your things arrived. I was afraid I’d—” She hiccupped around a sob. “I was afraid you’d never come.”
“Vivi.” He laid one hand on the back of her head and wrapped the other around her body, her shoulder blades sharp against his palm. Her slight figure shook and trembled against him.
His sister had entered the world when he’d been almost fifteen. The bond that had sprung up between them had surprised everyone. Most of all himself. On school holidays, he’d spent hours in the nursery simply watching her. When she’d grown old enough to toddle, she had gamely followed him everywhere, and he had never complained. The morning he had descended the stairs wearing his first scarlet uniform, she had beamed up at him through tears streaking down her cheeks. During the years f
ar from home, her ill-spelled, rambling letters had given him hope.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured, stroking her hair. Months had passed since the accident that had claimed Father and Percy, months in which the news had traveled over land and sea to reach him. He was surprised to find her grief so raw. Twenty-five years her senior, Percy had been all but a stranger to her. And if Father had sometimes been distant to Tristan, he had been largely indifferent to his only daughter.
Still, Vivi was young and had always been sensitive. He held her until she pushed away and looked up at him. A welter of emotions crossed her pinched, tearstained face. Grief. Guilt—over the secret of this ridiculous party, perhaps. But he was relieved to see she had not lost all her good humor, either. “Phew,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You smell like a wet sheep, Tris.”
“A wet sheep, eh?” He swept her up into his arms and spun her around before returning her to her feet. “And just how would you know? Have you been going about in the rain sniffing sheep?” She dissolved in a fit of giggles.
The severely clad figure of Mrs. Dean came sweeping down the corridor at the sound. “Hush, Lady Viviane. You’ll have only yourself to blame if Miss Chatham hears that screeching and finds you here.” The sight of him sent her rocking back on her heels. “Why, if it’s not Lord Tris—” He caught the flicker of a twinkle in her eyes. But before he could speak, she shuttered her expression and curtsied deeply. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”
His arms ached to sweep the housekeeper into a boisterous hug too. Propriety held him back. He thought of his cool reception from Davies and in the stable. Now, more than ever, it was time to behave like the son of a duke.
Correction: like the duke himself.
He stiffened and held his sister at arms’ length. “Lady Viviane, may I present Miss Burke, who was stranded in the storm.”
Erica dipped into a curtsy made ungainly by the weight of her sodden skirts. “I don’t know if I smell like a wet sheep, but I certainly feel like a drowned rat.”
Vivi’s uncertain stare shifted into a smile; inwardly, he winced. It was one thing for a girl of twelve to say such outrageous things…
“What’s this about hiding from your governess, Viv?” he demanded sternly. He was responsible now for his sister’s upbringing. He was her guardian. It was his job to prevent her from turning into a hoyden, and Miss Burke was hardly a suitable role model.
Vivi turned saucy, dark eyes on him. “I can’t help it if she’s—”
“Will I take Miss Burke to the south wing with the other guests, Your Grace?” The Mrs. Dean of old would never have interrupted her master. But he had the distinct impression she was doing it for Vivi, trying to turn the conversation away from his sister’s misbehavior.
And it worked, though not quite in the way she had intended.
“Oh, Mrs. Dean,” Vivi cried out, “now you’ve ruined the surprise.”
“Mr. Davies told me already, and even if he hadn’t, I’d have known something was afoot. The stable is full of strange horses,” he pointed out. “May I ask how I came to be hosting a house party?”
“It’s not a house party,” she insisted. “It was meant to be only dinner. We expected you sooner. But the storm came instead. Now the vicar and his wife are stuck here. Along with Sir Thomas and Lady Lydgate. And Captain Whitby too, though he wasn’t exactly invited.” Vivi’s voice dropped slightly from its usual exuberant pitch, as if sharing a secret. “I think he was simply passing through and wanted to get out of the rain.”
“David Whitby is my oldest friend. He doesn’t need an invitation.”
“Oh, and Miss Pilkington, of course,” Vivi added. “With her parents.”
“Miss Pilkington?” he repeated absently. His stepmother had no doubt felt obliged to include the clergyman and his wife. The Lydgates were near neighbors, old friends. But why on earth had the Pilkingtons been invited to celebrate his homecoming?
Percy had had an understanding with Caroline Pilkington, though no formal announcement of their betrothal had ever been made. Years had passed under the quiet assumption that his brother would eventually do the necessary. After all that time, Miss Pilkington must be teetering dangerously near the edge of the shelf. A pity she had been kept waiting so long with nothing to show for it.
“I expect you’ll want to get cleaned up before she sees you,” Vivi added, wrinkling her nose once more. “Or smells you.”
“Oh?” He was only half listening. Without waiting for further orders, Mrs. Dean had motioned to Miss Burke to follow her down the corridor. Good God, but he hoped the housekeeper would at least find her another dress to wear, and soon. Something clean. Something suitable.
Something that didn’t cling quite so distractingly to her limbs with every step she took.
He forced himself to focus his gaze on his sister. “And why is that?”
“Because I overheard Lord Easton Pilkington tell Mama he expects you to keep Percy’s promise to their daughter.”
Chapter 4
Mrs. Dean led Erica briskly down corridors and up staircases. The first impression of Hawesdale Chase was not an illusion. The place was vast. The housekeeper was saying something about the west wing, the dining room, a ballroom, but Erica hardly heard her. Her mind was still back in the servants’ hall.
Erica had two brothers and she loved them both. But she had never looked at either of them with the naked devotion she had seen in Lady Viviane’s eyes. Nor, in her estimation, was it wise to do so. Brothers were, when all else was stripped away, only men. And adoration gave men a dangerous degree of power.
“The family apartments are in the east wing,” Mrs. Dean was explaining when she dragged her attention back to the present. “You’ll be here in the south…with the other guests.” She paused and turned toward Erica. “You’ll be thinking the family doesn’t know what’s seemly in a time of mourning. It’s just—oh, dear.”
Mourning? Guilt needled Erica like a thorn. Of course. She should have realized. That explained Lady Viviane’s tears and black dress.
“It’s just the rain,” Erica supplied as her mind frantically tried to piece together the bits of conversation that had flown among Tristan, his sister, and the housekeeper. She had not considered that his father might have died quite recently.
“Aye, miss.” Mrs. Dean resumed walking, though her pace had slowed. “’Twas clarty then too.” Clarty? Erica’s expression must have betrayed her ignorance, for Mrs. Dean was quick to explain. “Muddy, messy. Rained like anything the day of the accident.”
“The…accident?” Erica struggled to make sense of it all, though she knew her tangled brain would never keep everything straight. Mourning etiquette. The floor plan of a ducal manor. Already details were skittering away. Who was Percy, who’d made some promise Tristan was expected to keep?
“The Duke of Raynham was killed in a carriage accident with his elder son, Lord Hawes. Oh, a terrible thing it was.” Mrs. Dean shook her head. “’Course, one must expect rain in the spring of the year.”
Erica’s thoughts sprang up like weeds in an unkempt garden, impossible to contain once they’d gone to seed… Seed. Springtime was the season for planting. But it was autumn now. The leaves were falling from the trees. Trees. Family trees.
Inwardly, she shook herself, trying to regain focus. An accident had claimed Tristan’s father and brother no more than a few months ago. He’d come into his title unexpectedly—and reluctantly, if the inheritance had come at the price of losing his father and brother.
“No wonder he was hesitant about returning home,” she murmured to herself.
But Mrs. Dean had heard. “He would have been here sooner, but he was abroad when the accident happened, miss,” the housekeeper said, her round notes of her broad northern accent suddenly clipped.
Erica’s thoughtless remark had snuffed Mrs. Dean’s loquaciousness as compl
etely as a gust of damp wind put out a candle. They passed along the corridor in silence until the housekeeper paused to open a door. “Here we be, miss,” she said.
Others might have noted the plush carpet, the velvet bed hangings, or the elegant furnishings. Erica’s eyes went first to the tall, pieced windows framing rugged hills, closer and more imposing than she had imagined. To the left and right, she could just see the two wings of the house as Mrs. Dean had described, east and west. Or was it west and east?
“The rooms overlooking the park are prettier, to my mind,” Mrs. Dean said, sounding apologetic, “but there isn’t one to be had, I’m afraid. The Pilkingtons took the last.”
“It’s—” Magnificent, she had been about to say.
But she bit off the word just in time. She was the daughter of a Dublin solicitor, a well-respected gentleman in that town. Her mother was the daughter of an earl—albeit disowned by him for the unforgiveable sin of falling in love with an Irishman. Erica had grown up in a prosperous and genteel household. If she was rarely mistaken for an elegant lady, neither was she a bumpkin.
She refused to be awestruck by a mere room.
“It will do very nicely,” she said to Mrs. Dean, who curtsied in acknowledgment. “Thank you.”
Left alone, Erica set out to examine her surroundings more thoroughly. She would not be overwhelmed by a bedchamber twice the size of her family’s drawing room.
Nor would she be impressed by the way things appeared in that chamber as if summoned by magic, conveyed by a bevy of servants before she could even think to ask for them: hot bathwater, hotter tea, even a pair of slippers that fitted her tolerably well.
Once bathed and dressed in a clean shift and clean stockings, she thrust her arms into the sleeves of an overlarge silk dressing gown and sat down before a mirror in an ornate frame. Her fingers traced the handle of a silver-backed brush.
No, she would not allow her opinion of the Duke of Raynham to be influenced in any way by these signs of his extraordinary wealth, for which she did not give a fig. Nor by the evidence of the authority he must wield, the very thought of which aroused her instinctual defiance. Since the moment they met, he’d been taking charge, giving orders, demanding deference.
The Duke's Suspicion (Rogues and Rebels) Page 4