On the rare occasions she felt that urge, she’d play a game she’d invented. She would take the person in slowly from head to toe, and imagine the labor of the many hands involved in dressing a grown, capable, and able-bodied adult. Usually by the time she got down to the lustrous leather-clad feet, she could scarcely come up with anything more than tepid disdain. The problem was it did not seem to be working with Arlo Kenworthy.
She stayed behind the counter, feeling reassured by the solid wooden structure that kept him at a distance, and finally revealed herself. “I’m Marena.”
He widened his eyes, probably surprised that the proprietor of the apothecary was a Black woman. Or maybe it was the way she’d said her name. She’d pronounced it in Spanish, surprising herself. She usually gave shop patrons the anglicized version, turning her name into a harsh sound for the benefit of British sensibilities. That, and it was a better alternative than subjecting herself to hearing her given name be butchered a dozen times a day.
Marena guarded her real name like a treasured secret. It was a fanciful combination of the words for sand and sea her mother had come up with, and felt like a tangible connection to the tropical beaches that shaped her childhood. She never uttered it for people she didn’t think would treat it kindly, but somehow for this stranger, she had.
After another moment of charged silence, Linley dipped his head, eyes still unnervingly focused on her face. “Marena.”
He came as close to a proper pronunciation as she’d heard from a Brit in the fifteen years since her family had touched upon the shores of Bristol. And no, that absolutely could not be a shiver of pleasure running down her spine. It was exhaustion and exasperation, because how dare he get it right on the first try?
“How may I help you?” she asked brusquely. In response, he offered her his hand, which was unexpectedly personable…and discomfiting. One thing she’d learned in the time since her store’s popularity had surged was that to London’s high society, she was the help. “Your Grace.”
He raised an eyebrow at the deference. He hadn’t revealed his title, but it wasn’t like he was an unknown. Arlo Kenworthy was notorious. The son of the accidental Duke of Linley. Fifteen years ago, Hubert Kenworthy had come into a duchy when a distant cousin died without an heir. Before his rise to the very top of the nobility, he’d been a career foreign office man who’d married an American woman—a Quaker, of all things—and, for the most part, avoided Britain as much as he possibly could. The man had been an unorthodox aristocrat in every way possible except when it came to his penchant for excess.
After his son Arlo took the reins of the estate ten years ago, the dukedom had flourished and was now one of the most prosperous in the Commonwealth. To the befuddlement of every landed aristocrat in England, Arlo had achieved this feat by working. He was a financier, a cunning investor, an advocate for workers’ rights, and a suffragist. He brazenly spoke out against archaic, redundant systems. He was thoroughly despised by most of his peers and he seemed to thrive because of it. His father’s passing had made him duke less than a year ago, and to the ton’s dismay—and morbid fascination—Arlo continued to be as irreverent as ever.
“Ms. Baine.” She jumped at the sharpness of his tone, not that she could blame him. She’d been gawking at the man like he was a showpiece at a museum.
“My apologies,” she said, flustered, her face hot from embarrassment. “The shop is closed for the day, but if you’d like to place an order, I can have a messenger see it to you once it’s ready.” She was proud of managing to sound mostly normal. “We would, of course, make sure that your privacy was guarded.”
His eyebrow rose slightly further up on his forehead at that, and she swore he was biting back a smile. “There seems to be such a furor for your products I am almost curious to try them.”
“I’d be happy to put your name on the list,” she informed him as she stepped around the counter, ruthlessly ignoring the fluttering in her chest. She almost brushed against him before reaching the door. She locked it before realizing she was now alone in the shop with a notorious nobleman.
“I require a bit more from you today, Miss Baine.” His voice was warm and rough, and his eyes on her made every piece of clothing on her body feel constraining. As she usually did at the end of the day, she had already taken her apron off and slipped the pins out of her hair. He was seeing her without her armor.
“My sister is about to return,” she blurted out untruthfully.
“Your sister? Lluvia Baine, the physician?” His mention of her sister’s name brought Marena’s back up.
“How do you know my sister?” She sounded defensive, but she was tired of whatever cat and mouse game the man was playing. The end of the day was no time for subterfuge.
“I don’t.” He let that sit for a breath, then a second one, and she was ready to scream in frustration by the time he opened his mouth again. “Know her. That is.”
“Your Grace, with the utmost respect…” After deciding there was no polite way to say it she muttered, “Get on with it.”
To Marena’s confusion, her rudeness seemed to elicit an amused glint in the man’s eyes. “I’m looking for your friend, the midwife Delfine Boncouer.” The words razed through her weariness, and instantly she was completely alert. She almost wished he’d come to see her about a prick potion. He cleared his throat again. This time, the sound was one of discomfort. “I need to find her.”
Judging from the set of his shoulders and the furrow on his brow, the Duke of Linley was not here for a social call with Delfine, and this could only mean trouble. “I’m not certain how I can help you. Delfine doesn’t live here.”
“I’m aware of that. She lives with Lluvia Baine, your sister, who has also disappeared. I’ve been looking for Delfine for almost a year, but she seems to have left London without a trace. Since Delfine has no family, I wondered if you had information on her whereabouts.”
“It’s ‘You-be-ah,’” she corrected sharply, irritated by the way he mispronounced her sister’s name. “It means rain.”
“Lluvia,” he repeated, pronouncing it perfectly, while Marena hastily tried to deduce what the man wanted.
A year ago, Delfine had to leave London in haste after the family of a young woman who’d come to her for treatment almost managed to have her thrown in gaol. Apparently, emboldened by the understanding and validation she found under Delfine’s care, the young woman had gone to the police and accused an older and powerful male family member of rape.
In response, the family sent her to an asylum for the insane and asked a judge to charge Delfine with manslaughter for performing an abortion, even though Delfine had only stepped in after the girl had miscarried. The whole thing was an unholy mess. If this man was here looking into their whereabouts and expecting Marena to betray her friend, he would be sorely disappointed.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you, Your Grace.”
Your Grace.
Arlo had heard those two particular words directed at the men in his family for a good portion of his life. First, at his father and, in the last year, at himself. He sometimes marveled at how, depending on who was proffering the deference, it could be infused with regard, respect, adulation, and on occasion, even anger or disdain. But he had never heard them uttered as an indictment on his person.
Despite Marena’s obvious unwillingness to cooperate, Arlo did feel marginally better knowing Delfine had people who stood up for her. Formidable people, at that. In the few minutes he’d had with her, he could see this woman was a firebrand. The look the herbalist was levelling at him was not merely defiant; it was menacing. She would do whatever was necessary to protect her friend and her sister.
He’d heard about the Baine sisters, of course. The daughters of a retired foreign officer who’d gone to the West Indies on a short assignment, only to come back from Hispaniola twenty years later with a wife and two daughters. Even before his death, Connor Baine had been a legend in the Exterior Office, a s
killed diplomat and respected botanist. He’d opened this apothecary upon his return, and his wife, who had been a root worker back in her homeland, was the one who had mixed the remedies and salves. Now his daughters ran the place—or more like the youngest one, Marena, did.
Despite his feigned ignorance, he’d also been be aware of her tinctures which could supposedly restore any man’s stamina to that of a young buck. What he did not know—what no one had mentioned—was that Marena Baine was the most beautiful woman in London. If he would’ve known, he would’ve prepared for her. For the mass of chocolate brown curls streaked with honey cascading over her shoulders. For those lips, which even twisted in an unhappy expression, were lush and inviting.
The more his eyes took in, the more he wanted to touch and taste. And this…had to stop. This was where his similarities to his father became dangerous. Arlo could get his head turned in a second and forget what he was about. This was not the time, and this was not the woman…no matter how beguiling she was.
With great effort, he lifted his eyes from her lips to brown eyes that were looking at him with a distinctly unfriendly expression. “I’m aware Delfine isn’t here, Miss Baine. I’d like some assistance discovering where she’s gone.” In the years since he’d been at the helm of the Linley estate, he had gained a reputation for his keen eye for investments. He’d become excellent at detecting what others could not. He would not get anything from Marena Baine that she was not willing to give. “And I see that you’re protective of your sister. It’s admirable and I respect it. But I assure you, I mean neither of them any harm.”
“Torres. My full name is Marena Baine-Torres,” she corrected him, her back still pressed to the door. His man had not told him they used their mother’s family name as well. That was the kind of detail that could’ve been useful. Now he had to make amends. This woman wasn’t just a pretty face; she was brazen. Unafraid. She knew her place in the world, and she was not about to let anyone, not even a duke, deny her what she was due.
“Miss Baine-Torres,” he conceded with a nod. “I assure you the business I have with Miss Boncoeur will be of interest to her. To her benefit, even.”
She narrowed those winsome brown eyes at him again before she spoke. “Forgive me for not taking your words at face value.”
With that, she pushed from the door of the shop and walked behind the counter. It wasn’t a big space, so she brushed past him, giving him a whiff of lemon and something spicier he couldn’t quite place. Then she gave him a view that had him wondering if it would have been a better idea to send his grandmother on this particular errand.
The woman’s bottom was…distracting. A perfect peach he desperately wanted to take a bite out of. Her dress was simple—cotton in light yellow and white stripes—but made by someone skilled. The fabric hugged every line and curve, highlighting her lush figure perfectly. No bustle, but still her waist flared out to hips and an arse that beckoned him.
He was tongue-tied. Like a damn schoolboy.
He, Arlo Kenworthy, once the most unflappable man in the House of Lords, struck speechless in the presence of an …herbalist. An herbalist who was beginning to look at him like she was going to chuck him out of her shop if he didn’t “get on with it.” He didn’t blame her for being tight-lipped; he knew why Delfine had left London. The private inquiry officer he’d hired to find his half-sister made short work of uncovering that. What he had not been able to find out for love or money was where she’d gone.
He breathed in and exhaled. This was the first time he would tell a stranger that his late father, the fourth Duke of Linley, had fathered a child with a Haitian woman while on a diplomatic two-year expedition to Hispaniola, and then had left her and the child there. His father, who had spent most of Arlo’s life lecturing him about maintaining a moral compass and who had called him to task hundreds of times for not upholding the respectability of the family name, had seemed to lose his own morality when it came time to face his responsibilities. Now it was up to Arlo to make this right.
“I’m looking for the whereabouts of Delfine Boncoeur because she’s my sister.” Arlo had been taught by his mother about the impact of words. He’d heeded that lesson always, mindful of what he said and how it could make people feel, but he’d rarely ever thought of the impact his own words had on him. His confession to this woman in this small space, redolent with warm fragrances, had his heart galloping in his chest.
“Your sister?” Disbelief tinged Marena’s voice, and he could not begrudge her that. She angled her head to one side, studying him. At least this part, the distrust and the scrutiny, he’d been ready for. That he had anticipated.
“My father named her in his will.” The expected onslaught of anger and confusion coursed through him at the thought of what his father had done. The frustration of never knowing why his father had hidden his sister from him, only to leave him with the responsibility of finding her. Why did he claim in death the child he’d forsaken in life? Arlo would never know. “I’d like to see her get what belongs to her.” He breathed through too much feeling, too much that he did not want to think about, and looked at Marena again. And her face soothed him in a way that would surely bring about another set of problems eventually.
“I’ve known Delfine my whole life and lived with her since I was twelve-years old,” she scoffed incredulously. “I would’ve certainly heard if she were the daughter of a duke.”
“Delfine may not know,” he explained. The private detective could not find out if Delfine was made aware of who her father was. “I only learned of her existence on my father’s death. She has a right to claim what is hers.”
The truth was more than that. Arlo wanted to know if, like him, Delfine yearned for a sibling. But that was not something he was ready to share. So he told Marena the other thing he’d come to say. “I want to help her with the situation that forced her to leave the city.” She barely blinked at his words. “I will put the family’s name and influence behind that help, if necessary.”
Marena’s tightly crossed arms suddenly fell to her sides, and her sharp eyes assessed him once again. A thaw, a minor one, but still it was there. “I have to think about what you’re saying,” she said. “I need to talk to my mother…” She paused, lifting a hand in the air, palm out. “Not that I know where Delfine is.”
He knew that was false, but he would take this minimal concession as a win.
“Do you have a calling card?” she asked, clearly flustered, which brought an enticing red tint to her cheeks.
“Here,” he said, plucking one from his breast pocket and handing it over.
She looked at it for a long moment, then placed it face down on the counter. “If I have anything else to say, I will send word, Your Grace.” With that, she lifted a hand in the direction of the shop’s door. “I will unlock it for you,” she offered, already moving toward him.
It seemed he’d been dismissed. He should be glad he’d gotten closer to finding out where his sister was, but he felt unsettled. Like he’d opened a door which could not be closed, and it all had to do with the woman who was presently ushering him out of her little shop.
Marena Baine-Torres was not what he’d expected. Arlo’s life rarely offered thrills these days, but as he stepped out of Baine’s Apothecary, he could barely keep himself from asking her when he would see her again.
Chapter Two
Marena had been to Mayfair, of course. The herbalist of Haymarket made house calls when high society patrons did not want their peers to suspect them of needing assistance with certain ailments. The women especially would send their carriages with footmen and ladies’ maids to fetch her.
She’d been in these homes dozens of times. Houses with names recognized by Londoners as if they were city landmarks. She had been in them, but she had never done so for a personal reason. The short distance between the end of Portland Place, where she lived, and Hyde Park might as well have been the Atlantic Ocean. Mayfair was not Marena’s world. But that w
ould not stop her from doing what she needed to.
After a long and stilted conversation the night before, her mother had confirmed that the late Duke of Linley was in fact Delfine’s father. He had not been the duke when he’d been in Haiti. He’d been the dashing Hubert Kenworthy, a colleague of Marena’s father. And after a short and furtive affair with Delfine’s mother, the thoughtless prick left her with child and sodded off back to England. Before her death, Delfine’s mother had told her the truth about who her father was, but it scarcely mattered since the man had never acknowledged her.
So now here Marena was, ready to be cordial and polite as was required of her. This man could be the key to bringing Delfine and Lluvia back home, and if that meant dealing with the likes of Arlo Kenworthy, she would do so. She stopped at the half-open gate leading up to the door of the Kenworthys’ townhouse. Then reminded herself it was actually called Linley House, and she was about to go see a duke. A vexingly handsome duke with eyes exactly the color of the Caribbean Sea, who had burst into her life twenty-four hours ago and was still lingering in her thoughts.
She stood back to take in at the stone monstrosity. It was on Park Lane, and if she turned, she’d get a view of the flurry of activity in Hyde Park. She’d looked the house up in the Cunningham’s guide. She knew the name of the architect who designed it, and even who built the stone gate. Having some piece of information that made her feel like she wasn’t completely in the dark put Marena at ease.
She supposed it was from those first years in London when everything and everyone felt like a mystery she would never unravel. When it seemed her accent and the color of her skin gave away her status as a foreigner before she got a chance to utter a syllable. She loathed feeling out of sorts, not knowing what to expect. And Arlo Kenworthy had her feeling extremely out of her depth.
Duke I’d Like to F… Page 33