by Lydia Joyce
"As you see, I'm safe and sound," Victoria said, stopping in front of him. She stood in full sunlight. Its golden heat poured across her body like honey, and she drank it in preparation for the inevitable return to the gloom of the house.
"Which is a good thing, because dinner will be served any moment now." He extended his arm to her but did not step out of the house's shadow. "Shall we?"
Victoria hesitated. "Must we eat in your terrible dining room when it's so beautiful outside?" She knew the answer, but the words spoke themselves almost of their own volition. It wasn't the real question, though, and she saw in the darkening of the duke's face and the hardening of his chin that he knew it, too.
Raeburn waved his free hand irritably as if dismissing the silent question, his eyes growing clouded and his brow lowering. "It is my habit to eat indoors. As my guest, you will honor it." His words were so sharp and his manner so daunting that she did not risk more but took his arm in silence and allowed him to lead her back into the cool depths of the house.
The manservant—the footman, Victoria corrected herself, recognizing him from the carriage the day before—was waiting in the dining room as he had the first night, and he first held the chair for her and then hurried around the table to attend to his master.
"I had thought that footmen usually come in pairs," she said as a maid brought the first course into the room. If Byron was going to snap at her like he had, he deserved a little needling in return.
"They do, and Andrew here did, too, once." Raeburn frowned in the direction of the servant, but his displeasure seemed more directed at the situation than the man. "His father died, and his brother inherited the farm and left service some years ago. My great-uncle was not in a position to replace him."
"But surely you are," Victoria objected.
Raeburn scooped a generous bite of rabbit stew onto his spoon. "And I will. As soon as the Dowager House renovations are complete, I shall hire as many servants as I need." He cast a disparaging glance at the faded suit the man wore. "And I shall arrange for proper uniforms, as well."
"What a sight it will be then, I'm sure," Victoria said caustically, unappeased. "Imagine! A duke with a full staff in service."
"Indeed," he agreed, blandly enough that her peevish display made her feel a little foolish, and her ire faded into resignation.
They ate for a moment in silence before Raeburn spoke again. "And so what did you see on your very long walk?"
"What's left of the gardens, mostly. A great deal of local flora and fauna, including Mrs. Peasebody, if she qualifies."
The corner of his mouth quirked. "I believe she would."
Victoria started to ask about Annie, cast a sidelong look at the footman, and changed her mind. Instead, she said, "I saw a ruin, too, just beyond the manor grounds."
"Ah." Raeburn said. "That would be Rook Keep. At a time when everyone is building follies in their gardens, aren't I fortunate to have a real ruin so close?"
"Certainly. To whom did it belong?" Victoria picked at the mushy carrots and potatoes swimming in the stew.
Raeburn shrugged. "To various bailiffs and castellans. It never became a hereditary fief—too close to Raeburn Court, in my opinion. The old lords wanted to be certain of the continuing fidelity of its master."
"Rather cynical, but I can't say I blame them."
Raeburn raised his glass in ironic salute to his progenitors. "Indeed." He took another bite of soup. "Does it interest you?" he asked suddenly.
"The keep?" Victoria hesitated. "Yes, it does, to be frank." She smiled self-deprecatingly. "I've never been one to go off on the exploratory jaunts that so interest many young people."
"But you wished you were." It was not a question.
"At times, yes. When I'm feeling old and silly."
He raised an eyebrow. "Or young and reckless." His hand reached across the table to take hers and trace it briefly with one broad finger.
Victoria's flush had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the hungry glint in his eyes. "Or young and reckless."
There was another moment of silence, then Raeburn spoke again. "I shall try to make time to take you if the weather is suitable." He looked up from buttering the thick slab of bread the maid had brought out with the soup. "The riding habit I ordered for you ought to be finished by tomorrow morning."
His tone was too casual, and Victoria knew his offer was not given lightly. She sensed in it a kind of placation, a peace offering in return for his silence over the question she most wanted to ask. "I'd truly like that."
"Good," he said briskly, setting his fork on his empty plate. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. "Now I have to track down a ledger from the seventeenth century in the hopes of settling a dispute about land boundaries between two of my tenants." He quirked an eyebrow. "It should make for a delightful afternoon. If you will excuse me, your ladyship." He executed a curt bow and turned away.
"But of course," Victoria murmured to his back as the door swung shut behind him, but she couldn't suppress the twinge of disappointment at his abrupt departure. She sighed and stabbed at the remains of the rabbit stew with her spoon, taking out upon it her vague feelings of dissatisfaction.
* * *
Chapter Eleven
Byron was hot, dusty, tired, and in a foul mood. He'd hunted through every drawer and shelf of the Henry Suite study, the old steward's offices, and even the rooms that had served as the privy closets of the manor's lords in the days of the Lancastrians and Yorks. Nothing.
Now he was in the library, the last sensible place for the records to be, though God knew that few of his predecessors had been known for their sense. He had initially enlisted the help of Fane and a footman, but as the search progressed and continued to yield nothing, his temper grew increasingly shorter until he decided to dismiss them before he started venting his frustration on them.
It wasn't even as if the library were that large, he thought sourly, looking down the musty rows of books. But precious few of the volumes had markings of any kind on the spine, and even fewer were legible. Surrounded by priceless incunabula, all he wanted at that moment was for everything to disappear except the quarto he sought.
A soft footfall behind him interrupted his silent seething, and he shoved a copy of Temple of Flora back into its place with rather more force than necessary.
"I asked not to be disturbed," he growled without turning, clutching the tattered ends of his temper.
"You most certainly didn't ask me. Besides, I had no way of knowing you would be here. It's not as if you ever tell me anything." The musical, amused voice doused his smoldering anger as effectively as a bucket of ice water.
He turned around and changed his squat to a sit in the same movement, resting his sore back against the bookcase as he looked up at the slim figure smiling above him. "Good afternoon, Alecto. Come to torture me? I fear I need no heavy rocks to roll or liver-hungry eagles. I have the quest for the nonexistent records book to keep me well occupied."
Victoria raised one finely arched eyebrow, her face set in an expression of false gravity. "I came to find a book to read, if it please your grace. There isn't much else to do while I await suppertime, when I will once again be blessed by the honor of your company." She eyed his shirt, to which he'd stripped half an hour before. "I can see that you're not fit for mine right now, so I shall take myself off to some other corner of the house." She hesitated. "Unless, of course, you'd care for some assistance."
Byron snorted. "I've had—and sent away—my assistance." He balanced his elbows on his knees, allowing his arms to droop between them, and angled his head up toward hers. Her waspish mood seemed to have disappeared with dinner, replaced by playfulness that was perhaps on the caustic side but still refreshing after several hours in the company of his dour steward. And, more importantly, she'd done no more than glance at the tight-drawn curtains that blocked the light from all but one of the windows. No questions to avoid or to cloud the
air unspoken between them. "Unless you really would like to help—"
"If I didn't, I shouldn't have volunteered," Victoria returned. "I am hardly overflowing with martyrly sentiment."
With a grunt, Byron stood and brushed off his pants, smearing the marks of dust into longer streaks across the dark fabric. He glared at the shelves. "I am still looking for one of the manor's record books from the seventeenth century. It should be a quarto-sized ledger bound in brown leather, and the Raeburn crest will be on the frontispiece."
Victoria made a face as she scanned the shelves. "Why, then it should be no problem at all. A mere fourth of the books might fit that description."
"Exactly," Byron agreed sourly.
"Well," she said briskly, "I certainly won't go crawling about on the floor. I will take the high shelves, and you can take the low ones."
"Fair enough. I've already checked the high shelves in this bookcase, so you may start with that one." He motioned, and she stepped up to it and began pulling books out with admirable celerity.
Byron turned back to his own shelf, his mood lightened so inexplicably. It wasn't as if he expected her to entertain him, nor had she any secrets left with which to tease him.
He shook his head, pulling another likely looking book from the shelf. To think that all her complexities and contradictions could have a root in something so banal as a lover's death! Byron should have been disgusted at the simplicity and grossness of it, but he was not. Far from it. Instead, he was more fascinated than before.
And he suspected that Victoria was not telling the whole truth. He didn't think she was deliberately lying, though—he just doubted that she was being entirely honest with herself. Fear of ostracism might be a powerful impulse, but it alone could not keep a woman as strong-willed as Victoria under its control for as long as she claimed.
Victoria broke the silence without warning. "Did you know that the maid Annie is your great-uncle's daughter?"
Byron sat back on his heels with the suddenness of the question. "Why do you ask?" he returned, glancing over at her. Or at least, at her legs. She was halfway up the library ladder, frowning down at him with the back of her skirt pushed up and her ankles and lower calves exposed.
"Because I am insatiably curious. Is there any better reason?"
"None that's as believable." He shifted his position slightly to get a better view of her black-clad leg. He'd seen her naked two nights in a row now, but the titillation of unconscious exposure was still worth savoring.
He really should tell her, he supposed. And he would. Just not now. Something about that peek of leg brought back a rakish mischievousness that he had not felt in a very long time...
He continued, "But, to answer your question, yes, I was reasonably certain mat she was my great-uncle's. Mrs. Peasebody has dropped a few hints, or at least, what she probably considers hints, and Annie does look remarkably like portraits of my great-grandmother as a young girl."
"Oh," Victoria said. She turned back to her shelf. "Don't you ever think it queer?"
"That my great-uncle fathered a bastard?" Byron asked bluntly. "He was such a randy old goat I'm only surprised we aren't neck-deep in them."
She leaned forward for a book that was nearly out of her reach, and the back of her skirt bobbed up as the front was pressed against the ladder. "No. That isn't what I meant at all. I meant that if your great-uncle had married Annie's mother, you'd call her cousin, give her a fine dowry, and see that she had half a dozen seasons in London, but since he didn't, she's a chambermaid."
Byron blinked. "Well, does it strike you as queer?" . She glanced down at him. "Yes, I think it does."
"And what would you do, then? Send her to London anyhow, so she can be laughed at and snubbed by everyone? Make her miserable by trying to turn her into a lady?"
Victoria sighed. "Oh, I don't know. It just doesn't seem fair somehow."
"We could all give up our titles and inherited wealth," he pointed out. "There's nothing fair about my being a duke and… and Fane being a steward, if you look at it that way. I've done nothing to earn my birthright."
She made a rueful face. "I think I'm rather attached to my privilege. I'd make a remarkably poor washerwoman."
"There you have it, then. The system propagates itself." Byron slid another book back in its place. "You ought to join Lord Edgington's group of amateur philosophers for a week or two. That would tire you of circular social debates." He looked back up at her. "Honestly, if it makes you feel any better, Annie is walking out with Andrew the footman, as they say, and I've promised her a hundred pounds for her dowry and Andrew the position of porter when Silas dies. I know that allowing my staff to have romantic entanglements is unusual, but considering the circumstances, it seems best to permit it."
Victoria smiled, her expression uncharacteristically free of irony. "It oughtn't, I suppose, but it does. It still might not be fair, but it's better than any 'fair' I could think of." She climbed down the ladder and moved to the next bookcase, starting with the lowest shelf in her section.
Byron began to check the lower books in the case Victoria had just left, but his progress slowed as she climbed back on the ladder, every movement revealing tantalizing glimpses of ankle and leg. By the time she finished her shelves, he had fallen so far behind that it took a full minute of frantic work to catch up, and Victoria was already back on the ladder another shelf beyond. She frowned. "Don't think that I shall help you with your half if you dawdle."
"The thought never crossed my mind," he said blandly, eyeing the curve of her calf.
She snorted and turned back to her shelf, and Raeburn returned to alternately examining the books and her legs.
The easy silence was shattered by Victoria's sharp gasp. "Your grace!" she cried. "You are looking up my skirts!"
Byron looked up from her neat ankle to see her peering down at him, her face a warring mask of outrage and amusement. "Am I?"
She sniffed and settled on an expression of severity, slightly ruined by the hint of a smile that lurked at the corners of her mouth. She climbed down the ladder. "In any event, I've found something." She held the tome in front of her.
Byron stood and took it from her and flipped through the pages. "This is it." He smiled wryly. "I suppose I should be glad, but I would have been glad to find it an hour ago. Now I'm only relieved. And grateful for your help."
Victoria waved away the thanks. "You would have found it yourself in another quarter hour."
"Oh, but by then, my mood would have been irreparably foul."
Victoria grinned, a startlingly impish expression on her usually composed face. "Then I should thank you for allowing me to help, as I would have been the one to suffer from your ill humor. I merely rescued myself."
"Then I retract my thanks." He opened the quarto and grimaced at the faded pages. The dates were right; it had to be in here somewhere. "All that is left is sorting through the records to find the one I'm looking for."
"No problem at all, then."
He sighed. "When I was a boy, I thought that being a duke would be glamorous and exciting."
"We all have our delusions." She shrugged.
Byron shook his head. "There you go again—whenever I am starting to be convinced I am laboring under a unique burden, you point out the universality of the human condition and leave me feeling childish. Why do I allow such abuse?"
"Because you secretly enjoy it," Victoria returned promptly. "Because no one else dares speak to you that way. Don't worry; the novelty will fade, and you will be happy to send me on my way when our week is up."
Byron felt a strange twinge, akin to pain, at her words. It seemed like he had known Victoria an eternity, their three days stretching out to dwarf less significant years in his life, but the four days ahead of them seemed no longer than the space of a breath. He frowned, troubled at the dread he felt at the thought of the end of the week. However interesting, Victoria was a woman like any other.
Why should he care?
Surely it was not their nocturnal romps. He'd slept with the best whores in Christendom, and however enjoyable Victoria was in bed, he could objectively state that she hadn't half the sheer energy of most of them.
Nor was it that she was fantastically accomplished, at least to his knowledge. She hadn't sung or played or recited or drawn a thing. He knew nothing of her knowledge of French much less any more obscure area of study. No, she had used none of the typical womanly talents to captivate him. Not that she had shown any desire to—or had any reason.
And yet he was captivated, he realized with a start. He was captivated because—because she didn't try to seduce him with artificial flirtations or to impress him with her many talents. She was in herself seductive, and her very personality was as interesting as the most brilliant accomplishments.
And Byron enjoyed the personhood as much as the womanhood of her. He couldn't think of another female he had thought of in quite those terms; women had always been women, there for his entertainment and amusement and set aside when more serious matters came to hand.
But here he was, chatting amiably with Victoria about his work and accepting her help instead of sending her on her way with a pat on the head and a promise of later attention… and it felt right. Which was the most disturbing thing of all.
Byron realized that he had been staring mutely at Victoria for nearly a full minute, and she was beginning to frown at him in return, a faint crease of concern appearing between her eyebrows. He shook his head, trying to dispel his lingering sense of apprehension. "It just occurred to me"—and how was he going to finish that?—"that you look quite striking today."
Her concerned expression dissolved into a dry smile. "If it only now occurred to you, I can't look that striking."
Byron raised an eyebrow, relaxing back into the comfortable role of seducer. "Your allure is a subtle intimation, not a flagrant sensuality. It takes a quick mind to realize that it is affecting one."
"And if one never realized it, what would happen?" Her tone was tinged with humor, and he responded in kind.