by Tessa Dare
Sunlight gilded the wisps of hair framing her face. Her dark eyes were wide, sincere. Unafraid. So lovely. Her gaze met his and held it, never straying to his patchy hair or his twisted cheek.
The moment was glorious.
And wonderful.
And accompanied by soaring orchestral music.
And exceedingly, unforgivably imbecilic of him to allow. This sort of thing could not happen. This kind of closeness was too great of a risk.
Ash cleared his throat. “This, uh . . . This thing we’re doing is probably a bad idea.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Precautions.” Her hand slipped from his. “I’ll order a wardrobe tomorrow.”
He stepped away. “You’ll order a wardrobe later in the week. Tomorrow we’re taking an outing.”
“An outing? To where?”
“Swanlea. Your future house.” Before she could grow too excited, he held up a hand. “Not to stay. Just for the afternoon, so you can make a list of what needs to be done.”
They had an agreement, and for the good of them both, he needed to remember and adhere to it.
“Be ready tomorrow. We’ll leave at dawn.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Oh.”
As she alighted from the carriage, Emma’s lungs relaxed with the most silly, sentimental sigh. She even pressed both hands to her chest. “Oh, it’s lovely.”
Before her stood a perfect dream of a house. It featured a façade of solid brick, studded with enough windows to give the appearance of an open, friendly abode. A shallow pool in front of the house reflected the rows of gracious elms on either side. Unlike Ashbury House—designed to impress at best, and at worst, intimidate—Swanlea was not too grand, not too humble. It looked like a home.
“It’s on the small side,” the duke said. “Only twelve rooms.”
She slid a look at him. Only?
The coachman, Jonas, flicked the reins. The team pulled the carriage away.
“Where is he going?” she asked.
“To the market town to change horses. If we’re going to make the journey back this evening, we need a fresh team.” He opened the door with the key and waved her over the threshold. “The house has been closed for some time. Twenty years.”
“So I see.”
In fact, the place was nearly empty. Only a few furnishings remained—scattered chairs here and there, a few chests and cupboards. The wall coverings were peeled in places, and the plaster ceilings were cracked. It charmed her, all the same. Weathered floorboards creaked beneath her feet, telling stories of children chasing one another up and down the stairs, and exuberant hunting dogs jumping to greet their beloved masters. The kitchen worktable had been scored by generations upon generations of knives—some cleaving game birds, others trimming pastry. Sunlight streamed through the uncovered windows.
Emma had the notion that the house was happy to see her.
Delighted to make your acquaintance, too.
“Have a look around,” he said. “Make a list of the furnishings you’ll need purchased, colors for the decor, any changes or modernizations you’d want. There are a great many repairs to be undertaken. The gardens no doubt need attention. There’s an older couple who live on the property as groundskeepers. I’ll have them hire maids and laborers to begin the work.”
“Surely that’s not necessary. I adore the house as it is, and at most it would need a staff of two or three. Putting you to that needless expense would seem wasteful.”
“Think like a duchess, Emma. Cleaning, furnishing, and repairing the home will give employment to dozens of people, many of them in dire need. It’s not wasteful. It’s patronage.”
“Yes, of course.” She bit her lip. “I hadn’t seen it that way.”
Here was the man’s single indisputable virtue. He was always thinking of the people who depended on him. He would not have married Emma otherwise. It was for their good that he wanted to quickly produce an heir.
I warned you, she wanted to say. I warned you I wouldn’t make a proper duchess. You should have married a lady, not a seamstress with the thinnest claim to gentility.
But she was the duchess now. She’d undertaken the role, and she must do her best to fulfill it.
“Very well,” she said. “If it’s work they need, it’s work we shall give them.” She took out a notebook and licked the tip of her pencil. “I’ll start a list.”
The next few hours flew by as Emma traveled from room to room. She gave each chamber a purpose. Bedchamber, maid’s chamber, morning room. Nursery. She scribbled lists of furnishings, requests for new paint and wall coverings, all the while noting any crack or dent needing repair. Modernizing the baths and kitchen—that would keep more than a few men employed. She walked the grounds next, listing trees in want of pruning and noting patches of brush by the stream that were overgrown. The pond likely required stocking. The kitchen garden was in need of a complete replanting. And while she was dreaming up work . . . why not put in an orchard?
When she was finished, she looked about for her husband. He wasn’t in the house. Eventually she found him at the edge of the stream that ran through the property. He’d removed his topcoat and held it by two fingers, slung casually over his shoulder.
“There you are, bunnykins. I’ve been searching everywhere.” She slapped the notebook into his hand. “Enough to employ half of Oxfordshire, I think.”
He tucked the notebook into his waistcoat pocket without comment.
She turned her gaze to the arching branches above them. The stream spilled over a rocky patch, chattering and burbling in conversation with the birds. “This is an enchanting little spot, isn’t it?”
“Best fishing on any of the ducal properties. Across the way, there’s an excellent chestnut tree for climbing. It’s a good place to raise a boy.”
He clearly spoke from experience. The house had been closed twenty years, had he said? That made sense. It would have been shut up after his parents died. It was difficult to imagine him ever climbing chestnut trees and splashing about in a stream. But even the most imposing of men had once been a boy. With him divested of his coat, clad in only his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, she could almost see it.
They walked the short distance back to the house.
Emma didn’t see the carriage. “Evening’s coming on. Shouldn’t we be starting home?”
“Yes, we should be. Jonas still hasn’t returned.”
She tucked her skirts under her thighs and had a seat on the front step. “I suppose we’ll wait and enjoy the sunset.”
They waited. And waited.
The sun set.
Still no Jonas. Still no carriage.
It was full evening now, and fast fading to night.
“Where the devil is he? He could have broken a team of wild horses by now.”
A knot of suspicion formed in Emma’s stomach. “Oh, dear. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Don’t fret. He’s an experienced coachman. He won’t have encountered any serious difficulty.”
“That’s not what I mean. I have a bad feeling that Jonas won’t return tonight at all. Not because of an accident, but on purpose.”
“What possible purpose could that be?”
Emma propped one elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her hand. “It’s the servants. All of them. They have formed this silly notion that if they force us together, we’ll . . .”
“We’ll what?”
“Fall in love.”
“Fall in love?” Ash couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “That’s—”
“Absurd,” she finished. “Of course it is. I tried to tell them as much. It’s not going to happen, I said.”
“The very idea is—”
“Ridiculous. I know. But they seem determined to force the matter, one way or another. They’ve been concocting all manner of schemes. Telling me to trip and turn my ankle. Spill wine on my gown. They even contemplated locking us in the attic of Ashbury House. It seems they’ve s
ettled on abandoning us here for the night.”
How dare they. Ash didn’t care about his own comfort, but to leave Emma in an empty house overnight? Insupportable. If not criminal. After a moment of grim silence, he rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I am going to walk into the village and find that perfidious runagate.”
She leapt to her feet. “Oh, no, you won’t. You’re not leaving me here. It will be full nighttime before half an hour is out. I’m not staying here alone.”
He could hear the quaver of fear in her voice. She was right. It was too late to leave her here by herself.
“Don’t worry. I won’t leave you.” He put his hands on her arms and rubbed briskly. “Let’s go inside. I’ll make you a fire.”
He set aside his irritation. There was nothing more to be done about his traitorous house staff at the moment. Emma must be his concern for now. She was his wife, by Jupiter, and the least he could do was keep her safe and warm.
He walked into the house, draping his topcoat over the staircase banister in the entry. She followed with caution, clinging to his side. When his foot fell on a creaky floorboard, she jumped.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “Suddenly this house doesn’t seem as friendly as it did this afternoon.”
Just wait until night’s properly fallen, he thought.
There would be no moon tonight, and Swanlea was too isolated to catch any light from a neighbor’s lamps or hearth. They would be two fleas swimming in a bottle of ink.
“With any luck, there’ll be a tinderbox in the parlor.”
Ash used the last fading glimmer of twilight to search the area near the hearth. Yes, there was the box—and it still held a bit of crumbling moss and a flint. Thank God.
What he lacked, however, was wood.
There was no chance of locating an ax at this hour, let alone finding and hacking down a small tree. He would be just as likely to chop off his own hand. However, he’d promised Emma a fire, and he’d be damned if he’d let her down.
His gaze fell upon a solitary chair. He lifted it by two of its legs, reared back, and bashed it against the stone mantel. At the other end of the room, Emma jumped. The back of the chair dangled loose, but other than that, the thing remained intact. Curse his grandmother’s appreciation for fine craftsmanship.
He reared back for another swing. The second crack was enough to splinter one leg from the base. Another few good cracks, and he had a pile of flammable wood and a wicked pain shooting from his arm to his neck.
“How are you able to do that?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Swing with such force, despite the injured shoulder.”
He arranged the chair legs in the fireplace, then stuffed tinder in the cracks. “When I woke from fever, the surgeon told me I must stretch and lift the arm every day if I wanted to keep the use of it. Otherwise the scars will heal too tight and then there’s no moving it at all. It’s as though the joint rusts over.”
“So you play badminton.”
“Among other things.” He struck the flint.
“And it doesn’t pain you any longer?”
Hurts like hell every time.
“No,” he said.
Crouching, he blew steadily on the ember until it caught and crackled into a flame. The lacquer helped the bits of chair catch quickly.
“There.” He stood back, chest heaving with exertion. “I made you a fire. You may now admire my manliness.”
“I do, rather.”
Emma moved forward and held her hands out to warm them over the growing blaze. He had precisely three seconds to admire how her skin glowed in the firelight before thick smoke began to billow from the fireplace. They backed away, coughing into their sleeves.
Ash’s eyes burned. With a rather unliterary curse, he kicked at the small fire, breaking it apart until a few glowing coals were all that remained. For a minute or two, all they could do was cough. Eventually, the smoke dissipated.
“The flue must be clogged,” he said. “Bots on it.”
“Bots?”
“Horse worms.” To her expression of disgust, he replied, “You asked.”
“I suppose I did. The chimneys all need a thorough sweeping, I’d imagine. We’ll add it to the list. Tomorrow.”
No way to write it down tonight.
He paced the room, his frustration boiling over. “If you knew the servants were scheming, you should have told me. I would have driven any such notions out of their heads.”
“I tried to do just that. I told them this is only a marriage of convenience.”
He wiped soot from his face with his sleeve. “Apparently you weren’t convincing.”
“Well, maybe they wouldn’t be so hopeful about it if you weren’t such a miserable employer.”
“If that’s their problem, I can solve it for them. I’ll sack them all directly.”
“Don’t, please. You know we’d never find replacements.” She wrapped her arms about herself and shivered. “I don’t recall seeing any blankets in the house, did you?”
“None. We’ll have to—”
“No,” she interrupted. “We can’t. That’s exactly what they want.”
He was baffled. “What’s exactly what they want?”
“Huddling.”
“Huddling?”
“Yes, huddling. Together. For warmth. The two of us. That’s obviously their plan, and we should refuse to play into it.”
He bristled. “You don’t have to sound quite so disgusted by the idea.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not you I object to, of course. It’s the principle.”
“Principles won’t keep you warm tonight.” Ash made his way to the entry and found his coat, then returned to drape it over her shoulders. “There. That’s a start. Now . . . there was a settee around here somewhere.”
His shin found it. Ouch.
They settled on opposite ends of the uncomfortable horsehair bench. The thing had so many lumps, Ash expected there’d be divots in his arse tomorrow morning. His stomach rumbled in complaint. “If they were going to strand us here, they might have at least packed us some dinner.”
“Please don’t mention dinner,” she said weakly.
This was going to be a long, miserable night.
She jerked with surprise. “What was that noise?”
“What noise?”
“That scratching noise.” She shushed him. “Listen.”
He sat in silence, listening.
“There!” She smacked his shoulder. “There, did you hear it just now? And there again.”
Yes, he heard it. A light scraping noise that coincided with each slight breeze.
“Oh, that,” he said. “That’s just the Mad Duchess.”
“The Mad Duchess?”
“The resident ghost. Every country house has one.” He made his voice mysterious. “The story is that my great-grandfather took a wife. A bride of convenience, for the purposes of siring an heir. She was pretty enough, but he began to regret the match soon after the honeymoon.”
“Why?”
“A hundred reasons. She tore down the curtains. She conspired with the servants. She called him ridiculous names. Worst, she had a demon consort that assumed the form of a cat.”
“Oh, really.”
“Yes, really.”
“She sounds terrible.”
“Indeed. She was so much trouble, he locked her in a cupboard upstairs and kept her there. For years.”
“Years? That seems extreme.”
“Extreme was what she deserved. She’d driven him mad, and he meant to return the favor. Locked her up. Tossed in a crust or a dampened sponge from time to time. On cold nights, you can still hear her scratching and clawing to get out. Do you hear it?” He paused. “There it is. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.”
She swallowed audibly. “You are a cruel and horrid man, and I hope you get the bots.”
“If you doubt me, feel fr
ee to go upstairs and see for yourself.”
“No, thank you.”
All was silent for several minutes, during which Ash felt rather smug.
Then it was Ash’s turn to jerk in surprise. “What’s that noise?”
“What noise?”
“That . . . crinkling noise. It sounds like someone removing a paper wrapping.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Perhaps it’s the Mad Duchess.”
The crinkling sounds stopped. But other sounds took its place. Small, wet sounds. Like sucking and chewing.
“Are you eating?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
A few minutes of silence.
There it was again. That crinkling, followed by light smacking of lips. “You’re eating something, I know it.”
“I am not,” she said. At least, he thought that was what she intended to say. It came out more like, Ah mmf nah.
“You little dissembler. Share.”
“No.”
“Very well, I’ll leave you here.” He rose to his feet. “All alone. In the dark. With the noises.”
“Wait. All right, I’ll share.”
He sat down.
She touched his arm, felt his way down his shirtsleeve, and placed a small packet in his hand. “They’re just a few boiled sweets. I bought them when we stopped to water the horses.”
Ash unwrapped a morsel for himself. “The scratching sound is the branch of an oak tree that grows at the back of the house. It scrapes the windowsill of my old bedchamber. I climbed down that tree many a night to find mischief of one sort or another.” He popped the sweet into his mouth. “You’d better not give my heir that room.”
“I’ll give you that room.”
“I don’t need a room,” he said, speaking around his own mouthful of sweetness. “This is your house.”
“Well yes, but . . . You’ll come for visits, I assume.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
Her silence was astonished. “Will you not wish to see your child?”
God love her. She didn’t understand. It didn’t matter if Ash wished to see his child. The child would not wish to see him.