Nicholas arched a black brow. “Poaching?” he guessed.
The gun swung around to cover him. “That’s right,” the young man said defiantly. “I’m not going to end up sentenced to years of hard labor, buried for the best years of my life in some deep, dark coal shaft, for takin’ game the bloody duke has no use for. Understand?”
“Perfectly,” Nicholas said. “Now, do you want my help or not?”
The boy nodded, his mouth setting mulishly. “Haven’t much choice, have I?”
“I guess not.” Nicholas dropped the stone in his hand and approached the young man. He bent down on one knee beside him as though to reach for the trap. An instant later he had torn the gun from the trapped boy’s grasp. He stood and checked to see if it was loaded. It was.
“Go ahead and shoot me,” the boy said bitterly. “I should’ve know better than to trust the likes of you.”
Nicholas laid the shotgun against a tree some distance away and approached the young man again. “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t suffer if you had a change of heart once you’re no longer hampered by the trap,” he said cynically. He had learned not to trust. Those lessons had stood him in good stead.
“Now,” he said as he bent once again to examine the young man’s leg. “Let’s see if we can get you out of this thing.”
Nicholas saw immediately why the malnourished boy hadn’t been able to free himself. The pressure on the jaws of the trap was immense. This trap hadn’t been meant for a small animal, it had been meant to catch a man.
“What kind of person puts a trap like this where a man can step into it?”
“The bloody Duke of Severn, that’s who,” the young man said caustically. “Doesn’t stand for poachin’ on what’s his.”
“Then you knew the risks when you came hunting on his land?” Nicholas asked.
“I had no choice. I’m not one of the rich ones as got food to feed their young’uns. My da died over the winter, and it’s up to me to feed my sisters and brothers.”
“You have to steal to live, is that it?”
The young man’s face was sullen. “And what if I do? You wouldn’t know what it’s like to go to bed hungry and know there’ll be no breakfast in the mornin’.”
“You might be surprised at what I know,” the duke said in a soft voice. “Scream if you like,” he said as he began to apply his strength to the jaws of the trap.
The boy did scream, and Nicholas was dripping with sweat by the time he had pressed the jaws flat and moved the trap away where it could do the boy no more harm.
“I’d send someone back for you, except I suspect you’d bleed to death before they got here. I’ll have to carry you back myself.” Nicholas took off his silk cravat and used it as a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding.
“Where?” the boy said, his eyes wide with fear. “Where are you takin’ me?”
“To the manor, of course.”
“No!” The young man shook his head, his body quivering with terror. “No, please! The bloody duke is there. He’ll send me away to gaol. My family will starve. Take me home. Please! Take me home!”
“I’m sorry, boy. You need a doctor’s care. You’ll be well taken care of at the manor.”
“But the bloody duke—”
“I’m the bloody duke!” Nicholas retorted in disgust. “And you’re coming back to the manor with me. So shut your mouth and stop complaining.”
The boy began to tremble all over, and Nicholas feared the young man would die of shock if he didn’t get some reassurance that he wasn’t going to be healed simply so he could be sentenced to hard labor God knew where.
“Look,” he said. “I have no intention of prosecuting you for poaching. In fact, I intend to offer you a job so you can support your family.”
He lifted the boy in his arms and began marching back toward where he had left his horse. The young man watched him with wide and wary eyes.
“If you’re the bloody—if you’re the duke, why’re you helpin’ me?”
“Because you’re hurt,” Nicholas answered simply.
“But I was robbin’ you,” the boy said.
“Your life of crime is at an end now that you’ll be working for me. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Douglas. Your Grace,” he added hastily. “Douglas Hepplewhite.”
“Well, Douglas, it’s nice to make your acquaintance.”
The boy managed a shaky grin. “Never thought I’d get this closely acquainted with a duke, Your Grace.”
“It appears the day has been full of surprises for both of us, Douglas.”
It took a bit of maneuvering for Nicholas to get both himself and Douglas on the English Thoroughbred he had ridden that morning, which spooked at the scent of blood. Nicholas would have given anything for his Western mount and saddle, both of which were better suited to dealing with this sort of emergency. They made the trip at a walk, since the least bit of movement caused the boy to whimper in agony.
When he arrived at Severn Manor, Nicholas sent one groom running for the doctor while he instructed another to hail the house, from which servants quickly poured to assist in helping Douglas from the horse.
“Carry him upstairs and put him in a guest bedroom,” Nicholas instructed.
“But, Your Grace—”
Nicholas stared down the dismayed butler who had quickly taken Douglas Hepplewhite’s measure and knew the ragged boy ought not to be crossing the front threshold of a duke’s home, let alone residing in one of the splendorous guest bedrooms upstairs.
“If you don’t care to work here any longer, Thompson, I’m sure we can find someone willing to take your place,” Nicholas said.
Thompson squared his shoulders. Nicholas’s ultimatum was the first imperiously dukelike thing he had ever said. He almost smiled with delight. “As you wish, Your Grace.” Thompson directed two underfootmen to haul the young man upstairs.
“Be careful with him,” Nicholas ordered.
“As though he were a newborn baby, Your Grace,” Thompson assured him.
It was at this point Daisy opened the door to the drawing room to find out what was causing the disturbance in the hall. “What in the world is going on here?” She gasped when she spied the blood on the tile floor, and her gaze flew in alarm to the young man being gently carried upstairs by two of the underfootmen. “Who is that?”
“One of your precious tenants, ma’am,” Nicholas said in a harsh voice. “The ones you supposedly care so much about.”
“He’s hurt,” Daisy said.
“Why, yes, he is,” Nicholas replied sarcastically.
“Why did you bring him here?”
“He was hurt on Severn land, ma’am.”
“But how? Who?”
“Who authorized mantraps on my land?” Nicholas demanded.
Daisy took one look at the accusing gray eyes staring down at her, and her temper flared. So now it was his land. “I know nothing about any mantraps.”
“I thought you knew everything that went on at Severn. After all, haven’t you been in charge here the past year?” Nicholas asked derisively.
Daisy realized their argument was being observed by the servants, every one of whom had friends and relatives working in houses throughout the neighborhood. “Perhaps it would be best if we retire to the library and discuss this matter privately.”
“By all means.” Nicholas gestured Daisy toward the library door. “You might want to pick up your tail before I step on it,” he said in a snide voice.
Daisy realized he was referring to the train on her dress. “It isn’t a tail, it’s a train, and the very latest fashion.” She let it drag.
“Only animals have tails,” he taunted.
“You would know, Your Grace, being one yourself!”
At that moment, Daisy heard the massive library door slam behind her with an ominous thunk.
Only then did she realize she had allowed herself to be manipulated into being alone with him again. Unfortunatel
y, as this morning’s incident had proven, being in open spaces hadn’t necessarily diminished the tension between them. She was going to have to learn how to keep the duke at a distance in any and every situation.
Daisy whirled and found Nicholas not a foot away, towering over her.
“Now, ma’am. I’d like an explanation.”
“If there are such things as mantraps on Severn land, I presume the gamekeeper, Mr. Poole, would know something about them.”
“Did he ask your permission to set them?”
“He did not.”
“Then he acted on his own?”
Daisy frowned. “Mr. Poole has been the gamekeeper at Severn for years. I suppose the order, if there was one, must have come from Tony. Or from Tony’s father, the old duke.”
Nicholas shook his head in disbelief. “Why? Can a few game birds be worth the cost of a man’s leg? Or his life?”
“Will the boy be all right?”
“I don’t know. His ankle was crushed by the trap. He may very well lose his foot. Did you know, Daisy, he was poaching to feed his family, his brothers and sisters. Where are these hungry folk at Severn? Why haven’t you pointed them out to me?”
“I didn’t think you cared,” she said in a quiet voice. “I thought your only concern was how quickly you could sell Severn and how much you could get for it.”
Stung, Nicholas retorted, “Since when have those at Severn gone hungry?”
“Wheat prices have been very low, Your Grace. There is more poverty now than there was before the depression in prices began. I’ve done what I can, and so has the church, but it isn’t possible to feed them all.”
“I want to finish what we started this morning,” Nicholas said. “I want to see Severn, all of it, the tenants who are making a living and those who are not.”
Daisy looked down at her hands, which were knotted before her. “Perhaps first we should discuss what happened this morning, Your Grace.”
Nicholas plowed all ten fingers through his hair and turned from Daisy to walk over to the window and stare out. “I owe you an apology, I presume.”
“You presume?” Daisy was hard-pressed to keep her voice level. “I’ve never in my life been manhandled in such a manner.”
Nicholas glanced at her over his shoulder. “Never in my life have I manhandled a woman like that,” he confessed. He turned to face her. “I don’t seem to have much self-control around you, Daisy. I wonder why that is.”
Daisy’s lip curled in a cynical smile. “Maybe no other woman has ever dared to contradict you.”
“Certainly no other woman has ever challenged me in quite the same way.” He paused and said, “Do you want to call off the wedding?”
Daisy raised her eyes to the duke’s and searched for the right answer to his question. His eyes were cold, arrogant, and aloof. There was nothing in his expression to encourage her to marry him. Obviously, he was leaving the choice entirely up to her. She lowered her eyes to avoid giving him the chance to discern what she was feeling. She was ashamed to admit—to herself or to him—that despite everything, she wanted to marry him.
Worst of all was the knowledge that she no longer considered marriage to the duke a sacrifice. She wanted from him what his kisses had promised. To feel like a woman in his arms. To experience, for the first time, the caresses of a man who found her sexually desirable. She wanted to lie naked beneath him and have him devour her with his eyes. And she wanted to return the favor.
It was scandalous.
Daisy clasped her hands together to hide her nervousness. “I see no reason why we should call off the wedding,” she said in a low voice.
“Good.”
Daisy’s head jerked up at the duke’s response. “You still want to marry me?”
“I still want you,” he said in a husky voice.
Daisy felt a flush of guilty pleasure. She knew that someday, somehow she would pay for wanting what no proper woman wanted. She decided to pay that toll when it was exacted and not worry about it now.
“The Reverend Mr. Golightly was here this morning to talk about the wedding. I told him we wanted a small ceremony.”
“That sounds fine to me,” the duke said.
“But I promised we would have a reception here at Severn Manor for everyone who wasn’t invited to the wedding.”
“I have no objection to that.”
Having once experienced Nicholas’s reaction to any mention of his past, she was hesitant to bring up the reverend’s other news. But she did. “Mr. Golightly received an unusual note from the Earl of Rotherham.”
“Oh?”
“The earl wanted him to make a list of everyone living in the parish when … at the time you left.”
“Ahhh.”
Daisy was relieved that Nicholas wasn’t angry, but he didn’t seem surprised, either. “Do you know why the earl would be seeking that information?”
“He’s doing it as a favor to me. I can see he was mistaken, however, in thinking Mr. Golightly would be discreet.”
“You wanted his inquiry to be made in secret? Why?”
Nicholas sighed. He crossed back to the window and looked out over Severn. Everything would have been so much simpler, he thought, if he had stayed in Texas. The ranch was doing fine. And he had made up his mind to retire from bounty hunting. He had been lured to England in the hope of finding a key to unlock the secrets of the past. He had begun to believe he was on a fool’s errand.
“If you must know, I’m looking for whoever it was that told my father I was a bastard,” he said in a quiet voice. “I want to know what evidence convinced my father that my mother was unfaithful to him.” Nicholas turned and faced Daisy. “Because, you see, as she lay dying, my mother told me that someone lied.” His lips curved in a bitter smile. “She claimed, poor woman, that I am my father’s son.”
“Oh.” Daisy sank into the nearest chair. “Oh, dear.”
Nicholas turned away from the stunned look on Daisy’s face and stared out the window. His throat felt swollen, and it hurt to swallow. He recalled the sound of his mother’s raspy voice as though it had just slithered over him.
“Why would someone lie to Lord Philip about something so important?” Daisy asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t a lie.”
“Then why would your mother claim otherwise as she lay dying?”
“I don’t know that, either.” He was aware suddenly of Daisy’s presence beside him. He hadn’t even been aware of her crossing the room. Which made him think maybe it was a good thing he was in England right now and not in Texas, where that sort of distraction might have gotten him killed.
She reached out a hand and laid it on his arm. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I don’t see how you can. You weren’t even born when it all happened.”
“But at some point you’ll have a list of people who were here, and you’ll want to meet them all, won’t you? I could host a party, the reception for our wedding would be perfect, don’t you think? It would give you a chance to speak to the most likely suspects.”
Nicholas sighed. “If someone was cool and calculating enough to pull off that sort of deception twenty-seven years ago, I can’t imagine him revealing himself to me at this point in time.”
“Maybe he made a mistake. Maybe he isn’t the only one who knows what he did. Maybe he bragged about it to someone,” Daisy said.
Nicholas turned to look at her. “I hadn’t thought of that. You may be right. All right, I’ll make sure you have the list of names when it’s available. We’ll invite everyone and see what comes out of the woodwork.”
“Would it make a difference?” Daisy asked. “I mean, if you really are the duke?” She flushed as she realized how that had sounded. “I mean, would you be more inclined to stay here if Severn is your birthright?”
Nicholas arched his brow in the way that reminded her so much of the old duke. “I won’t deny I have a lot of memories here. But it’s not w
here I belong. Not anymore.”
“Oh.” Daisy’s mind was already churning with ideas. There were many ways she could bring Nicholas’s past alive for him. There was the portrait gallery, for one. And the attic was full of toys the boys must have played with. And she had Tony’s diary. That might bring back some memories for Nicholas. The duke had spent eight summers at Severn Manor. Daisy was going to remind him of every one of them. Nicholas might think he didn’t belong here anymore. But she was determined to prove otherwise to him.
At last Daisy saw some hope that her marriage to the duke didn’t have to end in the spring. She would make him fall in love with Severn all over again. Of course, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if he fell in love with her, as well.
Not that she intended to lose her heart. That was quite another proposition. She knew better than to put herself at risk in such a way. There were too many rough edges to the duke. She was liable to find herself torn apart if she tried to broach his defenses.
“When do you want to visit the tenants?” Daisy asked.
“Let’s try again tomorrow,” Nicholas said. “Right now I need to go check on my newest employee.”
At Daisy’s questioning look he explained, “I hired the young man who was caught in the mantrap.”
“That was very kind of you, Nicholas.”
“It wasn’t kind,” he contradicted, “it was the smart thing to do. He’ll serve me better this way than if I send him off to jail and have to feed his brothers and sisters while he’s gone.”
Daisy frowned. “Can’t you admit you care?”
“I learned a long time ago that caring is for fools and idiots.”
Before Daisy could make an appropriate rejoinder, they were interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Colin came in without waiting for permission. “Well, Pa? What did he say?”
“He said you can visit.”
Colin gave a whoop of exultation that was so loud it startled Daisy.
“Excuse me, Daisy,” Colin said with a charming grin that was going to be as lethal as his father’s someday. “I just got some good news, and I had to celebrate.”
Daisy turned to the duke. “There’s obviously someone you care for, Your Grace,” she said archly, as she looked from father to son. And if there was one chink in his armor, there was bound to be a way to create another.
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