He liked her smiles. Far too much.
Chapter Nine
“The duke’s missing.” Hildy slipped on the patch of polished wood in front of Mina’s office door in her haste to reach the threshold.
“Again?” Mina laid down her nib pen and tucked away the ledger book she’d been working on.
The man had a habit of wandering off. Usually out of doors, traversing the fields for hours, as if he couldn’t bear to remain inside Enderley’s walls.
“Vicar Pribble came to call, and when Emma went to the duke’s chambers, the man was gone.”
“The vicar’s not waiting, is he?” Mina silently prayed no one told the man they’d misplaced the Duke of Tremayne.
“Emma sent him on his way, but what shall we do about the duke?”
“I’ll find him. He has to be somewhere.” Never mind that there were fifty-eight rooms in which to hide. Based on the rain-drenched turn of the weather, she guessed he hadn’t ventured out of doors. “Let me have a look.”
His disappearance gave her an excuse to explore parts of the estate she usually had little cause to visit. After sticking her head into the conservatory and each bedchamber, sitting room, and drawing room, she headed for the library.
Instantly she knew she’d found him.
There was a new energy in the somber, high-ceilinged space. Stepping inside quietly, she stopped and listened for movement. From the far corner, behind an enormous table covered with maps, she heard the distinctive sound of someone flipping the page of a book.
Mina tiptoed over. A few inches from the table, she spotted two polished black boots sticking out.
In a room filled with overstuffed furniture, he’d chosen to sit on the floor?
She cleared her throat, and the duke immediately got to his feet, rising from behind the table. He wore the same expression she imagined on her own face when Mrs. Darley caught her filching fresh scones from the baking tray.
“Miss Thorne.” He glanced down at the book in his hands and cast the slim volume onto the table, as if it held no interest at all. “I was just—”
“Hiding?”
“Reading.”
“You chose a good spot.”
He cast her a hesitant gaze, as if assessing whether she intended to taunt.
“This room is always kept a bit too dark, if you ask me.” She hadn’t meant to tease him. She approved of anyone longing for peace and quiet and the solace of a book, though meeting the vicar was a duty he could only avoid for so long. “I always thought the maids should open the curtains a bit wider.”
“My father forbade it. He insisted his books’ leather must never fade.” His voice roughened whenever he spoke of the late duke.
“But the room was created to diminish that possibility. The window is there and the bookshelves—”
“—are all arranged so they don’t receive direct sunlight,” he said, completing her thought. “An ingenious design.”
“Yes.” In her enthusiasm to point out the window’s location, Mina stepped close to him. Close enough to notice how his clean scent contrasted with the mustiness of the room.
He gestured behind him. “When I was young, I’d dive beneath the table and read, squinting in the dim light, straining to see the words. But I don’t seem to fit underneath anymore.”
No, he wouldn’t. Every part of him was fashioned on a generous scale. The top of Mina’s head barely aligned with his chin.
Pointing toward the tall drape-covered window, she confessed, “I used to sit in the bay window, behind the curtain.”
“Whom were you hiding from?”
“My father, and yours, I suppose, though the old duke rarely visited the library.”
“Why were you hiding from your father?”
“Because of the kinds of books I liked to read. He didn’t approve of them.”
Nicholas Lyon’s dark brows twitched up on his forehead. “What exactly were you reading?”
“Nothing awful.” When Mina hesitated to say more, he approached and began a slow circular prowl around her. Mina turned rather than have him at her back.
“Come, confess it. Your father isn’t here to chastise you.” He scratched his chin and twisted his mouth thoughtfully. “Adventure stories by Sir Walter Scott?”
“No.”
“Something sentimental then. Dickens?”
Mina nodded reluctantly. “I do enjoy Mr. Dickens, but his stories can be rather—”
“Maudlin?”
“Exactly.”
“I know.” He stuck a finger in the air. “With your fondness for ballrooms, no doubt you admire Miss Austen’s novels.”
“Have you read Jane Austen?” The only copies in Enderley’s library were delicate little octavo editions that would disappear in the man’s enormous hands.
He shrugged, but Mina detected a slight flush of color in the regal cut of his cheeks. “My mother enjoyed her books.”
“My father approved of Miss Austen.” Mina gestured toward the wall where the author’s novels were shelved. “But you should tell me which book was your favorite.”
“Don’t try to put me off.” He took a step closer and Mina held her ground, even when she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. “I asked first.”
“Fine.” Mina let out a sigh, preparing herself for his reaction. “The Brothers Grimm, if you must know. I like fairy tales.”
“Of course.” He crossed his arms and smirked, somehow managing to look both simultaneously appealing and maddeningly smug. “Raised in a decrepit old castle, how could you help but love goblins and fairy-tale monsters?”
Now he was making fun of her. Mina hadn’t searched him out to discuss literature. “The vicar came to call, and you should prepare yourself because he’ll be back. Also, the inventories are complete. We can review them now, if you like.”
Mina shifted on her feet, took one step toward the door, eager to escape his inspection. She’d already shared too much. But the duke drew closer.
“Why did your father object to fairy tales?” He lowered his voice to a damnably enticing timbre. “They seem just the sort of thing a young girl should wish to read.”
Mina frowned. “Have you read the Brothers Grimm?”
“Probably. At some point.”
“The stories are quite violent and complex. Not childish and as simple as many imagine. People misunderstand fairy tales.”
“Like your father?”
“He thought they were impractical.” Mina stared at the toes of her boots. “He said if I wished to read, I should take up biographies or the books in his office.” She looked up to find the duke wearing an unexpectedly sympathetic expression. “Fanciful nonsense, he called them.”
“But you persisted in climbing into the window nook?” He approached the spot and reached up to yank back the heavy gray drapery. Bending, he placed one knee on the upholstery that had faded from crimson to a lighter rose after years in the sun.
It was strangely transfixing to watch him settle onto the spot where she’d reclined a thousand times. He glanced out the window, inspecting the view she’d studied during an endless march of lonely days. Then he reached down to where the cushion met the wall.
“Wait,” she said too late.
He turned back and smiled, lifting a handful of ribbons she’d kept on hand to mark her place in books. A far better use than tying the silly things in her hair. Her father urged her to be practical, and ribbons made entirely fitting bookmarks.
“Did any of these actually make their way onto your head?” he asked, his mouth curving in amusement.
“Not if I could help it.”
In two long strides, he came to face her toe to toe. He took her hand gently into his, and Mina forgot to breathe. Or rather, she breathed too much. A strange thrashing in her chest caused every breath to come quick and sharp.
He lifted her hand, and she had the wild notion that he meant to place a kiss against the back of her fingers. Instead, he turned her palm
up, held his closed fist out, and opened his hand to let the ribbons cascade down.
Every inch of satin and grosgrain was warm after being locked against his skin. She shoved the pile into the pocket of her skirt.
“You’re not what you seem, are you?” The smile he gave her was the first true and unambiguous expression of amusement she’d seen from him. The wonder of it made her breath bottle up in her throat.
“You’ve known me all of four days, Your Grace. I doubt you have a clear grasp of who I am or what I seem.”
But he did know. This man who’d come to Enderley to loathe every inch of it and tear down everything she’d been working to hold together. Even he could detect that she wasn’t the agreeable, ladylike young woman her father had taught her to be.
She tried stuffing her impulses and rogue yearnings down like the ribbons beside the cushion, but it had never worked.
“Believe it or not,” he said with shocking gentleness, “I’m a rather good judge of character.” He stepped back, settled his backside against the edge of the map table, and crossed his arms. “Comes in handy in my line of business. Gamblers always wear a mask of confidence, no matter what cards they hold. Assessing people and their motives is how I survived.”
“You’re the son of a duke. Was surviving truly such a challenge?” Mina knew men who fretted about where they would obtain their next meal and young women like Emma, who felt the burden to provide for their siblings.
“I never benefited from being my father’s son. It’s only ever been a curse.” He assessed her a moment, tipping his head to the side. “When I left Enderley, I had nothing. My mother and I . . .” The duke’s voice faded as if he’d lost the next words or was too distracted by his memories to speak of them. After a moment, he cleared his throat and went on, his voice raspier, thick with emotion. “We resided in France for a time. I came back to England after she died.”
France? Mina wanted to ask questions. So many questions. “The Enderley servants were told that the duchess was ailing in a sanatorium by the seaside.”
“My father was a liar.” The duke’s chest rose and fell quickly, and his eyes lit with anger. Anger and pain.
“But why did you go to France? And when?” Mina thought back to the day she’d seen him depart as a child. The duchess’s illness came on months later, along with her removal to the seaside. Or at least, that’s what they’d all been led to believe.
“That history is long past. Nearly two decades ago.” He looked away from her, crossed his arms, then took a breath to say more. “She died when I was sixteen, just two years after our arrival. She was ill, but he never sent her to a sanitarium. The man was deluded, but it sounds as though he spun lies to hide a truth he could not stomach. Or perhaps he just wished to protect the precious Tremayne dukedom.”
Mina’s throat ached for the pain she heard in his voice. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
The duke didn’t look at her or acknowledge her words, but he drew in a deep breath and fell momentarily silent.
“I returned to London soon after her death and built a new life for myself. My father’s name gained me nothing. Everything I earned, I worked for. Fought for.” He glanced out of the long library window before swinging his gaze back to hers. “Being a duke’s son is only a benefit when your father doesn’t resent your very existence.”
“He was cruel to you.” Even as a child, Mina had sensed the old man’s menace and she’d never forget how his shouts had reverberated through the house’s walls.
He scoffed. “He was vicious to everyone, wasn’t he?”
Mina noticed the muscles in his neck jump as he swallowed hard.
“My memories of this place are mostly nightmares, Miss Thorne.”
Mina bit her tongue, stifling all the questions whirling in her mind. She suspected he wouldn’t answer any of them and wasn’t certain she could bring herself to ask. The answers, the memories, only seemed to make him miserable.
She didn’t know all that had passed between him and his father, but she was beginning to understand why he hated returning to Enderley. Her memories of the house were colored by her father’s presence, his sensible nature and wise guidance. She struggled with his expectations, but he’d never been cruel.
When Mina got lost in her thoughts, the duke turned away and moved toward a bookcase near the windows. He ran his finger along the shelves, diligently searching for a book.
“Are you searching for your favorite?”
“No,” he mumbled. “Ah, here we are.” He pulled the old, well-worn copy of Grimm’s tales from the shelf. “Is this the one?”
“That’s the one.” She watched as he shuffled through the pages, letting them cascade against the pad of his thumb. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for ribbons.” He shot her one mischievous glance before replacing the book on its shelf. “I thought I might find notes you scribbled at the edges that would help me decipher your contradictory nature.”
She was contradictory? Was the man unaware of the dramatic sea changes in his own behavior?
“You needn’t scrunch your face like that, Miss Thorne.” He stepped closer, dipped his head, and gazed at her through needlessly thick lashes. “I meant no offense. I rather like that you’re a contradiction.”
“I am not.”
“You seem dutiful.” He leaned forward. “Loyal enough to remain in this hopeless place when it must bore you to the bone.” He inhaled sharply, tilted his head. “But deep down, you want more, don’t you? To have adventures like the characters in this book. To leave Enderley and see the world. To choose your own future.”
“You don’t know me or what I want, Your Grace.” Pain shot across her jaw when Mina bit down to keep from saying more. Words she’d regret.
“No.” His tone dipped low. “But I find that I’d very much like to.”
Mina didn’t know if the hoarse pitch of his voice was a figment of her own wayward imagination. She only knew that his words caused an odd tremor to ripple across her skin.
She felt everything more sharply—the blood rushing in her ears, the fluttering pulse in her neck. He was too close. The mad thought came that she should reach out and touch him.
To shock him. To prove she was as adventurous as she yearned to be.
His words struck deep because they were true. With ruthless accuracy, he’d somehow seen what she tried so hard to hide. Longings. Kernels of wanderlust. A desire to do more, see more, than her commitments at Enderley would ever allow.
In childhood, she’d fed her daydreams with fairy tales and fables. Now she simply kept busy and told herself that solving the estate’s problems and doing her duty as her father would have wished equaled contentment.
And then the new duke had arrived.
She couldn’t bear the smug tilt of his mouth, the way his height made her feel small, the way his too-perceptive gaze flitted from her eyes to her mouth and back again.
Never mind that the house she managed was his. Even the library that had become her haven on lonely days. None of that gave him the right to be so ridiculously unnerving.
Breath by slower breath, the frantic pace of her pulse settled. Her skin stopped tingling. Her mind stopped spinning with scandalous possibilities.
She rescued herself from the brink.
“You needn’t know me any better than you do, Your Grace.” She wielded the honorific as a shield, feeling a little thrill of satisfaction when he flinched every time she said the words. “Especially since you only intend to remain for a fortnight.”
“Three weeks. I’ve changed my mind.”
Her pulse kicked up again, hesitation tangling with the thrill of victory.
This was what she wanted. They needed him to stay. She was supposed to be convincing him of Enderley’s merits. Getting him to see the estate as she saw it—the romance of its long history, the way the house reflected the work of every servant who kept it going.
Instead, he saw her too clearly, sus
sing out truths she rarely even admitted to herself. Suddenly, keeping him at Enderley seemed as dangerous as allowing him to depart and never return again.
“Three weeks is a short time for what you wish to accomplish.” Mina tried for an even, businesslike manner. “I’ve left the inventories in your study. Should we get started going over them?” Turning away from him was easy enough. Walking toward the door was harder. The toe of her boot caught in her skirt, and she yanked to set herself free.
She heard the thud of footsteps, and then a large hand settled at her elbow.
His skin was warm, his touch surprisingly gentle. And tantalizing. That one point of heat made her want to lean closer. Instead, he stepped near. His boots brushed the hem of her skirt. A single step, a handful of inches, separated his body from hers.
Mina leaned away from the duke’s touch. She couldn’t let herself give in to what he made her feel and want, or waste time entertaining the fanciful view he had of her.
The only thing she needed from him was that he do his duty. Then she would continue doing her duty, and everyone at Enderley would benefit.
She’d put away her fairy tales and daydreams.
Nick knew he shouldn’t enjoy sparking a reaction in Mina Thorne quite so much. But he loved discovering that the lady wasn’t quite what she seemed.
Of course, she was right. He needed to focus on why he’d come.
But something in him couldn’t let the fragile truce between them break. He didn’t like the fresh wariness in her gaze.
“Have I upset you, Miss Thorne?” Nick worked his jaw, trying to find the words one used when making amends. “I was a bit of an arse. I often am.” He wasn’t a man used to curbing his urges. When one ruled a gambling empire, there was rarely a need to admit one’s faults. He sure as hell never asked for forgiveness.
“You are very confident in your assessment of others.”
“I am.”
“Though smug and insensitive.”
“I did acknowledge being an arse. That should encompass everything.”
A Duke Changes Everything Page 9