But could she or any of them count on his new display of generosity when the man changed his mind like the flip of a coin?
One day burning portraits and a week later promising villagers repairs to their cottages.
Mina would never forget the moment they met. The reassuring grip of his hands as he’d held her steady as she descended the oak tree. The tall imposing figure of the man as he stood with Millicent crooked in his elbow. The odd frisson between them when they finally stood face-to-face. Not only was he far more appealing than she’d anticipated, he’d made her feel seen. Noticed. Not just as another servant, but as a woman whose knowledge of the estate he respected.
He was nothing she was expecting in the duke whose arrival she’d so feared. Even now, she struggled to reconcile the man whose anger toward his father shocked her and the one she’d seen show empathy to Barrowmere’s villagers today. As she attempted to fit all the pieces of him together in her mind, the memories that burned brightest were the moments when they’d touched.
The slide of his finger against her chin. His warm, solid embrace. The heat of his mouth on hers.
Mina groaned, set her book aside, and closed her eyes. She’d had enough of ruminating on the Duke of Tremayne for one night.
Yet Nicholas persisted in her mind’s eye. Strands of black hair dipping over his brow. His surly slouch in the carriage. His awkwardness when admitting he wasn’t proficient at ballroom dancing.
A cry sounded below her. Nicholas’s voice calling out. She thought she heard her name. Slipping from bed, she crept toward the door and listened. The cry came again, but muffled. Turning, she knelt by her oval rug, peeled back the edge, and pressed her ear to the chilled floorboards.
“Leave,” she heard him say distinctly. Then he repeated the phrase with one word added, “Don’t leave. Let me out!”
Mina stood, donned her dressing gown, and tiptoed into the hall. She detected no movement in the servants’ rooms and walked as carefully as a cat on a ledge as she descended the stairs, trying not to make a sound.
In front of his door, she paused with her hand on the latch.
What she was about to do wasn’t proper, or ladylike, or anything else others would expect of her. But she refused to turn back.
Her pulse started a wild, stuttering dance when she stepped into his room.
Lying in bed, he looked still and peaceful, no longer crying out. Then one word came, quiet and anguished, no more than a breathy whisper. “No.” He twisted his head on the pillow, then lifted his arm as if grasping for something. “Please don’t go.”
Mina wasn’t certain if he was awake or still lost in a night terror. Drawing close, she struggled to see him clearly as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the single lamp turned low by his bedside.
He was a breathtaking sight without a frown marring his mouth or lines of worry notched between his brows. Black hair spilled over his forehead and cheek, obscuring part of his face.
Mina crouched beside the bed and pushed the strands back, revealing the jagged line of his scar. The wounded flesh contrasted sharply with his pale unmarred skin. The cut had been deep. Who would dare attack a duke’s son, especially one who towered over most men?
She jolted back when his eyelids lifted.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Despite the warning, he reached out and clasped the hand she held hovering above his face.
“I know.”
But he didn’t let her go. He stilled for a moment, watching her. There was a glint in his eyes, a hint of a curve at the corner of his mouth. As if he was pleased to see her, relieved to wake and find her beside him.
Then he swept his thumb against her palm, a delicious caress that made her gasp.
She leaned closer, impulsively reaching out to trace the curve of his mouth with her fingertip. His lips trembled under her touch.
“Mina.” He whispered her name with a rasp of desperation.
She wanted his mouth on hers again, wanted it so badly that it frightened her. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be here.”
He sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side, all the time stroking ribbons of heat along her wrist with his thumb. “So you’re short-tempered and impulsive.”
“And you’re difficult and moody.” Mina preferred the heat in his gaze to his teasing tone. She was tired of pretending. “Now that we’ve identified each other’s character flaws, I’ll go back to my room.”
Mina straightened, and he stood too so that they were toe to toe. This close, she had to arch back to look at him or stare at his bare neck and the patch of chest his open shirt did nothing to hide.
He loosened his hold on her hand, but the bleakness in his eyes called to her, echoing her own loneliness.
“Your sleep was troubled?” she asked softly.
“It always is.”
“I heard you call out. I thought you said my name.” Mina swallowed hard after the admission. She’d probably misheard him, but some rationale felt necessary to explain her presence in his room.
“Did I? Perhaps you’re haunting me in my sleep.” He did that thing with his thumb again, a seductive slide against her skin. His touch rippled out to spark goose bumps along her arm and heat between her thighs.
“You don’t remember your dreams?” she asked, her voice trembling like her insides.
“I try not to.”
“What troubles you?”
“Everything.” He let out a low chuckle, like the rusty creak of a door hinge. Lowering his chin, he assessed her. “Especially you.”
“I never intended to.” She pulled her hand from the duke’s, ignoring the shiver that spiked up her spine from the friction of his skin sliding against hers. “I’ll leave you so that you can get back to sleep.”
“Mina, wait.” He reached out, caught the edge of her arm, and a few strands of unpinned hair tangled between his fingers. “There’s something I must say before you go.”
She moved closer. He was utter temptation, all blazing heat and forest scents, and she felt an odd comfort being near him. She knew she should be scandalized. To be alone with him, a duke of the realm. A gambling club owner. Especially while he wore nothing but trousers and a half-buttoned shirt.
But she found herself longing to hear whatever he wished to tell her. What had happened between him and his father? And why had he never come back home?
He stunned her by simply whispering, “Thank you.”
She’d never heard gratitude expressed more earnestly, but she didn’t understand why he was offering the sentiment to her.
“Whatever kindness I showed those villagers today, you inspired.”
“Me? That’s nonsense. We’re not well enough acquainted for me to inspire you to do anything.” She wasn’t used to praise. It made her long to shy away, to hide behind all the rules of etiquette she usually ignored. “Besides, kindness seemed to come quite naturally to you.”
“Not like it does to you.” His mouth quirked in a thoughtful slant. He studied her face, then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I wish I could tell you I’m a benevolent sort, but let’s just say it’s not my first instinct.”
“Perhaps you should try it more often. From what I saw today, it suits you.”
He made a dismissive sound. “As each villager approached, I asked myself what you would have me do.”
“You treated the villagers differently than Lady Claxton.”
He shrugged. “None of them demanded or assumed I owed them anything. They simply asked.” He frowned. “I take great pleasure in saying no, in protecting what’s mine. But today, with your voice in my head, I found yes frighteningly easy.”
“My voice in your head?” Her cheeks heated, then her neck and her ears. She suspected every inch of her body had flushed as pink as the carnations that bloomed at the edge of Enderley’s carriage drive.
“Not only your voice.” His gaze flickered over her face and fixed on her mouth.
“You impressed me this afterno
on.” She’d already come to the man’s room. The least she could do was tell him the truth.
“Unlike all the other days when I’ve horrified you?”
Mina’s heartbeat thundered in her ears when he leaned closer. She lifted a hand tentatively, desperate to keep him at bay. Or to touch him. She wasn’t sure anymore. Gently, she rested her palm against his chest and felt the strong, insistent thrum of his heartbeat.
“Forgive me for how I barked at you.” He hesitated, drawing in a sharp breath, then added, “There are some parts of this place I can’t bear.”
“Only some? That seems an improvement over when you arrived.” Mina bit her lip when he smiled. To see his face soften into amusement did strange things to her.
He wrapped one large hand around the curve of her waist. “There are some things at Enderley I like quite a lot. And I do regret shouting. I vow never to do so again.”
“Are you sure you can make that promise?” Mina found herself smiling.
Nicholas’s gaze dropped to her mouth. He studied her lips and leaned closer. “A man can only try.”
“Why pretend to be someone you’re not?” she asked with the last gasp of air in her lungs. She needed to know. Not just his answer, but hers too.
As he’d done the first night he arrived, he slid a finger against her jaw, notching her chin up. “Don’t mistake me, Mina. I am the monster you see. I am my scars and greed and every other curse that’s been thrown my way.”
“That’s not all you are. I see more.”
He was more. She’d seen as much today, and she felt the truth on a bone-deep level. His tenderness had worked its way past her doubts and uncertainty. He was quickly becoming the biggest dilemma she’d ever faced, because she found the man irresistible.
“What do you see?” His jaw tensed, eyes narrowing warily.
“Pain. Compassion.” Mina fixed her gaze on his. “Temptation.”
So much temptation that she folded her fingers into her palms when he was near. So much that she’d taken up her pencil and paper and tried to revive the meager drawing skills she’d learned as a child in an attempt to capture his likeness. So much that she found herself looking forward to her first glimpse of him every single day.
“Ah, but you’re a woman who likes fairy tales and fantasy. You see what isn’t there.” He took one step backward, leaving a gaping emptiness in the stretch of floor between them. “You should go.”
Mina moved forward. “And if I stay?”
“Then you’d learn what I truly am. And regret ever wishing to know.” He reached for her, bracing a hand against her lower back and dipping his head until their foreheads were pressed together.
The fall of his hair tickled her nose. His breath gusted against her face, down her neck. Heaven help her, she arched into his warmth. Into him. She wanted to feel his heat everywhere.
Twisting her head, she reached up to touch his cheek, settling her palm gently over his scar. A little tremor rippled through him, but he didn’t pull away.
Mina couldn’t resist sweeping her thumb out to feel the texture of his mouth. His lips were so full, softer than she could reconcile. How could this be the same man of growls and glowers? The same whose words cut sharp as broken glass.
She lifted onto her toes until her mouth met his.
Nick thought perhaps he’d died and gone to heaven.
She had to be a fool, this lush, lovely woman in his arms. Yet he knew she wasn’t. She was clever, hot-tempered, efficient, and single-minded. She was his bloody steward, for God’s sake.
What she felt for him was surely nothing more than pity, and he never wanted that from anyone.
Especially from Mina.
But he was hungry, starving for everything she offered. One brush of her soft lips and he was hard and aching as if he hadn’t had a woman in years. God, he wanted her. Even if he could never have more than this one kiss to savor.
Yet he held back.
He was so used to taking what he wanted. Claiming what was his. When he craved a woman, he pursued her, bedded her, and left her well satisfied when he departed. But he always departed.
He wasn’t cold by choice, but necessity. And only on the surface. Inside, the fury that fueled him burned hot as the sun.
But here, now, with Mina’s plush mouth on his, he found himself hesitating. He’d kissed women before and felt nothing more than arousal. Nothing more than carnal need.
Mina was different. His opposite. Everything he wasn’t. Good and loyal and so damn hopeful.
And he knew as well as he knew the odds of every game at Lyon’s tables that she was a risk he could not, should not, take.
One taste wouldn’t be enough. He already wanted more. He couldn’t kiss this woman and walk away unscathed.
When he didn’t respond to her kiss, she tensed and began backing away.
Yes, go. Flee. Save yourself. He wasn’t sure if the words ringing in his head were for her or him.
“Forgive me. I’ve been presumptuous and—”
“Mina.” He touched her cheek, wrapped an arm around her waist, and took her mouth as he’d ached to from the moment they’d met.
Slow. He reminded himself to go slow, but his body raced from aroused to raging need. Warm, she was so warm. She tasted of cinnamon and jasmine tea, and her lips were a heaven he could never deserve.
After a moment, she pulled away, breathless, her eyes glowing and locked on his.
“Please tell me you’ll stay,” she said in a soft, husky voice that made him ache.
Part of him wanted to respond to her whispered plea. He wanted to please her, to give her whatever she wished. Except that. Except the misery of remaining in this place that was as close to hell as he’d ever been.
“Go back to your room, Mina.” If she stayed a moment longer, continued looking at him with such longing and desire, he’d have no defenses left.
One kiss and this woman nearly had him on his knees.
He pulled her close again, took her mouth harder than he should have, swept his tongue inside to taste her. Then he forced himself to step away.
“Go,” he urged her again. Save yourself.
All the fire in her gaze dimmed. He told himself that was good. She needed to see him for what he was.
She turned her back on him and slipped from his room without another word.
Nick slammed the closed door with his palm, as much to get out his frustration as to keep the door shut. To keep himself from going after her.
But, God, how he wanted to find her, bring her back, and kiss her again.
Chapter Fourteen
Cold air rushed against Mina’s cheeks and she squeezed her knees tighter, savoring the heat and strength pounding the earth beneath her. She bent forward, leaning over the stallion’s mane, giving the horse his head. He rewarded her with a burst of speed. Fields and hedgerows and umber-leaved trees flashed by in a blur.
By the time Enderley’s stable came into view, both she and Hades were winded and sweaty, but the stallion neighed happily and Mina’s head felt clearer. Though she still had absolutely no idea how to face the duke after the events of the previous night.
“Seems the beast’s fully recovered now.” Tobias took hold of one rein as she walked the stallion into the stable yard. “Time he goes back to his master, don’t you think, Miss Thorne?”
Mina avoided Tobias’s question and swiped the dust from her trousers. “Any sign of the duke this morning?”
“Why? Have you lost him again?” The stable master guffawed at his own quip.
When Mina didn’t join in, he gestured toward the house.
“Only person I’ve seen other than the stable boys is Emma. She’s been creeping around that old tower this morning.”
Creeping? Emma never crept. She was tall and lithe, and Mina noticed Tobias’s eyes following her more often than not. “What’s she doing at the tower?”
“Heaven knows.” He yanked at the stallion’s saddle straps with frustr
ated vigor. “Hope she’s not sneaking off to meet some knave.”
Tobias was a decent sort, if a bit blustery, and he was clearly smitten with Emma.
“Are you attending Mrs. Shepard’s Christmas dance? Perhaps you should ask Emma to stand up with you.” With that bit of advice, Mina left the brawny stable master blushing and speechless.
Her pulse kicked into a gallop as she approached the house. She had work to do, but what if the duke was in his study?
She couldn’t bring herself to regret their kiss. It had been inappropriate. Dangerous, even. A step down a path she’d trodden before. And she knew how it would end.
But the memory of the duke’s kiss was fresh. Being in his arms, being desired—had all felt so right.
A flash of movement caught her eye. Emma was indeed near the tower, carrying a bundle of something Mina couldn’t quite make out. The girl knew better than to go into the dilapidated pile of stones. Occasionally the old ruin had been used for storage over the years, but the wooden framework inside was severely rotted, and the stones themselves were crumbling.
Curiosity, Papa often warned, would be her undoing. Mina only knew she could never resist the impulse to turn over rocks to discover what was hidden underneath.
She strode across the lawn, keeping her eyes ahead as she passed the window that led to the duke’s study, and stopped at the bottom of the tower.
“Emma?” Her voice echoed eerily in the empty stairwell. She scanned the field and gardens near the tower.
“Shhh.” Footsteps sounded on the spiral stairs, and Emma appeared steps up. “I’m trying not to frighten her.”
Mina didn’t have to ask. A plaintive meow echoed down. “Millicent.”
“I think the kittens are coming. She’s gotten herself into an old trunk and won’t come out.” Emma kept her voice low and flicked glances over her shoulder. “I got her some blankets, but I’m not sure what else to do.”
“She knows what to do, but it’s not safe in here. You should come down.”
Emma descended until she was a step above Mina. “There must be some way to help her.”
A Duke Changes Everything Page 14