“They’re hiding out in Finsborough. Somewhere. But they’ve got someone too frightened—or too well paid—to talk.”
“They’re not a talkative bunch in Finsborough,” Alvan remarked, getting to his feet. “Would it surprise you to know that no one there has ever met you or visited your inn?”
“You’re a stranger,” Villin said.
“Yes, I am. And yet, you told me some at least of what I need to know.”
A baffled look entered Villin’s eyes. He scratched his head. “Suppose I did. You won’t mind me saying, you’re a very odd duke.”
“Not in the slightest. If you don’t mind me saying, you’re a very odd innkeeper.”
Villin grinned. “You don’t know the half of it, sir. And in its own way, this is a very odd inn. A lucky house.”
“Hmm.” With a dubious last glance at him, Alvan walked toward the door. “Oh, Villin?”
Villin grunted and turned to face him.
“You will tell me if you hear anything at all about my missing friend? I believe I fear for his life.”
“I believe you should,” Villin said bluntly.
Alvan walked out, past the table by the door, and into the yard, where Charlotte was strolling alone. She smiled spontaneously when he fell into step beside her. The novelty warmed him from his toes up.
“What have you discovered?” she asked eagerly.
“That they were chasing thieves who have been extorting money from them for too long. But I don’t believe he knows anything about Cornell. He didn’t stay here.”
“No,” Charlotte agreed. “But according to Lily’s book, Lord Dunstan did.”
*
With the new knowledge of a gang of thieves in the area, Alvan was considerably more watchful on their return journey to Audley Park, and very glad of the pistol in his saddle bag. Only once did he glimpse a figure in the woods moving between the trees as they passed nearby, and fortunately, it came no closer. There was no way to tell if it was a threat or not. He even found himself regarding the few travelers on the road and workers in the fields, with suspicion. Overton’s groom, who followed behind, was a burly fellow and would presumably be useful in any fracas. But Alvan didn’t want it to come to that. Even while he constantly quartered the surrounding area, he couldn’t help enjoying the carefree banter of his companions, who included him quite naturally in their conversation and jokes.
He should sort out his engagement and leave Audley Park tomorrow. But for some reason, he didn’t want to. Besides, now that he knew Dunstan had stayed at the inn on Sunday night, he needed to speak to him before he left the area.
“Do you expect us to be attacked?” Charlotte murmured once, presumably following his searching gaze. Ahead of them, Richard was arguing some nonsense with Thomasina.
“From what Villin told me, it’s a possibility.” He brought his gaze back to her thoughtful, yet animated face. “And yet, none of your family or your servants or neighbors have mentioned any increase in crime. Even if it had not spread this far from Finsborough, I would have expected it to be a talking point.”
“That is very true,” she agreed. “Do you suppose Villin was lying?”
“I don’t think so.” He frowned. “Attacking persons of quality or wealth is the quickest way to attract a hue and cry. What if they are only picking on lesser people who can’t or won’t fight back?”
“That seems even meaner somehow. But there is the question of Mr. Cornell, who is most certainly a gentleman, with connections to local gentry as well as to Lord Dunstan.” A frown forming between her brows cleared. “Thank you, by the way, for not mentioning this in front of Tommie. She has much more sensibility than I do.”
“Well, our mystery is not quite as I had imagined it,” he admitted. “I don’t believe I would have involved you if I had known earlier.”
She blinked. “You didn’t involve me. I permitted you, remember?”
“I remember it more as a joining of forces.”
“I will allow it to be an alliance,” she said humorously, “from which either of us might withdraw but not eject the other.”
“But I will have to tell your father,” he said apologetically.
Her eyes widened. “Oh no. If you do that, I shall have to sneak back to the Hart.”
His stomach twisted. “You wouldn’t, would you? Not alone, for God’s sake.”
She shrugged. “We were clearly in no danger today, and we have already agreed that they are not going after gentry or aristocracy.”
“Today, you were in the company of a large groom, another lady, and two gentlemen,” he said urgently. “From a distance at least, Richard looks adult enough. If you go alone, you will look—and be—fair game to them. And remember Cornell.”
She regarded him doubtfully. He found he was holding his breath and forced himself to exhale.
“Very well,” she said at last. “I won’t go without telling you at least. But I think you should reconsider informing Papa, for—”
“What are you arguing about, Charlie?” Thomasina interrupted. “I beg you will not give his grace a disgust of you.”
“Disgust?” he repeated, startled. Pulling himself together, he added more mildly, “Nothing could be further from the truth, I assure you.”
“Oh, good,” Thomasina replied with slightly lofty humor. “For Charlotte tends to speak first and think later.”
Charlotte opened her mouth as though to retort, and then bit her lip. He suspected she did that a lot—bit back natural responses in order to preserve the fiction of her gracious, beautiful sister.
Of course, it was hardly a fiction. Thomasina was both of those things and more, but once more he found himself resenting the fact that Charlotte had always to take second place to both her sisters and was never allowed to shine as she should.
Not that Charlotte appeared to resent it, or at least not after the first few moments when she swallowed her ire. In only a few seconds, she was responding with spirit to Richard’s remark that he knew nothing of girlish sensibilities, but he could guarantee it that none of his sisters had any sense at all.
*
That evening, over a glass of port after dinner, instead of asking permission to pay his addresses to Thomasina, Alvan talked to Lord Overton about the situation at the Hart. Overton was surprised as well as dubious, having heard nothing about excessive crime, but he promised to make discreet inquiries.
They then joined the ladies, without Alvan even mentioning Thomasina.
Somehow, Spring had managed to find his way into the drawing room. As the gentlemen entered, he hurled himself at Alvan with joy. Alvan caught him in midflight and plonked him back on the floor.
The younger children, who had clearly pursued the dog, laughed in delight as he sat frantically wagging his tail.
“Take him away this instant,” Lady Overton commanded. “His grace does not want that demented animal under his feet.”
“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Alvan said. “I would not presume to tell you who or what to have in your drawing room!”
Lady Overton looked stunned, her children doubtful—all but Charlotte who bestowed a smile upon him that caught his breath.
And somehow, both the dog and the children stayed, which seemed to be the natural way of the family. Alvan felt that rarest of conditions—accepted.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte woke to warm sunshine peeping through her bedcurtains and on to her face, which may have explained her state of happiness. She rose, washed and dressed, and then, with Spring on her heels, called on Eliza to lace up her dress. Yawning but smiling, Eliza obliged, for she liked to be useful.
Charlotte seized her cloak and hurried downstairs. Her leg ached after yesterday’s long ride and she had resolved to stretch it on a walk with the dog before breakfast. However, on the first-floor landing, she paused, for music drifted along the passage, soft, swirling piano music. On impulse, she followed it to the drawing room, for she was sure it was nothing h
er sisters played, supposing either of them was up at this hour.
Quietly, she pushed open the drawing room door.
The Duke of Alvan sat at the pianoforte, his hands moving across the keys with grace and feeling. She would have leant against the door and just listened, but she had forgotten about Spring, who uttered a joyful yelp and charged across the room to his grace.
The duke stopped abruptly, took in the dog, who landed on his lap, and Charlotte standing just inside the door. For the first time since she’d met him, a flush stained his face. He rose from the piano a little too fast.
With mere instinct to put him at his ease, she walked farther into the room, saying brightly. “Now we are even! I did not know you played.”
“One of the many benefits of being male—one is not obliged to display one’s accomplishments,” he said with an attempt at lightness. “Of course, it is debatable that musical skill is considered a suitable accomplishment for a gentleman in the first place.”
“Then how did you learn? Did you teach yourself?”
He shrugged. “Partly. But I had a musically-minded tutor, once. For the rest, I listen to a lot of music and have an excellent memory.”
“What was it you were playing?” she asked curiously.
“A sonata by Beethoven.”
“Will you play it for me?”
His eyes remained unblinking on hers. For a moment, she was afraid to breathe.
He shook his head. “No, not now. I do not mean to disturb anyone else.”
“I am not disturbed,” she insisted. “I am impressed.”
“Then I am flattered, but I have clearly distracted you long enough.”
“I was only about to take Spring for a walk before breakfast.”
“May I come with you?”
She blinked in surprise. “Of course.”
Although unexpected, his company was far from unwelcome. In fact, she realized that his unusual and intriguing presence was connected somehow to the sense of happiness with which she awoke. Which was strange. She supposed she must have been bored. And more worried than she knew for Thomasina and her marriage of convenience.
It was a beautiful spring morning, the night rain drying in the sunshine and bringing with it all the soft, pleasant scents of grass and spring flowers. The blackbirds’ songs were joyous, rising above the few animal noises drifting on the gentle breeze.
“You manage your own estates, do you not?” she asked, as they set out.
He nodded. “Mostly, yes, though I have stewards to help me.”
“Is it not a lot of trouble?”
“Sometimes, but basically, I enjoy it too much to give it up.”
“You have a brother and sister, I believe? Do they live with you?”
He shook his head. “They stay sometimes, but they have their own lives. They were brought up largely by my aunt, since my mother died in childbirth. Cecily lives with her still, and my brother is at Oxford, though I doubt he learns very much there.”
“Then who brought you up when your parents died?”
“My aunts’ husbands, largely, who were named guardians in my father’s will.”
She frowned. “It seems a bit cruel to have separated you and your siblings at such a time.”
He shrugged. “I was duke from the age of eight. I had responsibilities to learn.”
“Were you not lonely?” she blurted.
He looked away. “I didn’t know anything else. Besides, I went to school like other boys of my class, so I was hardly deprived of company my own age.”
“My father says you are a fine scholar of the classics.”
“I went to Oxford, too,” he admitted.
She smiled. “And studied more than your own brother? And, I suspect, more than all of mine will when they go!”
“I found it interesting in the end.”
She glanced at him with a frown of curiosity, but he did not elaborate. “That is an odd turn of phrase. Did you not want to be at Oxford?”
“No, I had a head full of military strategy and heroics and wanted a commission in the army. My guardians wouldn’t hear of it, so I sulked through my first term before I gave in and made the most of it.”
Although he spoke with a light, self-deprecating humor, Charlotte caught a hint of his old rage and disappointment. She understood such frustrations well and only just stopped herself from taking his arm in sympathetic solidarity.
“Do they plague you still?” she asked. “Your well-meaning advisers?”
“No. I sent the whole parcel of them packing as soon as I turned twenty-one.” His lip quirked. “But I knew they were right. I had no business going off to war when I had so many responsibilities at home. My brother was too young to take my place if I died.”
She nodded. “It must be hard to give up your dreams.”
He turned his head quickly and met her gaze. “What of your dreams?”
“Oh, girls are not meant to have heroic dreams. We are meant to dream of husbands and homes and children.”
“Did you not?”
“As a child? I don’t believe I did, though I understood they would be waiting for me in the future. I expect our childish dreams—Tommie’s and mine—were very similar to yours!” She shrugged. “And then I was ill, and my only dream was to get better.”
“Which you did.”
She was glad he spoke matter-of-factly without gentleness. Even now, pity was galling. She smiled. “My father said I got well through sheer bloody-mindedness. Though perhaps that isn’t a phrase I should use in company!”
“Perhaps not,” he agreed. “But I am glad not to count as company.”
She glanced at him uncertainly, but since there was a gleam in his eye, she relaxed. “It is not an honor granted to everyone.”
“You overwhelm me.”
She laughed, and he almost smiled in return. She could not help watching the humor intensify and fade in his eyes while it barely touched his lips.
He said, “For what it is worth, I think your family is wrong. If you do want your own home and children, there is no reason in the world why you should not choose your own husband. Any man would be proud to call you his wife.”
Her lips fell apart in astonishment. Then, as the color seeped into her cheeks, she realized with a weird mixture of desperation and relief, that he was teasing.
“That would be quite unfair of me,” she began, “when my sisters…” She broke off, appalled at where her ill-conceived riposte was going.
“… Will have no choice?” he finished for her. His face was unreadable.
“Of course they will,” she retorted, “My parents are not monsters.”
For a moment, it was as if an invisible thread between them was pulled tight and ready to snap. And then Spring trotted out of the trees on to the path, high-stepping with pride because he carried some poor, dead creature in his mouth. Whether he had killed it or found it was impossible to tell, but she doubted he would give it up.
“Oh, drat the animal,” she exclaimed. “How could he? He will want to bring it into the house and we’ll have to chase him around and extract it piece by piece.”
“Nonsense,” the duke said, pointing to his feet. Spring came to him, wagging his tail.
“Drop it,” Alvan said sternly.
Spring didn’t move.
Alvan pointed to his feet once more. “Sit and drop it.”
The dog sat, and to Charlotte’s amazement, placed the dead creature across Alvan’s shiny boot.
“Good dog,” Alvan said, holding out his hand for the leash. And with that, they simply walked away, leaving Dog’s treasure behind.
“I take my hat off to you, sir,” Charlotte marveled. “You have an uncanny power over this otherwise insane dog.”
“No, he’s just aware he makes you laugh and so neither of you takes the other seriously.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, “He was a very entertaining puppy.”
“How on earth did you acquire him?”
“We found him. Or at least I did. He was the runt of a litter born over at Halstead Farm and he’d got left behind and lost. The farmer had been going to put him down so I brought him home. And you see he is strong as an ox now.”
“I’m not sure I would care for a terrier quite that strong,” Alvan said dryly. “But I take your point.”
It was only later, as they crossed the lawn back toward the house, that she remembered that moment of embarrassment between them. But no, it wasn’t embarrassment so much as awareness, though of what, she wasn’t quite sure. The truth, perhaps. That he and Thomasina had a choice, but both wanted the same thing?
There was a carriage waiting in front of the house.
“You have visitors,” Alvan observed.
“It looks like the Laceys’ carriage,” Charlotte said, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Good! We might be able to speak to Lord Dunstan about the Hart.”
“I think you should let me speak to Lord Dunstan.”
Charlotte blinked. “But you’re enemies.”
“An overdramatic description for the state of not being friends.”
The Laceys—Mrs. Lacey, Almeria, and Matthew, escorted by Lord Dunstan—were discovered in the breakfast room. Clearly, they had just arrived and were refusing all Lord Overton’s invitations to eat.
“No, no, we have breakfasted long ago,” Mrs. Lacey said cheerfully. “Moreover, we are saving our appetites, for we have brought luncheon with us to have on Finlaw Hill. We came to see if anyone would like to join us. Almeria has brought her sketch book, for the view is pretty in all directions.”
“Do you think the weather is fine enough for an al fresco?” Thomasina said doubtfully, though her attention seemed to be on Charlotte and Alvan, as though surprised they had entered together.
“Well, if it’s too windy, we may eat in the coaches,” Lord Dunstan said. “Come, Miss Maybury, you must join us! And your sisters, of course.”
“And brothers,” Horatio said eagerly from the table. “I’ve got a kite I want to fly.”
“By Jove, yes,” George agreed enthusiastically. “It will be great on the hill!”
“Don’t be silly,” Thomasina said. “You will never all fit in the coach with Henrie and me. And there is no room in Mrs. Lacey’s.”
The Deserted Heart: Unmarriageable Series (Unmarriagable Series Book 1) Page 8