by Darcy Burke
“We’ll transport the tenants, but I don’t know about the retainers.” Bianca’s brow furrowed. “I should speak to Truro about that.”
Felicity recalled that Truro was the butler. “I’ll ask your brother about it when I call.”
“Are you sure you want to subject yourself to his rudeness?” Bianca asked.
“I’m not afraid of him.” Felicity squared her shoulders. She was suddenly eager for a fight. He’d broken her heart, and she was finally going to call him out for it. “This has been a long time coming.”
“You’re a brave woman,” Bianca said with a chuckle. “I’m not afraid of him either. He’s disagreeable and frigid, but he isn’t abusive. And he certainly isn’t violent.”
That was good to know. While Felicity had a hard time reconciling this Calder with the one she’d originally known, she really couldn’t imagine him raising a hand to anyone.
“I do hope you’ll let us—me and Poppy—know how your visit goes.”
Felicity nodded. “Certainly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should check on my mother.”
“Of course. I’ll go with you.” Bianca smiled, and they linked arms before crossing back to the seating area.
Determination—and a perverse anticipation—curled through Felicity as she contemplated her visit to Hartwood on Monday. She had a litany of things she wanted to say and ask. Perhaps she should make a list…
At last, the time for reckoning was at hand.
The bottle of gin on the sideboard in Calder’s study beckoned him. Perhaps tonight he would down the contents so that he could find sleep, which had eluded him the past two nights since the assembly.
Since he’d seen Felicity up close.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair and greedily devoured the image in his mind. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. The planes of her classically beautiful face were a bit more angular, as if honed by the experiences she’d lived during the years since he’d seen her. Her eyes were still a dark, sparkling green, almost jewellike in their intensity. Her blonde hair looked as silken as ever, styled atop her head and dressed with a pearl comb. The Egyptian-blue dress accentuated the curve of her breast and the dip of her waist. He’d been glad to see she didn’t wear widow’s colors, as so many women did for years after their husband’s demise. Did that mean she wasn’t sad?
He opened his eyes, cross with himself for trying to discern her feelings. No, for caring about them. She was a greedy, selfish opportunist. She deserved nothing but his undying contempt.
A knock on the door saved Calder from his aggravating thoughts. “Come,” he called as he busied himself with the papers on his desk.
The door pushed halfway open, and Truro, his butler, stepped inside. “You’ve a visitor, Your Grace.”
“Who?” Probably one or both of his sisters. They were the only people who dared come to see him anymore. One day, they would stop. He ignored a flash of unease.
“Mrs. Garland. She’s awaiting you in the drawing room.”
“I’m busy.” But Calder’s blood rushed, causing a cacophony in his ears. His heart beat so hard, he feared Truro would hear it.
“I did try to tell her that, but she was most insistent.” Truro stated this matter-of-factly and without any concern. He was the only retainer who didn’t seem to be intimidated by his employer. Calder wasn’t sure how he felt about that. While intimidation wasn’t his objective, he appreciated the wide berth everyone cut him.
“Fine.” Calder stood and took a deep breath. But his pulse still continued its wild race.
“Shall I bring refreshments?” Truro asked as he moved out of the study.
Calder glowered in response before striding past him toward the drawing room.
With high gilt-edged ceilings and an imposing portrait of his father over the fireplace, the drawing room was intended to be the most luxurious room at Hartwood. Calder hadn’t changed a thing since his father had died. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to—he despised everything his father liked, and the man had loved this room. However, Calder’s commitment to frugality was greater than his desire to destroy everything his father had cared about. His father would have expected him to “waste money” refurbishing the room, and so he hadn’t.
Pausing at the threshold, Calder’s gaze moved immediately to Felicity. She stood before the windows that overlooked the gardens and parkland beyond. Her form and profile looked regal in her dark green velvet costume. A jaunty cream-colored feather curled up from her hat, irritating him. She shouldn’t look so fresh and lovely.
“I can’t credit why you would come here,” he said as he stalked into the center of the room. He realized he did want to intimidate her. Maybe because his heart was still crashing as if it wanted to escape his body.
She turned from the window, a half smile arresting her mouth. Her gaze raked over him slowly before settling on his face.
He couldn’t tell what she thought of her perusal. That irritated him too.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace.”
“If you came for a pleasant conversation to catch up on the past ten years, you will be sorely disappointed.”
“I did not,” she said softly, walking toward him but stopping a few feet away.
In addition to her hat, she was also still wearing her gloves. Clearly, she didn’t mean to stay. Good.
“I came to discuss the St. Stephen’s Day party.”
He grunted. “My sisters sent you.”
“Bianca and I discussed it, but I wanted to come.” Now her lips curled into a full smile, but it wasn’t the kind that held joy. It was the kind a predator unfurled just before moving to strike its prey.
Calder was no one’s prey. “You’ve made a grave mistake.”
She lifted her shoulder in a thoroughly elegant fashion. “Probably, but I’m here nonetheless. Before we discuss the party—and I mean to before I leave—I think we should perhaps clear the air between us. You are angry with me, but I can’t fathom why.”
She sounded so calm, so reasonable. He almost believed she had no idea. “Have you forgotten what you did? I can’t see how that’s possible given how drastically it changed your life.”
Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “What I did?”
He wanted to laugh, but there was nothing humorous about the situation. In fact, he found her attempts at forgetting the past infuriating. “You left.”
“I…left?” She shook her head. “You didn’t come home for Christmas.”
“Why would I, knowing that you’d gotten what you wanted and fled?”
She took a step toward him, her eyes dark, the muscles of her jaw tense. “I didn’t get what I wanted at all. All I wanted was you.” Her words sliced through him, arousing the pain he’d thought long buried. “But you said I wasn’t good enough, that you couldn’t make me your duchess.”
No, that wasn’t what had happened at all. His mind raced back to that time, to the visit his father had paid him in Scotland, where Calder had gone to spend the fall at a friend’s hunting lodge. The news he’d delivered ricocheted through Calder’s brain.
His father had met him in the gathering room of the lodge, his expression foreboding. “I know you’ll think poorly of me, but this is a case in which the ends thoroughly justified the means.” Calder couldn’t have begun to imagine what he’d said next. “I offered Miss Templeton and her family a great sum of money to leave Hartwell. She was more than eager to accept. She never wanted you, just your title and, more importantly, money. I didn’t even have to convince her—she was relieved to be free of any promises she made you.”
Calder responded to her, his voice eerily quiet and strange to his own ears. “I never said that. Do you deny your family took money from my father and left Hartwell?”
“Money? No!” She set her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing with anger. “We left Hartwell because my father thought I would want to be away from you. He sold his farm, and we moved to York, where my bro
ther lived.”
She had to be lying. Calder had no other explanation.
Except he did. His father hadn’t been pleased to learn that Calder wished to court Felicity. But then his father had rarely been pleased with anything Calder did.
He managed to find his voice—barely. “My father said he offered you money to leave and that you gleefully accepted it, that you were glad to be free of me.”
Her face went pale, and Calder wondered if she might faint. Then he saw her shoulders stiffen. “I did no such thing, nor did your father offer me anything save a letter from you that said you had no desire to marry me, that I was not an appropriate wife for a duke.”
Calder felt light, as if he were floating, as if the earth beneath him had been jerked away. “I didn’t write you a letter.”
She moved closer, her hand stretching toward him. “Are you all right?”
He stepped back, out of her reach. “I’m fine.” But he wasn’t. Everything he’d believed for the past decade had been a lie. His father had driven a wedge between him and Felicity. No, not a wedge. He’d burned their dreams to the ground.
And Felicity had wed someone else while Calder had gone to London and raised merry hell until he’d lost everything but the clothes he was wearing and the set of emerald jewelry his mother had left him. The necklace, earrings, and ring had been intended for his wife. Instead, he’d sold them and used them to rebuild himself without a drop of help from his father.
“Well, I’m not fine,” Felicity said, her brow creased and her mouth turning down. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking bereft. “I thought you didn’t want me. To know you did…”
“Don’t.” Calder couldn’t follow that path. That was the distant past. He was not the same man who’d been easily manipulated. “We can’t change what happened.” And to even think about it would welcome a barrage of hurt he didn’t think he could manage. Nor did he want to.
“You can simply forget about it?” She blinked at him, then stared into his eyes for a long, uncomfortable moment. “We can’t change the past, but knowing the truth changes everything.”
“It doesn’t.” It couldn’t. He refused to open himself up to…anything. “I need to get back to work.” He started to turn, but she came forward and clasped his arm.
Though she wore gloves and the layers of his clothes separated her touch from his flesh, he felt the connection down to the very marrow of his bones. The sensation sizzled through him, reawakening a yearning he hadn’t felt in forever.
Or, more accurately, in ten years.
He pulled his arm from her grasp and stared at her hand. She dropped it to her side and looked up at him. “I told you I wasn’t leaving until we talked about St. Stephen’s Day.”
She had said that, dammit. “There’s nothing to discuss. Thornaby is hosting it this year.”
“Why aren’t you?”
Because his father had loved it. Everyone believed St. Stephen’s Day was for the retainers and the villagers, that it was their favorite day of the year. While all that might be true, Calder’s father had loved it most of all. Everyone heralded him as some sort of king, a benevolent being who deigned to give his people a day of rest and celebration. Everything he did was designed to earn himself praise and adoration. And it worked for everyone, including Calder’s sisters.
“It’s an expensive event.” Even if the cost wasn’t his primary reason for refusing to host the party, the statement wasn’t a lie.
Her blonde brows arched briefly. “I’m sure you can afford it.”
“You know nothing about my finances, nor should you presume.” He could afford it, but after losing everything and amassing a fortune entirely on his own, he was loath to let any of it go. And the truth was that his father, despite his claims to the contrary, had been a poor financial manager. There was money, but not as much as there should have been. Calder planned to make the dukedom more financially secure than ever before.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, but he caught a note of exasperation in her voice. “What if others supported the cost and you merely allowed the event to take place here? It would ease the burden of transporting everyone to Thornhill.”
“That isn’t my concern.”
She blew out a frustrated breath, her brows pitching low over her magnificent eyes. “Of course it is. St. Stephen’s Day has been the concern of the dukes of Hartwell for generations.”
“Not anymore.”
She cocked her head to the side, her expression both curious and pleading. “Why? What has changed?”
“I am the duke now. There is no law saying I must host anything.” He narrowed his eyes at her, irritated that she would question him, but also perversely enjoying their exchange. What the hell was wrong with him? “Even if there was, I’m the magistrate.”
“So you’d break the law to suit yourself?”
“I am the law. However, in this case, there is no law, only your expectation.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, and for the first time, he saw something in her eyes he didn’t like: pity. Just like that, any pleasure he’d found—and it had been the first in some time—evaporated. “Are you like this because of me? Rather, because of what your father did?”
A thousand emotions exploded inside him, none of which he wanted to address. He was done with this interview. “You’ve done what you came to do. We’ve settled the past and we’ve discussed St. Stephen’s Day. I believe we are finished with each other.”
His statement sounded final, and he’d meant it to. With the slight narrowing of her gaze and tightening of her jaw, he wasn’t sure she agreed.
“You’ve yet to provide an acceptable reason for not hosting the party. You don’t have to pay for anything.”
“It would be an inconvenience. Just as you are being right now.”
Her jaw dropped open for a moment before she snapped it shut and pursed her lips. “You bear absolutely no resemblance to the Calder I knew.”
Her use of his name was both a balm and a friction. He didn’t want either. “Because that man doesn’t exist anymore. I’ll have Truro show you out.” He turned on his heel and quit the drawing room, his heart pounding nearly as hard as when he’d arrived.
“Bloody hell,” he swore as he returned to his study. Running his hand through his hair, he tried to banish the encounter from his mind. But all he could see was her heart-shaped face with its stunning—and provocative—emerald eyes. All he could feel was the touch of her hand on his sleeve. All he could smell was the faint scent of bergamot and roses.
Memories he’d worked too hard to bury rose in his mind—holding her hand, laughing with her, taking her lips in the sweetest of kisses…
He’d spent the last decade in some sort of purgatory. Now he feared he would spend the next in hell.
Chapter 3
The butler came into the drawing room a moment later. Or perhaps it was longer. Felicity was not terribly aware of the passage of time, not when she’d fallen into a state of absolute numbness.
“Mrs. Garland?” Truro prompted softly from just inside the doorway.
Felicity shook her head and brought herself to the present. If she didn’t, she was going to completely lose herself in the past—a past that had stolen her future.
Bitterness stole her breath for a moment. She lifted her hand to her chest and blinked, lest she dissolve into a puddle of tears in front of Calder’s butler.
But she wasn’t a crier. She was made of stiff, strong stuff, or so her father said.
Her father. Had he played some part in Calder’s father’s nefarious scheme? Had Calder’s father settled some amount of money on them so they could move to York? In hindsight, it was odd how quickly he’d decided to relocate and the ease with which he’d sold the farm.
Her breath caught again, but tears didn’t threaten this time. She felt a wave of outrage. However, there was no one to whom she could direct the emotion.
“Mrs. Garland?” the butler repeated.
“My apologies,” she said hastily. “I don’t suppose you would tell me where I might find His Grace?”
Truro gave her an apologetic look, his features briefly flinching. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
“Probably not. However, I must speak with him for just another moment. If you don’t tell me, I shall go in search of him.” She gave him a sly look. “Will you stop me?”
He straightened, and there was a tinge of something in his gaze—admiration, perhaps. “I will not.” He lowered his voice to nearly a whisper. “His study is in the northeast corner.”
“Bless you, Truro.” She flashed him a smile before hurrying from the room.
Good heavens, what was she doing? Calder didn’t want to see her. He’d barely stomached their conversation in the drawing room. He also seemed utterly unmovable about St. Stephen’s Day.
And yet there was something inside him—something she’d glimpsed when she’d asked if his father had caused him to be the way he was now. Thinking back, Calder hadn’t spoken to her much of his father. Now that she knew the man had orchestrated the destruction of their almost-courtship, she wondered how else he’d influenced Calder. What didn’t she know?
Probably nothing he would tell her.
Still, she was going to try. She’d loved him ten years ago, and he’d loved her. Through no fault of theirs, save their naïve idiocy in believing the lies his father had spun, they’d been robbed of their chance together. Then.
Now, they had another chance. Felicity didn’t mean to waste it.
She found his study with ease. However, the door was closed. Standing outside, she chewed her lip. She ought to knock, but she was rather past following propriety.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she opened the door and strode inside. Calder turned from the sideboard on the right side of the room. A fire crackled in the hearth on the left wall, a chair angled nearby to welcome the heat. His desk, stacked neatly with a ledger and the post, stood before a wide set of windows.