Son of a Duke Read online

  The only problem was Sarah's unmarried state. A single woman could not go to the same places as a married woman, especially not alone. That was where Alec had conveniently entered the scene. He would marry Sarah (in name only or it would be over Sarah's dead body) in order to allow her more freedom to carry out Office business. But a marriage meant every once in a while, they actually had to appear to be married or the whole thing would be seen as the rouse it was.

  And this was probably one of those times they were meant to appear actually married. Which would then account for Alec's less than chipper disposition and the empty glass on the floor, just beneath his dangling fingertips.

  "When is she due to arrive?"

  Alec moved his arm to look at the clock above the fireplace. "Seven hours, four minutes, and five seconds." He slid the arm back over his eyes.

  "Ah." Nathan took another drink. "Want to talk about it?"

  Alec moved his arm again to scowl at the back of him. "No, I do not want to talk about it."

  The thing Alec did not want to talk about was the fact that he was completely and totally in love with his 'in-name-only' wife. He had been since the day they were married four years ago. Four years was a long time to be in love with someone who absolutely hated you. Nathan felt very fortunate that he was not in Alec's shoes. He only wished he had better shoes to be in himself at the moment. One's that did not remind him what a useful man he was.

  "Have you spoken to her recently?"

  "No, just a letter, letting me know when she was coming." Alec swung his arm off his face to rest on the back of the couch. "How quick does arsenic work?"

  "Not quick enough. Let me know when you want the deed done, and I will just shoot you in the back of the head."

  "Oh, thank you, brother."

  "You are welcome." Nathan swirled the liquor in his glass. "As long as you will do the same for me."

  Alec studied Nathan's profile. "She is the reason you cannot sleep?"

  "Yes." Nathan set the still full glass down on the rug to rub his face with his hands. "I cannot seem to rid her image from my mind."

  "I hate to be crass, but I did tell you so. When will you see her again?"

  Nathan looked up to the clock as Alec had done before, but unlike with Alec, it held no answers for him.

  "I do not know. I think that may be a part of the problem"

  "Ah." Alec looked back at the ceiling. "Have you thought about what you are going to discuss the next you see her?"

  "How to get her dress off."

  "Good topic. Do you think she will agree?"

  Nathan felt his mood dampening. "No."

  "Thought not."

  The two were silent for a while, listening to the fire and the tick of the clock.

  Alec finally broke the silence. "Why do you think God created woman?"

  "To give all men an idea of what Hell would be like, so they would lead better lives in order to avoid going there."

  "Oh, yes, that does sound right."

  CHAPTER SIX

  Nora pinched her cheeks again, harder this time and winced.

  "Ow!" she hissed.

  Why on earth women submitted themselves to such torture regularly, she had no idea. Instead of her cheeks turning delicately pink as desired, her whole face had gone red from the exertion. Her decision to forgo the rice powder this morning was starting to look unwise, even if Mr. Black had expressed a dislike of the stuff. She stuck her tongue out at her reflection. Now she certainly looked attractive.

  It was not as if there was any certainty that she would be seeing Mr. Black that morning. It had been four whole days since last she had seen him. Four whole days of wondering and waiting and watching. The anticipation was enough to do more than keep her awake at night. She had been eating even less than usual, and Cook had begun to notice. She struggled to keep her demeanor as pleasant as usual, but even that was becoming a strain. Her head ached, a consistent dull pounding just at her temples. It was as if the anxiety teased her with a constant reminder but refrained from taking any shape she could rail against.

  And now she stood in front of a mirror pinching her cheeks like a green debutante. The maids were cleaning the drawing rooms today. All four of them, and Nora had to be there to supervise. She especially needed to monitor the young maids who had just joined the staff a mere three weeks before. They had reminded Nora of herself, young and unknowing, and bumping about in society without any real direction. They required her attention like none of the other staff did, and yet, she was trying to make herself...

  What exactly?

  More attractive?

  And if so, for whom and for what?

  Four days was a very long time not to hear from someone even if he had said explicitly to her that he did not know when he would return or what information he would carry with him. When she sat awake at night, her gaze often strayed from the warm glow of the coals to her sleeping son, and she wondered again what was to become of them.

  What was a little murder really, she thought to herself. Surely she and her son meant nothing to the great behemoth that was the War Office. Nora and Samuel were sure to go unnoticed. It was at least possible, she continued to tell herself, at least for the sake of Samuel.

  "Mama?"

  Nora jumped, sending her hip into the table below the hall mirror she had been scrupulously studying her reflection in. Goodness her son was much too quiet for a child his age.

  "Yes, Samuel?" she asked, rubbing carefully at her hip so as not to disrupt her starched apron.

  "Mr. Black has arrived. He is waiting in the servants hall," Samuel said.

  He had a streak of dirt above his left eyebrow, and his hands had turned brown from beating out all the drapery that could be found on the second floor. But Nora suddenly did not notice how unkempt her son appeared.

  "I beg your pardon?" she asked and realized she need not be so formal with her son. Perhaps this was why he now spoke as he did.

  "Mr. Black, Mama. He is here. In the servants hall."

  Nora did not have a response. After four days of waiting, she would have thought something would stir in her mind, but there was simply nothing.

  "Mama? Are you all right?" Samuel asked then.

  No, she was not all right, but she was not about to discuss why she was not all right with her nine-year-old son.

  "Please tell Mr. Black I will be down shortly." Her voice did not sound right, and she looked toward the mirror again. Perhaps she had pinned her cap on too tightly this morning. Her sudden change in condition had nothing to do with Mister Black or the news he carried with him.

  Samuel had not moved when she looked away from her reflection.

  "What is it, Samuel?"

  "I have never seen you look at yourself in a mirror before, Mama."

  "Of course, you have. I have looked at myself in a mirror before this." Her hands were wrinkling her apron now. She felt the starchy fabric crinkle under her fingertips, but her son's quizzical gaze prevented her from relinquishing her grasp on the garment.

  "Not for this long."

  "Perhaps we should go greet Mr. Black together." She took Samuel's shoulder to steer him toward the stairs.

  "But I have already greeted him."

  Nora almost missed the first step. She grabbed the banister at the last moment and looked at her son.

  "You did?"

  "Yes."

  Samuel did not elaborate but began to move down the steps, forcing Nora to follow because she was still hanging onto his shoulder.

  Samuel did not greet visitors to the house. He often stayed in the room where he was working and did not seek out interaction with visitors or even staff for that matter.

  "Where did you see Mr. Black?"

  Samuel rounded the banister at the bottom step and moved into the hallway that led to the back of the house.

  "He was in the servants hall when I was coming from the kitchen. I had to fetch a glass of water, Mama. The dusty drapes made me thirsty."
>
  Her son stopped then and peered down at his shoes as if guilty of something. She raised his face to hers with a finger under his chin.

  "That is quite all right, Samuel. And you saw Mr. Black?'

  He nodded then, his expression melting into one of happiness she only saw on his features when they read together at night.

  "He asked me how my flowers were doing."

  "He did, did he?" Nora asked, putting her hands on her hips and smiling down at her son.

  "I told him the violets have poked through the dirt."

  Nora felt her mouth curve into a smile.

  "What did he say to that?" she asked.

  "He asked me what other flowers were growing. And I told him all the different kinds but-" He stopped so abruptly Nora looked behind her to see if someone had appeared in the hall to interrupt them.

  When she looked and found no one there, she prompted Samuel to continue.

  "But?" she said, nudging his shoulder a little.

  "I was not sure if I was speaking out of turn. Lady Gregenden is always saying children are to be seen and not heard. Was it all right that I spoke to Mr. Black, Mama?"

  Nora's heart twisted in her chest at the sight of the suddenly crestfallen face that peered up at her. She bent down, getting her face next to his.

  "Samuel, I am going to tell you something that I probably should have told you long ago, but it is something that you cannot share with anyone nor let anyone know that you know of it."

  Samuel nodded to show he was listening.

  "Remember when I told you to listen to adults? That they know better than you because they have been around longer?"

  Samuel nodded again.

  Nora swiped her hands in the air between them as if erasing an invisible sentence that hung there.

  "Well, that is all rubbish, Samuel. There are some adults who are just plain nitwits, and you should not listen to them at all."

  Samuel took a step back from her, a look of astonishment on his face.

  "But Mama, you said-"

  Nora cut him off with a quick shake at his shoulders.

  "Do not listen to what I said then, Samuel. I was clearly wrong."

  His face told her he still did not believe her.

  "You can trust me, Samuel," she said then, as if stating something so clear and basic would get his approval.

  But Samuel only nodded at her, his eyes wide with incomprehension.

  "Mama?" he asked, his voice small in the great front hall.

  "Yes?" Nora prompted, her hands still on his arms, her knees bent, not feeling how her muscles protested the awkward stance.

  "Is it all right if I ask you to tell me which adults to listen to and which not to? I think I may find this subject very confusing in the future."

  Nora smiled.

  "Of course, you may. Now we have kept Mr. Black waiting long enough.," she said, not vocalizing that she believed keeping a person waiting for four days was long enough as well.

  ~

  Nathan Black sat at the long table that took up the majority of the servants hall. He heard the bustle of the kitchen maids moving about in the kitchen beyond the room, and he watched the scullery maids with their buckets of rags scurry up the stair cases and down. He had come to the back door of the house, thinking it unwise to approach the front and raise the notice of the lord and lady of the estate. He had heard tales of Lord Arthur Gregenden from Jane and had no wish to meet the man. If he stayed below stairs, he was unlikely ever to have to confront him. And as for Lady Gregenden, well, he was not discussing state business with a woman whose greatest triumph was picking out which gown to wear every morning.

  He heard small footsteps on the stairs and looked up, watching Samuel's thin legs come into view. He stood, his heart picking up speed, as the unmistakable starched white apron of Miss Eleanora Quinton appeared in view. It had been four days since last he had seen her, and only last night had he been able to sleep even for a few hours. For yesterday, he had learned of what was to become of Miss Eleanora Quinton and her young son, and his mind found some semblance of peace.

  When they reached the bottom step, Samuel bowed to his mother.

  "Here you are, Mama," he said and then straightened to look at Nathan. "It was nice to see you again, sir." He bowed again and turned back to the stairs.

  Nathan spoke up quickly. "Leaving us so quickly?"

  The young boy paused on the stairs, a look of confusion plastered across his features.

  "There is work to be done, Nathan," he said, the pitch of his voice so soft, Nathan thought he leaned forward to hear it.

  "Quite right," he said, " You cannot be a lamplighter if you do not exercise restraint in one's work ethic."

  Samuel's face melted into a grin, and he nodded, continuing his way up the stairs.

  Only then did Nathan allow himself to look at Nora, and the breath stopped in his chest.

  She was beautiful. Of course, she was beautiful, but a tiny part of his brain that focused on survival had convinced him that perhaps she was not as beautiful as he had believed. But that tiny part was not only wrong, it was entirely mistaken. For Nora was not the beautiful he had remembered, but a kind of beauty that had him stepping forward, bringing his hands up as if to grasp hers, but she stepped back and a wall of cold washed over him.

  "Not here," she whispered then, and the cold seeped away as quickly as it had come. "It is good of you to come, Mr. Black," she pronounced then, more loudly than was necessary for him to hear, and he knew it was not his ears with which she was concerned. "I will speak with you in my office."

  She turned then and moved down the hall that led past the kitchens and around the two sets of staircases that disappeared into the bowels of the house. He followed until she disappeared through a door on the left, and he entered quietly behind her, being careful to keep a necessary distance between them. It was a small room, smaller than he had imagined in the dark hours of the night when he had decided to torture himself by thinking only of her. But then he had imagined a small, cozy room with worn but lush carpets and a comfortable chair and beds for her and Samuel. But the small room she had led him to was none of those things.

  The first portion of the room appeared to be an antechamber of sorts with a desk that was repaired with a piece of wood that looked suspiciously like the banister from a staircase. There was no chair for the stool, but instead a wooden crate pushed under its recesses. The top was neatly organized with stacks of parchment, pens and ink. A lamp set to one corner. Nora stood in the space between the desk and the wall on one side, her hands primly folded in front of her. But just over her shoulder, he saw through a door what looked to be two cots. They were not significant enough to be called beds, and the chair by the fire looked neither lush nor comfortable. And it all was filtered through the watery light of a small window set in the wall, panes mottled with age. He averted his gazed back to Nora, not wishing to see anything else.

  "Well, Mr. Black, I hope your arm is better this morning. No ill after effects from that night's incident?"

  "Well, Miss Quinton," he paused to see if she would notice the use of her name. She did not so much as blink. "I am well. Thank you."

  "Would you care for tea?"

  He shook his head, "I would not put you to the trouble."

  "It is no trouble," she said, and before he could stop her, she stepped around him and ducked her head into the hall. He heard mumbling and a response of more mumbling from a voice he did not recognize. A moment passed, and Nora straightened with a tea tray suddenly in her arms.

  "That was quite efficient of you," Nathan said, stepping back to allow her to place the tray on the desk in the room. She gestured toward a wooden crate that had been set against the wall on the far side of the desk. Nathan thought it likely he would crush the decrepit thing if he were to set himself upon it, but Nora was attempting to make him feel comfortable as a guest, and so he sat, hoping the whole time that the crate did not collapse.

 
Nora picked up the flowery pot on the tray and poured the tea into a cup that would take Nathan a half year's salary to buy.

  "It is not really a matter of efficiency, Nathan. The kitchens are just on the other side of that wall, and we keep tea trays set up for the lady of the house. She is always calling for one."

  Nathan nodded, "Quite remarkable of you, Nora. I understand from Jane that you are an accomplished housekeeper. I can see that it is true."

  He saw the almost imperceptible wobble of the tea pot as she regarded him, and he waited for her to reply in some scathing way, but she did not. She changed the subject instead.

  "Samuel tells me he has already greeted you. That is most unusual for him. He does not take to strangers." She looked up as she offered him the cup. Nathan found her looking straight at him, not at a spot above his shoulder like she had done the night of their first meeting, and he took comfort in the change.

  "But you are here on business. So let us proceed." She motioned as if to physically summon the words he was about to say. But he took a moment instead to look at her in the filtered light from the window and watch the way her eyes moved with such precision. It was then he noticed she was not wearing the rice powder.