Page 9 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)

R ichard allowed the intriguing young woman who had been his cousin’s duchess to lead him across the stableyard to the back door he’d been accustomed to using as a child.

Clearly, she was as at ease entering the stableyard this way as he had been, which was a little surprising for a duchess.

There was more to her, it seemed, than he’d expected, and possibly some of it might be rather interesting.

He had to release her arm to open the door, and, without a glance at him, she swept through it with an air of supreme entitlement, the train of her bottle-green riding habit trailing on the uneven paving slabs. She certainly comported herself as though born to the role.

The door gave, as he had known it would, onto a long, gloomy passageway, unchanged since the last time he’d seen it, that led into the main part of the house by way of the servants’ hall and the kitchens.

Now, why did a duchess appear so much at home in this part of the house, and why would she use it to go to and from the stables?

His grandmother had in all probability never entered the stableyard in her entire life.

Surely this pampered young lady could have commanded her horse to be brought around, ready-saddled, to the front of the house, as the rest of the family had always done?

A mystery. Not that Richard had much experience of the nobility other than those he’d known as fellow army officers, and that had been a leveling experience for all concerned.

As she led him along the stone-flagged passage, he took a surreptitious sideways look at her.

A petite little thing with a strong sense of her own importance.

Pretty, too. Maybe even beautiful if she could wipe that petulant pout off her face and stop looking down her elegant nose at everything.

It didn’t sit well with smug superiority, although she’d managed to divest herself of that to a degree once she’d discovered his identity.

It must be true that redheaded females, like chestnut mares, possessed fiery, difficult personalities.

She made no move to take his arm again as they progressed down the corridor, so he didn’t offer it.

Up until the moment Amos had mentioned her last night, he’d not even considered that his cousin’s widow might be in residence at Stourbridge.

Maybe he’d thought she would be at the town house in Hanover Square, doing whatever it was young ladies of quality did to entertain themselves, or maybe he just hadn’t considered her at all.

How long, even, had Marcus and she been married?

She looked very young. Impossible to imagine the man who’d been the bane of his childhood being married to anyone. Not happily, at any rate.

And rumor had it that this young lady, beautiful as she was, had somehow been involved in Marcus’s early demise.

Rumor sufficient to reach as far as the Prince of Wales’s office, and from there across the sea to Portugal.

He needed to find out all about that straightaway.

It wouldn’t be such a good idea to be harboring a murderess in the house, even one who had aroused the interest of the Prince of Wales.

Not conducive to a good night’s sleep, that was for certain.

He knew all too well, being a soldier, that one’s hardest kill was the first one, and that successive kills came all the more easily.

Did that make him as bad as rumor had it she was?

Might people class killing men on the battlefield the same as murdering a husband one hated?

If she’d hated him. He was rather jumping to conclusions here in assuming their marriage had been a bad one just because of his own turbulent relationship with Marcus.

Best not to do that. She might have loved her late husband. Or not…

They reached the front hall, where the butler was just unlocking the front door, and as this worthy turned, Richard saw to his delight that it was none other than Atkins, the butler of his boyhood.

He must be well over sixty now, and his hair had gone thin and snowy white, but he still had the unmistakable upright stance of the man Richard remembered. Although perhaps not the eyesight.

He peered with narrowed eyes at the two newcomers, a puzzled frown settling on his wrinkled forehead and furrowing it still further.

“Your Grace.” He made a bow to the young duchess.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t expect to see you yet.

” His gaze ran over her riding habit, a garment which showed off to perfection her pale skin and auburn curls.

“I trust there is nothing amiss with the horses?” He peered once again at Richard, clearly unsettled by being unable to place him.

The duchess shook her head. “They are quite well but will have to wait until later today for some exercise. I thought I had better escort this gentleman inside. You will be wanting to make his acquaintance forthwith, I suspect.”

Atkins took a few steps across the wide hall, bringing himself close enough, probably, to have a better look at Richard.

His mouth fell open, his eyes brimming with shock, before realization appeared to dawn.

“M-master Diccon?” His voice held incredulity.

Unsurprising if he’d been told the same faradiddle as Isabella and Amos.

Which might explain why everyone was so taken aback to see him.

He’d only been off in the army in Europe, not on the far side of the world.

Communications did exist. Although if Marcus had been going round telling everyone he was dead, he must have wanted to believe it himself, so perhaps no one had ever thought to check.

He’d never quite understood his cousin’s hatred for him.

After all, Marcus had always been the elder by three years, the taller, the stronger, and the one destined to inherit the dukedom.

Back then, Richard had been nothing but the poor relation with nothing to inherit, and yet Marcus had gone out of his way to make his life a misery. Right from the moment they’d first met.

“I have indeed returned,” he said to Atkins, with a wide smile, for want of any other answer. He must put on a cheerful face about this with the servants. Best not to give them any intimation of how daunted he was feeling about taking on his inheritance.

Atkins’s tired, serious old face suddenly dissolved into a wide smile. “Master Diccon come back to us after all these years. Well I never. I didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”

Richard held out his hand. “That makes two of us, Atkins. I didn’t think I’d ever be returning, and certainly not like this.”

Atkins took the offered hand. His was bony and thin, much like that of Old Amos, the skin dry and wrinkled.

Perhaps he was nearer to seventy than sixty.

Richard swallowed an unaccustomed lump in his throat.

Everyone he’d known had grown old in his absence.

A sobering thought. As a boy Richard had never pondered the ages of the servants; he and Dora had dismissed them all as old, Atkins in particular.

Now, returning as an adult, Richard couldn’t help but recognize how the years had not been kind to the old butler, who seemed suddenly ancient and shrunken.

Closer inspection revealed how his dark suit hung on his bony frame.

They shook.

After a moment, Atkins remembered his position and gently drew his hand back.

He made a deep bow. “Please allow me to welcome you home, Your Grace. It’s a true honor to be able to welcome you once again.

” The fact that his new master was attired in muddy boots, had his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbows and bits of straw adhering here and there to his person didn’t seem to have put him off at all.

Perhaps he remembered the boy Richard had been.

Richard smiled again, this time with genuine pleasure.

How good it was to have been presented with two such familiar faces on his return, as well as the decidedly unwelcoming, although very pretty, one of the young duchess.

What was her actual name? He couldn’t really call her just Duchess or Your Grace , as they were on level footing, and, after all, closely related by marriage now.

He’d have to ask her. But not just now. What he wanted now was some breakfast.

Used to rising early in the army, he’d been up at the same time as Old Amos and his wife, but they’d both had to get about their morning chores, so he and Baxter had gone to see to the horses and take a look in daylight at the property that was now his.

After all, horses and dogs had to come first, especially at Stourbridge. People were only secondary.

The duchess must have been thinking along the same lines as he was, regarding food, that was. “Atkins,” she said with crisp authority. “Can you please inform Cook that we shall be requiring breakfast directly. I have foregone my morning ride and shall be breakfasting with the… duke.”

Was that a slight hesitation before she used his title?

If she’d been used to calling her husband by that title, then she might find it difficult to have to apply it to another.

Unless, of course, those rumors were true and she was glad to see the back of him.

Might she also nurture a desire to see the back of his successor?

There was that distinct possibility. A possibility that could be worrying.

Atkins bowed to her. “Straightaway, Your Grace. I fear it might take her a short while to prepare it, as she assumed you would be taking your usual morning exercise, but I’ll tell her we are welcoming the new duke and ask her to hurry.”

The duchess nodded, a slight frown on her brow. “Very well. A quarter of an hour, if she can manage it. The duke and I will wait in the morning room.”