Page 8 of A Duchess Worth Stealing (Saved by Scandal #2)

Chapter Six

“ Y ou’re late,” came the lazy drawl from the window seat, “and I’ve nearly perished from the trauma of being left alone with your truly repugnant armchair for more than fifteen minutes.”

Mason did not bother to look up as he shut the door behind him.

“I’m amazed you can tell the difference between trauma and inconvenience. You rarely linger long enough in either.”

His cousin, Jasper Everleigh, the Duke of Harrow, turned with a slow, dramatic sigh, sprawling his long legs over the Persian rug like a man entirely at home in another man’s study.

“It wounds me,” he said, pressing a hand, which was adorned with one unnecessarily expensive ring, to his heart. “You’ve become so sharp, cousin. Has the countryside withered your soul entirely?”

Mason finally glanced up from the letters he’d brought with him. “What are you doing here, Jasper?”

“Such warmth,” Jasper replied cheerfully. “Is this how you greet all your guests, or am I uniquely despised?”

Mason tossed the stack of correspondence onto the desk and moved toward the decanter. “You’re not a guest. You never wait to be invited.”

“True,” Jasper conceded, rising with fluid ease. “But I did knock, albeit once. Then I remembered how tragically dull you become when brooding alone and thought it best to intervene.”

“As always.”

Mason poured them two fingers of brandy and handed his cousin one of the glasses, completely ignoring the smell, for rage seemed to have momentarily dulled his sense of smell.

“You’re looking serious,” Jasper remarked, swirling the amber liquid. “More serious than usual, and for you, that’s saying something. Is it your tenants? Some scandal I haven’t yet heard? Did the Dowager discover your secret collection of scandalous French poetry?”

“It’s none of those things,” Mason said dryly, leaning back in his chair. “And if I did have such a collection, it would be better hidden than your mistresses.”

“Touché.” Jasper raised his glass in salute.

He sniffed the brandy before drinking then took an exaggerated whiff as though detecting arsenic in the bouquet.

“Good God,” he gasped, pulling the glass back in alarm. “Have you taken to poisoning me? Because I’d prefer stabbing… it’s far less pedestrian.”

Mason took a drink from his own glass and promptly spat it back out.

“Soap.”

“Soap!” Jasper repeated in horror. “You did poison me. You’ve turned recluse and begun experimenting on the last soul who still tolerates your company.”

Mason muttered a curse under his breath and stood, stalking toward the sideboard. “I had bloody forgotten. I should have Hargrave’s head for allowing this.”

“Oh, leave the poor man alone. He’s had to put up with you for years. What’s a little homicide between friends?” Jasper rose and followed, still examining his glass with theatrical dismay. “Wait… no. This wasn’t Hargrave’s doing. He’s too old. This… this smells like youthful incompetence.”

Mason said nothing, pouring the ruined brandy into the basin with unnecessary force.

Jasper’s brow arched. “Ah. A maid?”

“No,” Mason grumbled.

“A footman? Don’t tell me you’ve hired a valet who moonlights as a scullery maid?—”

“My mother has a new companion.”

Jasper paused. “Ah.”

Mason shot him a look that dared him to make more of it. As always, he did.

“Well, that explains it,” Jasper said with a snap of his fingers. “I knew something had unsettled you. I thought perhaps you were grappling with questions of mortality or, worse, responsibility. But no, this is far more serious.”

Mason crossed his arms. “It’s not serious.”

“No, of course not,” Jasper agreed smoothly, raising the ruined glass in a mock-toast. “It’s only that your mother has brought into your home a bright-eyed, tragically earnest young woman with an apparent vendetta against dust and perfectly good liquor.

One who clearly stirs something in you since you’ve been scowling more than usual—which is truly saying something, given your standard expression resembles a storm cloud mid-tantrum. ”

“There is nothing stirred,” Mason snapped. “She is an utter chaos of a woman who leaves half-done embroidery in the dining room and sings to the dogs in the morning. She… she arranged my ledgers by color, Jasper. Color. ”

Jasper’s eyes lit with delight. “So, she’s clever, too. What a horror.”

Mason exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair.

“Perhaps you simply need to get it out of your system,” Jasper mused, examining his fingernails. “Kiss the chit. End the madness. Then go on with your very serious life of glowering in libraries and judging my choices, although they are your own, too. You just hate to admit it, old boy.”

The words were meant in jest. Mason knew that. And yet… something inside of him, low and primal and utterly furious, rose at the suggestion, not at the idea of kissing Cordelia but at the thought of her being just some dalliance.

Jasper, to his credit, noticed at once.

“Easy,” he said, lifting his hands in a symbol of mock surrender. “It was a jest.”

Mason turned away.

“You look like you want to put your fist through something.”

“I’m fine,” Mason said tightly.

“You’re not,” Jasper replied. “You never go still like that unless you’re one breath from snapping someone’s neck.”

Mason braced his hands against the edge of the desk and looked down, but all he saw was her : her wide blue eyes, her trembling chin, her defiant stare, the feel of her breathless laughter still echoed in his mind.

He didn’t know what it was about her. He didn’t want her, and yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“I’m nothing like him,” Mason said suddenly.

Jasper blinked. “Pardon?”

“I’m nothing like my father.”

Jasper’s expression softened.

“No,” he said after a pause. “You’re not.”

Mason straightened, every inch of him coiled and composed once more.

“I will not become a man who treats women like pawns. I will not let rage rule me. And I will not let some impulsive girl stir chaos into this house or into me.”

Jasper gave him a long, measured look then he grinned.

“Old boy, you’re utterly doomed.”

“I daresay,” said Cordelia as she examined the tangled thicket before them, “that these roses have declared a rebellion and are planning to seize the estate by Michaelmas.”

The Dowager Duchess, who had been trailing her gloved fingers along a branch with the absent fondness one bestows upon a memory, let out a soft laugh.

“Isabelle never had the patience for pruning. She would plant five and promptly forget three.” She turned to Cordelia as amusement danced faintly in her eyes. “But she always remembered to name them.”

Cordelia’s lips curved. “These look like they might be called Margaret, Eleanor, and Despair.”

“An accurate reflection of the state of my garden.”

They chuckled as they stood together, side by side in the morning light, while the bees murmured lazily and the air held the sweet, almost overripe scent of summer blooms. The rosebushes, which were once tidy and delicate, had now grown wild, reaching toward the sky in a frenzy of thorns and tangled greenery, as though yearning to reclaim some lost piece of the world.

Cordelia felt strangely at peace here with the Dowager Duchess. There was pain in the older woman’s eyes, yes, but also the stubborn insistence of one who had chosen, deliberately, to keep moving forward. That, Cordelia admired greatly.

She turned to speak, perhaps even to suggest she might take it upon herself to trim the bushes though she possessed no particular gardening skill, when a dark shadow crossed the path behind them.

She knew that silhouette.

She had dreamed of it too many nights.

“Cordelia Brookes!”

The voice cracked like a whip through the tranquil air. The Dowager Duchess stiffened. He was striding toward them with rage written in every line of his face. Lord Vernon, the Earl of Nettlebridge, was tall, ruddy, and far too sure of his own authority in another man’s garden.

“You will come with me. Now. ”

Cordelia’s mouth went dry.

“I knew it,” she whispered, grabbing the Dowager’s hand without even thinking. “I knew he would find me.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the Dowager, stepping forward with measured calm. “To whom do I have the displeasure of speaking?”

“I am her guardian, who, might I remind you, suffered extreme violence at her hands,” Lord Vernon snapped, choosing to ignoring her immediately after.

His furious eyes fixed on Cordelia. “And as your guardian, I forbid you to remain in this house as a… What are you? A companion?” He spat the word like a curse. “You disgrace yourself.”

Cordelia was frozen with fear. He had every right. He was her guardian, still, at least until her birthday and the trust her father had left her passed into her hands. She had fled without warning, leaving behind a bruised man in a library of this very same house.

“I will not ask again,” Lord Vernon growled. “Come. Now.”

Her legs wanted to move. Her heart wanted to flee. But something in her spine held firm.

“I daresay,” Lord Vernon sneered, his voice thick with fury and disdain, “that you’ve enjoyed your little rebellion long enough, but this farce ends now.”

Cordelia’s lips parted to speak though what she might say, she did not know. And then, a voice thundered through the garden.

“I should like to know,” came the cold, unmistakable tone of His Grace , the Duke of Galleon, “why a gentleman is shouting at my mother and distressing her companion in my garden.”

Cordelia turned. Her knees nearly gave out beneath her.

Mason stood at the edge of the path, tall and terrible in the morning sun, the kind of man forged by steel and fury.

His coat was dark, his boots gleaming, his amber eyes narrowed into slits of contained wrath.

He did not look at her. All of his focus was fixed on Lord Vernon who, for the first time in Cordelia’s memory, seemed at a rare loss for words.

“May I also ask,” Mason added as he neared them, “if the Dowager Duchess of Galleon is not adequate company for a gentlewoman in need of protection?”

Lord Vernon sputtered. “I—Of course not… Of course, she is?—”

“Then I must be confused,” Mason went on, unblinking. “You claim to be this lady’s guardian, yet you berate her in public, speak with shocking familiarity to my mother, and behave as though her station—which, I remind you, is in my house—is beneath your approval.”

“I only meant?—”

“Ah. You meant to shame her.” Mason stepped closer still, and Cordelia could feel the full heat of his temper. “Because she no longer resides under your thumb. Because she has found peace without your permission. Is that it, My Lord?”

Lord Vernon’s jaw clenched furiously. Cordelia felt a flicker of awe, even through her anxiety. This was a duke.

Mason’s voice dropped lower and much icier. “Careful how you answer. We’re in the countryside, and I have no patience left for men who presume power where none is owed.”

A flicker of terrible silence passed. Then, without another word, Lord Vernon turned on his heel and stalked down the path but not before casting a look over his shoulder which was meant only for Cordelia.

This is not over.

She could hear those words inside her mind, full of venom and promise. She exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and her knees buckled slightly. The Dowager caught her by the elbow with gentle, steadying hands.

“You are safe, dear girl,” the older woman murmured.

Cordelia nodded faintly, but her eyes lifted to Mason, who still had not looked at her though his shoulders rose and fell like a man trying to calm the beast within.

“Thank you,” she said softly though her voice wavered.

At last, Mason turned to her. Their eyes met. And though he said nothing in return, she saw something in his gaze that stole her breath.

It was not anger but dangerous resolve.