Page 8 of A Duke Never Tells
CHAPTER SEVEN
ELLIOTT RINIKEN
Elliott tugged at his jacket. Dukes—the new Duke of Earnhurst, in particular—dressed more fashionably than he did. His dark blue jacket was too plain, with a single row of buttons and average-sized lapels. It was a practical jacket, suitable for meeting solicitors or farmers or walking the property. The cream-colored waistcoat was the same, utilitarian rather than designed to wow everyone who perchance set eyes on him.
His cravat, however, came from a different social circle entirely, and it might well choke him to death. Goodfrey, whether out of a sense of professionalism or of anger that he was now dressing a commoner, had tied the thing so elaborately that every inch was flared, knotted, or twisted into the design. The waistcoat barely showed beneath it.
His tan trousers, the finest he owned, were thankfully serviceable, and he doubted anyone would notice his black boots other than to note that they were clean. He felt like one of the old paintings that lined the portrait hall, the ones done at the time of Henry VIII—with ruffled, circular collars larger than the subject’s head and expressions that seemed both bored and full of pleading to be able to stop posing and breathe again.
Standing about wouldn’t improve anything about his attire or his comfort, however, so he squared his shoulders and pushed open the door to exit the master bedchamber. Just down the hallway Lady Sophronia, dressed now in a dark blue gown that clung to her curves and shimmered in the lamplight, turned and curtsied. “Your Grace.”
Yes, that was him now. Nearly royalty. Elliott inclined his head, because dukes almost never had to bow. “My lady. I’m pleased you could join me for dinner this evening.”
Her sapphire earbobs caught the candlelight as she nodded, her soft golden hair twisted into a knot with soft strands hanging about her face and temples. The look was enchanting, if far too elegant compared to his own spare attire.
“Thank you for inviting me,” she said. “And for allowing Mabel and me to reside here for the next fortnight. It is truly a relief. The idea of staying for so long at the Falconers Inn and relying on them for bed and board…” She gave an exaggerated shudder, as if being seen to by anyone other than one’s own trusted servants was inconceivable. Little did she know that Earnhurst Castle’s “butler” outranked them both and had probably never poured a cup of tea in his life.
“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you to stay at an inn,” he said aloud, as that sounded like something the old duke would say. Richard Clay had been gracious, loyal to his friends, and exceedingly regimented in his view of what his son should be and how he should behave. Which was the opposite of how James had turned out. “Shall we?” He offered his arm, and they descended the stairs with the utmost care. The last thing he wanted was for a guest actually to be killed by the house.
They made their way to the downstairs sitting room that adjoined the dining room, and he walked her to the couch. “Sit, please.”
“Thank you. Will you join me?”
Thank goodness she’d asked. Dukes could sit where they wished without being invited, but his role model had rarely used his position for shows of power or arrogance, which left Elliott uncertain about some of etiquette’s minutiae. He sank down on the couch beside her. “How is Miss Mabel?”
“She’s resting comfortably, thank you. Your Mrs. Carvey sent her up a nice broth and some bread.” Her mouth twitched a little in an enchanting quarter grin which said quite plainly that she was amused. “Your cook says that plain fare helps with recovery, as the body doesn’t have to go to any extra effort to digest and can put all its resources toward mending.”
“Mrs. Carvey is a woman of very little nonsense.” And even less humor, but at least she hadn’t abandoned the house like most of the other servants.
The door behind him rattled and opened. “Dinner is served,” the actual Duke of Earnhurst announced, and rang a small gong that hung from his left hand—though where he’d dug that up from, Elliott had no idea. Dinner hadn’t been announced with a gong there for at least twenty years.
“Oh, my,” Lady Sophronia breathed as she stood again, her green eyes lighting. He was beginning to suspect that she had a keen appreciation for oddness. If so, she’d certainly come to the right place. “Such formality, even here in the middle of Dorset. I am flattered, Your Grace.”
“And I am pleased to have company for dinner,” Elliott returned, meaning it. The previous three nights he’d dined with James, and the meals had been brief, tense, and filled with argument. Now James could glower, but he would at least have to do it silently.
He offered his arm once more, and Sophronia wrapped her fin gers around his sleeve. “I have to say,” she went on with an attractive smile, “after your… confessions of earlier I wasn’t certain we would be compatible dinner companions.”
Yes, he was already regretting having painted himself in such a dismal light. The lady couldn’t possibly know he’d been pointing out James’s faults rather than his own, but they were in the air now, and he had no choice but to claim them. “And you are brave and kind to sit at a table with me after hearing them. In return, I can only apologize,” he said. “All of this,” and with his free hand he gestured at the house, the land, the faux butler, everything in general, “has proved to be more of a surprise and a frustration than I expected.”
“I imagine so.” She took the seat he held out for her, and he proceeded to the far end of the table to sit at its head. The smallest version of the table in the small dining room could seat twelve, putting them a fair distance from each other, more cavernous than intimate. At least the room showed well in the candlelight. In the daytime, the faded walls and flaking paint around the windows would have been impossible to hide.
Midway between them stood James, straight and stiff with the gong and mallet still in his hands. With his black attire, simple cravat, and plain green waistcoat he looked like a butler, at least, but being a handsome faux servant wouldn’t mend the house.
Lady Sophronia cleared her throat. “This room is pleasant. And the table settings are lovely.”
Elliott nodded. “In truth we are short several silver pieces; a mix-up with pay for the servants caused several of them to abscond with what they felt they were owed.”
She lifted a curved eyebrow. “You didn’t pay them?”
“My late… father, knowing his illness was causing him to neglect things, handed the authority to pay his staff over to his bank. A junior accountant there, one Jasper Burshin, if you should ever be so unlucky as to encounter the man, was placed in charge of seeing the wages distributed. Mr. Burshin decided to make off with the funds rather than hand over the salaries. He took the equivalent of a year’s worth of Earnhurst staff wages with him—and half a year of investments—in addition to mangling the ledgers so thoroughly that it took some untangling to even find the theft and to arrange for the back wages to be available. We’re still pulling at threads and finding new knots, I’m afraid.”
“He stole from you, you mean. Or from your father, rather.”
“Yes. He stole from the estate.”
“Have you had him found and arrested?”
“My… advisors suggested I do so. I haven’t done it yet.”
Damnation, this was tricky. He’d asked James at least three times to contact the authorities and see what could be done to track down Mr. Burshin. The damned thief had tangled the books and hidden funds so effectively that for a time Elliott had thought they might have to sell one of Earnhurst’s other properties just to pay taxes.
The new duke had made some promising cutting motions with his hands, but had yet to send a letter to or meet with anyone who could arrange for Jasper Burshin to be found and dragged to jail.
“Why haven’t you?”
Biting back his first impulse, which was to begin disparaging the new duke again, Elliott glanced over at James and shrugged. “Fathers and sons. We don’t always pay the attention that we should.”
To his surprise, she laughed. “I could say the same about mothers and daughters. Heaven knows mine would have preferred me to be wed and a mother myself rather than delving about in books and making a holiday of visiting grand manor houses.”
He liked her laugh. It wasn’t at all demure or shrinking, but bold and genuine. “I see nothing about which to complain,” he commented, then winced as James snorted. Elliott would have taken a drink of wine to give himself a moment to remember that he had a very unfriendly audience listening to his conversation, but no one had brought in wine. Or anything else.
“James,” he said aloud, wondering just how dedicated the duke would be to continuing this farce when it involved laboring, “wine, if you please. And dinner. I don’t want Lady Sophronia thinking we have no redeeming qualities at all. If she can’t admire the estate, at least she can say the household was competent and the dinner palatable.”
James stirred, setting the gong and mallet on the side table with a loud clang. “Yes, Your Grace. Right away.”
“Just how new is he?” the lady asked, glancing toward the door through which James had vanished.
“Ah. He’s been here for three days. The former butler left with a good portion of the silverware six months ago. Allegedly.” He added that last word because he was supposed to be the unconcerned James Clay, not the attentive man of business who had the list of missing and stolen and broken items memorized.
“That does explain some things.” She grinned, the expression open and inviting and without an ounce of artifice. “You called me ‘kind’ earlier. All I’ve done is accept your hospitality. You’re the one showing patience and kindness, Your Grace. Just from what I’ve witnessed today, this James fellow would have been booted out of most households on his arse by now.”
She’d said “arse.” Nor had she blushed or tittered when she’d said it. “I was in need, and he was available,” he stated, having difficulty holding back his own smile.
The wine arrived, carried thankfully by Timothy, who at least knew how to pour. Directly behind him, Randall entered the dining room, a large, covered soup tureen gripped tightly in his white-gloved hands. On his heels, and chewing through a generous slice of bread, came James Clay.
“Dinner, Your Grace,” His actual Grace said, and lifted the lid off the tureen with his free hand.
“You need to offer servings,” Timothy whispered.
“ I serve it?” James asked, lifting the dripping soup ladle.
Elliott wanted to shut his eyes until the chaos was settled, but if he did so, he would miss seeing what happened next. “As we discussed, James,” he offered, beginning to find the lad’s bafflement amusing, “once we are fully staffed again, you, as butler, will not be expected to serve, but merely direct.”
“Ah.” A ladleful of onion soup plopped sloppily into the lady’s bowl, and the duke and Randall with the tureen made their way down the length of the table to repeat the action for Elliott. “And now I just stand here, I assume?” James murmured, head lowered.
“Yes. On the chance we might require something, and to assist when the footmen return with the next course.”
“We are going to have a chat about hiring additional servants at the first available moment.” With an overelaborate bow James dropped the ladle back into the soup and resumed his position beside the gong.
Elliott had no idea what the devil Lady Sophronia must think of this spectacle, but she sipped spoonfuls of soup as if she truly enjoyed the concoction. He tried a taste, himself. Hmm. Not bad. Perhaps Mrs. Carvey had been so eager to cook for a proper occasion again that she’d outdone herself—which was… good, he supposed, but did beg the question of what she’d been doing for the past year when he and the staff had been served mostly stews and boiled or baked chicken—because of the money troubles, she’d said.
“If I may,” Lady Sophronia commented, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her napkin, “I have always found that the best way to approach a large problem is to divide it into sections, then attack each of those as its own entity. Having that moment of satisfaction at completing a task often gives me the impetus to go on to the next, even if they’re actually just small bits of a much larger tangle.”
Elliott looked at his—James’s—guest all over again. After a year of fretting and frustration and hearing over and over how the condition of Earnhurst didn’t matter a whit to the new duke and that he would be happy to see the castle razed to the ground, finally someone had arrived who simply saw problems and the need to rectify them, one by one. “Thank you, my lady. Succinctly put, well-considered, and logical.”
Her cheeks reddened. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace. I have no doubt you’ve come to that same conclusion yourself, and I’m only repeating the obvious. In my defense, my father was a colonel in the army, and a great strategist.” Her color deepened. “In addition to being an earl, of course.”
He nodded. “My… father was a general in addition to being a duke. There are those among us who do their duty despite having the privilege to ignore it if they wished to do so.”
She set one palm on the table. “Precisely. It makes no sense to sit back and enjoy an unearned luxury, given simply by virtue of a fortunate birth, without acknowledging the duty and obligation that come along with it. I applaud you for your own service in the army, as well, Your Grace, for precisely that reason.”
“Thank you.” Although he didn’t look over at James, he could practically feel the younger man’s heated annoyance from halfway across the room. And the duke would have to stand there, unspeaking, until dinner concluded. This was rather delightful, really. “How would you divide the areas of Earnhurst which need attention, if I may ask?”
She sipped another spoonful of soup. “At this moment I have only the broadest idea of the estate’s condition. Any suggestions I could make would be useless, I imagine, and something you’ve already considered.”
“Then tomorrow you and I shall do a much more detailed reconnaissance,” he stated.
“But my companion will be by herself. I cannot—”
“Nonsense. James will see to her comfort. He hasn’t many butler’s duties at the moment, anyway. Nor will he, until we whip Earnhurst back into shape.”
She hesitated, then smiled again. “Well, then. I accept.” Lady Sophronia laughed. “How could I not?”
Elliott motioned for James, now standing with his jaw clenched and his arms folded over his chest, to proceed with the meal’s next course. The actual duke might not wish to be the duke, but someone had to assume the position. And forcing James to sit with a lady’s companion, and to listen now to how his situation would improve if the estate itself was improved—that, in Elliott’s opinion, could serve better than the lectures and complaints he’d spent the better part of a year delivering to a pair of deaf ears.
If this didn’t convince James to step up, toe the line, and see to his responsibilities, he didn’t know what in the world would. And the time for Richard Clay’s son to take his life and position seriously was swiftly running out, as surely as an overturned hourglass.