Page 49

“ D o you need rosemary?” Valeria called from the kitchen garden, swatting a fly out of her face.

A kindly, weathered face appeared at the kitchen door. “You don’t need to do that, miss.”

“Who else, if not me?” Valeria replied, smiling.

It was a beautiful spring afternoon, the birds were chirping and pecking for their luncheon, the bees were humming contentedly among the wildflowers, the sun was warm on Valeria’s skin, the sky cloudless and hazy with the promise of the coming summer.

There was nowhere she would have rather been, nowhere better to shuffle off the discomfort of the previous night’s ball… and her encounter with Lockie.

She had already checked the scandal sheets for her name, relieved when she did not find it, but that did not mean it would not appear. Until a week had passed without seeing it in those pages, she could not allow herself to fully relax.

“It’s not right, miss,” the cook, Mrs. Mitford, complained with a huff. “You shouldn’t be digging around in the dirt for herbs. I’ll fetch my boy from the village. He can do that, while you do what young ladies ought to be doing.”

Valeria waved a dismissive hand. “I am quite capable, and I am enjoying myself. Please, let me help. There is nothing else for me to do, and nothing else I wish to do… nor am I such a young lady anymore. I might as well make myself useful.”

“You’ll be asking to cook next,” Mrs. Mitford said with a faint chuckle.

“I would be glad to learn,” Valeria replied.

The cook must have thought she was joking, as she laughed and retreated inside, mumbling to herself. “A young lady of the house cooking her own dinner—whatever next! Sewing her own clothes? Raising her own hunting dogs? Running a household by herself?”

Valeria did not think that sounded so terrible, but as she looked up at the beautiful sandstone of Skeffington House, a pang of sadness struck her in the chest.

The manor had become so empty of late, the halls devoid of life, the rooms too large, the furniture and adornments too unnecessary; the reasonably modest residence becoming a thing of indulgence. It was still her beloved home, and it crushed her to think of what might become of it.

I could survive alone. A cottage somewhere, with space to grow things and a good fire to keep me warm in winters. She had never truly belonged in society anyway, so why not withdraw entirely—become a myth in the woods, quite content in solitude?

Just then, the creaky gate to the kitchen garden swung open and the familiar figure of Mr. Worth, the butler, came barreling through. He skidded to a halt on the stepping stone path that cut through the herbs and vegetables.

“A visitor, Miss Maxwell,” he wheezed, hands braced against his heaving ribs. “You have… a visitor.”

Valeria frowned. “ I have a visitor?”

“Well… there is a visitor, and as your father is not here, I’m afraid it… falls to you to greet him,” the butler gasped, stooping to catch his breath.

“ Him? ” Valeria blinked in confusion. No one ever visited her except her friends, Amelia and Isolde, and they were not due to call upon her until the summer. Indeed, she was supposed to be visiting them in a fortnight.

The butler nodded, his cheeks bright red. “The Duke of Thornhill.”

“Who?” Valeria squinted, trying to place the name.

Unfortunately, she knew as much about the titles and histories of society’s peers as she did about cooking, her curious mind too filled with other things to bother remembering who was duke or earl or viscount of what.

“I’m not familiar with him either,” the butler replied apologetically.

“An associate of my father’s, maybe?”

The butler shrugged. “I don’t know, Miss Maxwell. He’s in the drawing room, and… most insistent on being greeted. He said it was urgent.”

An associate of my father’s… An urgent matter.

Valeria jumped up, hope sparking in her heart as she hurried to dust the dirt from the knees of her skirt and dispose of her gardening gloves.

Smelling of rosemary and thyme, her head dizzy with the buzz of bees and the honey-warm glow of the spring sunlight, she raced into the house through the kitchen door.

“Tea, Mrs. Mitford,” she instructed urgently as she passed the cook. “A tea tray, if you please. A few cakes if we have them! I believe we have a very important guest!”

There was no time to change her attire as she ran through the echoing hallways, despite realizing that dusting her knees had only made the mess worse. Still, if she explained and apologized, perhaps the visitor would be kind enough to ignore the dirt.

What if this is what we have been waiting for?

Clutching tightly to that fragile hope, praying it would not shatter, she rushed the rest of the way to the drawing room.

She paused outside the door, pushing an unruly lock of auburn hair out of her face, and dabbing the perspiration of her efforts from her brow with a handkerchief. With a breath to compose herself, she strode into the room with a welcoming smile on her face.

It faded the moment she saw the man standing by the window, a dark feather in his hand.

He had shed his tailcoat. His muscular arms and broad shoulders were haloed by the golden sunlight, his shirt sleeves daringly rolled up to his elbows, and his waistcoat tight across his athletic torso.

A man who had already made himself at home in her residence.

He is a duke? Of course he is… It all made sense now. Naturally, a man so confident in his own power and influence would feel no guilt in handling the reputations of young ladies so carelessly.

“You are not an easy woman to find, Miss Maxwell,” Lockie said, sliding the feather into a vase of lavender that she had picked a couple of days ago. “I suppose I should not be surprised; you are not someone who seems to want to be found by gentlemen, considering your opinion of marriage.”

Valeria frowned at him, hesitating just inside the room. She knew she should remove herself, or ask him to leave, but her feet remained anchored to the parquet. As scandalous as he was, he knew a lot of eligible gentlemen.

“I have no grim opinion of the good kind of marriage,” she told him evenly. “It is a nuanced matter, and one that I have no desire to discuss with you. You should leave, Your Grace.”

“Leave? Heavens, no.” He smiled, moving to sit on the settee. “I have only just arrived, and we have business to discuss.”

Valeria skirted around to the opposite settee, staying behind it. “We do not. My stance has not changed since the other night—I need no repayment for something I did not do.”

“My stance has not changed either,” he replied blithely. “My honor demands that I repay you. You cannot escape this, so you may as well tell me what it is you want as recompense. There is very little that I cannot give. Name your price.”

She huffed out a frustrated breath. “You should not be here, Your Grace. My father is away, I am alone, and this is most unseemly. Perhaps, you should discuss that with your supposed sense of honor.”

“It would make no difference.” He stretched his arms along the back of the settee, lounging and smirking, as if this were all a game.

Valeria’s gaze flitted to his muscular chest, the strength of his bare forearms, the confident manner in which he carried himself. Arrogant, in truth, and evidently used to getting his way. Still, and most infuriatingly of all, she could not deny that he was, at least, interesting.

“Why do you care?” she asked bluntly, wandering toward the window in the hopes of distracting herself with a different view.

“About you?”

She glanced back sharply. “Pardon?”

If he thought she would be tricked like other ladies, he would be sorely disappointed. He did not care about her. She knew his turn of phrase was nothing but a card in his game of flirtation, probably used so often that it was dogeared, and she had no intention of playing along.

I see right through you, Your Grace.

“You are asking why I care about you gaining what is owed, are you not?” He smiled with wolfish entertainment, confirming her suspicion. At this point, she suspected that most ladies would start to blush.

Valeria would not permit him the satisfaction, grateful that her cheeks remained cool. “Precisely. Why do you care, when I have stated again and again that it is unnecessary?”

“You are asking the wrong question.”

She took a calming breath. “Then, what question should I be asking?”

“You should stand before a mirror and ask, ‘Why am I fighting this so much?’ It is not as if I am asking anything from you.” He grinned, drumming his fingertips on the upholstery.

“Come now, Miss Maxwell. Humor me. What would you like? What are you lacking? What do you need? What would be an equal price for the hassle you spared me?”

She wanted to chide him and send him away, shooing him out with a stick if she had to, but something blocked the words from leaving her throat. Two of his questions, repeating in her head: What am I lacking? What do I need?

She had no reason to trust someone like him, suspicion tickling the back of her mind. And yet…

“Do you mean it?” she asked.

“You will have to be more precise.”

Valeria swallowed her unease. “Can I truly ask for anything, and you will give it to me?”

He shrugged, amusement dancing in his eyes. Eyes the color of deep water in the summertime, flecked around the pupil with a lighter ring of blue. Highly unusual, lending themselves to the intensity of his gaze.

“You will have to be more precise,” she parroted, needing an answer.

He chuckled at that. “When it comes to my code of honor, I am a gentleman of my word. Ask and you shall receive, dear angel.” He grazed his teeth across his lip. “I confess, you have me excited. You must have something truly indecent in mind if you must ask if I am willing to give anything.”

Valeria bristled, forcing herself to turn her irritation out toward the neat lawns and distant orchards, the towering oak where she liked to sit in the summer with a book.

All of the beautiful things that made her feel whole and happy, in that rare sanctuary that she called home.

A place she could not stand to lose, even if she could not be there to enjoy it.

“It is no wonder you swept in here with such confidence, offering so much, if that is what you thought I would ask for,” she replied in a measured voice. “But no, I want nothing like the scandalous things you are imagining. I doubt I even could imagine the depths of your degeneracy.”

He was up on his feet in an instant, the abrupt movement making Valeria flinch.

How she held her nerve and continued to stare out at the grounds, she did not know, but she did not flinch again, not even as he began to walk closer.

She was not going to play his game, but nor would she back down; he needed to learn that his advances were not as foolproof as he thought, and there were women who would remain impervious.

I should retreat. I should leave before he is between me and the exit. Instead, she folded her arms behind her back, watching a rotund pigeon peck at fallen acorns.

She could not see the Duke of Thornhill, his position just outside her periphery, but she felt his every step. It seemed to thicken the air between them, the pressure of his encroaching movements pushing against her back somehow, letting her know that he was getting closer and closer.

Too close.

Her breath faltered, remembering the whisper of his parting words against her neck; how boldly he had toyed with her reputation, in view of other guests.

If she had been younger, a socialite that people cared about, she knew her name would have been splashed across the scandal sheets without hesitation.

There is power in being no one. There is safety in being obsolete.

But if she was going to do what she feared she was about to, her days of being unnoticed and irrelevant would come to a screeching halt. With that in mind, she let her anger at his forwardness and his disregard for the reputation of others bolster her courage.

The shadow of him fell across her, the air so thick between them now that it crackled, prickling her skin into gooseflesh. He could not have been more than a step behind her.

“What, my raven-winged angel, can I do for you?” he growled, his voice no longer the rumble of a distant storm, but the boom of thunder overhead before a lightning strike.

Embarrassed heat crept up Valeria’s throat, climbing all the way to the apples of her cheeks. She hoped he did not mistake that pink shade for something else. “There is only one thing I am lacking, Your Grace. Only one thing I need.”

She was staring right at it, not the separate pieces of the grounds and gardens and house and absent staff, but all of it together and what it meant to her. Her home and what remained of her family, teetering on a knife edge.

“And what is that?” he purred.

Steeling herself, savoring one more encouraging look at the greenery and the oak tree she adored, she turned around to face the Duke of Thornhill. Her courage threatened to waver as she raised her gaze to meet his, having forgotten how tall he was… and how close.

“It is a simple request,” she replied, “though you may find it somewhat disappointing.”

He smiled, dipping his head slightly as if he meant to steal a kiss.

“I find that hard to believe.” Lifting his hand, he pushed back the wavy lock of auburn hair that she had not been able to control earlier.

“Do not tease, Miss Maxwell. Do not leave a man in such suspense. Tell me, for I must know—what is it that you desire from me?”

She wrestled against the impulse to slip around him and hurry for the door, her breaths too short, her entire being too warm, the situation entirely too improper.

At the very least, she should strike him for his impudence, teach him a lesson he would not soon forget.

But that was hardly the way to begin a beneficial arrangement.

Swallowing her nerves, she held his gaze with what she hoped was cool indifference. “I need your expertise.”

“Ah, just what I was hoping to hear,” he murmured, smiling.

Valeria caught his hand before he could touch her hair again, narrowing her eyes at him. “No, Your Grace, you have misunderstood again, jumping to all the wrong conclusions: I do not need you ; I need you to help me find a husband.”