Page 16 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Fifteen

Three weeks and five suitors later…

“This is the one,” Gemma declared, rushing into the kitchens with Lucy hot on her heels. “I can feel it.”

“That’s what you said last time,” Bess panted, a bowl of egg whites in her left arm and her bundle of twigs going nonstop in her right. “About the viscount. And he turned out to be a terrible gambler!”

“Which we only discovered because Hal agreed to the game of hazard the viscount kept instigating and took all his money, his carriage, his horses, and his sapphire signet ring.”

“He took everything but the poor gentleman’s eye patch,” Bess agreed merrily, holding the bowl upside down over her head to check if the meringue was ready to bake. “Which it turned out he didn’t even need! He was a card sharp and confidence trickster all along!”

“Hal gave it all back,” Gemma reminded them crossly. “When I told him he had to.”

“Only so the supposed viscount could use his own coach and six to leave here, still single,” Lucy mumbled under her breath. Gemma cast her a look and Lucy shrugged her slim shoulders. “What? It’s true!”

“Well, at any rate, it no longer signifies because I am telling you, I’ve found him. The man I’m going to marry. William Brighton, Earl of Stonehaven.”

“Already? He’s only been here a few days. Sometimes they don’t show all their idiosyncrasies and oddities straight away,” Lucy pointed out as she put together a tea tray.

Gemma noticed that she was using the tea set their mother had become fond of, that they often reserved for Henrietta.

“I knew the earl in Town, somewhat,” Gemma said distractedly. “And he isn’t odd, only a trifle…unusual in his pursuits.”

Lucy and Bess exchanged another look and Gemma frowned at the tea set, reminded of exactly how fragile her mother’s recovery still felt. “Is Mama unwell today?”

“No, she’s painting again,” Lucy said happily. “We took a long walk this morning, and she was inspired to work with her oils this afternoon, so I said I’d bring tea up to her so she wouldn’t need to pause.”

A warm rush of relief filled Gemma’s heart. “That’s wonderful! Now, Bess, I was wondering if there might be anything at all special we could offer the earl for tea?”

“I’ve already set aside a plate of strawberry scones and cream,” Bess said easily, spooning the stiff, sugared egg whites into a piping bag swift, expert motions. “Made with those lovely little berries Lucy found on her walk with Henrietta yesterday.”

“You’re turning into quite the forager,” Gemma teased her sister. “I had no notion you were such a dedicated walker.”

“Mama wants to walk, so I walk. And anyway, how else am I meant to keep an eye out for the Gentle Rogue?” Lucy asked. “I’m determined to be the one to unmask him, you know.”

“Please don’t,” Gemma laughed. “We can’t afford to lose the business he brings in by haunting this stretch of road. Right before Lord Stonehaven, I gave a room to another pair of ladies who said they were on their way to Bath, but spent the entire time I was with them asking questions about the highwayman.”

“What a lot of fuss over a common criminal,” Bess tutted. “Honestly. Only rich people would think it great fun to be robbed.”

Lucy opened her mouth, most likely to argue that her pet highwayman was a most un common criminal, indeed—she seemed to have forgotten that she, herself, had made up his most interesting attributes out of whole cloth—but Gemma forestalled it by raising a hand. “Do either of you know where Hal is?”

Bess and Lucy exchanged knowing looks, which Gemma elected not to notice. “Wouldn’t your time be better spent attending to your earl?” Bess asked gently.

“Absolutely, except the earl expressed his intention to take a short rest before venturing out for a ramble. I should like to accompany him. He is of a scientific bent, you know, and seems very interested in studying our local…rock formations, or some such. I confess I did not catch it all.” Gemma waved that away impatiently. “But the point is, I must speak with Hal and warn him to stay away! I won’t have him interfering with this one.”

What she needed was to tell Hal it was absolutely, positively over between them. And this time, she had to stick to it.

She’d found her needle in the haystack, an actual good, decent, kind, rich earl who showed every indication of wishing to court her. She could not afford to let her reckless, irresponsible heart hold any further sway over her actions.

Her family’s future depended on it.

“The Earl of Stonehaven is going to make me his countess,” Gemma vowed, no longer certain who she was trying to convince, “and then we will all be able to go back to London and resume our lives.”

Her ungrateful wretch of a sister rolled her eyes and turned to Bess. “Can I have some of that bread from yesterday, with the seeds in? And a hunk of cheese? I thought I’d walk toward the next village and see if I can glean any clues—the Gentle Rogue was spotted in the area just last night!”

Gemma bit back a sigh of frustration. Why did it always feel as though she alone had the will and the focus to carry out their plan?

Following Bess as she weaved through the kitchen packing up a parcel of food for Lucy to carry on her investigative walk, Gemma persisted with her question.

“Bess—you always know everything that’s going on in town. Where is Hal working today? I know the hay is in and drying, and the ewes are not yet ready to lamb, Mr. Cartwright’s pig is recovered from its illness, and Mrs. Givens’s hens are laying again since Hal repaired her chicken coop to keep the foxes out. So what is it that has claimed Hal’s time and attention today?”

Bess turned and handed her a hamper. Gemma blinked down at it; while she’d been enumerating Hal’s litany of efforts around the village, she hadn’t noticed Bess was packing a lunch for her as well as Lucy. And quite a lunch it seemed to be—the basket was heavy enough to require two hands.

“Take that with you out to Mr. Woodhill’s farm. The storm the other night blew a branch down his cottage roof, and Hal offered to go over and thatch it for him this morning. He’ll be needing some sustenance right about now.”

Gemma shook her head in amazement. “Does the man never rest? He seems to spend every waking moment he isn’t here behind the bar, working some field in the countryside or helping someone in the village.”

“I know you and Hal got off on the wrong foot,” Bess began, appearing to choose her words with care, “but it has seemed, lately, as though the two of you had gotten past those early disagreements. I would think you’d have noticed by now how important he is to the people around here.”

Gemma clutched the hamper to her chest to stop the silly fluttering of her cracked, crumpled heart.

The past few weeks had been a whirlwind of aristocratic guests checking in and out, stopping in for drinks or to try the food Five Mile House was becoming known for. She’d been terrifically busy—yet somehow, she’d always seemed to find time to tryst with Hal in the broom cupboard, or pull him into an illicit kiss behind the market cart. Somehow she’d managed to hold onto her virginity, but she couldn’t be certain whether it was through any fortitude of her own or if Hal was simply too good a man to take her virtue when he knew she intended to wed someone else.

Even in that, she felt his protective care.

And then, of course, he’d been right on hand to ‘protect’ her from securing a proposal. Every single gentleman who wandered innocently into the pub was subjected to Hal’s smirking judgment, and found wanting.

His looming presence had sent more than one gentleman scurrying home after a single ale, before Gemma could even take a proper shot at him.

As for the rest, the ones with enough fortitude or obliviousness to withstand Hal’s threatening sneer, well.

Gemma set her jaw. She could not allow it to continue. Hal must not interfere with Lord Stonehaven, and she must tell him farewell. That was all there was to it.

“I know Hal is a pillar of the community here,” she told Bess. “But that doesn’t give him the right to meddle in my affairs. He may think he knows what’s best for everyone in Little Kissington, spreading his benevolence over the whole village and all the tenants as though he were the lord of the manor, but I’m not one of his dependents!”

Bess appeared to choke on nothing but air, her breath wheezing like a bellows. “I beg your pardon. I don’t know what’s come over me. Too much sugar in the air perhaps.”

“You should take a rest,” Gemma advised, setting down the hamper to grab her pelisse and hat from the wooden pegs beside the door. “With the inn as busy as it is now, it’s too much work for one woman, Bess! You must let me hire someone to help you.”

“My cousin Flora is a dab hand with a hot water crust,” Bess said reluctantly. “And I know her family could use the wages. Her brother-in-law might be interested in helping out behind the bar again, as well.”

“Yes! Perfect. He did an admirable job of filling in while Hal was…indisposed. Hire them both.”

“I suppose having an apprentice would be all right.” Bess smiled, her cornflower-blue eyes thoughtful. “It occurs to me, Gemma, that you and Hal are not as different as you like to pretend. You take care of people too, in your own way.”

Gemma’s ears went hot with embarrassment. “Nonsense. I’m a very self-centered person, ask anyone who knows me.”

“You’d better be careful,” Bess said with a laugh as she began piping a layer of meringue into a round pan. “The longer you stay here, the more we are getting to know you!”

Making a face, Gemma chose not to dignify that with a response. Instead she picked up the hamper and swept out of the kitchen with all the hauteur at her command.

Never mind Bess chuckling in her wake. These people in Little Kissington, they didn’t know the real Gemma. They’d only ever met Down and Out Gemma. They wouldn’t be as welcoming to Queen-of-the-Scandalous-Socialites Gemma.

Gemma chewed that over as she walked down the main street through the center of the village. Other women going about their daily business, running errands and chasing children, gave her nods as they passed. Men touched their hat brims cordially. She recognized many of the faces she saw from the public room at the inn; she’d even started memorizing some of their usual orders, without intending to do it.

Bess was right, Gemma realized. If she wasn’t careful, this place was going to start feeling more like home than London did.

At the edge of the village, just beyond the blacksmith’s shop, sat a squat, square cottage with a fenced pasture attached where Mr. Woodhill lived with his friend, Mr. Prince.

Little more than the size of the courtyard at the Five Mile, this patch of green and brown was all Mr. Woodhill had to farm. Yet he was one of the more fortunate men in the county, and accounted more than respectable, as he owned his own property rather than managing a parcel of land for the absent Duke of Havilocke as a tenant farmer.

Two confirmed bachelors, neither Mr. Woodhill nor Mr. Prince had ever married, so there were no grown children to help with the upkeep of the farm, or with repairs—like the hole in their thatched roof.

The thatched roof upon which Hal was currently kneeling, his broad shoulders outlined against the clear blue sky as spring sunshine poured down over his hatless head.

Gemma let herself in by the rusty garden gate, grateful for the shade of the wide-brimmed straw hat perched on her upswept curls. The days were growing warmer as they neared May Day, and she couldn’t afford to become complacent about her complexion.

It would never do for the Countess of Stonehaven to have freckles.

Or for her skin to be toasted to a warm golden tan, as Hal’s face, neck, and exposed forearms were. The collar of his shirt gaped open, exposing a wide V of sun-burnished flesh that made Gemma’s mouth tingle oddly to see it. She wondered if he would be as hot to her lips as he was to her eyes.

He hadn’t noticed her yet, absorbed as he was in his work, and Gemma took the opportunity to stare at him longer than she would normally allow herself.

She did not know how many more chances she would have to drink him in. With his sweat-dampened hair curling at the nape of his neck and his muscles bunching under the thin muslin of his shirt as he moved, Gemma couldn’t take her eyes off him. Not if a hundred earls were to go on bended knee and propose.

She stared and struggled with what she’d come there to say while the birds twittered in the hedgerows and the clouds rolled by overhead, and for a moment, time stopped.

Time started up again when Hal stood to his full height, the lines of his strong, work-hardened body stark against the sky. He glanced down and caught sight of Gemma, raising a hand in a scarred leather glove to tip his nonexistent hat.

Gemma cleared her throat and stepped smartly forward to rap on the door of the cottage.

“He’s not there,” Hal called down. “Mr. Prince is away to market, and Mr. Woodhill went to the blacksmith for more crooks to hold the bundles of reeds steady.”

A prickle of awareness sent a shiver down Gemma’s arms. She stepped back to look up at Hal. “Will he be returning soon?”

“Reckon so. Is that a hamper from Bess? Come up here, share it with me.”

“Up there?”

He grinned and held out a hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall.”

“That’s not what concerns me,” Gemma muttered, eyeing the roof.

It was a small cottage, only two stories, but there was quite a steep slope to the roof. At the very peak of the slope, where Hal was perched, there was a narrow, flat surface that ran the length of the roof. So there was a safe enough place to sit.

On the other hand, being alone in the fresh, clear air with a warm, sweaty Hal sounded exceedingly perilous to her good intentions.

Reminding herself that on the roof they were fully in view of anyone who came round, and that the owner of the house would be back at any moment, and that she really did need to speak with Hal fairly urgently, Gemma reluctantly handed the basket up to Hal before setting her kid boots to the ladder leaning against the side wall.

Her dove gray-striped muslin skirts caught on the exposed edges of the bundles of cut reeds making up the roof’s thatching. But once she reached the top of the ladder, she was surprised to find the thatching to be extremely smooth and even. An intricately braided runner of reeds covered the flat peak of the roof, the scalloped edges dipping down over the thatching like a lace doily resting on the back of a settee.

Hal reached out a hand to help her navigate her way from the ladder to the rooftop, and the shock of heat when he touched her, even through her gray kid gloves, made Gemma shiver.

She pulled away as quickly as she could without risking tumbling off the roof, and managed to seat herself decorously enough next to the picnic hamper.

Swinging around her as nimbly as an acrobat, Hal let one leg dangle precariously down the side of the roof and brought the other knee up to rest his arm on it. He studied her for a moment, a sweaty lock of hair falling over his forehead. Gemma absolutely did not want to tuck it back.

“Awfully kind of you to bring me lunch, your ladyship,” he finally rumbled, that low, gravelly voice tinged with dark humor. “May I offer you a cheese and pickle sandwich?”

“I’m not here to eat,” Gemma said loftily. “And you should save those for Mr. Woodhill, I’m certain Bess meant most of that hamper for him.”

“I think she meant some of it for you,” Hal countered, holding up a small plate piled with the cucumber sandwiches Gemma loved best. Spread with butter Bess had flavored with spring garlic, white wine, and chives, the little triangles of bread stuffed with thinly sliced rounds of crunchy cucumber and bitter watercress tempted Gemma unmercifully.

“Fine,” she said, taking the plate with more haste than grace. “Thank you.”

They ate in a surprisingly companionable silence for a few minutes. The warmth of the sun felt wonderful, tempered by a light breeze that smelled of wildflowers and fresh-cut hay.

Gemma finished the last bite of her sandwich and leaned gingerly on a pile of bundled rushes. It was surprisingly comfortable.

“Is there no end to your talents?” she asked, gesturing to the partially thatched roof. “Tell me there’s at least one farming technique that is alien to you.’

“There are quite a few, unfortunately. Times are changing quickly, advances being made. There’s talk of a new wheeled plough that can sow seeds up to ten times as fast as a single farmer can do by hand, which is what we’d need if we were to implement the sort of crop rotation the Dutch use.” The passionate light faded from his eyes, and he sighed. “But all of those changes require capital. Lots of it.”

“Maybe when your friend, the Duke of Havilocke, returns,” Gemma said, thinking aloud. “I daresay it’s his responsibility to administer his lands properly and take care of his tenants.”

Hal’s handsome mouth twisted. “I daresay.”

Pursing her lips, Gemma castigated herself for straying from the main point as Hal went back to his lunch. “Hal. I have something to tell you.”

“Mmf.” Hal raised his brows, mouth full of Cotswold cheese and Bess’s homemade chutney.

Gemma wished she could say that the gusto with which Hal attacked that sandwich rendered him less attractive, but instead the way he briefly closed his eyes and grunted a bit in enjoyment just reminded her of the way he’d looked and sounded when she…when they…

She swallowed and stared very hard down at her empty plate. Best not to get sidetracked again.

She set the plate aside and wondered where all the righteous energy that had propelled her over here had gone. It seemed to have floated away on a cloud consisting of Hal’s discussion of modern agricultural advances, and the general fuzzy-headedness she was prone to in his presence.

Deciding to try a different angle, Gemma adopted a brisk, business-like tone. “Look here, Hal. I stopped by to tell you that you needn’t come round the inn for the next few days. The new man needs a bit more experience behind the bar, and, and anyhow I’m not expecting it to be terribly busy this week, so you may as well take a few days to yourself. I presume you can find some way to spend your free time.”

Hal’s chewing slowed, and her gaze involuntarily followed the strong line of his throat as he swallowed. “Much obliged, your ladyship. How kind of you to give me warning of my own replacement coming in to take my job.”

Flushing, Gemma huffed. “Barnaby isn’t taking anyone’s job, he’s merely helping out for a few hours in the evening here and there. To give you a break. You work so hard.”

Amusement lit Hal’s green eyes. “The consideration! The praise. The thoughtfulness. Truly, no one is as blessed in his employer as am I! And I suppose this sudden generosity of spirit on your part would have nothing whatsoever to do with your earl?”

Gemma froze for a bare instant before bursting out, “Well, what would you have me do, Hal? I have asked you time and time again to cease interfering in my affairs, to no avail! Every time I have a prospective suitor in hand, you do something to drive him off! Ever since Sir Gilbert Gracy…”

“Do not tell me you are pining for Sir Gilbert ‘Worst Poet Since Byron’ Gracy,” Hal scoffed.

“No, of course not, but he was only the beginning.”

Hal lay back with a snort, throwing an arm over his eyes to block out the sun along with what Gemma was saying. “Yes, only the beginning of the extraordinary number of favors I’ve done you by helping to cull the herd.”

Fury rushed through Gemma’s veins like molten lava. Hal’s insouciant sprawl left her with a too-compelling view of his prone, powerful torso above his lean hips and thick thighs. “Favors! You call it a favor that you fleeced a viscount of all he possessed? Or that you took Lord Phillip Daventree out shooting and somehow lost him ?”

“As if you actually wanted to be married to an inveterate, and might I add, very unskilled gambler who was no more a viscount than I am, or to an avid sportsman who talked nonstop about the mating habits of grouse. And I didn’t lose him, he very wisely decided to return to London on his own. After taking an unfortunate and unscheduled swim in the river.”

“What about Sir Duncan Jasper?” she demanded. “A self-made man of industry, who came from nothing and is now so rich that even royalty must take note of him! And he was handsome!”

“If you admire the square-jawed, Caesar-haircut type. I liked Jasper, but alas, the dowager duchess did not—she pegged him as a social climber instantly.”

“So you gave them both drinks, sat them together, and let her proceed to embarrass and humiliate him into leaving before he’d even had supper!”

Hal shrugged, his shoulders making a rasping sound against the thatched roof. “If he couldn’t withstand a little light torture from your mother, he wouldn’t have survived five minutes with you as his wife.”

“Oh, so now your story is that you’re defending these poor, unsuspecting suitors from me! All this time I had it backward. I thought you intended to keep me from an unhappy marriage.”

“Why can’t it be both?”

Gemma made an inarticulate sound that wanted to be rage but which she feared sounded more like a snort of laughter. Springing to her feet, she wobbled precariously as she suddenly remembered she was on top of a roof. “Hal! Please. I came to tell you…we have to end this.”

“Easy there, ladyship.” Hal sat up smoothly and curled a steadying hand round her ankle. Gemma fumed and did her best not to wrench it from his grasp—that would send her tumbling down into the garden for sure. “It wouldn’t do to have you falling off this roof. Poor Mr. Woodhill and Mr. Prince would never recover.”

“Release me,” Gemma replied as evenly as she could manage. “I am perfectly balanced; I have no intention of falling. Hal, did you hear what I said?”

“I heard.”

That quiet, deep voice. The wealth of anger, resignation, understanding in his tone. Another crack opened up in her shattered heart.

Gemma ignored it and struggled on. “I do not deny that these last few weeks with you have been…nice. But we both knew it couldn’t last. We were always going to end up here. And now I must go. I need to get back to my guests.”

Hal was still, his eyes on hers. Below her skirts, his large, warm hand was still gently encircling her ankle, his thumb brushing absent-minded circles against her skin. “Back to one guest, in particular.”

“William Brighton, Earl of Stonehaven,” Gemma said, enunciating every syllable as clearly as she could. “He is the one, Hal. I mean it.”

He said nothing, merely looked up at her while that damnable thumb kept sending shivers up her leg that shocked heat and a familiar wetness from her core. Her body was so attuned to his, now. One look from him, one almost innocent caress, and she wanted more.

“No more pranks,” she persisted, her tone wavering slightly. “No more ‘helping’ or whatever it is you think you’re doing. Stay out of it, Hal.”

“What makes you think this earl, this Stonehaven, is any different from the others?”

She stared down at him, somehow devastated by the simple question. Everything that had passed between them flashed before her eyes, a swift unspooling of the thread of their acquaintance, from first impressions to heated quarrels to even more heated kisses. And more.

Gemma had done things with this man, felt things for this man, that would ruin her life if she thought about it too much.

So she wouldn’t. She would put Hal Deveril from her mind and concentrate only on the future.

Her future, as the Earl of Stonehaven’s countess.

Meeting Hal’s gaze boldly, Gemma tipped her chin to a firm angle and said, “I actually knew Stonehaven slightly back in London; I came out at the same time as one of his sisters, and she was kind to me when most of the girls I met were awful. He’s kind as well. And rich, well connected, with an irreproachable reputation. He is exactly what I’ve been looking for. William Brighton, Earl of Stonehaven, is the man I’m going to marry. And that means everything that has been between you and me—it’s over. This is farewell. It has to be.”

Hal sat back, his hand falling away from her ankle and leaving her free to escape.

Not escape , she told herself as she hurried down the ladder and out of the farmyard. She wasn’t fleeing. She was eager to get back to the earl, that was all.

And if the place where Hal’s hand had rested on her slim ankle felt branded through the silk of her stocking, she would simply put it out of her head.

Her future awaited. And if that thought didn’t fill her with happiness…well, what was one more thing to ignore?