Page 3 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Three

The upper story of Five Mile House should not have come as a surprise after the shock of the public taproom downstairs, but somehow, it did.

The building was old, walls covered in crumbling plaster, floors and ceilings tilted at odd angles so that Gemma stumbled like a drunkard while following her mother and Lucy up the stairs.

They had waited in vain for anyone to turn up with a pot of tea, or for the innkeeper to come escort them up to the bedchambers. Several men had come into the taproom for a drink, seeming quite at their ease as they pulled their own pints and left a few coins on the bar in payment. Dressed in dirty work clothes and dusty boots, they were clearly on their way home from laboring in the fields. They’d given the well-dressed London ladies a few sidelong looks, but had not approached them.

Gemma had sat holding her mother’s limp hand and getting angrier and angrier. More guests began to trickle in, finding seats at the tables dotted around the taproom. Finally, as the afternoon sun drooped below the horizon and shadows began to lengthen across the dusty boards of the taproom floor, Gemma had decided they had better explore a bit on their own before they lost the light.

After all , Gemma reflected grimly, candles cost money . They must learn to do without the extravagance of a well-lit home.

Still reeling from the discovery that her “grand romantic gesture” was not a private home but a very public house, Henrietta was uncharacteristically silent as they made their way upstairs. Gemma was tense, expecting at every moment to run into the tall, insolent, unfortunately devastating barman carrying one of their trunks. But as she passed a small, square window set into the wall of the staircase, she looked out to see him leaning casually against their coach, quite as though he owned the thing, and conversing with John Coachman.

Her hands curled into impotent fists. She didn’t like to think about what they might be discussing. But what could she do? Fly down the stairs and make a spectacle of herself over a couple of servants gossiping?

Servants gossiped. It was an immutable fact of life. That didn't mean Gemma had to like it.

John will be telling him all about us. Our whole embarrassing history, spilled out into the coachyard for the hens to peck over.

For the unfairly tempting, ridiculously attractive common laborer with no money and no prospects to peck over.

Gemma wished she could give herself a good slap. Like most ladies, she’d had her head turned by a handsome footman or two when she was much younger, but she was far too worldly and seasoned for such a ridiculous infatuation now.

At least, she was supposed to be.

No, she had to be. Her family’s future depended upon it.

Putting the tall man and her odd desperation to know his name out of her mind, Gemma bustled up the last few stairs to find Henrietta and Lucy on the landing, staring about them at the six closed doors that lined the narrow hallway.

Their faces were wan in the gloom of the fading light, and Gemma’s heart clenched with an unexpected pang of affection for the baby sister who was growing into a young woman she hardly knew and the mother who’d lost the all-consuming love of her life.

Theirs had been a perfectly normal aristocratic family, living together in a large, elegant house in Mayfair and going about their own, separate lives. Now, circumstances had thrown them all together like a heap of discarded gowns on the floor of a dressing room, and they must learn to depend on one another if they were to survive.

These two were Gemma’s responsibility now. The weight of it felt unwieldy and strange upon her shoulders. How in the world was she going to take care of them?

Anger burned like a lump of coal in her chest, but Gemma swallowed it down. She did not wish to be angry with her father, or fate, or their circumstances.

“Well,” she said brightly, smoothing her hands down her skirts and surreptitiously shaking dust from the hem. “Here we are. At least we’re no longer in a moving carriage.”

“That is true,” Lucy agreed. “You can say that much for this place; it is not going anywhere.”

“Oh girls,” Henrietta said faintly. “I really do think I must lie down.”

Both sisters were at her side at once, curving their arms about her corseted waist and supporting her slightly listing form. Sharing a look of silent communication, they turned in the direction of the nearest door.

Gemma gave a brisk knock, and when there was no answer she turned the ancient brass knob and gave the heavy door a shove with her hip. It creaked open to reveal a darkened room that gave off a musty scent of disuse. Gemma saw the outline of a bed with a bare mattress and a single chair before Lucy reached out and pulled the door shut.

Glancing back at her mother’s half-closed eyes and set features, Gemma felt another pang of concern. “I believe that room must be intended for storage or some such. It didn’t seem as if anyone had set foot in it for quite some time. Let’s try another. Surely one of these rooms will be in regular use. This is a coaching inn, after all!”

But door after door, room after room, they found the same situation: very little furniture, bare mattresses, cold ashes in the hearths.

Finally, they found their luggage piled haphazardly in the second to last chamber. Gemma led her mother inside to be seated in the lone chair before the unlit fire. While Lucy went to throw wide the threadbare curtains to let in what little light remained in the day, Gemma knelt by the fireplace. As though she could somehow will a fire into being with the force of her longing.

It was not quite spring, and though the day had been warm enough, the nights were still quite chilly. The cold from the flagstones seeped into her knees through the fabric of her gown and petticoats. Behind her, Henrietta shivered, jet beads clacking lightly, and Gemma clenched her jaw. Climbing to her feet, she left her mother in the chair and went to confer with Lucy.

“Look through the trunks and find what woolen clothes you can, and see if you can get Mama warm,” Gemma directed in a low voice. “I shall go downstairs and attempt to find someone or something to light the fire with.”

Lucy nodded, her eyes wide and almost frightened in the gathering twilight. Gemma grasped her narrow shoulders and pulled her close. It had been years since she’d slowed down long enough to embrace her sister, Gemma realized. The girl had grown from a child to a young woman while Gemma wasn’t looking.

“We will get through this,” she whispered fiercely. “I swear it to you.”

“Of course we will,” came Lucy’s muffled reply. “There’s no need for dramatics. It’s a shabby coaching inn, not the seventh circle of hell.”

Gemma laughed, but she noticed that Lucy was holding on to her as tightly as she had when she was little, when Lucy had woken from nightmares in the middle of the night and the only one who could calm her was her older sister.

Giving her one more squeeze, Gemma let go. Stripping off her gloves and unpinning her black straw bonnet, she left them on the mattress and ventured back out into the hall.

Gemma paused at the top of the stairs. From below, the sounds of a public house had begun to drift upward—the clank of tankards and the clatter of chairs, the hum of conversation punctuated by the occasional shout of laughter.

He would be down there, Gemma supposed, picturing him inescapably the way he’d looked standing behind the bar with his indecently bared forearms resting on the wood. Thick and corded with muscle even at rest, dusted with dark, coppery hairs. And his hands, broad and competent and blunt-fingered. The memory sent a thrill through Gemma, even as she frowned at her own silliness.

She was not here to moon over the barman of a decrepit coaching inn that clearly hadn’t seen overnight guests in years. She was here to discover the richest man with the best title in the area, and make him fall in love with her.

But first, the basics of comfort for her mother.

Gemma set one slippered foot to the top step, and abruptly found she didn’t want to go any farther. The prospect of traipsing through a crowd of ale-sodden farmers to find a pot of tea did not appeal. Another run-in with the insolent barman also sounded like more than she was up to at present.

There had to be another way.

Turning, she hurried back down the hall to the door at the other end, hoping it would lead to a rear staircase. Which it did, an even pokier, darker staircase than the other, and Gemma kept both hands out to brace against the walls as she crept down as quickly as she dared.

At the bottom of the stairs was an open doorway, and Gemma approached cautiously, unsure what she might find. She could hear the soft murmur of voices, much quieter than the cheerful din of the main barroom. Two people, perhaps, or at most, three.

A delicious smell wafted up to her, warm and yeasty and toasty like freshly baked bread. Gemma quickened her pace, suddenly more hopeful that she was about to find the kitchen and the source of that delicious scent.

Peeking around the doorway with a light rap of the knuckles to announce her presence, she felt the smile drop from her face as she came upon the tall barman with his head bent to speak quietly with a woman standing by the open hearth and stirring something in a pot. They were the only people in the kitchen, and they though didn’t exactly spring apart when Gemma knocked, there was an air of startlement and a quickly smoothed flutter of guilt. Enough to make Gemma certain that she was interrupting a very… intimate conversation.

Well, more accurately, the other woman appeared a bit flustered—the tall, bearded man looked the same as he had when Gemma first laid eyes on him. Impassive. Insolent. With a challenging glimmer in his dark green eyes that tempted Gemma unmercifully.

Gemma realized suddenly that she had taken that challenging glint as masculine interest, and only now, when it seemed she’d clearly been mistaken, did she understand how deeply—and foolishly—disappointed she was.

But mistaken she must be, if Mr. Surly Barkeep was in a position to stand intimately close and whisper with a woman who looked like this one.

Tall and slender, in contrast to Gemma’s curvy pocket Venus stature, this woman had the pink and gold coloring of the classic English rose. She was like a shepherdess in a romantic painting, all blonde curls and sparkling brown eyes, with the kind of warm serenity to her countenance that gave her drab homespun dress and white apron the elegance of a ballgown.

Acutely conscious of her own travel-stained and creased attire, and the way her windblown hair must be tumbling from its pins, it took everything Gemma had not to reach up and fuss with her coiffure.

But the single arched brow from Mr. Surly Barkeep stiffened her spine and her resolve.

“Are you lost?” he asked, picking up a red apple from the table on the other side of the hearth and polishing it idly on his sleeve. “If you’re looking for Charlie to tell him you want a ride back to London, I put him up in the rooms over the stables.”

Gemma frowned. “Who is Charlie?”

One arched brow was joined by another. “Your coachman,” he said slowly, as though explaining to a child. “Middling height? Fancy blue uniform? Said he’d worked for your family for fifteen years?”

Her cheeks felt hot. “Of course I know our coachman. I thought his name was John.”

He cocked his head. “Be honest. You never thought about his name at all.”

The truth of this struck Gemma like a slap. Before she could stutter a reply, the blonde woman had lifted her soup spoon from the pot and rapped the barkeep smartly on the shoulder with it.

“Behave, Hal,” she said sternly, a smile lurking in her dimpled cheeks. Gemma wanted to hate her, but couldn’t when she turned to Gemma to say, “I’m so sorry about him, Your Ladyship. He’s not accustomed to dealing with persons of Quality.”

A smothered snort from the barkeep—Hal—got him a warning look from the cook. He subsided with a cheeky grin that Gemma wanted to either kiss or slap off his handsome face.

Get yourself under control, Gem.

“Don’t see many Ladyships wandering into the kitchen of a coaching inn,” Hal pointed out, taking a loud, crunching bite of his apple. “Is all I’m saying.”

Right. Gemma gratefully seized on the reminder of the task at hand. “I’m here to beg a pot of tea for my mother, who is feeling unwell. And may I perhaps have a candle? It’s becoming quite cold and dark upstairs as night comes on.”

“Of course you can, my lady,” the young cook cried, bustling to the heavy iron range where a large kettle stood ready and waiting. “Hal only just informed me we had guests, and of course it must be right when the people are going to start shouting for their supper, so I hadn’t time to run upstairs and see to the rooms. I do beg your pardon, my lady.”

This was the warmest welcome Gemma had received from a stranger, including her own half-brother, in ages. Dismayingly, she felt her throat burn a bit with unshed tears. Coughing slightly to clear the sensation, she said, “That’s very kind of you, Miss…?”

“Mrs. Pickford,” Hal informed her as the kettle began to steam, and Gemma’s silly heart clenched.

So he was married, then. Good. That was for the best.

“Oh, plain Bess will do,” the cook protested. “We don't stand upon much ceremony here at the Five Mile, and Hal says you expect to be with us for several days?”

“Does he.” Gemma narrowed her eyes at him, innocently eating his apple and watching the exchange as if he had nothing better to do. “Your husband appears to have some trouble with understanding simple concepts, like the fact that we plan to stay on here indefinitely.”

Hal blinked, looking nonplussed for a moment before a peal of laughter as musical as silver bells rang out. Gemma looked back at Bess, who gasped out, “Bless you, no! Hal is no husband of mine. They call me ‘missus’ as I’m the housekeeper here. I’m not actually married.”

Gemma felt her cheeks flame. Of course she knew that a housekeeper would be addressed as ‘Mrs.’ whether married or not, as a term of respect. “I do apologize for the misunderstanding, Mrs. Pickford.”

Bess waved that away with her spoon. “No apology needed, Miss. And, good heavens, if I ever do marry, it certainly won’t be a rascal like this one. Hal, honestly. Didn’t you light the fires in their rooms, at least? These ladies are more than just the first overnight, staying guests we’ve had in eons, they own this place!”

He shrugged and took another bite of apple. “There’s tinderboxes at every hearth, and I made sure to stack some wood. But I understand if the simple concept of lighting her own fire was too much for Lady Gemma.”

Anger scorched Gemma’s insides, as hot as the boiling water Bess was pouring into a chipped yellow teapot. She gritted her teeth and made up her mind to ignore him. Turning back to Bess, Gemma managed to smile. “I can see that you’re quite busy here, Bess. As you appear to be the only person working. I hate to trouble you further, but I’m afraid my mother is not well enough to venture downstairs for her supper…”

“Don’t think another thing about it,” Bess said at once, spinning into a flurry of swift, efficient movements about the small kitchen. “I’ll make you up a nice tray with some good, nourishing stew and hot bread and butter. Won’t take but a moment, and I’ll bring it right up. Hal, where did you put them, in the blue room?”

Instead of answering, Hal crossed his arms over his massive chest and scowled. “It’s the busiest time of the evening for you, Bess. You don’t need the extra work of traipsing up and down the stairs and back and forth to wait hand and foot?—”

“He’s perfectly correct,” Gemma cut in crisply, humiliation writhing like an eel in her chest. Why must he make her every request sound so entirely unreasonable? “I’m happy to wait for the tray and carry it up myself.”

Hal didn’t appear pleased by her attempt at relieving Bess of the burden of her family’s presence, however. He transferred his angry scowl to Gemma, along with a disdainful curl of his lip beneath that silky beard. Gemma was sorely tempted to hurl one of the chipped teacups at his handsome head.

“As it happens, I was already planning to trespass on your ladyship’s kindness to ask you to carry the tea things on another tray,” Bess replied calmly, never ceasing in her chopping and stirring and arranging of plates. “With the supper dishes, it’s too much for one person. But as you’re so concerned about my workload here in the kitchen, Hal, you can accompany Lady Gemma to her rooms with the heavier tray.”

Gemma thought Hal must surely be grinding his teeth in frustration, but when he tore his glare from her to smile at Bess, his tone was gentleness itself. “Happy to help.”

It was terribly lowering to realize that she cared what this lout of a country barkeep thought of her, but Gemma couldn’t help it. She was entirely too aware of him as a man, the sheer breadth and size and presence of him taking up every bit of available space in her thoughts.

Gemma, who had once laughed in Lady Jersey’s shocked face while tumbling into the famed Neptune and Triton fountain during a ball at Walpole House, suddenly cared that this nobody thought her a selfish spoiled brat.

Intolerable.

They waited in stiff silence while Bess bustled about, filling two trays with all manner of delicious-smelling things. When they were ready, she shooed Gemma and Hal from her kitchen with a distracted air, her mind clearly already upon her next task.

Hal bowed her through the doorway to the rear staircase before him, another sarcastic little gesture of the respect he obviously did not feel for her.

Gemma gritted her teeth and swept up the stairs. It was a little tricky to exude haughty elegance while carrying a tea tray in the dark, but Gemma thought she managed reasonably well.

Until they reached the landing where the stairs turned, and the candle set at the corner of Gemma’s tray flickered and sputtered out.

“Oh, perfect,” came the muttered growl from behind her, and, pushed beyond bearing, Gemma whirled to face the shadowed figure in the darkness below her.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she hissed. “Believe me, you’re the last man on earth I’d want to be caught with in a dark corner.”

“So that’s to be the poor sod’s fate—seduced into a dark corner and conveniently ‘discovered’ by your mother, so he has to propose?”

Goaded past the limits of propriety, Gemma nearly upended the tea tray on his head. “You needn’t worry that I’ve set my sights on you . But if I had, you would be lucky to find yourself in that dark corner with me. I’m not some sweet country maiden, too shy to be courted. We London girls know what to do in the dark.”

“I’d rather find myself in that dark corner with a maddened bear.”

“What exactly is your problem with me?” Gemma’s whispered vehemence was getting closer to a shriek, but she couldn’t stop it. She’d never been so insulted and enraged and, and, and… heated in her entire life.

“My problem,” Hal shot back, “is that your family has owned this place without giving a single thought to it for twenty-five years, and now suddenly you show up and expect everyone to bow and scrape while you turn up your pretty little aristocratic nose at everything. You have no idea what a place like this means to the people who live here. You don’t deserve to own it. You don’t deserve to spend even one night here. You’ll ruin it.”

She gripped the handles of the tea tray more tightly, the weight of it fading under her growing irritation. “You think we’re going to put this place out of business by taking a more active interest in it? From what I can tell, it’s hardly a money-making enterprise as it is.”

“What would a fine lady like yourself know about making money?”

“More than you seem to, Mr. Barman Who Lets the Customers Pour Their Own Drinks!”

Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness, and Gemma could just about make out the hard, stubborn lines of his face.

“We’re doing just fine here without your input and opinions. Five Mile House may not be grand, or fashionable, or an enormous source of income, but it makes enough. We get by.”

“That reminds me,” Gemma said. “When you have a moment, in your busy schedule of loitering about and not doing your job, would you please bring the account books up to my room? I’ll want to look them over to see what we’re working with.”

In the darkness, she thought she saw his large hands tighten where they gripped the tray, but his voice was even when he replied, “You’re not working with anything. You need to leave this place alone. Five Mile House can support itself, but it certainly can’t support the lifestyle you’re accustomed to. And I won’t let you siphon off all available funds when that money is meant to go to people like Bess Pickford, who put their sweat and hearts into this place.”

If Gemma had her hands free, she’d throw them up in frustration. “I don’t know what I’ve done to give you the impression that I am some hardhearted, greedy landlady here to put people out of work and close down a beloved village pub. I can see that you love this place, and while I can’t share your enthusiasm, I can relate to your sense of its importance. You see, Five Mile House is all we have, my mother and my sister and myself. We have nowhere else to turn, and you’re right that the income from this place as it is would not keep us for long. I really see only one solution, Mister…good grief. I don’t even know your last name.”

He hesitated for an instant, then said gruffly, “Deveril. Hal Deveril. And…thank you. Perhaps I’ve misjudged you.”

Gemma smiled, glad of the darkness. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Oh, no. Don’t thank me until you hear my plan.”

Hal stiffened, his brawny shoulders drawing straight. “What plan?”

“I’m not going to run Five Mile House into the ground. On the contrary, I’m going to turn it into a thriving, bustling business,” Gemma clarified, thinking it through as she went. “And I will want your help making certain improvements to this place.”

“Improvements.” Dread suffused his tone, and Gemma smiled wider. “There is no money for improvements.”

“Have you never heard the adage that one must spend money to make money? Yes, it’s a risk, but what is life without a little risk.”

“I won’t let you gut this place in service of some crack-brained scheme.”

Gemma narrowed her eyes. “I really don’t see how you intend to stop me.”

“I don’t need to stop you.” She could hear the sneer in his tone. “You’ll tire of this game and be back in London by May Day.”

“Yes, that is exactly the plan!” Gemma could feel that the smile on her face was not a nice smile. His contempt put some much-needed steel into her spine. “You haven’t entirely misjudged me, Mr. Deveril. I don’t particularly care if Five Mile House becomes a roaring success. But I need to attract a certain sort of clientele to this place. A rich, titled, single sort of clientele. And if you want to keep your job—and have any sort of say in what changes I make to your precious pub—you’re going to help me do it.”