Page 27 of Dukes All Night Long

The morning sky was gray and murderous, as if it too were condemning the actions of Archie’s past. But to his mind, he’d been the wronged one.

The boy who was merely trying to survive.

He befriended boys he hadn’t liked just so he could spend his school breaks at a ducal estate, move in a different, richer set.

He’d distanced himself from chums he’d liked better—the surly but brilliant Leo Moon—because they were poor and untitled.

Because if he was going to have any kind of life, he had to become a professional leech. Which he’d done.

Pride was a way to starve and have holes in one’s coats.

He refused to be cold, and he refused to be hungry.

Not that he ever really had struggled—not the way Leo Moon had—or likely Sibyl had, in her new hermit’s life.

What a strange thing to trade. Would it not be better to be a teacher?

A governess? A wife? What could have possibly made her choose a smoky, dark hermit’s den secreted away on her brother’s property? It made no sense.

*

She wouldn’t have let him in, but he had hot coffee. She hadn’t had any in ages, and she could smell it even though the thermos was still capped. Her little cove was warm enough, though certainly less than cozy, and she realized that another body inside would warm things up considerably.

“I won’t promise not to bash you over the head again,” she declared as he ducked into her home.

“You’ve always known how to put me at ease,” he said, his palm flat against the low, stone roof, protecting his tender skull.

“Go on and have a seat. I’ll fetch some mugs.”

Eyeball settled his large frame into her chair—thankfully not sopping wet this time. The cushion had smelled like wet wool until she’d finally gotten used to the stench.

“Mugs? No proper china for the daughter of a duke?”

He was teasing, she knew, but it still forced a humiliating stiffening of her spine.

The awareness of what she should be, what any idiot child could be, and what she, as a grown, thinking woman had failed to be.

How mistakes were punished. She forced a smile on her face as she turned to him, mugs in hand.

“You’ll have to endure my rustication if you must visit. ”

But as she poured the hot coffee—oh, it smelled so perfect she almost moaned—he studied her expression.

“What happened, Sibby?” he asked, his voice soft.

The kindness he emanated fractured something inside her. But she knew well enough that she could not show weakness to any man. That was the mistake she’d made, and it had left her here. “If you want my secrets, you’ll have to bring me baked goods in addition to the coffee.”

She saw his eyes flick down at her loose gown.

Her foraging skills were not excellent, and her field dressing experience was merely animal-adjacent.

Bernard had tried to teach her, but she had quickly declared herself a vegetarian and fled.

It wasn’t the blood. It was the idea of eating the animal, which shocked her.

She could dissect a human and enjoy a roasted duck, but she couldn’t kill the duck or the human for any cause.

Because she wasn’t raised to be inimitable and strong. She was a duke’s daughter. She could speak French without an accent, dance a hundred intricate steps from forms older than her grandfather, and plan a celebration for two hundred guests without creasing her brow in worry.

Because of her own voracious mind, she could suture a wound, recite anatomy from skin to bones and back again, and stand toe-to-toe with an entitled fellow student who didn’t believe she deserved to be in his class.

“That sounds like an invitation. I’ll bring them tomorrow.” His mismatched eyes snared her. As if that hadn’t been her first downfall.

She settled into her chair, bringing a blanket over her lap. “I’ll not stand on ceremony with you, Eyeball,” she said, pulling her legs up underneath her. Despite the woolen socks and house slippers, her toes felt like ice.

He merely smiled and sat back. She watched the steam rise from her mug. How small the luxuries could be that made her happy.

“You’ve made quite a nest for yourself here.” His gaze roamed around the small room.

“It isn’t much, but I’ve taken to it.” There was no small amount of pride she felt in what she had done for herself. It wasn’t conventional, but then, neither was she.

He fell quiet, his eyes ranging everywhere but to hers. She sipped at the hot coffee, letting it warm her from the inside out. Was there anything better than a warm drink?

“You kept this?”

His question forced her eyes open. He stood at her built-in bookcase—another piece of furniture any self-respecting hermitage must have.

It was chiseled out of the rock with unnerving precision.

Sibyl lined the shelves with wool shawls in case there might be any sort of dampness, but so far, none had seeped in.

“Which one?” she asked, not bothering to stand up. There was not enough room in this tiny enclave to see past him.

He pulled the tome out of its spot and flipped it open, checking the front flap, where he’d scrawled a dedication to her, from Sir Walter Scott’s novel, The Abbot.

“How little you could have known it would serve as inspiration,” Sibyl jibed.

He looked at her over his mammoth-sized shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Exile? Imprisonment?” Sibyl waved her hand around her. She loved her cave more than the alternative, but she still felt it as the slight it was. That her name was stricken from her own family’s Bible.

He frowned. “Sibby, what happened here?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll have my baked goods, sir.”

Instead of pressing, he reshelved the book and sighed. “You should be a solicitor.”

“I should be a great many things, Archie, but as you can see, circumstances have never favored a woman.”

He folded his arms over his chest, which treated Sibyl to the way his forearms strained the tweed fabric of his jacket. “I beg to differ. I’ve known many accomplished, successful women.”

Oh, this was the part where he was going to tell her how she’d lived her life incorrectly. Delightful. Because this was a brand new conversation for her. She shook her head and sat back, trying to enjoy her coffee, rich and dark and hot. “And how did they get to be so accomplished and successful?”

“Hard work, of course,” he answered. The chair squeaked in protest as he settled himself down into it.

“Hard work? And perhaps, a husband of some wealth?” Sibyl didn’t bother to move the cup away from her mouth. “Because the first step to becoming a woman of note is to have a man of note somewhere in there.”

“Which you have,” Archie said, louder than before.

“Are you shouting at me?” she asked, almost giddy with the exchange. She hadn’t had a conversation with someone who would treat her as an equal in what seemed like years.

“I should be,” he said, his voice still raised. “Because you are infuriatingly entitled.”

That caused her to laugh. “Coming from you? That’s saying something.”

He slid to the edge of his seat, the chair legs complaining. “What does that mean?”

“You know what it means. You literally have a title. Come on, Archie. Look at you.”

His one blue eye and one green eye searched her two equally gray ones. “What is it that I look like?”

She took that as an invitation to pick him apart.

“You have excellently tailored clothes, so it shows you have—” She stopped herself.

Because the tailoring was excellent, yes, but the cuffs were frayed.

His clothes had been immaculately cared for, but even with her out-of-practice eye, they were several seasons out of date.

It wasn’t so obvious as to stand out, but once noticed, hard not to see.

“What is it that you’ve been doing, Archie? ”

“Pardon me, but do you have any baked goods?” he shot back.

She laughed, not bothering to cover her mouth or pretend any dainty reserve. She’d lost those habits quicker than she would have thought. “I do not. You’ll have to give me baked goods credit, for I shan’t have any at my disposal until tomorrow.”

“When I bring them,” he added.

“Just so.”

He smiled then, just a hint, and she could have sworn he was going to wink at her, but then thought better of it.

“It isn’t just women who need money to become accomplished and successful,” he said, looking at his hands.

Even his hands had increased in size since the last time she’d seen him. Or at least, it seemed that way. “Yes, but men can get an education without having to walk through hordes of screaming males and rotten garbage.”

He frowned. “But you still need money to get there.”

“You did it, if I may remind you, even though you like to lament that you have had no opportunities.”

He shifted in his seat. Sibyl winced in anticipation of the chair collapsing, but the furniture prevailed. “There are barriers you don’t understand.”

“Ah, yes, the favorite argument of men: you can’t possibly understand.” Sibyl downed the rest of the coffee, despite its burn. The searing pain almost felt good in her throat. “Tell me, were you in a debater’s club?”

“That’s not what I meant, and I would never—”

“Never? That’s a strong word.”

“I mean not that you cannot understand, but that you do not have the information required to understand.” Archie ground his teeth together.

Sibyl reveled in making him exasperated. She’d done it so much as a child. At first out of instinct, then as a way to get his attention, and now? Because she was lonely, and she didn’t dare ask him to stay. “Then tell me.”

He opened his mouth and then stopped. “I’m sorry, I simply cannot.”

A moment of silence hung between them, like a hammock swaying in the hold of a ship on stormy seas.

“There are no baked goods,” he said solemnly.

Sibyl threw her head back and laughed. It was a very unladylike moment, and it felt so freeing to do it. “So you shall return tomorrow, then?”