The Golden Lord

Yet though everything was perfectly presented, the servants did not remain to attend while she and the duke dined, the way servants in most such households did, but once again left them alone together. Had this been pre-arranged for her sake, wondered Jenny uneasily, or was it simply another way that His Grace chose to reinforce his solitude here in the country?

“The toast agrees with you, Corinthia?” he asked at last, sipping at his wine. “You feel more fortified, in spite of what Gristead predicted?”

Jenny smiled, and nodded, prepared to watch every word she spoke. Most gentlemen that she and Rob met were elderly and too enchanted with her youth and beauty to ask inconvenient questions. She could hardly expect the duke to be like that. “Much better, thank you, Your Grace.”

“I am glad to hear it,” he said, his eyes too serious to match his smile. “Do you think now you can speak of the grenadier who did this to you?”

“The—the grenadier?” she stammered, confused. “I do not recall any such man, Your Grace.”

“You did,” he said, swirling the red wine in his glass. “When I found you this morning, that was one of the first things you asked. Was I the idiot grenadier?”

Abruptly, Jenny set her saucer down on the table before her. “I told you, Your Grace. I have no memory of such a question, or of any such man, either.”

He tapped his fingertips lightly against the glass. “I’m not asking this to shame you, Corinthia. Pray note that for your sake, I waited until we were alone before I did. You certainly wouldn’t be the first lady led astray by some villain in regimentals.”

“But I wasn’t,” she insisted, trying not to panic as she wondered what else she might have mumbled in those first confused minutes this morning. If she’d spoken of Rob as well as the grenadier, or perhaps worse, climbing from the window of inn, then this ruse was done before it had begun. “I would know if I had.”

“Why, when you cannot recall so much as your own name with any certainty?” he asked with unquestionable logic. “Someone brought you to that remote corner of my land, Corinthia. You didn’t walk there, at least not in the kidskin slippers you were wearing this morning.”

“Is that more of Mrs. Lowe’s deciphering, Your Grace?” asked Jenny, her chin tucked defensively low against her chest. “Or did you determine the state of my slippers for yourself?”

“Be reasonable, my dear,” he said. “If this scoundrel is still prowling somewhere nearby, I need to know, not only for your sake, but for that of the wives and daughters of my tenants. He must be prevented from doing this again.”

She looked down, dodging his scrutiny, her hands betraying her nervousness as her fingers pleated the edge of the sheet into a tight little fan.

Think, think, think! You don’t need Rob to tell you what to do here. Be your own lass, Jen. You know what chances to take, how to turn this inside out and around to your own advantage. When this blue-eyed lord asks you to remember, remember first that you’re clever, too, Jen, every bit as clever as he!

She took a deep sigh, soft and breathy, then began her gamble.

“You have two dogs,” she said softly, still not meeting his gaze. “I remember them finding me. Gus and Jetty, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said with such gruff pride that he might have been another dog himself, instead of their master. “Gus and Jetty, the greatest pair of canine rascals in Chrisendon.”

“Oh, but they weren’t rascals to me,” she said, now looking up from under the fringe of her lashes. “Not at all. They’re large, lovely, black dogs who licked my hands to rouse me where I lay, and made little worried noises over me until you came, too.”

“Rascals,” he murmured again, but the way his expression warmed with affection proved she knew she’d made him forget about the grenadier. Here, at last, was the man she’d remembered.

“Not rascals,” she said, that warmth in his face giving her the courage to go on. Now it wasn’t a game or a ruse. Now it was the truth, and infinitely more risky.

“They were gentle and kind to me, your dogs were,” she continued, more wistfully than she realized, and for the first time her smile was genuine, as warm as his own. “Rather like you were then yourself, Your Grace.”

But, instead of returning her smile, the warmth vanished from his eyes and, beneath the elegant clothes, his whole body tensed warily against her. She recognized uncertainty when she saw it, just as she recognized the defensiveness that went with it; but why should either be in a man like this, a peer whose entire world bowed to his wishes?

“Who are you?” he demanded hoarsely, as if she were the one threatening him.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, stunned by his reaction. “Who do you wish me to be?”

“No.” He shoved back his chair and rose, and in three long strides was already at the door. “Damnation, no.”

And before she could ask him to explain, he was gone.

Chapter Three

H e’d not made such a blatant misstep—or such a fool of himself—in years.

Brant stood at the tall, darkened window of the library where he’d fled, and swore again. As a rule, he wasn’t a man overly given to swearing, but this time he knew he deserved every single oath he could muster, and a few more that he invented spontaneously.

The girl had done nothing at all worthy of his idiocy. Without a murmur, she’d gone along with his inane impulse to dine together. She’d made a brave best of his attempts at conversation, and she’d answered his questions as well as her poor battered head permitted. That bruise must have pained her abominably, yet she hadn’t complained once. She hadn’t been able to remember her own name, but she had recalled Jetty and Gus, which was far more than a self-centered dunderhead like himself could reasonably expect from any woman in her situation.

She had, in short, behaved as perfectly as any true lady would, with grace, charm and wit, and an astonishing degree of loveliness. At least he could be objective about that. In London he’d known scores of famous beauties—actresses, titled ladies, courtesans—who’d never have the kind of innate appeal this girl displayed with her braided hair, upturned eyes and, yes, even with that great violet blossom of a bruise on her temple.

So why, then, when all she’d done was to mistake him for what he wasn’t, had he turned on her like some raving Bedlamite?

He groaned and swore again. At least if he were in Bedlam, he’d be safely under lock and key, unable to offend the rest of the world.

He felt something bump against his leg and looked down to see Jetty beside him, panting happily just to be at his side. With a final halfhearted oath, Brant reached down to ruffle the dog’s ears.

“We broke the rules, didn’t we, old Jetty?” he said softly. “Claremont Hall’s always been for us bachelors alone. You know the arrangement, the same as I. No females permitted, not ever. You shouldn’t have found that young lady beneath those trees, and I shouldn’t have brought her back here, so I could make a right flaming ass of myself.”

The dog gave a sympathetic low growl in the back of his throat, turning to look toward the doorway and the approaching footsteps that he’d heard before Brant.

“Good lad,” murmured Brant as the knock finally came on the door. “You’ve saved me from doing it again before another witness. Isn’t that true, Tway?”

The small, pale man in the black suit and snuff wig only bowed slightly over the salver full of letters in his hands. “As you say, Your Grace.”

Brant smiled, oddly comforted by the man’s predictable reply. If anything at Claremont Hall would be unaffected by this young woman’s appearance, it would be Tway, his manservant, secretary, steward and unflaggingly loyal salvation for the last ten years of Brant’s life. His brothers made sport of Tway, noting how his colorless face must have been pinched from old tallow candles, or wagering over what disaster would befall Tway’s mouth if he ever actually smiled. Yet Brant never joined in their jests. Deep down he trusted Tway more than he did either of those same brothers, and with good reason, too. How could it be otherwise, when Tway was the one man alive who understood his shameful secret?

“Your correspondence, Your Grace,” continued Tway, raising the salver a fraction higher, as if the neatly piled letters were an offering. “Do you still wish to make your replies now, or shall I put them aside for tomorrow?”

“Now,” said Brant without hesitation, dropping into an armchair with Jetty settling at his feet. He’d forgotten that he’d set aside this time for business, but the task of answering the requests and queries would help shift his thoughts from the girl. The same easy comprehension of the patterns, percentages and probability that made him so successful at the gaming table had carried over into investing and speculation, even into ungentlemanly trade, and earned him the wealth to match his peerage. “I doubt that there’s anything in there that will improve with age like a wheel of cheese.”

“Very well, Your Grace.” Tway nodded, setting the tray on the desk. He reached for the first letter on the stack and held it open before him, the corners pinched daintily between his thumbs and forefingers. “This first is from Mr. Samuel Lippit of the Pennyworth Mines.”

“Doubtless, Lippit is unhappy about my suggestions for improving the mine.” The Welsh tin mine was one of Brant’s newer business ventures, an experiment that seemed likely to cost him dearly before it turned a profit. “He has always seemed disinclined to make such investments, regardless of the returns they will produce.”

“Precisely so, Your Grace,” agreed Tway. “Shall I commence?”

“Please.” Brant, his legs more comfortably before him as Tway began reading the letter aloud. This was how he and Tway conducted all his correspondence, from detailed arrangements regarding his investments to the most intimate billets-doux from lady friends in London. In the beginning, Brant had claimed a weakness of the eyes prevented him from reading and writing, but he was sure that Tway had long ago deciphered the truth for himself. Yet nothing was ever said between them on the subject, any more than there was further discussion about the nearby cottage that Brant had provided for Tway’s aged mother. It was, in Brant’s opinion, a quite perfect arrangement.

Now Brant closed his eyes to help concentrate on the words that Tway was reading and to compose the proper response to dictate, the way he’d done countless times before. But, instead of that well-organized response, the only thing that kept stubbornly drifting into his thoughts was the girl’s elfin face, the way her tip-turned eyes had glowed when she’d challenged him, how their expression had softened when she’d asked after his dogs, how she—blast it all, she did not belong there, or here, or anywhere else at Claremont Hall!

“Forgive me, Your Grace?” asked Tway, his pen stilled over the letter. “I do not believe I heard you properly, Your Grace.”

“You damned well heard more than enough,” said Brant in enough of a growl to make Jetty’s ear perk. “Have there been any replies to our inquiries about the young lady?”

The corners of Tway’s thin-lipped mouth turned down with disappointment. “No, Your Grace. Not yet. But I should expect some response by dawn.”

“You’re not blathering it all over the county, are you?” demanded Brant with concern. “She’s a lady, you know, not some circus wire dancer with her face pasted on broadsides to the walls of stableyards.”