Julia Quinn - The Lost Duke of Wyndham

He pushed open the door to Belgrave’s front hall, pausing for a moment once he was inside. It took a few seconds to adjust to the abrupt lack of wind, and indeed, his body gave an unprompted little shake, as if to push away the chill. This also gave him time to glance about the hall, and indeed, he was rewarded for his diligence.

“Miss Eversleigh!” he called out, since she was at the far end of the long space, presumably off on another one of the dowager’s ridiculous errands.

“Mr. Audley,” she said, smiling as she walked toward him.

He shrugged off his coat (presumably purloined from the ducal closet) and handed it to a footman, marveling, as always, at how the servants seemed to materialize from nowhere, always at the exact moment they were needed.

Someone had trained them well. He was close enough to his military days to appreciate this.

Grace reached his side before he had even pulled off his gloves. “Have you been out for a ride?” she asked.

“Indeed. It’s a perfect day for it.”

“Even with all the wind?”

“It’s best with wind.”

“I trust you were reunited with your horse?”

“Indeed. Lucy and I make a fine team.”

“You ride a mare?”

“A gelding.”

She blinked with curiosity, but not, strangely, surprise. “You named your gelding Lucy?”

He gave his shrug a bit of dramatic flair. “It is one of those stories that loses something in the retelling.” In truth, it involved drink, three separate wagers, and a propensity for the contrary that he was not certain he was proud of.

“I am not much of an equestrienne,” she said. It was not an apology, just a statement of fact.

“By choice or circumstance?”

“A bit of both,” she replied, and she looked a bit curious, as if she’d never thought to ask herself that question.

“You shall have to join me sometime.”

She smiled ruefully. “I hardly think that falls within the scope of my duties to the dowager.”

Jack rather doubted that. He remained suspicious of the dowager’s motives as pertained to Grace; she seemed to thrust Grace in his direction at every possible occasion, like some piece of ripened fruit, dangled before his nose to entice him to stay put. He found it all rather appalling, but wasn’t about to deny himself the pleasure of Grace’s company just to spite the old bat.

“Bah,” he said. “All the best companions go riding with the houseguests.”

“Oh.” So dubious. “Really.”

“Well, they do in my imagination, at least.”

Grace shook her head, not even trying not to smile. “Mr. Audley…”

But he was looking this way and that, his manner almost comically surreptitious. “I think we’re alone,” he whispered.

Grace leaned in, feeling very sly. “Which means…?”

“You can call me Jack.”

She pretended to consider. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I won’t tell.”

“Mmmm…” Her nose scrunched, and then a matter-of-fact: “No.”

“You did it once.”

She pressed her lips together, suppressing not a smile, but a full-fledged laugh. “That was a mistake.”

“Indeed.”

Grace gasped and turned. It was Thomas.

“Where the devil did he come from?” Mr. Audley murmured.

From the small saloon, Grace thought miserably. The entrance was right behind them. Thomas frequently spent time there, reading or tending to his correspondence. He said he liked the afternoon light.

But it wasn’t afternoon. And he smelled like brandy.

“A pleasant conversation,” Thomas drawled. “One of many, I assume.”

“Were you eavesdropping?” Mr. Audley said mildly. “For shame.”

“Your grace,” Grace began, “I-”

“It’s Thomas,” he cut in derisively, “or don’t you recall? You’ve used my name far more than once.”

Grace felt her cheeks grow hot. She’d not been sure how much of the conversation Thomas had heard. Apparently, most of it.

“Is that so?” Mr. Audley said. “In that case, I insist you call me Jack.” He turned to Thomas and shrugged. “It’s only fair.”

Thomas made no verbal reply, although his thunderous expression spoke volumes. Mr. Audley turned back to her and said, “I shall call you Grace.”

“You will not,” Thomas snapped.

Mr. Audley remained as calm as ever. “Does he always make these decisions for you?”

“This is my house,” Thomas returned.

“Possibly not for long,” Mr. Audley murmured.

Grace actually lurched forward, so sure was she that Thomas was going to lunge at him. But in the end Thomas only chuckled.

He chuckled, but it was an awful sound.

“Just so you know,” he said, looking Mr. Audley in the eye, “she doesn’t come with the house.”

Grace looked at him in shock.

“Just what do you mean by that?” Mr. Audley inquired, and his voice was so smooth, so purposefully polite, that it was impossible not to hear the edge of steel underneath.

“I think you know.”

“Thomas,” Grace said, trying to intercede.

“Oh, we’re back to Thomas, are we?”

“I think he fancies you, Miss Eversleigh,” Mr. Audley said, his tone almost cheerful.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Grace said immediately. Because he didn’t. He couldn’t. If Thomas had-Well, he’d had years to make it known, not that anything could have come of it.

Thomas crossed his arms and gave Mr. Audley a stare-the sort that sent most men scurrying for the corners.

Mr. Audley merely smiled. And then he said, “I wouldn’t wish to keep you from your responsibilities.”

It was a dismissal, elegantly worded and undeniably rude. Grace could not believe it. No one spoke to Thomas that way.

But Thomas smiled back. “Ah, now they are my responsibilities?”

“While the house is still yours.”

“It’s not just a house, Audley.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

No one spoke. Mr. Audley’s voice had been a hiss, low and urgent.

And scared.

“Excuse me,” Thomas said abruptly, and while Grace watched in silence, he turned and walked back into the small saloon, shutting the door firmly behind him.

After what felt like an eternity, just staring at the white paint on the door, Grace turned back to Mr. Audley. “You should not have provoked him.”

“Oh, I should not have been provoking?”

She let out a tense breath. “Surely you understand what a difficult position he is in.”

“As opposed to mine,” he said, in quite the most awful voice she’d heard him use. “How I adore being kidnapped and held against my will.”

“No one has a gun to your head.”

“Is that what you think?” His tone was mocking, and his eyes said he could not believe her naiveté.

“I don’t think you even want it,” Grace said. How was it this had not occurred to her before? How had she not seen it?

“Want what?” he practically snapped.

“The title. You don’t, do you?”

“The title,” he said icily, “doesn’t want me.”

She could only stare in horror as he turned on his heel and strode off.

In his wanderings at Belgrave, Jack had, during a rainstorm that had trapped him indoors, managed to locate a collection of books devoted to art. It had not been easy; the castle boasted two separate libraries, and each must have held five hundred volumes at least. But art books, he noticed, tended to be oversized, so he was able to make his task a bit easier by searching out the sections with the tallest spines. He pulled out these books, perused them and, after some trial and error, found what he was looking for.

He didn’t particularly wish to remain in the library, however; he’d always found it oppressive to be surrounded by so many books. So he’d gathered up those that looked the most interesting and took them to his new favorite room-the cream and gold drawing room at the back of the castle.

Grace’s room. He would never be able to think of it as anything else.

It was to this room that he retreated after his embarrassing encounter with Grace in the great hall. He did not like to lose his temper; to be more precise, he loathed it.

He sat there for hours, tucked into place at a reading table, occasionally rising to stretch his legs. He was on his final volume-a study of the French rococo style-when a footman walked by the open doorway, stopped, then backed up.

Jack looked back at him, arching a brow in question, but the young man said nothing, just scurried off in the direction from which he’d come.

Two minutes later Jack was rewarded for his patience by the sound of feminine footsteps in the hall. Grace’s footsteps.

He pretended to be engrossed in his book.

“Oh, you’re reading,” she said, sounding surprised.

He carefully turned a page. “I do so on occasion.”

He could practically hear her roll her eyes as she walked in. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

He looked up and affixed a smile. “And yet here I am.”

She stood hesitantly in the doorway, her hands clasped tightly before her. She was nervous, he realized.

He hated himself for that.

He tilted his head in invitation, motioning to the chair beside him.

“What are you reading?” she asked, coming into the room.

He turned his book toward the empty seat at the table. “Have a look.”

She did not sit immediately. Rather, she rested her hands at the edge of the table and leaned forward, peering down at the open pages. “Art,” she said.

“My second favorite subject.”

She gave him a shrewd look. “You wish for me to ask you what your favorite is.”

“Am I so obvious?”

“You are only obvious when you wish to be.”

He held up his hands in mock dismay. “And alas, it still doesn’t work. You have not asked me what my favorite subject is.”

“Because,” she returned, sitting down, “I am quite certain the answer will contain something highly inappropriate.”