Duke of Thorns (Heiress Games 1) (6 page)

Callie knew she didn’t have the most feminine outlook. But she still liked to feel pretty. And it was difficult to feel pretty when she hadn’t had a proper bath in months — even if the man in the clearing had looked at her as though he didn’t mind.

She shoved the stranger from her mind again and gave the butler all the hauteur she usually used on arrogant sea captains. “I won’t risk missing dinner because you cannot find a way to accommodate me. Now, if you please, arrange for a room immediately, or I shall find one. I assume your lady would prefer that I not embarrass her by knocking on doors.”

The butler looked as though he hated her. But before either of them could do something regrettable, her cousin Lucretia rushed into the foyer, with a young blonde woman following close behind her. “The duke’s entourage is driving up. Call the footmen to attention.”

The butler clapped his hands. Callie looked over her shoulder and saw four footmen who had been waiting in the anteroom next to the great front door pour out and arrange themselves on either side of it, with one of them ready to open the door as soon as steps sounded outside. The butler examined them, found everything to his liking, and turned back to his mistress. “And Miss Callista?” he asked. “Where shall I put her?”

Lucretia glanced at her as though she was a street urchin begging for scraps. “The Tudor wing, I suppose. Have a scullery maid take her up. The upstairs maids are too busy, and we’ll need all the footmen for the duke’s baggage.”

The butler reached out a hand to take her elbow. Callie wrenched her arm away. “This isn’t a very warm welcome, cousin,” she said, trying for a pleasant tone rather than an angry or wounded one. “Did you not intend to invite me?”

Lucretia laughed. Her face was startlingly similar to Callie’s own, with dark eyes and a straight, aquiline Briarley nose. But laughter didn’t seem to come naturally to her. There was something too pained about it to think she found any joy in the sound.

“You were invited, not that I had any say in the matter,” Lucretia said. “But this is still my house.”

The blonde girl, whom Callie had nearly forgotten, took a step forward. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but the look in her eyes seemed older. She put a hand on Lucretia’s shoulder, as though to restrain her, and smiled at Callie. “What Lucretia meant to say, Miss Briarley, is that you must be in want of refreshment after your journey. Shall I take you to find your maid so that you may rest a bit before dinner?”

Callie hesitated. She didn’t want to give in. She knew the Tudor wing was the least appealing of all of them, and Lucretia must have meant it as an insult. But this girl seemed nicer than Lucretia — nice enough that Callie wanted to accommodate her. And Callie
did
want a bath. Six months of seawater ablutions were enough to swear off ships forever.

She had waited too long, though. The great doors swung open behind her, so well oiled as to be almost silent. A breeze teased its way through her wayward hair. Lucretia plastered a smile on her face that was too guarded to ever be sincere.

“Your grace,” Lucretia said, stepping around Callie. “Lady Maidenstone and I are delighted you have joined us.”

Lady Maidenstone
? Callie glanced sharply at the blonde. She had heard that her grandfather had remarried before the end, but this girl…

And then she heard a voice she could already recognize anywhere.

“Miss Briarley,” the stranger from the woods said. “The pleasure is mine.”

*     *     *

Thorington had wanted to put on a show such as Maidenstone had never seen. He, of all people, should have known better than to make such a wish.

Callista Briarley hadn’t seen him enter. Her back was to the door, facing Lucretia. Her stance was militant. It appeared that Callista had only just arrived herself. And however she had occupied herself in the previous hour, it had not been with the attentions of a lady’s maid.

He wouldn’t let his eyes linger on the view of her from behind — a view he’d seen, all too briefly, at the Maidenstone clearing before she had turned to find him watching her. The divided skirt covered all it should. Dusty, it should have had no appeal at all. But the flare of her hips beneath the riding jacket, the way she stood ready to seize the world…

He lingered too long, despite his intentions. Lucretia Briarley was greeting him, with the same wary, frightened smile he usually earned from polite women — the kind of women who couldn’t help but be polite, even to someone who might hurt them. And so he returned her greeting, with the drawl that always heightened others’ nerves, and watched his intended quarry.

Callista flinched.

Thorington smiled.

Lucretia, trying hard to pretend that she wasn’t entirely overwhelmed by him, offered him her hand and curtsied as he kissed it. “May I present Lady Maidenstone?” she asked, gesturing to the blonde chit behind her.

Thorington bowed. He’d heard of Lady Maidenstone, but never met her. She wore lavender, the last stage of mourning. Her blue eyes seemed to take up the entirety of her face.

She’d barely been more than a child when the earl had married her. “My condolences that you must still wear mourning for the old goat,” he said to her.

Lucretia flushed. Lady Maidenstone was startled into giving him a real smile before she curtsied. When she came up from it, she had forced the corners of her mouth into submission. “It is only for another month, your grace. But I thank you for your sympathy.”

She would have been a sensation in London if she had come out there. She’d never had the chance, though. If the rumors were true — and, seeing this girl, Thorington knew them to be — the old Earl of Maidenstone had, in all but deed, bought her from her impoverished family for the chance of getting a son after his last heir had died.

If life was fair, the girl should have inherited everything — she would have deserved it, even if she’d only been tied to the man for two years. But she hadn’t succeeded in producing a child. And Lord Maidenstone hadn’t seen fit to give her anything for her troubles. She would get whatever portion he’d settled on her at marriage, and nothing else.

Life was not fair. There was no use in feeling sorry for her, even if he wished to. And so he dismissed her as useless to him. No matter what her charms were, her loveliness would go to a man who could afford to do without a dowry.

He returned his gaze to Callista. She turned, finally, as though confronting her own death.

Her hair was wilder, her skirts dirtier, her hands clenched as though ready to do him violence. She was taller than the other women in the room, perhaps five feet and eight inches — but the two inches she had over Lucretia seemed like more when her rage added stiffness to her backbone. She had gotten just enough sun under the brim of her slightly-skewed hat to warm her skin.

And she had breasts to match those hips. She was proportioned like an Amazonian conqueror, not a coquette.

He smiled again. When he finally brought his eyes back to her face, she was flushed — and it wasn’t with pleasure.

Lucretia made no move to introduce her. “Present your guest to me, Miss Briarley,” he commanded. “She hasn’t had the honor of meeting me.”

It was a subtle warning. He hoped Callista remembered that she wasn’t supposed to know him.

“You’ve a funny definition of honor, sirrah,” Callista said.

Lucretia gasped. Behind him, Rafe laughed. Thorington merely raised an eyebrow. “You must be the American cousin,” he said, in his exaggerated drawl. “Am I your first duke?”

For once he hadn’t meant an innuendo to it, but she blushed as though he had. She tilted her chin up, though, and stared him down. “I had a thoroughbred named Duke once. But I found he didn’t match the promise of his bloodlines.”

“Charming,” Thorington murmured. “But we still haven’t been properly introduced.”

There was a brief, dark pause, as though no one wanted to interrupt whatever it was they had between them. Then Lady Maidenstone stepped forward. “May I present to you Miss Callista Briarley? Miss Briarley, his grace the Duke of Thorington.”

He grabbed Callista’s hand before she had properly offered it to him. “A delight,” he said as he brushed his lips over her hand.

When he had done it before, little more than an hour earlier, her fingers had curled lightly in his — a momentary, and no doubt unintentional, surrender. Now, when his lips caressed over her knuckles, he had the vague premonition that she would rather hit him than let him touch her.

But she had just enough sense not to hit a duke in a public setting. She did not, however, have the sense to curtsey to him. He felt her sway into the very beginning of one — but then she stopped herself.

“An honor to meet you, of course.” She stayed standing straight, no sign of deference. And she didn’t call him ‘your grace,’ as any other woman would have.

He didn’t want to drop her hand. There was a spark in her eyes that he had never seen before — a challenge he found nearly irresistible.

But he remembered his plans. He tucked her arm neatly into the crook of his own and guided her toward his siblings, ignoring her protests. “Lord Rafael, Lord Anthony, Lady Serena, Lady Portia,” he said, gesturing to each of them in turn. “All as honored to meet you as you are to meet them.”

Given the daggers his sisters were shooting at her, and the way she was trying to escape him, the statement was accurate. None were honored, and none were subtle about it.

Anthony looked her over and frowned. But he reserved his glare for Thorington.

Only Rafe was civil. “Miss Briarley,” he exclaimed, as though he’d waited ages to meet her. “Have you only just arrived from America? You must tell me how you are finding Devonshire.”

Trust Rafe to seem vastly intrigued — he could charm anyone when he was in the mood for it. Callista stopped struggling for just a moment and nodded at him. “Baltimore to Havana to London took six months of travel, with no time to rest before arriving this morning. I’ve no opinion of Devonshire other than to hope there aren’t maggots in the meat.”

Lucretia gasped again. “Your grandfather would be appalled at the thought, Miss Briarley,” she said in quelling tones as she stepped up to their group.

Callista shrugged. “If he would have kept me waiting for a room like you have, he probably wasn’t too particular about his housekeeping.”

Rafe made a soothing sound, trying to play peacemaker. “These house parties are so difficult to arrange, aren’t they? Particularly this one. Half the fortune-hunters in Britain will be trying to win you both.”

He included Lucretia in his assessment — charitably, to Thorington’s mind. But Lucretia unbent just a little. “Indeed, Lord Rafael. But I’m sure Lady Maidenstone and I have looked forward to your family’s arrival. We are honored that you’ve chosen to attend.”

She said it politely, but there was a question in her voice. And with good reason. Thorington had taken the highly unusual — some would say unacceptable — step of writing to Lady Maidenstone and demanding an invitation. Even for him, it was a bold approach. But he never would have been invited on his own merits.

Thorington didn’t react to her question, beyond a slightly dangerous smile. Lucretia’s gaze flickered over to him, but when she saw that smile, she immediately returned her attention to Rafe.

Callista, who was still trapped next to him, would have said something cutting if she’d seen Thorington’s smile. Lucretia, though, did what was expected of her. She was pretty enough, but she was smaller than Callista, as though she had been made for pouring tea instead of fighting battles. And her face had the same Briarley nose, framed by the same glossy brown hair — but her face was too closed off, her hair too perfect.

Lucretia was almost certainly the safer choice. But Callista…

“And where is the third member of your Briarley triumvirate?” Rafe asked.

“Octavia will arrive whenever she wishes to arrive, I’m sure,” Lucretia said. “She always does.”

There was an awkward silence after that, but Rafe filled it gracefully enough with a question about the weather. Rafe’s sole skill was putting others at ease. His charm was so effortless, his smile so steady, that no one would have guessed that demons haunted him. And it gave Thorington a moment to consider his plans.

It would have been unnatural if he hadn’t considered keeping Callista for himself. He didn’t particularly want a wife — being vowless, after ten years with Ariana, was still pleasing enough that he wasn’t ready to take on a new obligation.

But he wasn’t opposed, either. He knew how to keep a wife. It was mostly a matter of writing cheques for her wardrobe. Or occasionally taking her to the opera, with the expectation that she would let him into her bed after. Easy business, transacted coolly, with an eye toward the balance on his ledgers rather than the needs of his heart.

However, if his lack of luck held, he would run through whatever money a bride brought him in less than a year. It was a better plan to leave the heiress for his brother, who could make use of her economic assets even if he wasn’t in love with her.

He assessed the situation with the coldness of a mercenary. Callista had given up trying to retrieve her hand. But she ignored all of them, choosing instead to stare off into the middle distance like a martyr awaiting the fire.

Anthony, younger than her, had less composure. He still stood in the doorway, unwilling to cross the threshold, blocking the footman who looked perturbed over holding the door open. He looked from Callista to Lucretia and back again as though Thorington had asked him to choose a circle of Hell to dwell in. Then he pressed a hand to his mouth as though he might be sick.

Thorington, for once, took pity on him. He dropped Callista’s hand. “How thoughtless of me, to keep you conversing with us when you no doubt wish to rest,” he said. “I am sure your room is ready now.”

He said this with a sharp look at Lucretia, who nodded automatically. No one would gainsay a duke. “One of the footmen will take you to the Tudor wing, Miss Briarley,” she said, sounding faint.