Patricia Rice (7 page)

“Christina, my cousins, Margaret and Peter Winchester.” Harry pulled her to his side as Peter bowed low. “Meg and Pete are cousins, thrice removed, I believe we decided. Their father runs this place.” In introduction, Harry gestured proudly. “My bride, Christina.”

“Your Grace.” Margaret made a sweeping curtsy, her neatly coiffed blond head dipping low.

Disconcerted to be so addressed by someone older and more elegant than herself, Christina tried not to grimace. She hated starting out on the wrong foot.

A rainbow glimmer hovering in the dark of the open doorway caught Christina’s eye, and her dismay dissipated. “Oh, do you have ghosts?” she cried, hurrying forward, ignoring Margaret’s elegant display of manners. “Harry, if you have given me a haunted house, I shall adore you for the rest of my days.”

Leaving behind a trail of dismay and male laughter, she dashed up the drive in pursuit of the faint rainbow floating just inside the old manor. A house as old as this one might possess dozens of spirits. She might finally learn to converse with them. What if this apparition was the old duke or Harry’s brother come to inspect her?

Halting abruptly at that appalling thought, Christina stopped just short of the single step to call for Harry.

In that moment of hesitation, a limestone lintel from the roof smashed to the granite stair, missing her by inches.

Overhead, thunder cracked, lightning flashed, and the first drops of rain began to fall.

Peter reached Christina before Harry could, protecting her from the cloud of dust raised by the crashing stone and catching her arm to keep her from falling backward in shock.

Harry contemplated punching his handsome cousin’s eyes out but decided that would be an undukely reaction, especially since his duchess shook herself free to crouch beside the crumbled lintel, showing no sign of demurely fainting away.

For a brief moment, he’d had a devastating image of Christina lying crushed and lifeless on his doorstep, and his heart had stopped beating. He never wanted to experience that terror again. The house had claimed far too many lives already. To have it harm Christina in any way was a disaster to be prevented at all cost.

“How extraordinary,” Christina cried, setting Harry’s heart back in motion. “I think the ghost was warning me to stay back.”

Ignoring Peter’s upraised eyebrow at the duchess’s interesting viewpoint, Harry crouched beside her to be certain she hadn’t been hurt. His cousins would think Christina as eccentric as his father, but his concern right now was to remove her from harm.

Later, he’d worry about how his bride’s predilection for ghost-hunting would appear to both family and rural society.

“Why the devil hasn’t this hovel been pulled down by now?” he roared at no one in particular as thunder rumbled in the background.

Instead of inspecting the shattered stone, he brushed the hair from Christina’s face and ran his fingers along her jaw to be certain she hadn’t been hit by flying debris. Startled by his action, she watched him through widened eyes. Ascertaining she hadn’t received so much as a bruise, he pulled her to her feet and half carried her—protesting—away from the Tudor entrance. “You’d think with all the construction, someone would have fixed the crumbling bits,” he growled.

Christina dug in her heels, but Harry had already had enough of this homecoming. Forcing his cousins to follow, he caught Christina’s hand and dragged her through the raindrops across the lawn toward the entrance of the new wing. “I want men out here on the morrow to either fix it or tear the death trap down.”

“Oh, Harry, no, you can’t do that!” Christina ran to catch up with him, halting in his path and laying her gloved hand against his chest while raindrops cascaded down her brow. “It’s a perfectly splendid house, and I do so want to meet your ancestors.”

“My ancestors are dead and in their graves, just as they should be!” He never yelled. He was known for his unshakable good humor. What the devil had come over him? Christina, most likely. He couldn’t get rid of the bloody image of her lying crushed under a chunk of stone. “The place isn’t haunted—the foundation is crumbling and the walls should have been pulled down long ago. The house killed my family!”

She looked suitably shocked and thoughtful by his vehemence. Good. Maybe now she would leave the moldering manor alone. Taking her arm, he continued their rainy progress toward the new wing.

“Actually, if the foundation was failing, the workmen would have noticed when they built the tunnel,” Peter said, falling in beside them as if Harry wasn’t having a howling fit on the front lawn.

“Parapets do not crumble and lintels do not fall without cause,” Harry grumbled. “Who is the architect my father hired?”

“Oh, he didn’t hire an architect.” Coming up on his other side, Meg gestured vaguely. “He told the masons and carpenters what to do.”

Harry tried to recall the last time he’d seen Meg, but all he could remember was a gangly adolescent with a painful fancy for Edward. He’d just gone up to Oxford when she’d had her come-out, and he could see she would fit into any London ballroom now.

“Harry, don’t make any decisions until you have someone knowledgeable look it over,” Christina urged as they dashed under cover of the portico entrance.

He didn’t know if he could afford anyone knowledgeable. Even if there wasn’t a sinkhole undermining the foundation, there might as well be for all the money that had been poured down it. Trying not to growl, Harry nodded his agreement.

Even so, Christina pulled back and looked at him oddly. He supposed his
aura
had turned pink and purple or some such.

“Where are the servants?” he demanded, finally noticing that no orderly parade waited to be introduced to the new duchess. They’d had plenty of time—and a noisy warning—to realize he’d arrived.

With its Corinthian columns, the new entrance should have provided ample excuse for an ostentatious display of household staff. “Where’s Dalrymple? And Mrs. Hoskins?”

Peter cleared his throat. A frown of concern marred Meg’s white brow. Harry threw them both black looks for not answering, but he had other concerns at the moment.

“Stay here. I’ll not have any more beams falling on your head.” He left Christina on the outside steps and opened the front door.

The grandiose foyer stood empty and smelled of mold. He glanced upward to be certain the skylight wouldn’t come crashing down, checked the doorways and stairs for signs of habitation, then held out his arm for Christina. “Looks as if you’ll have the pleasure of hiring your own people.”

At the thought of the cost of staff, Harry could feel the cash being sucked from his pocket, but he’d counted on trained staff to ease his bride’s transition into duchess. He’d rather not imagine what Christina considered to be her duties in the role.

At the lack of welcome, Christina glanced at the three of them as if they might be up to mischief. She’d been raised in the household of a marquess and would recognize the lack of consequence represented by an unstaffed household. Harry froze when she cautiously stepped inside to the inlaid tiles of the Sommersville coat of arms on the foyer floor. He watched in relief as she whirled around to take in her new home with the excitement of a child at Christmas.

She sighed in delight at the high arched plaster ceiling adorned with gilded moldings and a mural of clouds and gods, examined the elaborately carved columns and statuary guarding the interior doorways and staircase, then turned back to face her waiting audience.

“There’s a door in the ceiling. How does one go through it?”

Naturally, she’d spot the one oddity. “One doesn’t,” Harry replied, catching her hand again so she didn’t explore deeper. “One falls through it if he trespasses on the roof.”

Harry was afraid to see what undiscovered abominations might lurk in the shadows. His mother had ordered the murals and statues, so he knew they posed no danger. As far as he was aware, the door in the ceiling was his father’s only addition to the foyer since the duchess had died.

“This wing is superb,” Christina offered, looking up at him with a smile, “but there are no ghosts in it. What happened to the servants?”

Leave it to Christina not to mince words. Since his own query on the matter hadn’t been answered, Harry crossed his arms and awaited an explanation from his cousins.

Peter shrugged. “Your father apparently let them go. He and Edward lived simply. They shared a valet and hired someone from the village to come in and cook in the evenings. I suppose they saw no reason to keep the place up, since they never entertained.”

“Why didn’t they entertain?” Christina whispered near Harry’s ear, apparently not wishing to draw attention to his family’s oddity.

Harry liked having her close. He didn’t know how she managed to smell like a pine forest after a long hot ride, but he’d always thought her scent refreshing. “My father lost interest after my mother died. I don’t know Edward’s excuse.”

“He was too busy,” Meg answered for him. “He had to act as magistrate in your father’s absence, watch over the estate since your father would not, and he had business in Brighton and Dover that kept him away a great deal. Since he had no duchess to act as hostess, he preferred to entertain his friends elsewhere.”

Edward had been considerably older than Harry, and they’d never been close. Looking around at the empty mansion, Harry regretted that. His brother couldn’t have had much of a life, living in their father’s shadow.

He couldn’t afford to waste time regretting the past. There was too much yet to do. “We’ll need a cook and a housekeeper at the very least. Christina, you can send down to the village tomorrow and see who’s available.” He’d turned his back on her for only a second, and she had already wandered off to examine a statue of a Roman god.

At his suggestion, she looked surprised. “I have never hired servants. How does one go about it?”

Harry had hoped to start immediately on the estate books, leaving the household to Christina’s care. It was just dawning on him that there might be some disadvantage to marrying a female who hadn’t been trained to the role of duchess. They would have fared well in his small London household, but running an estate of this size required an army of hired help and the organizational skills of a general.

“We’ll wait until Luke and your maid arrive tomorrow. They can inquire in the village.” No point in starting out by criticizing her inadequacies.

Harry crossed the enormous foyer for the wide staircase opposite the door. He had no idea how he would pay for anything, but the money had to be here or in a bank somewhere. In his senility, his father must have found reason to hide sums from Jack. “Are the two of you still living in the dower house?” he asked his cousins.

“It’s warmer there,” Peter explained.

“It wouldn’t have been proper otherwise,” Meg murmured.

“To hell with proper. If you have servants, we can use them here for now. Find rooms, start fires,” he ordered. “I refuse to live in a mausoleum.”

From her place in the shadows, Christina thought Meg’s face lit with delight, but the other woman quickly hid it behind a demure expression. Peter grimaced in a manner akin to Harry’s, but he took the order well.

Christina didn’t wish her ignorance to be a burden upon anyone. “You might ask your cousins if they would
like
to live here,” she reminded her husband, joining him on the imposing staircase. “Just because you are now a duke doesn’t mean you have the right to rule other people’s lives.”

“Actually, it does give me the right, not that it matters.” He started up the stairway with the air of a king come to claim his kingdom, scanning the columns, the artwork, the dirty marble stairs. “Everybody does what they want around here anyway. It’s not as if they’ll pay attention to me.”

“You’re the duke, old man,” Peter called up to him. “If we don’t obey, you can cut off our allowance.”

Looking startled, Harry glanced over the baluster at them. “I thought you had your own trust funds.”

“It’s hardly enough to keep us in style,” Peter replied. “
We
appreciate servants and sound roofs over our heads as much as anyone.”

“Right. Then if I’m already paying for your servants, you can move them up here.” He loped back down the stairs and grabbed Christina’s hand. “Let’s find something to eat first.”

Considering the desire she felt and the magnetism Harry exuded, Christina thought the kitchen was infinitely preferable to a bedroom right now. She started to ask Meg and Peter to join them, but the pair had already melted into the shadows of the old house, apparently choosing to leave the newlyweds alone.

With fascination, Christina followed Harry through the enormous state rooms, into a back hall to a servants’ staircase, and down into the kitchen. The only time she had spent in kitchens involved stealing victuals for her forays into the woods—or graveyards. But even in her limited experience, she knew this was a grand example of one.

“Your family dreams big, doesn’t it?” she said, admiring the ceiling-tall fireplace lined with neatly blackened iron grates and boxes whose purpose she could not begin to fathom.

“A damned nuisance, given how small the family is,” Harry replied. Grabbing kindling from a stack on the hearth, he heaved it into one of the smaller grates.

While Harry started the fire and put a kettle on for tea, Christina explored the pantries. “There’s some salted ham and jars of preserves,” she called. “I don’t suppose there are chickens and eggs anywhere about?”

Swinging around to leave the dark pantry, she walked into the solid wall of Harry’s chest.

He caught her before she could fall back. His grip on her upper arms was painful, but the look in his eyes robbed her of breath. Before she could speak, he crushed her mouth beneath his.

It wasn’t a romantic kiss, not the pleasant kind she’d dreamed of, but a force well beyond her inexperienced imagination.

Harry consumed her, drank greedily of her mouth, parted her lips, and took his pleasure with her tongue. Caught unprepared, Christina liquefied like butter placed too close to the stove. She clung to his vest to stay upright, tilted her head to kiss him back, and learned the age-old terror and pleasure of desire.

As Harry hauled her into his arms, she slid her hands into his hair, and their bodies collided and caught fire. Christina finally understood what it was that drew her sophisticated sister to a farmer and her country cousin to an earl. It wasn’t logic. It was magic.

And a man whose aura screamed “Be wary!” possessed the power to unleash that magic on her.

Terrified of her own reaction more than the force of Harry’s, Christina pushed away, falling back against the pantry shelves and trying to catch her breath while she stared at this new Harry she had never known. He bunched his fingers into fists and stepped back, as visibly shaken as she was. She’d completely undone his hair, and it spilled half over his shoulder like some drunken sailor’s. The lust in his aura wasn’t far removed from that of a sailor. Or a pirate.

Without a word of explanation or apology, he walked away.

Christina had the decided notion that Harry’s home unsettled him in ways she could not understand, and unless she lost herself in the corridors tonight, her husband had every intention of making her his bride.

And she wasn’t at all certain that she wanted to stop him.