Romancing the Duke (3 page)

“Miss Goodnight, much as I’d love to spend more time in this charming locale, I’m a very busy man. Lynforth’s estate has me running all over England parceling out these musty heaps of stone to unsuspecting young women. I could offer you a ride back into the village. But surely your driver will come for you soon?”

Her driver?

Of course. Lord Archer would never believe her to be destitute—utterly without funds, a home, or transportation. He assumed that her well-sprung carriage and white ponies were just around the corner.

And unless she meant to sully her father’s memory, exposing him as a neglectful spendthrift, Izzy couldn’t correct the assumption.

“Yes, he will come for me soon,” she said weakly. “Doubt not.”

Lord Archer looked around at the castle, then at her. His brow arched in amusement.

And then he did the most unforgivable of things.

He gave her a patronizing pat on the head. “That’s little Izzy Goodnight. You do love an adventure.”

Chapter Three

W
ell,” Izzy ventured to remark, some minutes into the tense silence Lord Archer had left behind, “this is an awkward situation.”

“Awkward.” The duke paced the floor, swinging his arms at his sides. Then he stopped in his tracks and said it again. “
Awkward.
”

The word rang through the great hall, bouncing off the ceiling vaults.

Izzy just stood there. Awkwardly.

“Adolescence,” he said, “is awkward. Attending a past lover’s wedding is awkward. Making love on horseback is awkward.”

She was in agreement, so far as the first part. She’d have to take his word on it when it came to the second and third.

“This situation is not awkward,” he declared. “This is treachery.”

“Treachery?” She clutched the folio of papers tight. “I’m sure I didn’t do anything treacherous, Your Grace. I didn’t ask Lord Lynforth to leave me a castle. I didn’t know him any better than I know you.”

“This castle was never Lynforth’s to give.” His voice was low and stern. “And you don’t know me at all.”

Perhaps not. But she wanted to. She couldn’t help it. He was just so intriguing.

Now that they were alone again, she took the opportunity to study his face. His scar aside, his facial topography was a proud, noble landscape, with strong cheekbones and a wide, square jaw. His hair was tawny, leonine brown with streaks of gold. But his eyes . . . those were Celtic eyes. Dark, horizontal slashes in his face, wide-set. Guarded.

Those eyes would be difficult to read even if he had perfect eyesight. If not for his trouble with the candle, Izzy might have gone hours without realizing he was blind.

She had a hundred questions she wanted to ask him. Nay, a thousand. And the stupidest questions of all were the ones that clamored loudest to get out.

Have you truly made love on horseback?
she wanted to ask.
How does that even work? Was it how you were injured?

“Your Grace, I don’t plan to evict you.” She didn’t imagine a man like this could be
made
to do anything. “I’m not your enemy. Apparently, I’m now your landlady.”

“My
landlady,
” he echoed, sounding incredulous.

“Yes. And surely we can reach an understanding.”

“An
understanding.
”

He strode to the opposite side of the hall, navigating the space and its furnishings with an ease that made Izzy envious.
She
stumbled more often than he did, and she had functioning eyesight.

If he’d been recovering in Gostley Castle ever since the injury, he must have worked tirelessly to chart a map of the place in his head. She began to understand why he would be so loath to leave it. Even if he did have finer estates elsewhere, moving houses would mean starting all over again. She didn’t want to be the heartless landowner who forced a blind man from his home.

He lifted her valise from its resting place near the entry—two steps to the right of the door, as he’d told her earlier. Then he strode the same distance back and set it on the table.

“Understand this,” he said. “You are leaving.”

“What?” Panic gathered in her chest as she stared at the valise. “But I haven’t anywhere to go, or any means of getting there.”

“I won’t believe that. If your father was renowned throughout England—knighted, even—you must have funds. Or if not funds, friends.”

At his heel, the wolf-dog snarled.

“What’s in this valise?” he asked, frowning.

“It’s my . . .” She waved a hand. “It’s not important right now. I’ve told you I won’t ask you to leave, Your Grace. But you can’t force me out, either.”

“Oh, can’t I?” He gathered her shawl from its drying place and wadded it into a ball, preparing to stuff it into the valise.

The dog growled and barked.

“What the devil is in this thing?” He opened the valise’s latch.

“No, don’t,” Izzy said, jumping forward. “Be careful. She’s sleeping. If you startle her, you’ll—”

Too late.

With a primal howl of pain, he jerked his hand from the valise. “Mother of—”

Izzy winced. Just as she feared, his finger had a swoop dangling from it. A swoop of slinky, toothy, brown-and-white predator.

“Snowdrop,
no
.”

The dog went mad, jumping and yipping at the snarling creature attacking his master. Ransom cursed and raised his arm, backing in a circle, trying to keep the two animals apart. Snowdrop being Snowdrop, she latched on tighter still.

“Snowdrop!” Izzy chased circles around the knot of tangling beasts. “Snowdrop, let him go!”

Finally, she scrambled atop the table and made a wild grab for the duke’s wrist. She latched onto his arm with both of hers, using all her weight to hold him in place.

And then she paused there, trying to ignore the accidental intimacy of their posture. His shoulder was a stone against her belly. His elbow wedged tight between her breasts.

“Hold still, please,” she said, breathless. “The more you flail, the harder she bites.”

“I’m not
flailing.
I don’t flail.”

No, he didn’t. Clutching his arm this way made her acutely aware of the power in his body. But she was equally aware of another force. His restraint.

If he chose, he could fling both Izzy and Snowdrop against the wall, just as easily as he’d demolished those chairs.

She calmed her trembling hands and reached for Snowdrop. With her fingers, she coaxed the animal’s tiny jaws apart. “Let him go, dear. For the sake of us all. Let the duke go.”

At last, she succeeded in prying Snowdrop free of his savaged, bleeding finger.

Every living thing in the room exhaled.

“Good God, Goodnight.” He shook his hand. “What is that? A rat?”

Izzy descended from the table, clutching Snowdrop close to her chest. “Not a rat. She’s an ermine.”

He swore. “You carry a weasel in your valise?”

“No. I carry an ermine.”

“Ermine, stoat, weasel. They’re all the same thing.”

“They’re not,” Izzy objected, giving the agitated Snowdrop a soothing rub along her tiny cheek. “Well, perhaps they are—but
ermine
sounds more dignified.”

She cradled Snowdrop in one hand and rubbed her belly with the other, then carried her back to the valise and opened the small door in her ball—a spherical cage fashioned of gilded mesh.

“There you are,” she whispered. “Now be good.”

The dog growled at Snowdrop. In response, Snowdrop curled her lip, flashing needlelike teeth.

“Be
good,
” Izzy whispered, sharply this time. She turned to the duke. “Your Grace, let me see to your wound.”

“Never mind it.”

Undeterred, she caught him by the wrist and examined his fingertip. “There’s a fair amount of blood, I’m afraid. You’ll want to clean this. It shouldn’t wait. Perhaps we could . . . Ooh.”

As she prattled on, he’d picked up his decanter of whisky from the table and poured a liberal stream of the amber spirits right over the oozing bite.

Izzy winced, just watching.

He didn’t even flinch.

She pulled a clean handkerchief from her pocket. “Here. Let me see.”

As she dabbed at the wound, she studied his hand. Big, strong. Marred with all manner of small cuts and burns—some fresh, others faded. On his third right finger, he wore a gold signet ring. The oval crest was massive. Apparently, dukes did everything writ large.

“The wound is still bleeding,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have a plaster about?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll just apply pressure until the bleeding stops. Allow me. I’ve dealt with this before.” She wadded the handkerchief about his fingertip and pinched hard. “There. Now we wait a minute or two.”

“I’ll hold it.” He wrenched away, applying the pressure himself.

Thus began the longest, most sensually charged minute of Izzy’s life.

In the past, she’d suffered through many an unrequited infatuation. But she typically lost her wits for pensive scholars in tweed or poets who sported tousled dark curls and woeful airs.

The Duke of Rothbury was unlike any gentleman she’d ever fancied. He was hard, unyielding, and even before his injury, he didn’t care to read. What was more, they were engaged in a property dispute, and he’d threatened to turn her out into the cold Northumberland night.

Nevertheless, her stomach was a giddy frolic of crickets and butterflies.

He was just so
near.
And so
tall.
And so
commanding.

So
male.

Everything female in her was rallying to the challenge. Perhaps this was how mountaineers felt when they stood at the base of a soaring, snow-crested alp. Exhilarated by possibility; awed by the inherent danger. A bit weak in the knees.

“Snowdrop,” he scoffed, leaning his weight against the table edge. “You ought to change her name to Lamprey. Who keeps a weasel for a pet, anyhow?”

“She was a gift.”

“Who gives a weasel as a gift?”

“One of my father’s admirers.”

“I should think it was one of his enemies.”

Izzy joined him in sitting on the table’s edge, resigned to explaining the whole story. It made a good illustration of how her father’s literary success and the public’s adoration never translated into much practical benefit.

“My father wrote an ongoing saga of knights, ladies, villains, sorcerers . . . castles. Anything to do with romantic chivalry. And the tales were all framed as bedtime stories told to me. Little Izzy Goodnight.”

“That’s why Archer was expecting a young girl?”

“Yes. They always expect a young girl,” she said. “The heroine of the tales kept an ermine as a pet. A
fictional
ermine, of course. One that was brave and loyal, and every bit as majestic, pale, and slender-necked as her mistress. And this
fictional
ermine managed to accomplish all sorts of clever, fierce,
fictional
deeds, such as chewing her mistress free of bindings when she was kidnapped, for the third time, by the
fictional
Shadow Knight. So a devotee of my father’s stories thought it would be a lovely gesture to give real-life Izzy Goodnight a real-life ermine to call her very own.”

Wouldn’t that be precious?
the fool must have thought.
Wouldn’t it be marvelous and adorable?

Well, no. It wasn’t, actually. Not for Izzy, not for Snowdrop.

A real-life ermine did not make a cuddly, brave, loyal pet. Snowdrop was sleek and elegant, yes—particularly when winter turned her thick coat white. But though she weighed a mere half pound, she was a vicious predator. Over the years, Izzy had suffered her share of bites and nips.

“A stupid gift,” the duke said.

She couldn’t argue with his assessment. Nevertheless, it wasn’t Snowdrop’s fault. She couldn’t help being a weasel. She was born that way. And she was ancient now, near nine years old. Izzy couldn’t just toss her to the wolves—or to the wolf-dogs.

“I can only imagine,” she said, “that Lord Lynforth was following a similar impulse. He thought it would be an enchanting gesture to give little Izzy Goodnight a real-life castle of her own.”

“If you don’t want his fanciful gift, feel free to refuse it.”

“Oh, but this gift isn’t the same as an ermine. This is property. Don’t you understand how rare that is for a woman? Property always belongs to our fathers, brothers, husbands, sons. We never get to own anything.”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those women with radical ideas.”

“No,” she returned. “I’m one of those women with nothing. There are a great many of us.”

She turned her gaze to the floor. “When my father died, everything of value passed to my cousin. He inherited my childhood home, all the furnishings in it. Every dish in the cupboard and every book in the library. Even the income from my father’s writings. What do I have to my name? I have Snowdrop.”

Her hands began to tremble. She couldn’t help it; she was still angry with her father. Angry with him for dying and angry with him for dying this way. All those years she’d helped him, forgoing any life she might build for her own, and he’d never found time to revise his will and provide for Izzy should the worst occur. He was too busy
playing
the role of doting, storytelling father.

The duke didn’t seem to appreciate the injustice of her situation. “So you
do
have somewhere to go. You have a cousin. He can support you.”

“Martin?” She laughed at the suggestion. “He’s always despised me, ever since we were children. We’re speaking of the same boy who pushed me in a pond when I was eight and stood laughing on the bank while I sputtered and thrashed. He didn’t throw me a rope that day, and he won’t now. There’s only one thing I can do. The same thing I did then.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Learn to swim,” she answered. “Quickly.”

His wide mouth tugged to one side. She couldn’t decide if it was an appreciative half smile or a belittling smirk. Either way, it made her anxious.

“Listen to me, prattling on.” She tilted her head and peeked under his makeshift compress. “I think the bleeding has stopped.”

With his teeth, he tore a strip of linen from a corner of the handkerchief and wrapped it around his finger, carefully folding under the ends and knotting it tight.

“I know you don’t want to leave Gostley Castle,” she said. “Perhaps we can agree on a quarterly rent.”

Surely the rents on a property this size would be enough to secure her a well-appointed cottage somewhere. Izzy didn’t need much. After several months as an itinerant houseguest, she yearned for the smallest comforts. Curtains, candlesticks. Sleeping beneath linens embroidered with her own monogram.

Just something, anything, that she could call her own.

“That’s madness,” he said. “I’m not paying rent on my own property.”

“But this property isn’t yours. Not anymore. The Earl of Lynforth purchased it, and he left it to me.”

He shook his head. “Lynforth was gulled. Some swindler must have drawn up false papers just to bilk a dying man out of his money. I employ more than a dozen stewards and solicitors to manage my affairs, and they would not sell property without my consent.”