The Duke (9 page)

There came a knock on the door and Fraser entered, balancing a sparkling silver tray on his arm. “Yer tea, Master Bertrand, yer grace,” he said. With a nod, he pulled the trowel from his pocket and left the room, whistling.

“Cream, Ian?”

“Yes, please,” the duke said, his forehead furrowed in thought. “Could the land support more sheep?” He took a long drink of the tea, Chinese tea that was superb. Fraser had depths, he thought.

“Aye, it could, but stocking with more sheep is very costly. Another thing. The black-faced sheep are noted for their coarse wool, good really only for making sturdy carpets and the like; thus it takes a very long time to make them pay for themselves. It's the Cheviot sheep whose wool makes fine clothing.”

“Sheep require shearing. Have we enough crofters skilled at shearing?”

“Nay, but we could hire some of the roving workers at shearing time. That's what most large sheep owners do.”

“And the wool would go to Glasgow? To the mills?”

“Aye, but not even as far as Glasgow. Mills have just started springing up in the past decade. There are several near us.” The duke fell silent. Bertrand sat forward, dangling his hands between his legs. He eyed the new Earl of Penderleigh uncertainly, wondering miserably if he thought him a sorry steward.

The duke set down his teacup and rose. He paced about the room, then sat down, again facing Bertrand. “I think, Bertrand, that you and I should pay a visit to some manufacturers in Stirlingshire. Sheep or corn:
we must assess which is the more profitable for Penderleigh's future.”

Bertrand blinked. “Ye know of Stirlingshire?”

“Yes, and Clackmannanshire as well,” the duke added with a grin. “I didn't come up here totally ignorant, you know, though unfortunately what I did discover about Scottish industry gives me about as much knowledge as you have on the tip of your thumb. You must teach me the basics, Bertrand. I have never been an uncaring master of my lands in England. I will do no differently here. Ah, I see that you're wondering what to say to me. You didn't believe an English duke would want to concern himself with a Scottish estate, did you?”

“That's about it,” Bertrand admitted.

“Come, Bertrand,” the duke said briskly. “As I told you, I have no intention of becoming like many English absentee landlords. With a little capital and your management, Penderleigh will come to maintain itself with none of the fruits of your labor flowing out of Scotland. Now, if you think it worthwhile, I should like to spend the afternoon visiting the crofters and making out a list for their needs as well as repairs for the castle.”

Bertrand simply couldn't believe it. Never in his wildest dreams had he considered that the duke would actually take an interest in Penderleigh, actually want to invest money in the estate, actually leave the profits in Scotland. It boggled his brain. He couldn't think of a word to say. “I feel like a fool,” he finally managed. “But know this, Ian, I'll not let ye down. Penderleigh was once a great estate, but of course time and politics and greedy and stupid men, the last being my uncle Angus, brought disastrous results.”

“The past is in the past, Bertrand, and there's nothing we can do about it. But the future is in our control. Brandy has told me what an able master you are. You
need never fear the future. I hope that you will trust me in this.”

Actually, at that moment Bertrand would have trusted the duke to lead him blindfolded through Hades himself.

“I don't blame you for holding silent. Time will tell. Perhaps one of these days you will believe me.”

Bertrand gulped. “I've thought time was my biggest enemy,” he said. “Time and the future. I'm here to do whatever needs to be done.”

The duke's thoughts went to Brandy and her sisters. Their futures were far more uncertain than Bertrand's. He said, “I was speaking with Brandy this morning about a number of things, including her future. Brandy is of marriageable age. Constance is lacking but a couple of years. Penderleigh is rather isolated, and I gathered there is little social exchange. As the girls' guardian, I will, of course, provide dowries, which should help in some measure.”

“That is very generous of you, Ian, at least for Brandy. But Constance is young yet, not in need of society or a dowry. Do what ye feel is best for Brandy, though.”

Ah, the duke thought, the woman-child with the long black hair and the provocative sloe-eyed looks, the sister who should have been the eldest. Bertrand was smitten. Interesting. He was hard pressed to keep an amused smile from his lips. “I agree with you, Bertrand. Let's leave Constance alone. It's Brandy I'll take care of.” Despite her ridiculous anger, he thought.

“Fraser is an excellent cook,” Bertrand said, rising. “If ye would have luncheon with me, we could continue our discussion.”

“An excellent idea. You will be dining at the castle this evening, will you not?”

“I should be delighted,” Bertrand said.

 * * * 

The duke made his way back to the castle late in the afternoon. The visit to the crofters had had to be postponed, for the duke discovered very quickly that there was much for him to learn about the relative merits of sheep and crops. Bertrand's enthusiasm had been catching, and Ian found himself quite pleased with the progress they'd made. Brandy was right. Bertrand was a fine man who cared mightily for Penderleigh. But more than that, he had a fine brain and the discipline to handle details.

The duke strode into the front entrance hall, dim in the late afternoon light, and wondered how a great chandelier would fit with the medieval tapestries and rusty suits of armor. There was no one about. He found his bedchamber and realized he wanted a hot bath very much. He was beginning to believe himself alone in the castle when he opened the bedchamber door to see an elderly woman laying out his evening clothes. Her gray hair was tucked neatly under a large mobcap, and her voluminous black wool dress encased a rather scrawny figure. She turned and straightened at the sound of his footsteps.

“Yer grace?” she asked in a deep voice, and curtsied before he replied.

“Yes. And you are?”

“Marta, yer grace, her ladyship's maid. Said she did that ye didna fancy that scratchy trollop, Morag, aboot yer clothes an' such. Be there anythin' else ye be needin' yer grace?”

“Yes, a bath. Are there boys to fetch up the water?”

“Aye, I'll get Wee Albie out of the kitchen. 'Tis strong he be, but fuzzy in the head, if ye ken my meanin'.”

“I ken,” the duke said.

As soon as Marta left the huge master bedchamber,
the duke stripped off his clothes. He found a towel and wrapped it about his waist.

Wee Albie, the duke soon discovered, was a huge raw-boned lad who looked like a prizefighter. He had large, vacant blue eyes and wore a wide grin, showing a gap between his front teeth.

“Yer water, sir,” he said, all that business about graces and bows having long since fled from his mind.

“Thank you, Albie.”

Albie unearthed a well-used bar of soap and clumsily dumped the buckets of hot water into a large wooden tub. Small rivulets of the water began to seep from the bottom of the tub and trickle across the floor. The duke stared at the crooked lines of water with a fascinated eye. Albie, however, appeared to take no notice of such a trifling matter. He straightened and beamed at the duke. “Ye'll call if ye need aught else, sir?”

“You may rest assured that I shall call immediately,” the duke said, wanting to laugh, but not wanting to make the boy feel as if the laughter was directed at him. He was smiling as he shut the bedchamber door on Albie's retreating hulk.

He lowered himself into the wooden tub, wondering if he was likely to impale himself with splinters. He began to lather himself when he realized that the soap was scented. Damnation, he'd smell like a Soho trollop. No, the soap smelled expensive. He'd smell like a Parisian trollop. He wondered if Marta had filched the soap from Lady Adella.

He was leisurely in his scrubbing and stepped out of the tub only after the water had turned uncomfortably cool. He stood in front of the fireplace, naked and dripping.

At the sound of the door opening, he turned about to see Brandy standing in the entrance, panting as if she'd been running.

He stared at her, wondering just where the devil he had put the damned towel.

She stared back at him, pointedly.

She said with all the wonder in the world, “Ye're not at all like me—ye're beautiful.”

H
e just stared at her. No display of maidenly embarrassment. No outraged shriek. No fleeing the scene of the naked man. She just kept looking at him, and he couldn't seem to move.

She said calmly, “Please forgive me for disturbing ye, yer grace. I didn't think ye had yet returned. I'm trying to find Fiona, ye see. We play this game. She hides and I find her. She loves it, particularly when it's time for her to go to bed.”

“She's not here,” he said, feeling like he'd been dropped into the middle of a play and he didn't know what his lines were. He just knew that he was an idiot, a naked idiot.

Brandy nodded politely, turned after one more very long, pointed look, and walked from the bedchamber, closing the door quietly behind her.

The duke suddenly regained command over his body. He grabbed the towel and wrapped it about his waist, only to realize the next moment how foolish his action was, since Brandy wasn't about to come back.

Brandy ran a few steps down the corridor, Fiona forgotten, and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes tightly. The duke's naked body remained vivid in her mind. She ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips. She had never before seen a naked man. He was nothing
she could have imagined, not that she'd spent much time thinking about how naked men looked, but she had a bit, perhaps. Didn't every girl? But the duke was incredible, beautiful. Goodness, she'd run into his bedchamber and stared at him. What would he think of her now? Not an innocent, that was for sure, not after she'd just stood there like a stick, staring and staring. She pressed her palms against her stomach. She felt warm and soft and oddly itchy, but not like Morag's itchiness—no, this was different, and strange and quite delicious. Oh, goodness, what was all this about?

“Brandy, here I am. Ye didn't find me. I won. Now I don't have to go to bed for another fifteen minutes.” Fiona suddenly emerged from a small sewing room down the hall. When Brandy didn't answer her, just looked at her as if she didn't really see her, Fiona ran to her. “I was hiding all the time in the old blue room where Marta sews. Brandy?” She edged closer. “Are ye all right? Did I give ye a fright?”

She had to get herself together, but it was difficult, very difficult. She blinked, trying to force that wonderful picture of him all naked and wet out of her brain. “Nay, poppet, ye didn't give me a fright.” Damn, was that her voice? All thin and light as the sheets on her bed? How silly. “Come, Poppet, it's time for yer bath and aye, ye have fifteen extra minutes before I tuck ye in.”

Ian dressed quickly and mangled his cravat into a dismal, lopsided knot, his powers of concentration apparently having deserted him. He tried first to shrug off the entire matter, thinking with a certain condescension that in England, such a thing as a young lady dashing into a gentleman's bedchamber would not be likely to happen. Well, he was in Scotland. He cursed as he ripped off the mangled cravat and fetched the last one. Evidently that meant dripping wooden tubs,
undisciplined servants, and a young girl with huge amber eyes staring at him with awe and wonder.
Ye're not at all like me . . . ye're beautiful.
What a curious, strange girl she was.

He thought of Marianne, his ever modest, shy wife, and wondered if she had believed him beautiful. Absurd thought, for during their one year together, she had always blown out the bedside candle whenever he had entered her room. He had always been tender and gentle with her, but yet there was many a time when she would whimper onto his shoulder after he'd made love to her.

He looked with disgust at his cravat. It would simply have to do, since he had no others left. He very much hoped that Mabley, with his skilled hands, would arrive along with his trunks on the marrow.

He carried the branch of candles with him when he left the bedchamber. Their glowing orange light made wispy images along the dimly lit corridor. So I am beautiful, am I, Brandy? he thought, and a small smile played about his mouth.

As he neared the drawing room, he heard Lady Adella's powerful, dominating voice and then Claude's familiar cackle. Brandy would be there, of course, and he knew he had to speak to her, if for naught else to assure himself that she wasn't mortified by her behavior.

He turned the door handles, large, curved brass affairs whose knobs were griffins' heads, and entered the drawing room. Lady Adella held court from her high-backed chair, and as usual, all eyes were turned to her. She was a proud old relic, he thought, and her eccentric behavior amused him—at least it did for the moment. If it ceased to amuse him, why then, he'd deal with her. As he looked at her thick snow white hair arranged in a knot high on her head, with small sausage ringlets dangling about her narrow face, he
grimaced, for such a style was suitable for a woman at least forty years her junior.

Claude sat opposite her, for all the world like a crumpled roué, looking older than his age. It was his health, Ian thought, pain could wreck a person. Bertrand and Constance shared a long settee, and Percy, a glass of sherry in his outstretched hand, leaned negligently against the mantelpiece. He searched for Brandy and saw that she was seated on a small stool just behind Lady Adella's chair. She was wearing the same gown she'd worn the evening before, and the same tartan shawl was knotted tightly between her breasts. She looked up and stared at him, like a rabbit into the barrel of a gun. He gave her a gentle uncle-like smile. It was well done of him, he thought.

Lady Adella called to him. “Well, Ian, my lad, Bertie here has been telling us of your intoxicating pleasures today. Immersed in sheep and talk of corn. Shearing was an important topic, he told me.” Snide old woman, he thought.

He saw Bertrand look down at his large hands and wished he could tell him not to pay the old meddlesome woman any heed. Ignoring her words, he strode toward her chair and said calmly, “A good evening to you, lady. I can but hope that your day was a tenth as interesting as mine.” He lightly kissed her age-spotted hand.

Percy took a long drink from his sherry and set his glass upon the mantelpiece. “Tell me, yer grace, is it true that ye intend to turn us all into farmers and shepherds? That we'll all muck out stables, then try to pass ourselves off in polite society?”

The duke gave him a pleasant smile. “Bertrand and I haven't as yet decided, Percy. You must be patient. It requires time to grow a profitable corn crop, though I must admit that Penderleigh appears to have a surfeit of sheep dung in its confines right now.”

Bertrand allowed himself a bit of a triumphant sneer, and Claude cackled, slapping his hand on his knees.

“Ye'll mind yer tongue now, Percy, eh?” Lady Adella chortled and thumped her cane on the floor.

“I'll mind my tongue whenever it pleases me to do so, my lady,” Percy said, his eyes narrowing on the duke's impassive face.

“Aye,” Lady Adella said, still malicious as a snake, all of it directed at Percival. “The duke is handy with his tongue. I like a man who doesn't lack knowing what to say. Aye, a witty man is our new Earl of Penderleigh.”

That was very low, the duke thought, watching Percy turn red with anger. But Percy couldn't tell the old woman to go throw herself off a castle turret, not if he wanted her to legitimize him. For a moment the duke felt sorry for Percy.

“Good evening, yer grace,” Constance said in a soft woman's voice. She looked up at him through her lashes. It was well done. She held out her hand to him, just as Lady Adella had done.

She's just practicing, Ian told himself. “Good evening, cousin, you're looking lovely tonight.” And that was the truth. Her gowns and her sister's didn't come from the same armoire. He took her soft hand and kissed it.

Constance looked as if she wanted him to hold her hand a bit longer, but she still kept that soft smile when he released it. Then she turned and looked at Percy.

Damnation, the duke thought, the chit wants the wrong man.

He nodded to Brandy before turning toward Claude. “I trust you all approve Bertrand's and my plans?”

“Ye make me fair loath to answer ye, me lad,”
Claude wheezed, displaying a row of blackened teeth. He turned to Percy and guffawed. “Yer talk of sheep dung makes me think of some men's morals.”

“Ach, Uncle,” Percy said, all suave and cold, “ye tumbled many a wench afore yer manhood shriveled up like yer brain. Yer moralizing rings as hollow as yer head.”

Lady Adella threw back her head and roared with laughter, and Constance giggled. Ian was taken aback at the crudeness. The main reason, he thought, why Brandy was so matter-of-fact about things a young girl shouldn't even know about. He should say something, surely he should, but what?

Brandy said in a voice shaking with anger, “How dare ye say such things, Percy? Such talk belongs in the stables, not in the drawing room. Ye're not a gentleman. Hold yer odious tongue, do ye hear?”

Ian grinned at her. It was well done.

“Ah, my little cousin, ye are troubled by thoughts o' tumbling with a man? Don't be. It'll come and ye'll love it, ye'll see.”

The duke said, “If Brandy is troubled, Percy, it is undoubtedly because you have turned the drawing room into a stable yard.”

A deep growl tore from Percy's throat, but he was called to attention by Lady Adella. “I tell ye, Percy, to leave the girl alone. She's my wee innocent, and I'll not have ye turning her ears red.”

“Nay, lady,” Percy said softly, ignoring the duke, “our Constance must be the wee innocent. Is not our Brandy eighteen and a woman grown?”

“It's not true, Percy,” Constance said, drawing Percy's eyes to her. “I am a woman grown.”

“As ye will, lassie,” Percy said, “as ye will,” and took a pinch of snuff.

At that moment Crabbe entered. “Dinner be served, yer grace.”

Lady Adella said, as sour as a lemon, “I'll wager yer miserable flat ears were plastered against the door. Well, ye don't know a bloody bit about . . . well, never mind.” She ignored the rest of them, fussing with her many shawls. Ian saw Percy straighten and make his way purposefully toward Brandy. He moved quickly, neatly cutting him off, and offered her his arm.

“Will you accompany me to dinner, Brandy?”

She gave him a grateful look, rose quickly, and slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.

As they crossed the flagstones to the dining room, he said quietly, “I would speak to you, later perhaps.”

She nodded. As if aware of Percy behind them, she lengthened her stride, pulling him with her.

As he readied to seat her beside Constance, Lady Adella said loudly, “Ye'll sit over here, child.” She imperiously waved Brandy to the chair held by Percy.

“Ye must get to know yer cousin, girl. He'll broaden yer view of the world. Aye, and what can he do in front of all yer relatives?”

What the devil was the old hag up to now? Ian wondered, frowning at her. Her eyes were mocking and her lips drawn into a thin line. It came as something of a shock to him that she was using her granddaughter as a cat's paw to stir up enmity between him and Percy. She wasn't only an eccentric, he thought, but also damned perverse.

Brandy sent a startled, confused look toward Lady Adella, but she immediately turned back to Percy. She wasn't about to take her eyes off him. He was as good as laughing at her, knowing he'd won, knowing that Lady Adella had plucked her like a flower and tossed her to him. He said softly as Brandy hesitantly slipped herself into the chair, “Come, little cousin, as Lady Adella says, we must get to know each other better. Aye, and I'll have to mind my manners, won't I?”

“I have no desire to even see ye, Percy, much less
be forced to eat my dinner in yer company. If ye don't mind yer manners, I'll stab ye with my knife.”

Unperturbed, Percy continued in a low, caressing voice, meant only for her ears, “Don't ye want to become a woman, fair cousin? I can see ye now, yer thick, long hair freed and flowing, passion lighting yer virgin's eyes.”

“Stop it, ye pig. Just stop it.” She jabbed him in the leg with her fork, since he'd grabbed her knife and put it beside his own plate.

Lady Adella chuckled maliciously. “It appears ye've suffered a setback, my lad. Speak to her of Edinburgh and yer travels, not o' yer randy disposition.”

“Yes, Percy,” the duke said, “I am certain that all of us would be much amused to hear of your travels. Perhaps too, you would be so kind as to give us your opinion of the merits of Cheviot sheep?”

“One bleater speaking of other bleaters. Not much help that will be,” Claude said, and laughed aloud.

“Father, please, let's eat and forget the insults,” Bertrand said, wishing only that the wretched meal would be over without coming to blows. From the look on the duke's face, he wanted to smash Percy into the floor. What did he think of all of them? Surely he must believe he'd been locked in with uncivilized oafs. He'd wanted to dislike the new Earl of Penderleigh, but after spending just a short time with him, he'd been forced to admit that the duke wasn't at all what he'd expected, what any of them had expected. For one violent instant he wished he could simply pull out a gun and shoot Percy, the damned wretch.