The Rusticated Duchess (5 page)

“I want to know—no, I now
need
to know,” she said, waving Clare’s card between them, “if we have the same father.”

Brody looked at her carefully, the same caution in his gleam that Gloria recognised in herself. “I’ll protect the little lord with my life,” he murmured deeply, his hands moving to rest on his hips. “But Lennox did not father me. Or you.”

Gloria glared at him. “I know that,” she returned with a low hiss. “Are you my brother?”

Brody shifted, then looked past her. “Gave my word to His Grace,” he finally said softly. “Took an oath, not to make more of a claim—”

“Answer me right now, Brody Jenson,” she demanded.

He sighed. “Aye. ’Tis why Lennox sent for me. He knew I’d never betray the boy.”

“Do you know who our father is?” she asked directly. “I don’t have time to argue, I need to know—”

“Yes,” he answered simply. “But I swore I wouldn’t—”

“Is he someone from the Blessing family?” she interrupted, ignoring his protestation.

Brody’s surprise was evident, but then he shook his head slowly. “No, milady.”

Gloria’s shoulders fell with relief. “Good. The rest—the rest we can discuss later. Right now,
brother
, the man in the front parlour is the heir to the Duke of Lauderdale, the Blessing heir. And I am living in
Blessing
Cottage. If he’s not a blood relative of mine or yours, then chances are he knows some of my family’s history with which I am not
au fait
. Brody, you know more about this secret than I do. I’m going up to change. I want you to switch places with Colman in the front parlour.”

Brody looked grim, obviously thinking, but Gloria didn’t have time to argue. She turned and fled up the back stairs, half-relieved to have that secret revealed and half-afraid of what other secrets might soon be uncovered.

Upstairs, she quickly tied a black silk overskirt above her serviceable grey wool gown and fastened a black jacket with high collar over her bodice. A black lace apron topped those, and she pinned a black cap over the crown of her shining golden bun. Unaccountably nervous, she pulled on black gloves and nodded to herself in the glass.

Short moments later, she met Brody’s eyes outside the parlour door and nodded briskly, her chin rising with determination and her face leaching into the blank impassivity she’d cultivated from childhood.

Brody nodded to her and opened the door, stepping through so that Gloria could pass into the room.

Quite aware of how young she appeared and how exposed she would feel with this stranger in her parlour, Gloria drew a deep breath, locked her emotions deep within where they wouldn’t show and stepped forwards to brave the lion.

Clare was studying a painting on the wall above the fireplace. Gloria had often admired it but could not identify the subject, a large pink-stoned castle that sat looming over a river in the fog. She stepped heavily and he turned, momentary surprise lighting his face before he quickly frowned and looked past her, clearly looking for someone else to enter the room.

Inwardly snorting, Gloria smiled prettily and held out her hand as her eyes met his. She gave him only the briefest of curtsies—a clear signal of her status since she knew his name and title. As she’d seen before, he had high cheekbones and deep-set eyes—a deep green that was almost hazel, she realised—and his hair was a burnished pale brown that hung loosely about his ears, with hints of silver at the edges that glinted when the sun’s rays from the front windows caught it. Cut unfashionably short, it hung in wind-ruffled curling lengths over his forehead and over the back of his head, short enough to bare his neck, if he’d worn a low collar.

He raised a brow but gave her an equally brief bow. “Lord Clare,” she greeted him, withdrawing her hand and waving him to the settee. “How kind of you to call.” He acquiesced even as the muscles in his face pinched in suspicion. He threw Brody a narrow-eyed glance and disposed himself at the end of the furniture.

She turned and settled on the edge of an old-fashioned chair, glancing back to Brody, who watched them closely. “Could you have the tea brought in?” she asked pleasantly.

Brody briefly bowed and slipped out of the room, at which point she turned back to Clare. “You may call me Jane. Or Lady Jane.”

“Such caution, my lady, is misplaced with me,” Clare said, his eyebrows lowering with disapproval. “To be frank, it seems clear that you do not wish to be identified, but I am not some village gossip or local shopkeeper. Who are you and what are you doing in Blessing Cottage? You’re hardly old enough to be without a governess, let alone on your own—”

“
That
is not your concern, my lord,” Gloria snapped angrily, biting her inner lip to refrain from speaking further. She tried to suppress a sudden bout of fury. Where had her impeccable manners and impenetrable calm gone? “As to the house, it may bear your name, but I am absolutely certain that the deed rests safely in my uncle’s strongbox.”

“Which uncle?” Clare returned, the coldness in his voice now patronising. “I understand there is a widow in this house, and it is
she
with whom I intend to speak. I’ll stay here all afternoon if necessary.”

Gloria raised a brow, looked down at her black gloves and felt a burning anger rise in her stomach. She hated the word
widow
already, with all of its connotations and presumptions. To have her life ripped from her through no fault of her own, to be a pawn in a game of money and revenge, to have been subject to March’s brutish behaviour and be humiliated by his public scandals—to have survived all she had in the last eighteen months only to have this dignified stranger put her in the schoolroom and dismiss her was simply too much.

Perhaps unrealistically, she’d wanted him to respect her—to see her as she was, instead of as a girl posing in a role too big for her shoulders. She’d wanted to see him smile and greet her with at least a modicum of respect. She desperately wanted to throw a cup of hot tea on his beautiful green jacket and luxurious leather breeches and highly polished boots.

Deliberately, slowly, her fingers almost shaking with anger and disillusionment, she unbuttoned the glove on her left hand, concentrating. Her jaw stiff, she tugged off the glove and stared at the hated gold band still residing there, then looked up at Clare, whose eyes had gratifyingly widened in surprise. She spoke in a low, fierce voice. “My mother taught me to always dissemble politely in the drawing room, but upon this occasion I am remembering that this charming cottage does not have one. You were welcomed into my parlour
as a guest
, and you will remember
that your presumed self-importance and your future title give you
no right
to judge me or make assumptions about what brought me here. So you are welcome to sit there all afternoon, but I shall not!”

Blinking, she looked up at his frozen face, noted his eyes on her shaking hands and felt her body quivering with rage. Anger coursing through her, and having no other outlet, she flung her arm out and threw the glove at his face. It pelted him in the nose and his facial expression loosened into indignation, even as she rose to her feet. “Ring the bell when you wish to be shown out.”

Gloria left the room in a rush, even as Clare reached out unsuccessfully to detain her, deliberately slamming the open parlour door behind her.

Chapter Three

Clare was standing at the window, staring blindly out at the front garden, when the parlour door opened much more sedately than it had slammed closed a few minutes earlier. The images in his head swirled angrily, his anger redirected into a self-recrimination as harsh as any he’d ever indulged. The look of raw disbelief and pain on the girl’s face was as much a knife in his gut as the fading memory of Sarah, her mouth pinched with disapproval over some decision he couldn’t even remember.

He’d had a mere three years and nine months with Sarah, and had mourned her much longer than they’d loved. This girl—this young lady, this vibrant young woman—had stood toe to toe with him fearlessly, perfectly confident in the knowledge he was the heir to a duke without ever being told. She’d given him only the barest of respectable greetings, signifying they were of equal rank or her precedence was higher than his. Clare found that difficult to believe, but he knew instinctively that she’d done it with absolute knowledge of the implications. She’d given him a message and he’d been so sunk in lust and self-loathing that he’d neither listened nor seen her clearly.

He’d just shamed and demeaned this proud young lady for no other reason than that he was lusting after her with the same inexplicable dedication that he’d once directed to Sarah’s safety. ‘
I will not have
you
treat me as a child’
. The old words Sarah had flung at him in a moment of frustration rang in his head. They’d not argued often, but her pregnancy had terrified him and he’d been accused of everything from wrapping her in woollen batting to imprisoning her in the tower.

Holding in a heavy sigh, Clare turned to see the stately, capped housekeeper enter the room. The woman’s dignified frame radiated disapproval. A surge of guilt swept through Clare. He’d cut the grieving occupant of this house with his ill-considered words and thoughts. No female, of any age, deserved to feel the heartache and loss he’d experienced when Sarah had died.

The housekeeper met his gaze as he approached, and Clare grimaced inwardly. She was no meek and mild servant. She looked at him directly, unimpressed by his title or his gender. And she disapproved. Of him.

His stomach clenched. She was a family retainer and knew her place in the world. He’d have wagered a fortune that she had long nurtured the naturally arrogant and survived, because she had the fierce look of his own Nana. Her pale lips were thin and she shook her grey head a bit, so Clare bit out, “Yes, I’ll apologise. How could I have known she was a widow?”

Eyes narrowing, the woman frowned, then pointedly handed him his hat. He sighed. “I will be finding out who owns the property, you know,” he said mildly, pulling on his gloves with the ruthless restlessness of his daily rounds. “You might as well tell me the name of your master.”

The woman’s eyes snapped. “You do what you must but I answer to
my lord
.” She paused and went on quietly, “And to my lady, your lordship.”

He raised a brow, settled his hat, considered her. Finally having no other arrow to draw, he murmured, “You do realise that my father is the Lord Lieutenant in the county and I am deputised in his place?”

To his surprise and grudging respect, the woman drew herself up to her full height, put her hands on her hips and said proudly, “I will see you out now, sir.”

In short order, the disapproving housekeeper had herded Clare to the door, where the burly guard he’d faced the day before was waiting with a menacing expression. Clare was certain he felt the gate slam shut behind the rear of his horse.

Automatically, the beast turned up Shore Road towards the castle gates, while Clare frowned in grumpy dissatisfaction at the waves lapping gently along the upper rocks.

It hadn’t gone at all how he’d planned. Not at all. And the worst part was, he knew he’d dream about her again. Up close, she’d been even lovelier than he’d at first imagined. Her pale green eyes and voice had been full of life—passion and anger and courage and offended indignation. He’d never wanted to apologise to a woman before, but the brief glimpse he’d had of her crushed heart was going to haunt him. She’d cloaked it almost immediately but he’d seen enough to know.

Jamie was waiting, a severe frown on his face, when Clare stopped in the forecourt and dismounted. The steward waited, unspeaking, until Clare heaved a sigh and barked abruptly, “I want to know who the owner of record is. I don’t care what favours you have to call in on my behalf, what strings you have to pull, what bribes you have to pay. Find out.” Jamie glanced at him, frowned even more direfully, until Clare burst out with a grim, “Now!” and stalked away.

Clare knew he was stalking. That knowledge didn’t temper the way his boots stomped against the ground or the angry swing of his arms. He just stalked, looking down at his feet until he could go no farther. He stalked until he was, without intention, before the door to the mausoleum where his mother and Sarah and all of his ancestors rested.

He’d been here many times, of course. In the first years, he’d come to bask in the oppressive silence—the emptiness. Inside the castle, he’d been responsible for his young son, who he had refused to confine out of his sight in the attics. He couldn’t spend his days there or checking in spontaneously, as Sarah had, so he’d had the nurseries moved to a suite of rooms within sight and sound of his study, in the family wing between the duke’s quarters and his own. Later, when Arwyn had left for Eton and he’d moved his primary residence to Norham to be closer to the boy, Clare still had come here to pay homage when he visited. Sarah’s image was engraved on the foot of her tomb, and he’d stared at it in fascinated abstraction for hours on end until the marks of the stonecutter were engraved in his heart as clearly as the memory of Sarah’s lighthearted laugh and open arms.

Hesitating at the door, he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, then pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside, closing it carefully behind him.

The air was frigid, so cold Clare’s fingers stiffened inside his gloves. He crossed his arms over his chest and walked through the cloistered central room. Lit by the sun through a small glass dome, the grey stone interior was severe in its simplicity, with each small room around the outside a receptacle for another generation of Blessings. All but two rooms were full to the brim, and Clare stepped at the second to the last arched portal. His mother rested here and someday his father too. Sarah was here, and so would he be. Arwyn, God willing, had many more years before he need think of such things, but there was room here for the boy as well, and for a wife.

If possible, the chamber was even colder, emptier, than the central room had been. Clare felt violently chilled, as though he was being driven out by the cold. With his gloved hand, he traced the outline of her face in the stone, the edges of her life-size chin and the lines of her hair that the artisan had faithfully etched into the rock.