Malia Martin (10 page)

With a very unladylike snort, Sara yanked the door of the study open and held her candle up high. Its wavery light illuminated the large desk, the mounds of paperwork throwing even larger dancing black shadows against the drapes. “Bloody hell.” Sara stomped over to the desk.

He had done nothing! She dropped to the chair, balancing her candle on a stack of papers. “For the love of St. Peter, ’Tis just as I left it this afternoon!” Her voice was a small sound in the big room, fading into the darkness that beat against her candle flame.

He had acted as if he were going to help her.
Why on earth would he make the journey to Rawlston otherwise? Sara sighed, her heart feeling heavy in her chest. She closed her eyes for a moment. Her mind flirted with the idea that the Duke of Rawlston was a complete rake with absolutely no intention of doing a damn thing but seducing the women of Rawlston and perhaps having a bit of fun at her expense.

But truly, that line of thinking was just too depressing. Sara opened her eyes and sat up straight. Obviously the man was lazy. It hurt terribly to realize that fact fully.

When her husband had died, Sara had hoped and prayed that the next Duke would realize the urgency of the problem at Rawlston. She wished for a good man to lead his people.

Sara’s body suddenly remembered the feel of Trevor pulling her into his arms that afternoon and kissing her mouth with such practiced perfection. She remembered his hands, those long, lovely fingers skimming up her side, edging away her bodice, touching her . . .

Sara gripped the arms of the chair hard. He was not what she had hoped for at all. Obviously he had the role of rake down to perfection. And—she stared at the work before her—he had probably spent his life charming himself out of any hard labor ever put before him.

With a sigh, Sara set about dealing with the letter at the top of one of the piles. She would do a bit, just to help.

If she made the piles smaller, maybe the
Duke would not be so overwhelmed by the work. Perhaps she could nag him into doing what he must do. Sara took up the quill and dipped it in the inkpot. And she would definitely have to find a strong, determined woman to be his wife.

She awoke to the lovely smell of chocolate and an aching back. Stretching and blinking, Sara squinted at her maid, who stood on the other side of the desk with a tray. “What?” Sara asked, trying to figure out where she was and whether it was day or night.

“His grace sent me in.” Mary set her tray on a side table and poured a cup of chocolate. “He said you were asleep on the desk.”

Sara yawned, then took the cup from Mary. “Chocolate?”

The maid shrugged. “His grace said to bring you chocolate.”

Sara frowned. She never drank chocolate. It was much too expensive. But she put the delicate cup against her lips and sipped. “Mmmm,” she moaned. She took another longer sip. “This is lovely!”

“His grace made it,” Mary said. She shook her head, the look in her eyes showing the shock that must be reverberating about downstairs with the invasion of the kitchen by the Duke.

“Yes,” Sara laughed quietly. “You might
want to warn everyone that the Duke likes to cook.”

“He made these, too.”

Mary offered a plate of the most luscious pastries Sara had ever seen.

“Are those as good as they look?” she asked, taking one.

Mary smiled slyly. “I must admit, I tasted one earlier. They taste like they were made by God Himself.”

Sara scowled. “Well, do not tell
him
that. We do not need the Duke getting a bigger head than he already has.”

Mary’s mouth dropped open.

Sara took another deep swig of the delightful morning beverage. “Where is the Duke now?”

“He left while the pastries were cooling,” Mary answered, recovering from her shock and picking up the tray. “Wanted to go out riding.”

Sara rolled her eyes. More likely, the man had seen her asleep over his work and gone running from her wrath.

“Your grace?”

Sara looked up at Mary’s query.

“A boy come to the back this morning looking for work.” Mary shook her head. “Dead tired he was, and a mite hungry. He’s asleep by the stove now.”

With a sigh, Sara stared at the pile of unpaid bills. But those would be paid now, she hoped. “I know,” Sara said brightly. “Give him Wesley’s job.”

Mary made a tiny sound of surprise.

“Not to worry, Mary, we’ll move Wesley up to Grady’s position and make Grady the Duke’s new valet. He does not seem to have one. And he really should.”

“I shall inform them immediately, your grace.”

“Thank you, Mary.” Sara set down her cup and pushed away from the desk. Her knees creaked a protest as she straightened. They did that a lot lately. Her body seemed to enjoy reminding her that she was four years past thirty. “I am going to go round up the children for classes this morning. Could you ask Bartholomew to get the gig ready, please?”

“Yes, your grace.”

“Oh, and send Lily to my chambers to help me dress.”

“Yes, your grace.” Mary dipped a small curtsey and left.

Sara stared down at the desk for a moment, then took a quill and dipped it in the inkwell. She wrote a short note to the Duke detailing the work she had accomplished the night before, then wiped the quill.

She must attend to the children. The school she had begun two years before in the old dower house had been much too haphazard because of her other responsibilities. If she could get the Duke to take his duties seriously, she would soon be able to commit all her time to them, and that made her step lightly as she ascended
the stairs and went to her chambers to dress.

Coward that he was, Trevor watched from behind a clump of trees as Sara drove by in her gig. When he had seen her this morning, arms sprawled over the work he should have done, it had made him cringe. More important, it had made him desperate to extricate himself from the horrendous circumstances in which he found himself. He had spent most of the night laboring over three letters, and still he could not fathom most of the talk of figures.

He was not up to the job of duke. He had known that well enough the day he’d been informed of his inheritance, and he knew it most definitely this morning. Trevor set his heels to the flanks of the stallion the groom had given him, and set off in the direction from which Sara had come.

The wind rushed against his ears, and Trevor leaned forward, urging his mount faster. He wished for freedom, and this was the closest he would get for the time being. Lush green trees passed in a blur, and he smelled lavender as the horse’s hooves thudded over a wooden bridge. Trevor did not slow until they reached the gravel drive that curved before Rawlston Hall.

He walked the horse behind the monstrous building and dismounted before leading him toward the stables.

The same groom that had helped him that
morning ran out. “Your grace!” The man smiled widely. “And how did Lucky treat you this lovely mornin’?”

Trevor grinned. “You were right, James—this boy can go great guns,” he said.

The groom puffed his chest in pride. “That he can.”

Trevor had never been this far north, for Rawlston sat nearly on the border of Scotland. But he enjoyed the almost singsong lilt to the locals’ accent.

“They’re a bit rocky, the fields about Rawlston,” Trevor said, finding himself almost mimicking the groom’s intonations. “It makes it hard for the farmers, I’m sure.”

“Och, yes.” James moved to take Lucky’s reins, but Trevor waved him away and walked the horse into the stables himself.

“’Tis hard goin’, forcin’ the harvest to yield much more than stones around here, that’s for sure.” The groom laughed as he began relieving Lucky of his saddle.

Trevor tied the horse to a post and took a brush from its peg on the wall.

“We have high hopes for you, though, your grace.” James waggled his brows, holding out his hands for the brush.

Trevor just shook his head and began grooming the golden brown stallion that stood sedately awaiting. The good, fast run had wiped some gloom from Trevor’s mood, but it now weighed him down again with a vengeance. He
frowned. High hopes, the people had high hopes because he had come to Rawlston as Duke. It was almost laughable.

“‘Course, there are only a couple months left to make it right.”

James had been saying something, but Trevor only caught the last bit. He stopped grooming Lucky and stared over the stallion’s back at the man. “A couple of months to make
what
right?”

“To make everything right.”

Trevor trailed the brush along Lucky’s side. “And why do I have only two months to accomplish this gargantuan task?”

James blinked. “Garwhat?”

“What happens in two months?”

The groom shrugged, turned, and took another brush from the wall. “Nothing happens, it’s just the end of the year.” He started brushing down Lucky’s other side.

Trevor sighed. The conversation was giving him a headache. “The end of the year? If I’m not mistaken, it will be more around the middle.”

The groom chuckled. “‘Twill be the end of your first year as Duke.” He paused to glance at Trevor. “And if you’re not married, the curse’ U set in.”

Curse? Trevor stared at the groom. Was the man quite sane? Was anyone connected with this bloody estate right in the head?

“Hasn’t been a duke yet has broken the curse.” The groom continued vigorously brushing
down Lucky. “And if’n they don’t break it, they can’t have an heir and the people cannot be prosperous. His grace . . .” The groom cleared his throat. “That is to say, the
former
Duke, he married the Duchess the month after his year was out.” He shook his head, tsking and sighing deeply. “And they didn’t conceive. Bad business, that,” he said to the side of the horse. “Gave the Duchess them sad eyes.”

“The Duchess has sad eyes?” Trevor murmured, truly asking himself, as he cocked his head and tried to picture Sara in his mind.

“You’d ‘ave noticed, if you’d seen her as a bride.” The man smiled broadly and looked at Trevor. “A prettier little thing you’ve never seen a’fore.”

Trevor could imagine. He bent and worked on Lucky’s legs. “This curse . . .” He grunted a bit as he lifted the horse’s hoof and checked for stones beneath his shoe. “Do the people believe I can break it?”

“Aye, we have high hopes, your grace, as I said.” James knelt and actually winked at him from beneath Lucky’s belly.

Trevor was feeling a bit sick. “And I deduce that marrying in the next two months is part of those hopes?”

“Yep. Break the curse, your grace, and the people of Rawlston will finally have prosperity.”

“Hmm.” Trevor straightened and hung up his brush. “That may be difficult.”

James untied Lucky’s reins and clicked his tongue at the beast, then cocked a grin at Trevor. “We have . . .”

“High hopes,” Trevor finished for him. “Yes, yes, of course you do.” He left the stables feeling a bit like he’d been hit in the stomach with a rock.

He took one of the numerous side doors into Rawlston Hall and quietly tiptoed up a back stairwell to his room. Checking the hall quickly, Trevor pushed open the door to his chambers, stepped through, and shut it with a sigh of relief.

“Your grace.”

Trevor jumped, sure that his heart had just stopped.

“I have pressed your clothes, your grace.” Grady stood in the center of the room, shoulders back, nose in the air. He looked as if he had just been shot from a bow. “I have your bath waiting.”

Trevor stared at the boy. “What on earth are you doing in here, Grady?”

“Her grace has said that I am to be your valet.” He stood a bit straighter, if that was at all possible.

“Valet?” Trevor wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Why ever would I need a valet?”

Grady lost a few inches, and Trevor immediately felt like a toad. “You say you have a bath ready?” he changed the subject.

“Yes, your grace.”

“Wonderful!” Trevor said, dropping onto the chaise to rid himself of his boots. “’Tis just what I need.” He bent to tug off his hessians, but Grady was there first. They knocked heads, both rearing back, hands to foreheads.

“So sorry, your grace!” Grady said quickly. “But I can do this for you.”

Trevor nearly groaned, but checked the impulse. “Thank you, Grady.” He sat back, resigned to letting someone else do the simple task of removing his boots.

When he finally sat, alone, in his tub, Trevor leaned back to stare at his ceiling. He was not happy. His lovely, simple life, which he had worked so hard to attain, was disintegrating before his eyes.

It was horrifying, truly. Even
more
horrifying, now that he realized the extent to which the people of Rawlston wanted him to act the part of duke. Marry? Within two months? Impossible. He would hand over his entire fortune if he had to, hire the best steward in all of Britain, and even visit upon occasion. But marry?

That would mean taking another person with him back to Paris. Another woman person who would insist on cooks and butlers . . . and valets! Trevor blinked, realizing that he would probably have to take Grady with him, now that the boy fancied himself a duke’s man. With a groan, Trevor slid beneath the water and held his breath.

And suddenly thought of his father. The
man’s brawny image materialized in Trevor’s mind. His father, Sir Rutherford Phillips, would have given his left hand to be the Duke of Rawlston. The man had thrived on power. Any kind of power, over any person—even weak, defenseless ones like his mother. And him, before he had grown taller than Rutherford in his fifteenth year. Of course, his height had never compensated for his complete failure at everything else.

And it had not stopped the man from breaking his mother’s arm and bruising her eyes on more than one occasion. Trevor pushed himself up and took in a deep breath of air. He sat for a still moment, water dripping from his hair into the bath—
plunk, plunk, plunk
.

His mother had told him to run. And he had, going to war against the French and then staying there once it was over. He had never seen her again, her green eyes so dark with misery. And he often felt the burden of her terrible life upon his shoulders, guilt that he had never been able to do anything for her.