Malia Martin (18 page)

S
ara watched the Duke run from her and frowned. They had been cordial yet aloof with each other. That was good. She closed her eyes for a moment. Why did she not feel good about it, then? Sara opened her eyes and descended the stairs, her hand trailing down the banister. She would not delve into that question. She pulled up her gown so she could go faster. The only useful question that needed to be answered was: who would the Duke marry? And she would have to answer that question as quickly as she could.

Sara had already written up a list of women she wanted to invite to her Cinderella Ball. She would have to work on the invitations themselves today while the children worked on their letters.

Sara gained the hall just as the knocker sounded. She went directly to the door since Filbert, who was down in front of the kitchen
fire, would never hear the summons.

Sara swung open the door to find Rachel Biddle standing there, hand poised to knock again. They blinked at each other, and Sara bit her bottom lip. Her stomach knotted as she looked at the other woman. It always did. She had never loved John, not really. But it still hurt terribly that he had gone to this other woman for physical comfort.

And it ate at her soul that Rachel had been the one to bear his children. “Rachel,” she managed to say.

Rachel drew herself up to her full intimidating height and stared down her nose at Sara. “We are here to see the Duke.”

Sara glanced over at Helen, who smiled wanly. Even with her background, the girl would make a lovely duchess. She would be kind to the people, and she was smart, as well. But for some unfathomable reason, Sara could not find it within her to put forth Helen to Trevor as a good candidate for his bride.

Sara pressed her lips together as she returned her gaze to Rachel. “He is rather busy this morning, Mrs. Biddle. He is with his steward.”

“No, he isn’t,” Rachel said rather badly. “We just saw Mr. Goldblume in town.”

Rachel sighed. “He is getting ready to meet with Mr. Goldblume, who should be here any moment.”

“Mother,” Helen said in her low, wise voice. “I told you that it is rather early to call on the
Duke. Perhaps we should return home.”

“Why don’t you come tomorrow, around noon?” Sara heard herself ask. “You could share luncheon with us.” She would rather sit down with a snake, but Sara kept her thoughts hidden and looked hopefully at the two women.

Rachel’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. “You are trying to keep my Helen from getting into the Duke’s favor.”

Helen sighed audibly. “Oh, really, Mother.”

Rachel turned quickly to her daughter. “Do not speak when you do not know, Helen. This woman has done everything in her power to take what is rightfully mine.”

“Rachel!” Sara said sharply. She advanced through the door, backing the taller woman onto a lower step. “You may not speak of me so. I have never conspired against you, ever.”

Rachel huffed a disgusted breath, her face going a mottled shade of red.

“Mother.” Helen laid her hand over her mother’s.

A sound brought Sara’s head up, and she saw Mr. Goldblume riding around the curving drive, his horse’s hooves crunching against the gravel. Fortunately, James came from the stables to take the man’s mount.

“Mr. Goldblume,” Helen said, as the tall, thin gentleman came up the stairs toward them. “How delightful to see you twice in one day.” The man blushed and gulped nervously. He
mumbled something that was completely incoherent.

“Mother and I were most impressed with the new dresses you have just received. They are quite beautiful and on the cutting edge of fashion.”

“Thank you, Miss Biddle,” Mr. Goldblume managed to say.

Rachel said nothing through the whole exchange, but glared daggers at the poor young man as he made his apologies for leaving so quickly and stumbled through the door toward the study.

“You will be at the ball, will you not?” Sara turned back to Helen.

“Of course she will be there,” Rachel snapped. “Come along, then, Helen. We shall not get by the troll at the gate this day.” Rachel turned on her heel and stomped down the stairs.

Helen shook her head. “I must apologize for her, your grace. I tried to dissuade her from coming.”

Sara took a deep breath and tore her gaze from Rachel’s tall back. “No need for apologies, Helen. And please, do come for luncheon tomorrow.”

Helen shrugged. “We will send someone around in the morning to let you know if Mother is feeling up to it.”

Sara attempted to smile, but she was sure it turned out rather like a grimace.

Helen did smile, her dimples lovely hollows in her delicate skin. Sara had to squeeze her hands together painfully to keep from weeping. She watched as the young girl turned and followed her mother. It hurt, as it always did, to be around Helen. She was so beautiful and graceful. She was John’s daughter, but not hers. How she had dreamed of having a daughter just like Helen, and now she never would.

Sara stepped back into the hall and shut the door quickly, then hurried toward the back garden. She would go to the dowager house and start the lessons for the children. Her children.

That evening Sara sat beside the window in the front sitting room, a book on her lap as she watched Trevor come cantering toward the house. Man and horse were like one as they darted in and out of the large trees that lined the drive. The man seemed to be playing some sort of game, and as he drew the horse up at the clearing in front of the house, Trevor threw back his head and laughed. The dark stallion he rode lifted slightly on his hind legs and pawed the air. They landed gracefully, and Trevor reached down to pat the horse’s neck.

Trevor was a very beautiful man. Sara closed her eyes and for one wicked moment allowed herself to remember their tryst the day before. He was beautiful and charming, and he made her blood sing in her veins. But of course, she could not continue thinking of such things. He
was the duke. She was’ the Dowager Duchess; she must remember that put her in a motherly role.

Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips did not inspire maternal instincts in her.

Sara opened her eyes, keeping her gaze from the window, focusing on the book before her. When he was married, and she was safely tucked away at the dowager house with her children for company, then she would pull out the memories of his kisses. For they were certainly memories to be savored. But they were just that . . . memories, and there would be no more experiences like them, ever.

Sara tucked her feet beneath her, snuggled more comfortably into the sofa, and brought the book up level with her eyes.

She had been completely successful at banishing the thought of Trevor’s wicked pirate looks from her mind when the door burst open and banged against the wall.

Sara jumped and looked up. The Duke stood in the doorway, his face shadowed in the coming darkness, his arms akimbo, hands curled against his hips. He did remind one of a pirate standing at the helm of his ship.

“I’ve had a wonderful ride,” he said, and strode into the room. He brought with him the smell of horse, leather, and cold night air. “Is that a wool mill on the property?” he asked, as he perched at the edge of the very sofa on which Sara sat.

She scooted back a touch and pressed her book against her breast. “Wool mill?” She could not seem to remember the definition of such a place with Trevor so close. He had taken his coat off and sat beside her in only a thin lawn shirt. It stretched across his chest as he breathed. Sara dragged her gaze up to his chin, again dusted with a day’s worth of beard, and then his eyes, green as a fairy wood.

Sara swallowed and tightened her hold on her book. She felt suddenly wanton, for she could clearly imagine throwing herself at this man, toppling him backward, straddling him on the floor . . .

“Oh my!” Sara stood quickly, and turned away from Trevor. She took a few paces away, pressing a hand to her forehead.

“Are you all right?”

Sara jumped, for his voice came from just behind her. She scooted forward as if prodded by a hot iron and turned back to the Duke. “I am fine. Just, please . . .” She gestured at the sofa they had just vacated. “Sit. Over there, please.” She sounded like a ninny, but her heart was thumping as if she’d just run across the room rather than walked.

Trevor blinked and backed away. “Is it the wool mill? Is there something about it that upsets you?”

Sara tried to figure out to what he was referring. The wool mill?

“Is it a wool mill?” he asked.

Sara breathed deeply and ran her fingers nervously over her neck. “You saw the wool mill?”

“So, it is, then. It looks like one. When was it in operation? Why is it closed up now?”

Sara had to use all her willpower to keep her mind focused on his questions. It still shocked her that her thoughts had taken such a wanton flight of fancy. “Three dukes ago, the man who lived here when I was a child tried to bring in sheep. He built the mill.”

“What happened?”

Sara shrugged. “It did not work. Believe me, your grace, many things have been tried to make this a profitable estate. They have all failed.”

“Oh.” Trevor seemed to deflate right in front of her. His wide shoulders hunched forward, and he slouched back against the sofa.

“‘Twas the eighth Duke who tried the sheep. By the second year, they were alldead from some sort of disease.”

Trevor leaned his head against the back of the sofa and rubbed his temples with the thumb and middle finger of one hand. “I was excited for a moment. I thought I had a good idea.”

Sara sighed and went to sit on a chair beside the duke. “Tell me of your idea.”

He laughed, a short, wholly unhappy sound. “It was the same idea as the eighth Duke’s.”

Sara nodded. “It does seem that the area would be better suited to breeding sheep than to farming. I noticed once that there is a whole
wall of books on the subject of sheep in the library.”

“But if the eighth Duke could not make it work, then I am sure I could not,” Trevor said.

“Actually, if I remember correctly, he was not the smartest of men.”

Silence answered her statement. “Truly, Trev . . . your grace, it seemed a good idea at the time. Perhaps if you studied up on the subject you could be successful.”

Trevor furrowed all ten fingers through his hair, breaking it free of the confines of the leather tie.

“In fact,” Sara continued, warming to her subject, “I remember when it was happening, I was about ten, I think. I always wondered why the Duke did not bring in experts who knew what they were doing. He tried to do the whole of it himself.”

“You were a smart girl, even at ten, Sara.”

Sara felt her cheeks heat. “’Tis just common sense, your grace.”

“Hmm.” They sat in silence for a few moments and then Trevor straightened. He looked at her, into her, really, as if he had just realized who she was, what she looked like. “You are a beautiful woman, Sara.”

She blinked and pushed herself against the back of her chair. “Um, thank you.” She stared down at the book in her hands.

“I interrupted your reading. I am sorry.” He stood and took a few steps toward the door.

Even though he had not left yet, the room began to feel cold, alone. She had reveled in that aloneness when John had died. A terrible thing, really, for her to enjoy the fact that he was gone. But whenever John had found her reading, he would tell her to do something more constructive with her time. He would tick off on his fingers all the ways she could be perfecting herself as a duchess.

“Please stay,” she found herself saying.

Trevor stopped. “I really do not want to talk about the wool mill, Sara.” He sounded so tired and dejected. He sounded just as she felt, more often than not.

“Why don’t you read?” she asked. “Will you sit with me here and read?”

Sara had brought a small pile of books from the library. They lay on a side table, and she gestured toward them. “I have some poetry, a play, even a scientific treatise of some sort.”

Trevor looked about the room like a caged animal. He did not want to be with her. Sara glanced quickly down at her lap and flipped open her book. “You do not have to, of course. It was just a suggestion.”

He went to the side table and snatched up a book, then sat far across the room from her. Sara sighed. This had not been what she’d envisioned when she had asked him to stay. She did not know, actually, why she had asked him in the first place. She just wanted him there, the smell of him, the strange quiet that had come
to her soul as he sat with her, talking to her about how he wanted to make Rawlston a better place.

She tried to get back into her book, reading the same line over and over again as Trevor fidgeted across the room from her.

Finally, she looked up. “You do not like to read, do you?”

He! snapped his book shut and threw it down beside him. “I am not much of a poetry afficionado.”

Sara could not imagine life without poetry. Such beauty and imagery caught in simple phrases. She stared down at her own book of poetry, then picked it up and on an impulse began to read aloud. She read one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, then stopped.

“Don’t stop.”

Sara looked up quickly. Trevor sat poised on the edge of his chair, eyes shining. She returned her gaze to the book and continued her reading until she felt Trevor’s presence behind her. She faltered on a few words when he bent, leaning against the back of her chair, his breath light against her neck.

“Does this bother you?” he asked.

Sara swallowed. It did, actually, but not in the way it should. “No,” she managed to say.

“Good. Could you trail your finger under the words you are reading?” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I can’t see far away very well, and I’d like to read along.”

Sara nodded. “Of course.” She put her finger under the next line and read. She could not keep her mind on the words, though. Trevor’s mouth was just a breath away from her ear, and she kept imagining how lovely that mouth had felt against hers, against her neck, and at the top of her breasts. With a vivid flash, the memory of Trevor awakening her body with his touch ripped through her mind.