The Duke of Hearts (The Highwaymen #2)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS A relatively short journey of fifteen miles to the country estate of His Grace Simon Green, the Duke of Arthford. Relatively short, of course. It took Marjorie Adams over two hours to do it on horseback.

Partially, this was because she had decided to be proper and ride side saddle. When she was at home, she always wore breeches and rode astride. She found everything about side saddle to be difficult, from the way she had to twist her body to the way that she always felt as if she was going to be tipped sideways out of the saddle.

Marjorie used to be called a tomboy when she was younger. Now, she was only embarrassing, she supposed. She was old enough to be considered an old maid, definitely on the shelf, six and twenty, but she hadn’t really come out in society or had a Season or anything like that, because when she’d been of the right age, some years ago, her father had been too drunk and too poor for such things.

She supposed in some ways, maybe she still was a tomboy, but perhaps one didn’t call a woman of her age such a thing. Perhaps some people might call her a bluestocking, though she really wasn’t all that interested in science or books or learning things, and she thought bluestockings were supposed to be well educated.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know things, however. She knew about horses and hunting dogs and outdoorsy things.

Anyway, it hardly mattered, not now. She didn’t want a husband, had never wanted a husband, and hopefully would never have to have one. Whether she was a tomboy or a bluestocking, she was equally of no interest to men, which was fine with her.

When she arrived at the Duke of Arthford’s estate, she left her horse for the stable hands to see to. They seemed surprised to see her, which she supposed she should have anticipated. She had sent word ahead that she would be coming to visit the duke, but had received no reply. Of course, she couldn’t allow that to prevent her from coming, so she’d galloped off here anyway, on a side saddle, in a proper dress, with her hair put up and everything.

When she presented herself to the servant at the door to the estate, he said that the master hadn’t been expecting anyone, and she wondered if her letter had simply been lost and never arrived here. Perhaps she ought to have written another letter. She might have traveled all this way for nothing, she thought.

She allowed herself to be taken to a sitting room to await the pleasure of the duke, should he deign to see her.

He appeared immediately, though he was frightfully improper when he did. He was in his shirtsleeves, his sleeves rolled up , actually, and wearing a waist coat only—no jacket—and he was busily tying his cravat up as he came inside.

“Miss Adams,” he said warmly. “This is quite a surprise.” He smiled at her, and she remembered that smile of his.

Good. He seemed to still be partial to her, then. She had been hoping so. “Is it?” she said. “I sent a letter saying that I would be coming.”

“Oh, yes, but not until October, I understood.” He was still smiling. His cravat was tied now, and he began to unroll his shirtsleeves, covering his forearms, and she found her gaze getting stuck on his arms, his bare forearms. Why were there so many prominent veins in his arms? Lord, this was improper, looking at a man’s arms in this fashion!

“It is October, Your Grace,” she said.

He furrowed his brow. “Truly?” He shifted on his feet, rubbing his forehead. “Well, then, I seem to have lost track of time.”

She clasped her hands together in front of her. “I don’t mean to be an imposition. I would simply leave, but it is a bit of a ride from my house to here.”

“Yes, you’ve come all the way from Briar Abbey?” he said. “That must have taken you hours on horseback. I’m ever so sorry. I intended to send a letter back to you that I would come to you. In October. But I seem to have…” He shook his head, letting out a helpless laugh.

The Duke of Arthford had blond hair and blue eyes and one of those countenances that was handsome and pleasing and square-jawed. He was sturdily built for a duke, with broader shoulders and tanner skin than was quite the fashion.

He sat down in a chair, spreading his hands. “I’ve nothing to say for myself, I’m afraid. Only that I shall give you my sincere apologies, Miss Adams. Please, sit down. I’ll ring for refreshments.”

“I might as well just come out with it,” she said, not sitting down, but instead twisting her fingers together in front of her. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”

He said nothing, just regarded her appraisingly, waiting.

Well, he hadn’t given her an immediate denial or excuse, so that was something. “You helped me in the past, you see. I’m not one for begging or anything of that nature, but I also didn’t quite know where else to turn.”

“Is it that kind of help again, Miss Adams?” he said, and his expression had gone grave.

“No, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t ask you to… obviously.” She swallowed. “Well, I was maybe sort of hoping you’d, erm, you’d be just a bit threatening, I suppose.”

“Threatening to whom?”

“My nephew,” she said. “He is the one who owns the house now, and the lands and the crops and all of the holdings. He is young, though. He’s only seventeen. He is spending quite a lot of money, you see, and it’s not as if my father left a lot—”

“He hasn’t attempted to make you—”

“No.”

The duke was on his feet again. “Has he hinted?”

She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t know that my father ever…” She drew in a breath and let it out. “Where would he get such an idea, Your Grace? Only an incredibly desperate man would.”

“Good,” said the duke. “So, you’re asking me to go and frighten your nephew into not spending your money?”

“It’s his money, of course,” she said, with a little shrug. “He would like me to get married and leave him to his own devices and keep my opinions to myself, truly, but I don’t wish to get married and I had hoped I could simply stay where I was, there at Briar Abbey. I am quite happy. I’m not in his way at all, and he… well, anyway, it’s for his own good, because he is going to go through the money and there will be nothing for either of us. If I could be in charge of the finances—of course, that’s madness.” She was botching this, wasn’t she? She should have explained it better, started at the beginning, presented the argument in some other way.

She couldn’t have been ruinously distracted by his forearms, could she?

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen men’s bare forearms before, but his seemed large and strong and covered in fair hair and her gaze had been caught by his bare skin, and she had been thrown by that.

Am I in love with the Duke of Arthford? she thought in horror.

“Well, hold on there, Miss Adams,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, and she couldn’t help but stare at his now-covered forearms. “Let’s think this through, try to get to what the actual problem is.”

It would have made sense for her to be in love with him, actually. When he’d appeared at her home all those years ago—how many had it been? Seven? Yes, she thought so. She’d been nineteen and scrawny and frightened, and he’d been there with his marchioness mistress, who was the only woman he had eyes for, and he’d rescued her, in his way, which was perhaps not the way she would have asked him to do it, but she supposed, in the end, she hadn’t cared that he’d done that. She’d been grateful, in the end.

Coming to him at all, now, was it because she was in love with him? Had she really simply come up with the stupidest reason on earth to ask for his help? Had it just been for an excuse to see him again?

“How is your, um, how does the Marchioness de Fateux?” she said.

He turned to her sharply. “Interesting subject change.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose.” Her face fell. “Apologies.”

“She’s done with me, anyway,” said the duke. “Don’t apologize. I’m simply in a wretched mood all the time. Being heartbroken doesn’t agree with me.” He cleared his throat. “I’m actually trying to keep busy. My friend—you might remember him. He was with me. He might have been awful to you, though. The Duke of Dunrose?”

“Oh,” she said, with a nod.

“Did he…?”

“I mean, they all did, Your Grace,” she said. “I don’t wish to talk about that, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” he muttered. “You probably wonder why I’m helping him at all.”

“You said he was your friend.”

“Closer than a friend, really. We’re like brothers. Maybe closer than brothers.” He sighed. “He’s an opium eater. Mostly laudanum, but he’d smoke it if he could find it. I’m getting him off it, though, getting him clean. And that’s why I’m…” He gestured to his body. “Not dressed.”

“Oh,” she said, with a nod. “That’s really very good of you to do that. You’re far too busy to worry with me—”

“No, no, I’m not.” He rubbed his chin. “I feel sort of flattered that any woman at all would come to me and think of me as even a little bit protective. It’s like I’m the elder brother you don’t have or something, Miss Adams.”

“Brother,” she said, with a nod. “You’re a brother to everyone it seems.”

He laughed. “Oh, yes.” Then he looked at her, a quick full-body sweep, assessing, and then he looked at the ceiling, and his neck turned red. He was blushing. “Pardon me. I… That was untoward.”

“What I said was untoward?”

“No, my, um, my…”

“I don’t think you did anything untoward,” she said.

“I think the last thing you likely want is a man like me ogling you,” he said. “Likely had enough of that to last a lifetime. You say you don’t wish to ever get married. Can’t blame you for that.”

She could not look at him. Her face was hot now too. “Hard not to look at someone during a conversation with that person, Your Grace.”

“True,” he said. “But back to what I was saying sometime earlier. Your problem isn’t really your nephew, is it? It’s money.”

She looked up to meet his gaze. “What?”

“Well, I’m not… I could go and threaten your nephew, I suppose, though I’m not really the most threatening out of my circle of friends. I suppose I have my moments.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I was thinking, maybe if you had enough money to see to yourself, you wouldn’t have to worry about his spending all the rest of it. What if I just give you—”

“I didn’t come here for a handout, Your Grace,” she said.

“Oh, don’t be that way,” he said with a sigh. “Don’t be proud. Just take it. You need it, don’t you?”

“I…” She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I need at all.”

“No?” he said.

Why had she come here? Even if she was in love with him, she’d seen the way he’d been with his mistress. No, maybe that was part of the reason she’d come to him, because he was safe in that way. He was so deeply in love with that woman that he didn’t seem to even notice other women. He never seemed to see her as a woman.

But then, maybe that also made him safe to fall in love with.

It was guaranteed to be unrequited, and maybe that was what she had wanted.

“Perhaps not,” he was saying. “You like it at Briar Abbey. It’s your home. You were there first, before your nephew. I remember the place myself. It’s nice, actually.” He sighed. “Well, maybe I just take care of your nephew. I could do it. I don’t mind, really.”

Her eyes widened.

He noticed. “No?”

“No,” she said, in a tiny voice.

“Wouldn’t matter anyway, right?” said Arthford. “You have another nephew, anyway, some other male heir that takes his place, even if that one’s gone.”

“That’s true, Your Grace.”

“Is it part of an entail? Or did your father just bequeath it to this nephew?”

“The latter,” she said. “And he left me nothing. Well, the will stipulated that there was a dowry and that sort of thing, but he’d spent it all by the time he, erm, passed away.”

“Right,” said Arthford. He scratched the side of his neck, thinking that over. “Didn’t do you much of a favor, did I, Miss Adams?”

She lifted her shoulders. “You did,” she said softly.

“All right, yes, that stopped, but I didn’t think much about what was going to become of you,” he said.

“You know, I’m not your responsibility, Your Grace,” she said. “I don’t know why I came here. I heard you were here, at this estate, I suppose, and I… it was foolish. I don’t want your charity, anyway. I should go.”

“Well, you rode all this way,” he said. “You should stay for dinner or something.”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t bring anything to wear, for one thing, and I have to ride back—”

“You could stay,” he said. “There are rooms. I daresay I could find you a dress if you care about that, but I must say, I don’t.”

“I couldn’t impose.”

“If you’re worried about seeing Dunrose, you should know he’s not going to come down for dinner. He’s barely passed into the stage of keeping food down.” He licked his lips. “You likely don’t wish to see him again.”

“It’s really fine. I just realized this entire trip here was foolish,” she said. “Please, forget I came, forget I asked.”

“Well, I can’t do that,” he said.

“Certainly, you can, Your Grace. It’s been, what? Seven years since we last saw each other? I daresay you haven’t thought much of me in that time. You can forget easily.”

He looked stricken. “Well, that’s a wretched thing to say. I’m not that sort of duke, Miss Adams, at least I don’t wish to be.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said. But she did need to get away from him now. She started for the door. “If you will excuse me, Your Grace, I really must be on my way. I thank you for your hospitality.”

“But I didn’t even manage to ring for refreshments!”

She was moving past him, staring at the door. She got to it and thrust it open. “Good afternoon, Your Grace.”

“Miss Adams, please,” he said.

She practically fled.