Chapter 7 The Duke’s Work
THE DUKE’S WORK
Rosamund reached the front steps just as the sky began to pale.
The duke was already there, booted, gloved—waiting.
And beside him stood two horses. One, a tall, dark gelding with a powerful build, standing alert but untroubled, the duke’s, obviously.
The other, Daffodil, bright-eyed and waiting.
Both were saddled and ready.
For a moment, Rosamund simply stopped.
He had kept his word.
“Good morning, Miss Belle,” he said.
There was no formality in it today. No careful distance. Just the simple acknowledgement.
“Good morning, Your Grace.”
His gaze flicked briefly to Daffodil. “We’ll be covering a fair bit of ground,” he said. “Unless you’d prefer—”
“Oh, no,” Rosamund said at once, already descending the steps. “This is perfect.”
She crossed the gravel with an eagerness she did not bother to disguise.
“There you are,” she murmured, patting Daffodil’s warm neck. “Did you sleep well? Of course you did. You always do.”
The mare huffed softly, as though in agreement.
The duke’s gaze flicked briefly to her gown. “We do have side-saddles,” he said. “But Finch thought you might prefer the one you arrived on.”
“Oh, decidedly,” Rosamund replied, already reaching for Daffodil’s reins. “Side-saddles are an abomination. Dangerous for horse and rider alike.”
That earned her a look—curious, amused. She nearly voiced her thoughts on riding habits, then remembered who she was meant to be here—and said nothing.
Without waiting for assistance, she gathered her skirts and swung up into the saddle with practiced ease. For a brief, unguarded moment, a glimpse of stocking and boot showed before she settled herself neatly.
The familiar motion eased something in her chest she had not realized was tight.
There. Much better.
Only then did it occur to her—belatedly—that she had revealed more of her leg than was proper, and that the duke’s gaze had lingered there.
It was not her imagination this time, and she did not quite know how she felt about being regarded by this man in that sort of way.
Or… maybe she did. And maybe… she liked it.
While the duke easily mounted his horse, Rosamund adjusted her seat, patted Daffodil’s neck, and leaned forward, lowering her voice. “We’re to have an adventure today,” she confided. “I have no doubt you’ll behave impeccably.”
The mare flicked an ear.
Rosamund smiled to herself, straightening, as she finally looked toward the duke.
“I’m ready,” she said.
And for the first time since arriving at the estate, she felt not like an intruder—but like a participant.
They rode first to the tenant cottages near the upper pasture.
Rosamund did not record names—but she discreetly took notes of her impressions. For instance, the way men straightened when the duke approached, the way women spoke plainly to him, unafraid.
After introducing her briefly, the duke listened more than he spoke.
Asked questions. Listened some more.
At one gate, he dismounted to examine a broken hinge.
“It’s been catching for weeks,” the tenant explained.
Julian tested it once, nodded, and made his own note in the small ledger tucked into his coat. “I’ll have it replaced before you move your herd up here.”
Rosamund said nothing, content to quietly observe while the duke conducted his business.
By midmorning, the sun had warmed her shoulders and while the duke could never be accused of being talkative, he was… cooperative.
Almost friendly.
They spoke in fragments while they rode between properties.
About soil quality.
About the price of timber.
About Daffodil, and his horse, named Merlin.
“After the magician?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “I cannot take credit. He was already called Merlin when I purchased him.”
Rosamund glanced at the gelding and saw the faint scars along his hindquarters—old, but unmistakable. The way Julian rode him now, hands light and voice low, told her everything else she needed to know.
Another rescue.
She didn’t comment. The pieces were already falling into place.
And so she couldn’t help but ask… “Why didn’t you send me away? The night I arrived?”
“Because it was dark,” he said, his mouth twisting. “And I am not so beastly that I’d turn a woman out to the wolves.”
“Ah, so you admit it.” Rosamund was relaxed in her saddle, hands loosely holding Daffodil’s reins. “You are a gentleman at heart.”
“I admit nothing.” But then he drew his mount to a halt. “This brook marks the edge of Cavendish property.”
Rosamund came to a halt beside him.
Below them, a wide swath of water tumbled over rocks, almost a river in its breadth, sparkling as sunlight scattered across the ripples.
“It’s higher than usual,” the duke said, and then pointed. “That rise marks the northernmost point. We’ll go south from here.”
They followed the water’s curve, hooves splashing in shallower places. A heron lifted itself from the shallows at their approach, wings vast and slow. The duke nodded toward the current.
“It was here I found Angus. Half drowned, skin and bone. He could barely lift his head.” He spoke as though matter of fact.
Rosamund glanced toward the massive hound trotting happily beside them now, tongue lolling. “I’m so glad you found him.”
“It was during the worst of it for me,” Julian continued, voice quieter, roughened. “I was… not myself. But Angus needed someone. And in some ridiculous way, I–” he cut himself off.
Her chest tightened. “You needed him as well.”
Julian only shrugged, but she caught the shadow of something gentler in his gaze.
“And Sable?” she asked after a moment. “She seems too proud a creature to have been rescued.”
He laughed then. A sound that sent unexpected warmth down her spine.
“Sable’s ruled me for over a decade, since she was a kitten. Her mother abandoned her, one of the stable cats, and I smuggled her into the house. Without my parents knowing, of course.”
Rosamund smiled, staring down at her hands.
“What?” he asked.
“That sounds like something I would do.”
He just stared at her for a moment, and then nodded. “It does, actually.”
She held his eyes for as long as she dared. Because eventually, she needed to breathe…
In between the stops that followed, he surprised her with more little glimpses. With parts of him she hadn’t expected to see.
And by the time Rosamund realized she was no longer riding after him but beside him, it felt perfectly natural.
A hare burst from the brush without warning, a blur of brown and white.
Daffodil shied, her weight shifting beneath Rosamund before she could correct for it.
The duke reacted at once.
His hand closed over the reins near Daffodil’s neck—covering Rosamund’s hand as he steadied her.
“You’re all right,” he said quietly.
She was. Entirely. Daffodil settled at once, snorting, ears flicking forward again.
Yet Rosamund was acutely aware that his fingers lingered a heartbeat longer than required before he drew back.
“I’m… fine,” she said. And then, “thank you.”
The horses moved on. The path opened ahead.
But Rosamund felt a faint little tilt.
She was unaccustomed to being… steadied. To being… protected.
“Are you hungry?”
The question startled her from her thoughts, which had wandered into territory she had no intention of examining too closely.
“Oh—yes.”
As they drew up beneath a cluster of elms, she remembered that she had, in fact, rushed through breakfast more than she’d realized. Her stomach gave a small, unmistakable rumble—of ordinary hunger, layered beneath the far less sensible flutter from earlier.
Julian produced bread, cheese, and fruit from his saddlebag, setting it out with efficient care.
“Mrs. Wetherby’s doing,” he said.
“I shall thank her profusely,” Rosamund replied, already reaching for an apple.
They ate without ceremony, and after a moment, she gestured vaguely toward the land—the work, the steady rhythm of the morning. “This,” she said, “is exactly what I needed to see.”
He glanced at her, expression unreadable. “And?”
“And I see why they trust you.”
Rather than drawing up with pride, something in his posture loosened. Relief?
They gathered the napkins and the few remaining scraps in companionable silence, the air between them markedly easier than it had been before.
“Tomorrow,” he said, as though it were already settled, “we’ll ride south.”
Rosamund smiled, warmth blooming quietly in her chest. Had he forgotten that he had granted her only three days?
It would be sensible, she told herself, to accept the extension without comment. More time meant more observation, more understanding—everything she had come for. It would make her work stronger. Truer.
And if it also meant she need not contemplate leaving just yet—need not measure the day by how soon it would end—then that was merely a fortunate coincidence.
Nothing more.
“At sunrise?”
He inclined his head. “And you’re certain I needn’t expect a concerned father or brother to come looking for you, Miss Belle?”
“Quite, Your Grace,” Rosamund replied. Charles had most likely not even noticed her absence.
The lie, however, made her wince inside.
Because whatever this was—this growing regard—it could not follow her beyond these grounds. She would leave. And if they met again, he would discover who her brother was, who her father had been.
And although her reasons for coming were genuine, the person he’d led her to believe she was did not really exist.