Chapter 3 The Duke
THE DUKE
I came to with a view of that damned face.
“She’s awake,” Battle Talyn murmured in that purr of his, just before he straightened away, and Prudence was in my face.
“Oh my goodness, Vivi!” she cried. “Are you all right?”
I pushed up.
I did this because I was lying on a leather chesterfield. I had no idea how I got there, but my concern was, the lord of the manor carried me.
Beyond Prudence, I could see a glorious, carved stone fireplace.
The only other things I could see were three Talyn women and one Talyn man. Two of the women (Prudence and Chastity) were hovering over me. Temperance and Battle were standing off to the side, both with arms crossed on their chests, studying me.
I pushed back until I hit the arm of the chesterfield and once there, I lifted a hand to rub my neck.
“God, I’m so sorry,” I said.
Okay…how embarrassing was this?
The answer was very.
It was very embarrassing.
Nope.
Excruciating.
It was excruciatingly embarrassing.
“I don’t know what happened,” I finished lamely.
“Jetlag is weird,” Prudence decreed.
Could I hang fainting at the sight of the most beautiful man on the planet on jetlag?
Oh yes.
Yes, I could.
And I was absolutely going to do just that.
“I think I’ve been pushing myself too hard,” I told them. “I probably shouldn’t have hit the Tate. Or the British Museum. Or the British Library.”
“You did all of that in just three days?” Prudence’s voice was pitched unnaturally high.
“Well, yes,” I admitted, then, due to her tone, cautiously added, “And more.”
“Then of course that’s too much!” she declared and straightened from me to turn on her siblings and announce dramatically, “On top of driving all the way from London!”
I looked among them.
Okay.
Seriously.
How were these four siblings?
Not one of them looked like the other. Not even a nuance.
Prudence couldn’t be more than five three, though I couldn’t tell her body type because her clothing masked it.
However, Chasitity was willowy, probably only average height, however, even willowy, she had tits and ass.
Temperance was my height, five eight, and she was slender as a pole.
And Battle couldn’t be shorter than six four, and he was built like a brick shithouse.
With the eye color, the hair color, even the bone structure, there was nothing remotely alike about any of them.
Maybe Rebecca had started playing around way before she jetted off to Greece.
Prudence claimed my attention again by grabbing my hand. “I think you should go upstairs, lay down, take a nap. We’ll have a tray brought up for you for dinner. We can do the big welcome party tomorrow night.”
I shook my head and gently extricated my hand while swinging my legs off the side of the couch, though I didn’t go so far as to stand. When I did that again, I wanted to be sure I didn’t hit the deck after.
“No, no, no. I’m okay. I mean, sure. I think having a bit of a lie down will be good before dinner.
But Battle and I have some things to iron out, and it would be better to get on that straight away.
” I took my chances with another bout of unconsciousness and met his eyes.
“I really am very sorry. But honestly, I’m okay. ”
He didn’t reply to me.
He turned his head and shook it.
I looked over the back of the couch, the direction he’d turned his head, and saw the desk and wing chairs in front of it were on that side of the room, we were on the other side, where there was yet another seating area by a fireplace.
So yeah, the guy probably carried me.
God.
Excruciating.
Fitzgibbons was also there, entering the room with a woman at his side.
He was carrying a first aid kit in one hand, a silver tray with a glass of ice water balanced on the other.
I was impressed.
The woman was carrying a basin with a bright white towel folded over the side of it.
“I’m sorry, but it appears Ms. Dupree is recovering, and now we don’t need any of that,” Battle told his staff.
“You’re sure?” the woman asked, examining me with kind eyes.
“We’re sure, Patsy,” Prudence said.
“You don’t wish for me to call the doctor?” Fitzgibbons asked Battle.
“No. Apparently, Ms. Dupree has not had a mind to her jetlag,” Battle answered, still in that delicious purr of his, however this time it was incongruously accusatory.
My attention returned to him.
He was still speaking.
“But leave the glass of water.” He shifted to his sisters. “And you three can go. I’ll mind Ms. Dupree. Our business shouldn’t take that long.”
“Are you sure? I can stay,” Prudence offered to me.
“I’m fine,” I said at the same time Battle ordered, “Go, Prue.”
She shot her brother a scrunch-face look that was cute, before she gave me a reassuring smile and pat on the shoulder.
Chastity and Temperance didn’t need further permission to exit the scene. They were already leaving.
Patsy was gone, but Fitzgibbons came forward sans the first aid kit and put the glass of water on a leather coaster he unearthed from somewhere so he could set it on the coffee table in front of me.
“If you need anything, Miss Dupree, simply have His Grace ring,” he encouraged.
“Thank you, Mr. Fitzgibbons.”
He smiled kindly, something I thought was really sweet, then he moved away.
I watched Battle fold his very long body in a leather Queen Anne wing chair that flanked the chesterfield.
“Better here,” he murmured, crossing his also very long legs. “More informal.”
“Again, I’m sorry,” I told him, reaching for the water and wondering if I’d paid any attention to hydration the last four days.
I had not.
I took a healthy sip.
“It’s unnecessary for you to keep repeating that,” he replied.
I stopped drinking and my gaze shot to him at his curt words.
“I do believe our conversation will be simple and straightforward,” he went on. “Our solicitors have been belaboring this, but I’m certain you and I can come to an understanding.”
I wasn’t certain of the same thing.
“I’ve read your work, at least the historicals,” he informed me.
And goodness, that got another tingle that was both fear and excitement, knowing this man had spent time with my babies.
The fear was because I hoped he liked them.
The excitement was just that he’d read them, my words to his eyes.
For me, this was like this magnificent man had spent hours with me.
He continued talking. “You have a flair for the dramatic, which obviously makes these books marketable, but a bent toward historical accuracy.”
Well, if that didn’t deflate my balloon, primarily the cold way he laid it on me.
“This is rather the point of a book written in the historical fiction genre,” I pointed out.
“However, as my family’s history is what you’ll be writing about next, I don’t think my demands are that far-fetched,” he stated like I didn’t speak.
Oh yes.
This was what our solicitors had been “belaboring.”
This is your host. Keep your cool, Vivi, keep your cool.
I took another sip of water then set it down and turned fully toward the duke.
I then took a moment to let my retinas recover from looking at the man full face.
Only then did I share, “As you’re not a writer, I can understand how you might feel that way. What I need for you to understand is that what you’re requesting is categorically not something any writer can abide.”
“And if you were to have a book written about you, would you not request to have final approval of what’s published?”
I shrugged. “To be honest, unless it was something libelous, I wouldn’t have any choice. However, the only choice I’d have was after publication, suing if it was libelous, but the book would still already have been published.”
“As we don’t have a choice,” he agreed. “Although it would be difficult for you to write with your exacting precision if you don’t have access to my family’s papers.”
Mm-hm.
This was exactly what our solicitors had been “belaboring.”
“I do believe it’s been communicated to you that this book is not going to be about any living Talyn. In other words, it won’t be about you at all.”
“Any Talyn, living or dead, is mine to protect,” he returned.
“All right, if you’re worried about Prudence’s idea of a curse—”
He threw both hands out to his sides. “There is no curse. Prue has always had an overactive imagination.”
I got the sense Chastity didn’t dismiss the whole curse thing.
But this wasn’t about the curse.
I sought patience and clarified my position.
“As has been explained to you through your solicitors, my goal is to write a novel, loosely based on the Burleigh Duchy and The Downs, but mostly a fictionalized account of how the generations that experienced staggering advancement in a very short period of time adjusted to that advancement, correlating it to the times we’re in now, where we’re experiencing the same thing.
With the central story being about Harmony and Charlie, albeit mostly fictionalized since, so far, we only have his letters from her, and that doesn’t explain much of anything.
However, even if I uncovered more, as this was clearly mostly a clandestine relationship, until Harmony asked her father’s permission to marry Charlie, I doubt there’s very much to find.
Unless Harmony’s letters from Charlie are discovered, and even then, the bulk of the love affair will have to come from my imagination.
This is hardly going to paint the Talyns in an unflattering light.
Even your great-great grandfather was acting in the manner of a man of his time, that being for the protection of his daughter. ”
“Be that as it may—”
I interrupted him this time, and I could tell immediately by the flash in his eyes (the glasses were gone, by the way) and the thinning of his full lips, he not only didn’t like it, he wasn’t used to it.