The Duke Has Done it Again

One

Sir Gavin Keighley stood at the top of a swell of ground and looked down over Yerndon Manor—house, stables, outbuildings, and a bit of fenced pasture in the midst of lands that flowed out over the Yorkshire moors. The place had a grim look. Dark and weathered and overgrown, it had been untended for years. The former owner had willed the manor to a distant cousin, who had received it with indifference and left it to rot. The waste and arrogance of it made Gavin grit his teeth. Estates, and the people on them, should be cared for by those who knew how. He felt this as strongly as anything in his life.

He looked at the landscape stretching out all around the dip in which the manor lay. Some said the moor was lonely or barren, even frightening, but he didn’t see it. He’d lived here all his twenty-six years. He’d run free on his pony as a boy, camped out under the stars as a stripling, done his duty to his heritage as a man.

Gavin loved this country in all seasons. Now, in late March, it was stirring. Not the sweeping purple bloom of the heather that came with summer, but smaller wakenings. Secret flowers and hidden dens. Asphodel near the bogs, bracken on the slopes, juniper and cloudberry, nesting birds and wild ponies. He didn’t see how anyone could call it empty and bleak. He and this land belonged to each other. No outsider would ever understand that sort of bond. That was why willing Yerndon to some sneering southerner had been such a calculated insult.

And then there it was—a luxurious traveling coach was driving slowly up the bumpy lane. As Gavin’s mother had heard, the fellow was arriving today, the absentee owner deigning to show interest at last. This was not the sort of vehicle they usually saw in this area, where one might break an axle on a stone. There was a crest on the door panel. A liveried coachman drove with a man sitting beside him. Did the usurper think he needed a guard in Yorkshire? Well, maybe he wasn’t far wrong. Gavin had to admit he had a fine team of horses, though.

The vehicle stopped before the house and a richly dressed lady got down and went in. The carriage continued to the stables. Gavin watched and waited. He’d been here all morning. A bit longer wouldn’t hurt.

After a while, a tall figure appeared, walking up from the stables—the wrongful owner as Gavin’s mother put it. The man was dressed as if this was Bond Street, London, and not Yorkshire, ill-gotten wealth dripping off him. He moved as if he hadn’t a care in the world or a thought in his head. Show him he’s not wanted here, Gavin’s mother had urged, her outrage whipping up his temper. Give him a taste of the north country. Let him know we won’t be patronized. Gavin strode down the hill, all her goads simmering in his head.

The newcomer stopped and waited when he saw Gavin approaching.

“We heard you were arriving today,” Gavin said when he reached him. The frippery fellow blinked at this abrupt greeting. No doubt he expected bows and scrapes and empty palaver. He wouldn’t be getting them.

“Have you been waiting long?” the man asked. “I wanted to be certain the horses were made comfortable. I am…”

“I know who you are. The Duke of Tereford.” Gavin made the title a sneer. “Of the family who cheated mine out of Yerndon Manor.”

“Cheated?”

“That’s what we call it.”

The city fop gazed at him. “I understood that the place was left to my great-uncle by a cousin of his.”

“Third or fourth cousin. Barely a relation at all. Done just to spite my kin, who had a far better right to the place.”

“Indeed?”

The word was spoken with one raised eyebrow and a brush of skepticism. The smug arrogance of it hit Gavin’s roused temper like a lightning strike in dry brush. Before his brain could catch up with his primed emotions, he’d lunged forward and thrown a punch.

The southerner blocked it with a raised forearm, moving startlingly fast. Gavin automatically followed up with another. The fellow leaned aside, dodging the blow without apparent effort. His fists were now raised in fine boxing form. He did not seem to be the effete bumbler Gavin had been pushed to confront, begging for a touch of home truth.

Gavin hadn’t intended to fight this duke. He wasn’t some rude brawler. He was a respected man of property. But now, somehow, here he was, in the midst of a bout. The man’s expert evasion of Gavin’s blows—with no return, as if Gavin wasn’t worth hitting—fed into his anger. He would just knock the fellow down, teach him a lesson as his mother had urged, and then stand back and walk away. Gavin launched a huge roundhouse right designed to lay the fellow out.

But he wasn’t there. Gavin’s blow spun through thin air, leaving him flailing off-balance. He lurched to keep his footing, tried to recover. Then something struck his cheek with stunning force and a cutting sting. Gavin fell hard onto his buttocks and then flat on his back.

For a moment he had to lie there, even though the duke was stepping closer, possibly to give him a kick. Gavin’s head spun. His senses reeled.

A female figure pushed in front of the interloper. “Don’t touch him!” she cried.

Gavin groaned aloud. Of all the people in all the world, it had to be her. Of course it did. She was always just where one didn’t wish her to be. Now here she was, to add to the humiliation of being knocked down by his enemy. “I do not need your help, Rose Denholme,” he said from the ground.

“It appears that you do, Gavin Keighley, since you’re lying on the earth bleeding.”

“I am not bleeding!”

“You are,” she insisted.

Gavin sat up. His whirling head protested a little. Red drops fell onto the front of his greatcoat.

“I believe the edge of my signet ring caught your cheek,” said the duke. His tone was dry, his accent like cut glass. “I don’t wear it when I box. But I wasn’t expecting a bout just now.”

Was the man mocking him? Did he dare? Was that a glint of amusement in his dark-blue eyes? Gavin wanted to spring up and throttle him, but his head still rang from that—impressive—blow. He was not quite ready to get to his feet.

Rose put her hands on her hips. “What did you think you were doing?” she asked Gavin. “Why are you here?”

“Why are you?”

“I happened by…”

Gavin scoffed.

“If I might…” began the duke.

“You may not,” said Rose. “I have nothing to say to those who cheated my family out of Yerndon Manor.”

“Your family.” He looked from her to Gavin and back again. “Are you related then? You do seem to have a good deal in common.”

“No!” exclaimed Gavin. Rose said it at the same moment. They could agree on that, if nothing else. He had to stand up. He couldn’t sit here looking up at the two of them like a small child.

“Ah.” The duke adjusted his fancy overcoat. Feared he’d mussed it with a little action, Gavin assumed. “So, if I understand you, both of your—unrelated—families believe they have some claim to Yerndon Manor?”

“Hers doesn’t,” snapped Gavin, lurching to his feet and swaying a little once erect.

“His doesn’t,” said Rose simultaneously, predictably.

And then, like any two members of their families when they happened to meet, he and Rose descended into the morass of cousins and intermarriages and promised legacies and sly betrayals. It had been going on all Gavin’s life, the never-ending dispute, though the wrangling had been growing worse in recent years, it seemed. The Denholmes never gave an inch. They just spoke louder and poured on more acid.

The duke cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”

Gavin did not jump. He hadn’t forgotten the fellow was there. Of course he hadn’t. Rose had just distracted him.

“I cannot apologize for defending myself,” Tereford went on. “But if you and your friend would care to start again, you might come up to the house and…”

“She is not my friend,” said Gavin.

Rose crossed her arms and frowned at them both.

“You and your, ah, adversary then,” the duke added.

He was amused. Gavin couldn’t help seeing it. And that made everything worse. He’d lost his temper, which he’d been trying not to do lately. He’d been knocked flat. Rose Denholme had come to stand over him like a dog defending a bone. And now this Londoner was laughing at him. He clenched his teeth.

“Or just you, if you like,” the duke continued, looking at him. “We should see to that cut on your cheek.”

“I’m not leaving him here in your clutches,” Rose declared.

“Clutches?” Gavin nearly groaned again. He’d stumbled into—no, admit it, he’d instigated—a Cheltenham tragedy. “Go away, Rose. No one wants you here.”

“I don’t take orders from you. And I think you require the presence of a responsible adult.”

“I’m older than you!”

“Only chronologically.”

Rose was three years younger than Gavin. They’d known each other all their lives. As children, before they were dragged fully into the feud that consumed their families, they’d roamed the moors as part of a gang of carefree youngsters and shared a host of adventures.

“You never can control your temper,” she said.

Which goaded Gavin, as she’d no doubt meant to do. “And you always can, which is by far more infuriating.”

“Only to someone who is always infuriated.”

Gavin wrestled with his irritation. He’d been trying to learn how to master his anger, which came so hot and fast. Today had not been a success in that regard.

“Remember that time you fell in the bog and shouted at the loose boulder that dumped you in? For ten minutes at least?”

“I did not shout at a boulder.” That was ridiculous.

“Yes, you did. And after you crawled out of the muck, you tried to blame me for pushing you. When I’d been feet away.”

“I…” Gavin didn’t recall this particular incident. But she was probably right. Rose had a memory like the proverbial elephant. It was one of her many annoying traits.

“You smeared mud on my face,” she added.

“You Denholmes certainly know how to hold a grudge.”

“A statement of fact is not a grudge,” Rose replied with a raised chin.

And the family dispute started up all over again. It pulled one in like a raging whirlpool. They went at it hammer and tongs.

At some point, Gavin realized that the duke was gone. He and Rose stood alone in the space before the manor house, visible from its windows, arguing like fishwives. This was outside of enough. And all Rose’s fault. “You’ve made us look like fools,” he said.

“I have?” But she glanced uneasily at the building.

“If you hadn’t barged in…”

“Or you hadn’t.”

“What are you even doing here?” he asked her again. “You didn’t happen by.”

“My father wanted to know…” She closed her lips on the rest of that sentence.

She’d been pushed to come by the older generation, Gavin concluded, as he had.

“And I’m not the one who attacked a stranger,” Rose added. “Like some sort of rural footpad.”

Gavin’s temper flared again. But damnably, she was right. He hadn’t behaved well. Even though his cause was just, he should not have thrown that punch. He’d just been so agitated about the fellow’s arrival. And his condescension. Gavin wrestled with his annoyance and managed to pull it back a bit. “I suppose you brought a horse,” he said.

“Of course I brought a horse.” She indicated her riding habit as if he was an idiot.

“I will escort you to it.”

“It’s more likely I will have to help you onto yours. There’s blood all over your coat.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Not to your laundress.”

His mother would see the stain, Gavin realized. And she would require the whole story. And she would call him an idiot straight out. Not for fighting. For losing. “I’m leaving,” Gavin said. He stalked away.

Rose followed. They didn’t speak again but separated, returned to their mounts, and rode off in different directions.

Inside the Yerndon manor house, after abandoning his two unexpected visitors to their wrangling, the Duke of Tereford found old furniture, faded wallpaper, the smell of mold, and other hallmarks of his great-uncle’s neglect of the many ducal properties. Like the others, this place was in a shameful state. He’d been doing his best to mend matters since he’d inherited the title and properties a year ago. It was a monumental work.

He found his beautiful, golden-haired wife sitting on a sofa in the front parlor. She was ending a talk with a skinny woman of fifty or so. “Thank you, Mrs. Gorne,” she said as he entered.

With a curt nod and a sidelong look at him, the woman went out. Tereford sat beside his duchess and met her celestial blue eyes.

“The housekeeper,” she said. “Or caretaker, rather, I would say. Defensive and resentful. Can’t be expected to keep a place up without help or money. Cannot take responsibility for the state of the linens. Might have been given more warning about our visit. Though I wrote her three weeks ago. She is not well suited to her position, I think. As usual, your great-uncle Percival let a place go to rack and ruin.”

Though he nodded, the duke said, “Not quite as usual. Apparently, on this last estate we need to restore, we are the villains of the piece.”

“What do you mean?”

He told her what had just occurred. “From their extended and practiced argument, I gathered that the gentleman and lady are scions of prominent local families. Both the Keighleys and the Denholmes apparently see themselves as the leaders of society hereabouts. Their estates border Yerndon, and both families claim they were cheated out of it.”

“But I have seen the records,” said the duchess. “The previous owner’s will was quite straightforward. There was no entail or any such thing. He named your great-uncle clearly as his heir.”

“Our visitors seemed to think that was an act of spite aimed at them.”

“Both of them?”

“Well, their families.”

“They are related to the old owner?”

“Through a labyrinth of descent and marriages that I did not really follow, Cecelia. Apparently. Or merely in their family lore. You know how deceptive that can be.”

“How strange.” She looked intrigued. “What were they like?”

“The fellow who wanted to knock me down had black hair, eyes as gray as the skies hereabouts, rough-hewn features. Looked like he spends much of his time outdoors. Midtwenties, I would say. He’s strongly built. Pugnacious obviously. He might develop a punishing left with better training. Gentleman Jackson would have a few things to say about his boxing form.”

“No doubt that is the important thing, James,” replied the duchess with a fond smile.

“It was when he was trying to flatten me.” He returned her smile. “The lady looked a little younger. In fact, she said she was, I remember now. Red-brown hair, blue eyes, what I would call soft features. Pretty-ish.”

“Ish?”

“Well, no one can hold a candle to you. But she might have had an engaging quality if she had not been declaring me a monster.”

The duchess’s blue eyes twinkled. “You observed them very closely.”

“I had ample opportunity. They were too busy bickering to pay me any mind. It was like watching a play. One of those ridiculous French farces where people go on and on about lord knows what.”

“I wish I had seen it.”

“Seen the fellow who tried to put my lights out and his… Not friend. They were both very clear about that. Hereditary rival, shall we say?”

“And our neighbors here, it seems.”

The duke looked around the shabby room, then out the window to the bleak sweep of moorland beyond. “I doubt we will ever spend time here, Cecelia. Let us just hire some workmen to make repairs and leave this place to itself. We have done enough over this last year. We can find a tenant from London.”

“But we are so close to finishing the job.”

“The baby is coming in three months. You can’t tell me you aren’t tired.”

“I am a bit fatigued from the journey,” she admitted. “But that will pass. You know I have been perfectly healthy since the stomach upsets ended.” She put her hand to her gently curved midsection.

“I know that I will get you back to London well before the birth.” The duke’s dark-blue eyes were full of concern.

His wife nodded. “I would prefer that. We will see what can be done here in a limited time.”

He hesitated, then said, “Very well.”

“I wonder what would happen if we invited those two…callers to come for a visit?”

Tereford blinked. “You want to ask the fellow who attacked me to stay here?”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t do so again. Besides, you beat him.”

“Which often goads a man to try again,” the duke replied.

“Does it?”

“Yes, Cecelia.”

“Well, I’m sure he would not do so if he was our guest. And now that you have met them…”

“I wouldn’t call that…melee an introduction precisely.”

“And they seemed interesting,” the duchess continued without acknowledging his objection. “They will provide some diversion as we set things to rights.” A sudden gleam lit her eyes. “Indeed, as they seem to have such an interest in Yerndon, they can help us.”

“That is a rather outrageous idea.”

“I know.” Her eyes gleamed. “And yet curiously appealing, isn’t it? We had travelers in Essex, a hermit in Cornwall, and international intrigue in Leicestershire and London.”

“You’re saying we’ve become accustomed to an…excessive level of excitement?”

She replied with a musical laugh. “That is one way to put it.”

The duke opened his lips to protest.

“You know it will amuse you,” said Cecelia.

He couldn’t deny it. The pair’s bickering had been entertaining. “I doubt that they will come.”

“When they each discover that their rival has been invited? Of course they will.”

He frowned, reconsidering. “You don’t think that attitude will make for a good deal of unpleasantness?”

“If it does, we will send them away. But wouldn’t it be splendid if we could end this neighborhood feud as well as restoring Yerndon?”

The duke gazed at her with fond resignation. “You would think of that.”

“I did,” she answered with a saucy smile.

He conceded with raised hands. “At least it’s not matchmaking.”

Hoofbeats sounded outside. They turned to the windows. “There are the coaches with the servants and household things.” The duchess started to rise. They had learned their lesson at other ducal properties and now provided their own help and amenities. The bare necessities at least.

“I’ll see to them,” said the duke, waving her back.

The duchess nodded. “I’ll write the invitations.”

“You expect to find usable pen and ink in this place?”

“I will make do.”

He looked back over his shoulder with a grin that made him look quite boyish. “Of course you will.”