Chapter 2 #2
“No, Your Grace,” Mr. Miller replied without hesitation. “There is no heir. One could not be found.”
Anna turned toward the stranger, who now stood by the drawing room windows, staring out at the emerald lawns that stretched toward the most beautiful woodland.
“There you have it, sir. I do not know who approached you, but you have been misinformed.” She smiled tightly.
“You have no more right to this manor than any of the other fortune hunters who have come before you. I am not easily swindled, sir, so be on your way or I shall have to summon the constables.”
“Sir?” The man tutted in the back of his throat and cast a dark glance in her direction. “Nay, lass. It’s Yer Grace. Or Duke for ye.”
She stood sharply and gestured toward the door. “This way, sir. I shall show you out. Perhaps you can return with more compelling evidence. Perhaps you will not, because none exists.”
It was her best and, in truth, only course of action to view those damning documents on the side table as falsehoods and forgeries.
Even if, in her heart, she knew they were legitimate, she wouldn’t relent anytime soon.
Certainly, not before she had summoned Mr. Phipps to ask him what on earth he was doing, whipping the rug out from underneath her.
To her surprise, and uneasy relief, the dark-eyed stranger pushed away from the window and walked back toward the door. Anna met him there, determined to be the one to kick him out of her home.
“Ye don’t seem to understand,” he said, stopping abruptly, his hand shooting across the doorway at the same instant she tried to cross the threshold.
She started at the sudden strike of his palm against the jamb and the corded forearm that blocked her, the sleeve of his greatcoat slipping back.
She didn’t even notice his other hand. Instead, she felt it, gently curling around her chin, turning her head and tilting it upward so she had no choice but to look into the deep black pools of his eyes.
“H-how dare you!” she snapped, pulling away from his touch…
though the warmth of his fingertips and the roughness of his palm tingled long after she had withdrawn.
“What manner of brute presumes to touch a woman, a duchess, without her consent! You see, this is why your ruse has collapsed. A duke must be a gentleman, and you, sir, are no gentleman.”
He let his hand drop, though his other remained on the doorframe, blocking her exit. A short distance away, Mr. Miller had turned bright red, anger flickering in his pale blue eyes, his fists clenched tightly.
“Nay matter what ye say, lass, it has been agreed upon. A lack of manners doesn’t change me ancestors, nor me succession,” the stranger replied. “Inheritance doesn’t need a gentleman; it just needs a man, and I am here to claim what’s mine. All of this is mine now.”
She blinked in disbelief, rendered speechless by the unjust but entirely true statement.
Maybe Mr. Phipps had realized it, too, that an estate as grand as Stonebridge couldn’t possibly be left in the hands of a mere woman.
Indeed, it seemed the solicitor had changed his mind; otherwise, he would not have gone to the trouble of chasing down such a diluted descendant of her husband, Robert Holton.
“And what of me?” she asked breathlessly, noting how the man leaned in slightly, as if to make a point of how little he cared for propriety.
He was far too close to her, so much so that she could smell the rain and the fresh air on him.
She watched a droplet drip onto his neck, where it meandered slowly downward in a mesmerizing trail over the exposed triangle of bare skin, halted only at the edge of his collar as the white fabric absorbed it.
“Ye should find somewhere else to reside,” he replied in that rumbling, deep voice, like summer thunder after weeks of unbearable heat. “We can arrange that if ye can’t arrange it for yerself. I am aware that this title comes with several properties. I will put ye in whichever is farthest.”
Anger spiked through her chest, her words barbed as she cast out all propriety and stepped right up to him, glaring into his eyes. “But this is my home. I will not be dismissed as if I am nothing.”
Just then, the butler cut cleanly between the two, putting himself between Anna and the usurper. “Step away from Her Grace,” he said coldly. “It is dishonorable for you to be so close to her.”
But the new duke was so tall that he looked right over Mr. Miller’s head, not bothering to glance at the other man, his attention unwavering on Anna.
“I wouldn’t deign to tell me what to do if I were ye,” he said flatly, though it was unclear if he was talking to her or the butler. Both, perhaps.
Anna’s cheeks warmed as the Duke kept staring, and although she fought fiercely to keep her gaze on him with all her defiance, she couldn’t maintain it for much longer. There was something in those black eyes that made it impossible to look for too long.
A moment later, her chin dropped to her chest, and her eyes turned down to the floor.
“I shall instruct some of the servants to prepare the London townhouse for you, or perhaps my former husband’s house on the coast would be more befitting a man like you,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I will accept your claim to the title, but I will not be so generous as to hand my home over to you. The name of Stonebridge can be yours. Take it; I do not care. The manor of Stonebridge, that is mine.”
The Duke lowered his hand from the doorframe, his head slightly tilted as if she were a curiosity to be closely observed. “We’ll discuss it over dinner tonight.”
“No, there is no discussion. This conversation is finished,” she replied with all the courage she could muster, hoping it translated fiercely enough to her voice and her face. With any luck, he would mistake the heat and the blush it had undoubtedly caused in her cheeks for pure vehemence.
The Duke moved forward, and the butler had no choice but to stand aside or be knocked by the breadth of the man’s muscular chest. As Mr. Miller did so, the redness in his face darkening a shade, there was nothing standing in the Duke’s way anymore.
The man loomed over Anna, and though he raised his hand up, he did not touch her chin again; he merely left the memory of it in the air.
“Don’t mistake me respect for a lass in yer position with weakness, Yer Grace,” he warned.
“If ye were a man, ye’d be out on those lawns with a pistol in yer hand by now, facing me in a duel. ”
“If I were a man, you would have no right to barge in here and claim my home!” she shot back in furious desperation. “If I were a man, you would not be here at all, barking orders!”
A faint smirk quirked his mouth. “Suggestions, not orders.”
“Well, your suggestions are not welcome,” she retorted. “And neither are you.”
He clawed a hand through his damp hair, as if to ease his frustration.
“Why should it matter to ye at all?” he asked.
“Pretty thing like ye could find a new husband and be situated in a new manor by the end of the month if ye so chose. Isn’t that how it works in England?
Don’t ye just pass from one man to whichever will have ye next? ”
Fury bubbled over in her veins and, before she knew it, she was lunging at him, her hand shooting out to strike him for his insult.
He had no idea what it was like in England.
He had no idea what she had endured, or how little she had wanted her first marriage, much less another…
to a man who might not have the misfortune of dying on their wedding night.
And, at four-and-twenty, the only daughter of a deceased baron, with one husband already dead, her suitors would all be of the Robert Holton type: the cruel, the perverse, the deviants—those bottom-of-the-barrel gentlemen who could not get anyone else.
The Duke caught her hand before she could even hope to slap him, and when she struck out with the other hand, he caught that, too. Stepping even closer, until there was barely a gap between them, he bent her arms behind her back and held them there.
Leaning down, he whispered in her ear, “Now, that wasn’t very ladylike.”
“I am merely responding in kind,” she said curtly, as she writhed and tried to twist her arms free, all too aware of how every little wriggle of her body brought it closer to his. How she inadvertently risked brushing against him.
The Duke released her, though he didn’t step away.
Instead, he drew in a slow, deep breath.
“We have begun badly,” he said, his tone more reasonable.
“I wouldn’t ask ye to leave yer home, lass; I didn’t even know ye existed until now.
But my home was burned to ash, and we need a fresh start.
I will give ye the night to adjust, but I will return tomorrow. ”
Anna stared up at him, uncertain of where to begin, though her throat was too tight to speak anyway.
Who was the ‘we’ he was referring to? Did he think that a night would change her mind about giving up her peace and her sanctuary?
And what did he mean when he said he had not known she existed?
Had Mr. Phipps told him nothing about her?
One thing was for certain: when she saw that solicitor again, she was going to box his ears. And when she saw this man again tomorrow, she would not have changed her mind at all.
The beautiful creature with the chestnut hair, striking hazel eyes, and alabaster skin looked as if she might cry.
There was fire in her, undoubtedly, more than one would expect from someone of such small stature, and Jeremy did not like to be the one to douse it.
Yet, as he stood watching her, he could see it dimming, the fight draining out of her.
Ye’re not what I thought I’d find here, lass.
The solicitor had mentioned a duchess by the name of Anna. A dowager duchess. As such, he had imagined someone… older; the kind of wizened and power-hungry woman who would cling to her title with talons, wanting the fortune for herself.
He had not anticipated this exquisite siren, who appeared more worried about her living arrangements than the wealth the late duke had accumulated.
“You cannot just oust me,” the Duchess murmured, as if to herself. “I cannot leave. I have nowhere to go, no one to turn to. I am a duchess. I cannot end up on the streets… some corner of Whitechapel… some bench by the Thames…”
“Where the witches congregate,” Jeremy said with a half-smirk. “But ye needn’t concern yerself with the streets, lass. The dowager house, if there is one, will serve ye well enough.”
Anna’s gaze flitted sharply to him as if she had suddenly remembered that he was still there. A tight, fake smile curved her full, perfectly curved, perfectly plump lips.
“If only I were a witch, I could turn you into something unpleasant.” She paused.
“Before you return tomorrow, if you must return, I would urge you to learn how to speak to me appropriately. After all, I will not be leaving my home or my people, so it will be a worthwhile education if there are years ahead of us. You may intrude if you wish, but I am staying.”
I didn’t agree to a resident dowager…
But he had intruded, and he felt somewhat responsible for the obvious upset he had caused. This was not at all the introduction he had intended when he had set out for England ahead of his remaining family.
Besides, it was a vast manor. What would be the harm in sharing for a while, at least until she found someone new to marry?
“Is that yer final answer, lass?” he asked.
She sniffed and stepped back, denying him the closeness he was just beginning to enjoy, every heave of her ripe bosom almost brushing against him.
“Yes,” she muttered. “And stop calling me ‘lass.’ That is inappropriate.”
“Very well, Yer Grace,” he said, setting his top hat back onto his head. “I will see ye tomorrow.”