Chapter 8 #2
One last walk down the corridor would have to suffice. There were a few candles still lit, signifying the duke had not yet gone to bed for the evening. The door to the study stood halfway ajar, candlelight pouring from it.
Clara stopped just shy of it and peeked inside. The duke was there, seated at the desk, one hand supporting his head as he read over the paper in front of him.
She felt a tug pulling her toward him, urging her into the room. It was the tug of kinship, the desire for friendship. But she was neither friend nor kin of the Duke of Rockwood. They occupied different worlds: maid and duke, servant and master.
As Mrs. Finch had said, if Clara wished to truly serve him, all that was required of her was to leave him be.
“Goodbye,” she whispered, then she turned and walked back to the servant staircase.
She hadn’t bothered to warn the other maids she was leaving. Mrs. Finch would tell them, and just as assuredly, they would fabricate fantastical stories to explain her sudden departure.
She walked toward the servant staircase but stopped short just shy of the landing as a strange sound met her ears. Keeping still, she listened.
The scraping sound repeated, and she followed it.
It grew louder as she came to the short, dark wing where the billiard and gun room were. A figure moved outside one of the windows, and she doubled back with a quick intake of breath.
From the shadows, Clara watched as the figure reached for one of the sash windows and tried to open it. It was locked, however, and after trying to force the latch in vain, he moved on to the next window, located in the billiard room.
He was trying to force his way into Rushlake.
Heart beating frantically, Clara considered her options. If she confronted the man, there was a high probability she would be treated to violence for her pains. A person desperate enough to break into the estate of a duke was unlikely to listen to reason.
But she had to do something.
The housekeeper and butler had retired for the night—rousing them would take precious time. Instead, Clara turned, picked up her skirts, and ran toward the study, her hands trembling with anxious energy.
The duke’s head whipped up at the sound of her entrance.
“Your Grace,” she said breathlessly.
He rose to his feet, his gaze alert and curious. “What is it?”
“Someone is attempting to break in.”
His brows snapped together. “What do you mean?”
“I saw him myself. Outside, trying to force the windows open.”
The duke turned and strode toward a small shelf of books nearby, pulling one from the middle shelf. Letting it lie flat on one palm, he opened the cover. There were no pages within, however, and he pulled a pistol from the void left by them.
Setting the book aside, he strode toward Clara. “Show me.”
Clara led the way down the corridor, staying just in front of the duke. “I last saw him trying the window in the billiard room, Your Grace. So far, all the windows have been locked, but I imagine it is only a matter of time until…”
The duke nodded, his gaze fixed ahead. When they had passed out of the candlelit corridor and entered the dark of the small wing beyond, the duke put out a hand, his fingers wrapping around Clara’s arm and holding her back.
She halted, her eyes adjusting slowly to the dark.
He put a finger to his lips, and they waited, ears straining.
Then it came—a creaking and the distinctive sound of a window sliding in the casement.
The duke held up the pistol before him, then put a hand on Clara’s shoulder to keep her in place while he slipped in front of her.
Clara’s heartbeat galloped as she considered whether the intruder might have a pistol of his own. What would she do if the duke was shot because she had chosen to alert him rather than the butler or one of the footmen? Suddenly, her quick thinking seemed foolish and irresponsible.
The duke let his hand drop from her shoulder, and she grasped it.
His head turned toward her, his eyes questioning.
“Be careful, Your Grace,” she pled in a whisper.
His gaze held hers for a moment, then he nodded and continued his soft steps toward the gun room.
Clara kept just behind him, every nerve in her body alert, every hair on end as the sound of the thief’s movements grew louder. The slow sliding of the window told her he was shutting it as they crept along the wall toward the gun room door, which was open.
The duke stopped just shy of it, and their arms pressed against each other. He looked at her, nodded, then slid into the doorway.
“Stop!” he called out, pointing the gun ahead.
Clara came to stand behind him and watched as the man, his back turned toward them, lowered a sack to the floor and put up his hands.
“Do not even consider reaching for one of the guns,” the duke said. “They are all unloaded, but I assure you, the pistol in my hand is not, and I will put a bullet in your head if you so much as move a finger.”
“Is this to be my welcome, then?” the man asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“A pistol pointed at my head?” Though his coat and breeches were dirty and worn and his boots caked with mud, his accent was far from the one Clara had expected.
It spoke of someone gently bred—and evidently finding humor in the situation.
Clara glanced at the duke to see whether he was as confused as she, but he was entirely still, his eyes unblinking.
Hands still raised in surrender, the intruder’s head turned enough to offer a view of his profile. The gleam of his smile, surrounded by thick facial hair, was nearly all Clara could see in the darkness that enveloped the room.
The duke’s pistol slowly lowered, and his shoulders relaxed. Disbelief was etched in every line of his face.
“You know this man?” Clara asked.
The duke stared ahead, his expression slack with shock. It was a moment before he responded. “He is my brother.”