Chapter 7
One Week Later
The table was quite small on purpose.
Pierce didn’t want to bellow at Miss Stillbrooke down the length of the dining hall. As a matter of fact, he was quite grateful for the fact that the dining hall of the ducal townhome was completely unusable, filled with boxes of snuff of every variety.
If the room had been usable, he would have been forced to sit some twenty feet away from her. But instead, Miss Stillbrooke was sitting at his right hand, quite close, staring at a plate piled high with roast beef, potatoes, vegetables, and gravy.
She was staring at it as if it was alien or had come from some foreign land. This was their first night dining together. She and the other young ladies had moved in yesterday. The young ladies were taking their meals together.
But he wanted reports from her on the progress without interruption, or at least that was what he told himself to justify his demands that they converse.
He had been out last night. Politics had required him to make the rounds of the houses of idiotic lords who were determined to drive their own country into the ground for profits.
“Does it not suit your taste?” he asked, rather surprised by how much it mattered to him, for he had spoken with Cook yesterday to pick this evening’s meal.
She bit her lower lip. “I’m trying to decide how honest I should be with you.”
“I cannot imagine you lying,” he said as he flicked his napkin over his lap.
She laughed and placed her own linen napkin over her lap.
“You’re too right, but I confess I have had to be quite artful with my truths upon occasion, lest I be dismissed.
But I will tell you that this is the first time that I have had meat in some time, and the truth is I can hardly believe my luck. ”
He winced. He couldn’t even hide it. “Bloody hell. It’s not luck. You’ve earned it.”
“Ha,” she said, “I know many people who work far harder than I do, and they haven’t seen a cut of beef this good in an age.”
“All right then,” he said, taking up his knife and fork. “Some of it might be luck. You happen to have caught the notice of a duke who wants to help you. Is that such a very terrible thing?”
“No, it is not,” she replied with a smile, a smile that warmed him to no end. “And it would be foolish of me not to take your help. As a matter of fact, it would be a slap in the face of whatever fate arranged this.”
“Good, I’m glad you’re pragmatic about it.” He took up his wine and sipped the rich liquid from the crystal glass.
“I won’t accept charity,” she said as she cut her meat. “So, I will work extremely hard for all of this.”
“Good,” he said, “that’s what I expect. The better fed you are, the harder you’ll work.”
“Yes, you seem to have great concerns about my ability to work hard for you based upon the fact that I am not well fed. Your standards are not the standards of others.”
“I eat mountains of food.”
“That’s because you’re the size of a mountain,” she replied.
He threw his head back and laughed. How could he not? “Have a drink of the wine,” he instructed. “It tastes better in crystal than it does in a mug.”
She lifted the crystal goblet to her lips and took a very delicate sip. Her eyes widened. “It is delicious,” she said.
“It should be. It comes from France,” he said.
“And what do you think of what’s going over there?” she said.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, “because if I do, I shall cry.”
“Are you in the habit of crying?” she asked, her eyes wide with curiosity.
“Yes,” he declared after a bite of potatoes that were rich with cream and butter. “Tears don’t mean weakness. I have traveled far and abroad and understand that some of the greatest warriors in the world and in the past have wept openly.”
“How wonderful,” she sighed, spinning the stem of her glass between her fingers. “I would love to be able to weep openly.”
He blinked. “Can you not?”
“Not all ladies weep,” she drawled. “The truth is that ladies, really, in this present society, are instructed just as much as the gentleman to not show their emotions, and any step away from that is viewed as a lack of dignity.”
He sighed. “How terrible. Why can we not have our feelings?”
“Because if we all succumb to our feelings,” she said, “society would collapse.”
He pushed his fork into a large piece of beef, stabbed it with the knife, and cut. “Would that be so very awful?” he asked.
“You, a duke, asking if it would be awful if society collapsed.” She laughed and then she blinked. “Oh, you’re serious,” she gasped.
“I am indeed serious because it’s not working very well, is it?
” he growled, surprised by his own irritation.
He’d known things were bad in England whilst he was traveling, but upon his return, he’d learned just how terrible it truly was.
“I have heaps and heaps of wealth and land, you have very little, and yet I don’t see how I am more valuable than you are. ”
She cocked her head to the side. “Well, I’ll take the dukedom if you don’t want it,” she teased.
“If you want it, you can have it.”
She stilled.
“Oh, dear,” he said, “that sounded a bit like a marriage proposal, didn’t it?”
She laughed. “Luckily, I did not take it that way, sir. I know that we are bandying about with silly words. I am no candidate for duchess.”
“Not a single one of these words has been silly, and you’d make a better duchess than most, actually.”
“I would never be accepted,” she said. “And, also, you and I are in a business relationship,” she said.
“Marrying a duke is a business relationship,” he pointed out. “But you’re right, we probably shouldn’t talk about it, because it’s making me think of all sorts of delicious things that have nothing to do with what’s upon the table but are between a husband and his wife.”
“Oh,” she said softly, clearly unable to say anything else as her cheeks again bloomed that delicious rose he loved so well.
“Am I allowed to be honest, or will you consider that rude?” he began.
“It depends on what you say,” she said simply, taking another sip of wine.
“The truth is—and I think you also find this true—we are compatible.”
“Like puzzle pieces,” she teased.
“And more,” he whispered.
She pushed her plate away and she started to stand. “Your Grace,” she said, “this was exactly what I feared. You have expectations for salary and good food that I am not willing to meet.”
“Cease,” he called out and, much to his shock, he grabbed her hand. “I promise that I do not. But I also am not going to lie,” he said. “From the moment I saw you, you have done something to me.”
“You have seen me a handful of times,” she said, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “How could I have done anything to you?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “You clearly do not understand the male brain.”
She tsked, but then said gently, “You’re right. I don’t.”
“I promise I will never do anything that you do not want. I will not act in any way that makes you feel ashamed,” he promised, “because I could never live with myself if I did.”
Slowly, she lowered herself back into her chair. “That is good to know, because many powerful men do not feel that way at all. Many regular men do not feel that way at all either. They do not care for the thoughts and feelings of ladies.”
“You are here because I care for your thoughts and feelings,” he explained, his hand still about hers.
“If I could and you would let me,” he said softly, “I would send money to your mother tomorrow, buy whatever doctors she needed, get her whatever treatment was necessary. But I have a terrible feeling that you might tell me no.”
She bit her lower lip. “I wish that everyone could have that,” she said softly.
He leaned forward. “So do I, but at present, that is not the way the world works. But if you are wise, you will take my help,” he said. “Are you wise?” he asked. “You seem so.”
“I don’t want charity,” she said tightly, even as she looked at their hands entwined.
“Then you are in a dilemma, because I have the money to give and you won’t take it. So, are you willing to sacrifice your mother’s good health because you think everyone should have my help? I promise, I will give my help to as many as I can. I already do. So, please let me help you.”
She winced. “This is a very, very challenging conversation, especially since you also seem to suggest…”
“What?” he asked.
She flinched. “I don’t know how to negotiate any of this, Your Grace. I am not… Well, I am not continental.”
He laughed. “It’s one of the reasons I like you,” he said. “You’re so pragmatic.”
“I have to be,” she said. “I would love to be continental,” she said. “I would love to be able to throw my morals aside. I would love to see it all just as you have done, but the opportunity has never arisen for me. I don’t have the opportunity to be carefree. I can’t.”
“What if I made it so?”
“In exchange for what?” she demanded. “For I fear there is a catch under all of this.”
He shook his head. “For the pleasure of seeing you bloom.”
She stared at him. “Society is broken, isn’t it? Because you can lift people up or lower them like a god.”
“It’s true,” he stated, wondering how it had all become so complicated. He wanted to help her. He longed to kiss her. And this made the water they were swimming in quite muddy. “Let me come in and swoop into your life and make everything better.”
“And will you do that for the other young ladies,” she said, “under your care?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I will. You need to understand that I will. That’s why they’re living in this house,” he said.
“That’s why I have given contracts to all of them to increase their wages.
I’m not singling you out in that way,” he said.
“But I am singling you out in the fact that you make me feel…”
“What?” she asked, softening at his explanations.
“That I am not being judged,” he said. “You have already seen the twisted, darkest, strangest parts of my childhood and family life, and you don’t judge me for them. How could I not want to be closer to you? You’re the only one who is truly close to me.”
Her jaw dropped at that. “My goodness, I thought you were going to sing a sonnet to my face and try to seduce me with pretty words, but how I can deny such a baring of your heart?”
“You have a very nice face,” he said, “but your face is not really the most interesting part of you. If you want me to be completely blunt, I’ve seen many better faces than yours, many better physiques.
I know ladies who could completely outdo you in conversation.
But I don’t want to have you in my life right now because of the art of your conversation, the curve of your cheek, or the height and width of your body,” he said.
“I want you in my life right now because you make me feel…”
“What?” she asked.
“Safe.”
She coughed. “I make you feel safe?” she said. “That makes me sound like a nanny.”
“Oh, no. Nannies do not make children feel safe,” he said. “Not the children of dukes. Nannies are there to raise dukes and teach them how to be strong. I knew a good cold shower, a good beating, and how to recite epic verse when I was but ten years old. Beowulf and I are on very intimate footing.”
“Oh?” she queried, even as her eyes flickered with sorrow at his painful childhood. “Could you recite it for me now?”
He laughed. “I could recite Chaucer for you now in Old English, or Beowulf, or any of it. Do you really wish me to?”
She leaned towards him, her gaze rich with emotion. “Part of me would love to hear it.”
So, he leaned forward, and he started speaking in old English.
It wasn’t poetic, and it wasn’t beautiful like French. He supposed he could have chosen one of those poets. Poets he had indeed had literally beaten into him by tutors and nannies.
Dukes often did not go to school. They were often raised at home, and sometimes home was not pleasant.
And when his father had lost himself because his wife had died, his father had given up Pierce’s care to tutors, to nannies, to people who were determined to make him strong.
He rather thought now that when people attempted to make children strong, what they really did was break them, break them hard, break them fast, and then make them brittle for the rest of their lives.
“What is it?” she asked softly. “The pain in your eyes is breaking my heart.”
“If you must know,” he said, “I was thinking of all the children who never get to escape.”
She blinked. “Escape?” she breathed.
“Escape out into the world and see that it can be different, that it doesn’t have to be a prison,” he said before he slipped his hand from hers and cupped her cheek. “You’re in a prison, Nancy,” he said softly.
“There is no way of escaping my little life,” she replied, tears filling her eyes, For him. For her. For all those who couldn’t escape.
And it made him… Dear God, it made him love her. That was the only word for the sudden affection he felt for her empathy.
“Until now,” he whispered.
“Until now,” she agreed, but then she rushed, “But I am frightened.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because you are a duke,” she said without hesitation. “One moment you could lift me up and the next moment you could tear me down. It feels as if I am playing with fire.”
“Fire has been at the center of man’s existence since he discovered it, but it is also the source of all creation and all progress.”
“So,” she said, “to be close with you, that shall be the source of all my progress?”
“It can be,” he said. “Be realistic. With my help, and I promise I give it freely without asking for anything in turn, anything could be yours.”
She bit her lower lip. She looked away. “I don’t want to exchange things with you,” she said softly. “I fear that this will lead to—”
“I don’t see you that way,” he cut in, desperate to make her understand.
Her jaw dropped again. “You don’t see me as a potential mistress?” she blurted.
Mistress?
He nearly choked. “No, not at all. I don’t think you’re the sort of woman who can be kept.”
How did he explain that he didn’t yet understand how to reconcile that he longed to kiss her but that he had no desire to make her his mistress? For he knew it would hurt her. She did not have the sort of spirit for such an exchange, and so he could never ask it of her.
And then her eyes danced, and he knew he’d said the exact right thing.
And the most amusing thing of it all was the right thing was the most accurate thing.
All she needed was someone like him in her life to give her all that she deserved.
And he would, if he could, if she would allow it.
But he feared that she would not, because she had been raised, just like him, to live in a cage, though he had broken out.