Miranda Jarrett - The Golden Lord

The table was placed between Jenny’s bed and the duke’s chair, and as one of the footmen lit additional candles, she was able to see more of the details of how well His Grace treated his infrequent guests. She made such appraisals automatically, almost without thinking, for her father had trained both her and Rob in how much such niceties could reveal about their owners’ personalities as well as the depth of their fortunes.

The bedchamber was large and square in the old-fashioned way of country houses, but the furnishings were in the latest London style, delicate and airy, fit for any fine lady. So was the table being set before her: costly new porcelain rimmed with gold, damask linens so spotless she doubted they’d ever been used, and double-weight sterling for the spoons and forks, also so new that the ducal crest engraved upon each one was still crisp and sharp.

In fact, to Jenny’s surprise, everything seemed new. In her experience, titled folk tended to surround themselves with ancient bric-a-brac and gewgaws that had been in their family since at least the days of the Conqueror, another way they separated themselves from jumped-up merchants and mill owners. She’d never expected to see so much that was fresh from the shops in the house of a peer.

But because of the quality of these belongings, new or old, Jenny could come to a most cheerful conclusion: that the handsome Duke of Strachen must be rich as Creoseus, and, even better, that he didn’t mind spending the fortune he so obviously had.

Yet at once she reached a second conclusion, less cheerful, more startling, and terribly disloyal to Rob. As pleasing as her brother would find the duke’s title and wealth, she herself would selfishly trade it all for the return of the smiling country gentleman and his two black dogs.

Clearly the bruise to her head must be more serious than it felt.

“Here you are, miss,” said Mrs. Lowe, plumping Jenny’s pillows herself. One maidservant poured her tea and handed her the cup, while another solemnly buttered triangles of toast and spread strawberry jam exactly to the crusts. The duke’s fare was considerably more substantial, and while Jenny’s toast and tea were just what she’d asked for, she still looked longingly at his dinner: a ragoo of oysters, veal Florentine, roasted artichokes and forced mushrooms, with the wines to go with it all.

Yet though everything was perfectly presented, the servants did not remain to attend while she and the duke dined, the way servants in most such households did, but once again left them alone together. Had this been pre-arranged for her sake, wondered Jenny uneasily, or was it simply another way that His Grace chose to reinforce his solitude here in the country?

“The toast agrees with you, Corinthia?” he asked at last, sipping at his wine. “You feel more fortified, in spite of what Gristead predicted?”

Jenny smiled, and nodded, prepared to watch every word she spoke. Most gentlemen that she and Rob met were elderly and too enchanted with her youth and beauty to ask inconvenient questions. She could hardly expect the duke to be like that. “Much better, thank you, Your Grace.”

“I am glad to hear it,” he said, his eyes too serious to match his smile. “Do you think now you can speak of the grenadier who did this to you?”

“The—the grenadier?” she stammered, confused. “I do not recall any such man, Your Grace.”

“You did,” he said, swirling the red wine in his glass. “When I found you this morning, that was one of the first things you asked. Was I the idiot grenadier?”

Abruptly, Jenny set her saucer down on the table before her. “I told you, Your Grace. I have no memory of such a question, or of any such man, either.”

He tapped his fingertips lightly against the glass. “I’m not asking this to shame you, Corinthia. Pray note that for your sake, I waited until we were alone before I did. You certainly wouldn’t be the first lady led astray by some villain in regimentals.”

“But I wasn’t,” she insisted, trying not to panic as she wondered what else she might have mumbled in those first confused minutes this morning. If she’d spoken of Rob as well as the grenadier, or perhaps worse, climbing from the window of inn, then this ruse was done before it had begun. “I would know if I had.”

“Why, when you cannot recall so much as your own name with any certainty?” he asked with unquestionable logic. “Someone brought you to that remote corner of my land, Corinthia. You didn’t walk there, at least not in the kidskin slippers you were wearing this morning.”

“Is that more of Mrs. Lowe’s deciphering, Your Grace?” asked Jenny, her chin tucked defensively low against her chest. “Or did you determine the state of my slippers for yourself?”

“Be reasonable, my dear,” he said. “If this scoundrel is still prowling somewhere nearby, I need to know, not only for your sake, but for that of the wives and daughters of my tenants. He must be prevented from doing this again.”

She looked down, dodging his scrutiny, her hands betraying her nervousness as her fingers pleated the edge of the sheet into a tight little fan.

Think, think, think! You don’t need Rob to tell you what to do here. Be your own lass, Jen. You know what chances to take, how to turn this inside out and around to your own advantage. When this blue-eyed lord asks you to remember, remember first that you’re clever, too, Jen, every bit as clever as he!

She took a deep sigh, soft and breathy, then began her gamble.

“You have two dogs,” she said softly, still not meeting his gaze. “I remember them finding me. Gus and Jetty, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said with such gruff pride that he might have been another dog himself, instead of their master. “Gus and Jetty, the greatest pair of canine rascals in Chrisendon.”

“Oh, but they weren’t rascals to me,” she said, now looking up from under the fringe of her lashes. “Not at all. They’re large, lovely, black dogs who licked my hands to rouse me where I lay, and made little worried noises over me until you came, too.”

“Rascals,” he murmured again, but the way his expression warmed with affection proved she knew she’d made him forget about the grenadier. Here, at last, was the man she’d remembered.

“Not rascals,” she said, that warmth in his face giving her the courage to go on. Now it wasn’t a game or a ruse. Now it was the truth, and infinitely more risky.

“They were gentle and kind to me, your dogs were,” she continued, more wistfully than she realized, and for the first time her smile was genuine, as warm as his own. “Rather like you were then yourself, Your Grace.”

But, instead of returning her smile, the warmth vanished from his eyes and, beneath the elegant clothes, his whole body tensed warily against her. She recognized uncertainty when she saw it, just as she recognized the defensiveness that went with it; but why should either be in a man like this, a peer whose entire world bowed to his wishes?

“Who are you?” he demanded hoarsely, as if she were the one threatening him.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, stunned by his reaction. “Who do you wish me to be?”

“No.” He shoved back his chair and rose, and in three long strides was already at the door. “Damnation, no.”

And before she could ask him to explain, he was gone.

H e’d not made such a blatant misstep—or such a fool of himself—in years.

Brant stood at the tall, darkened window of the library where he’d fled, and swore again. As a rule, he wasn’t a man overly given to swearing, but this time he knew he deserved every single oath he could muster, and a few more that he invented spontaneously.