‘I like this room,’ said Freddie, determined to become Edward’s least favourite brother.
‘That is only because you and your wife enjoy spending time together in here.’ Christopher waggled his eyebrows.
Edward groaned. ‘That is disgusting. You should keep that sort of goings-on to your bedrooms. You have two between you and a water closet. There is no need for you to be doing anything other than sitting and talking in here.’ He reached the place where Kate had been sitting, her shawl folded on her lap, staring at her long fingers. Hopefully, she would prove to have a horrible personality and he would not wonder what she sounded like when she laughed. He would not think about her at all.
‘Since when were you such a prude, Edward?’ asked Christopher, crossing one leg over the other. ‘I remember a time when you…’
Edward threw a cushion at his brother’s head. Christopher laughed, dodging it easily and throwing it back. Edward arranged it carefully back in its place. Christopher had a point; he had been more adventurous in the past, but living back with his brothers had put paid to that, or perhaps it was discovering his adorable niece. Somehow, a fling no longer seemed right. There was no good way to end a relationship, no matter how short. At least one person would end up getting hurt. He didn’t want it to be him, but he equally did not want to cause another person pain. It was easier to be alone.
He should probably find someone to marry, but the idea of tying himself to one woman did not appeal to him either. Freddie told him that would change when he found the rightperson, but he could not imagine ever knowing for sure whether he truly wanted to bind himself to one person for the rest of his life. What if he met someone who pretended to be perfectly lovely until they were married, only to turn into someone like Miss Dunn? People were unpredictable and he hated that. He ran his hand over the smooth cushion seat; there were no wrinkles in the fabric, which was how he liked it: calm and still.
Chapter Four
The handle of her bag bit into Kate’s fingers as she walked towards Glanmore House for the second time in a week. Only this time she was alone. Her eyes stung and she hoped the Dashworth family would put the redness down to the brisk wind that rushed through the London streets. It was a foolish wish. Of course they would realise the cause was due to the copious number of tears she had shed earlier, tears that still threatened to spill over onto her cheeks.
Simon and she had been separated many times before. He was ten years her senior and had left the vicarage in which they had both been raised when she was little more than a child, and they had not lived together since then until recent circumstances had thrown them together once more. Simon had always been a reassuringly short carriage ride away. Not any more. When it was still dark, one of the duke’s carriages had arrived at their home to take Simon to Falmouth and the packet ship that would transport him to America. She’d managed to press her lips together and not let the tears fall, pretending she was happy withthis arrangement, even when he’d briefly hugged her and gruffly told her that he loved her.
She’d waved at the carriage until it turned a corner and disappeared out of sight, continuing to do so, even though she had known he would not look back to see her standing there alone on the dark street. Simon seemed to equate seeing her tears with torture and so she had held it together, even when she had been desperate to weep. The lump in her throat had grown in size as she’d picked up her bag of belongings and closed the door on their lodgings for good. It was not a happy home and she would not miss the eery noise the wind made as it whistled through the cracked windows at the front and back of the house, but there was still something reassuring about the place. It had been her refuge when her world had crumbled, a safe space where she could lick her wounds and heal from the shock of her last employment. It may have been broken and one storm away from falling down completely, but for a while, it had been home.
The lump had become almost painful when Young Pete had come to say goodbye to her, his eyes wide with misery as he’d clutched the hand of his younger brother, a boy too young to understand how hard their circumstances were. They lived with their mother in the house adjacent to hers and Kate had taken them under her wing after they’d moved in. Young Pete had been in desperate need of a stable adult in his life, and for the last six months, that had been her. She wanted so badly for the future of the two brothers to be different from what it would inevitably be, but there was nothing she could do to change their fate. The only way was to provide them with education and a profession, but for that they needed money, which she didn’t have. ‘I will come back and see you as often as I can,’ she had whispered when he’d flung his scrawny arms around her neck and held on tight. It wasonly when she’d walked away from the little family that she’d given in and let the tears fall.
The Dashworths had offered her a carriage to bring her to their home, but she had turned it down, pretending that she wanted the morning to say goodbye to friends. That was a lie. The time it took for her to walk across London was a necessary break in her life, a deliberate snap between the old and the new. It was time for her to let the tears flow and then for her to compose herself, to remind herself why she had agreed to move in with strangers. There was nowhere else for her to go, no family to take her in, no money for a home of her own.
Her childhood had been close to perfect, or at least she had thought so at the time and nothing had disabused her of the notion since. Their parents had loved their children and each other and had raised them in bucolic countryside. It had never occurred to her that her future wouldn’t be exactly the same as her mother’s, believing that she too would marry a sweet husband, possibly a vicar like her father, that she and this imaginary husband would have a small house and populate it with happy children.
Life hadn’t turned out that way and part of her would always mourn that innocent dream, but she had moved on and now she was going to forge a new path. One in which there was no need for a husband at all.
The archway leading to the ducal mansion was as pretty as she remembered it; whoever their gardener was, they had done an expert job at finding flowers that blossomed in the autumn. Their sweet scent filled the air as the petals brushed against her coat, the smell loosening a tension within her. The pathway leading to the front door was so clean, it was as if no autumnal leaves dared to fall on its pristine stone. Her knees turned wateryas she neared the entrance and she managed not to sink to the ground through sheer force of will.
Rapping on the door-knocker, she was pleased to see her hands were steady. She waited. No butler answered and her stomach writhed, twisting into knots. Perhaps it had all been too good to be true after all. Her brother was on his way to America; there was no way for her to stop it. Now the Dashworths had what they wanted, maybe they would abandon her. There would be no way for her to get word to Simon if they did. He would complete the investigation believing she was safe and… She rapped again before her thoughts could spiral out of control.
The door opened with a snap. Instead of the Duke of Glanmore’s butler she was greeted by the scowling face of the least pleasant of the brothers: Edward Dashworth.
‘I apologise,’ he said, sounding irritated rather than sorry. ‘I do not understand why no one answered your first knock.’ He turned his head, glaring at the empty hallway. ‘Everyone appears to have vanished.’ He muttered something under his breath that sounded likedespite being monumentally annoying all morning, but she wasn’t sure. He turned back to her, heavy brows slashed across his forehead. ‘Do you need help bringing in your belongings?’ He glanced behind her, seemingly expecting a retinue of carriages to be lining up outside the house.
Heat spilled across her face, but she managed to keep her shoulders from curling in shame. ‘This is it.’ She lifted her hand slightly to illustrate that all her belongings fitted into one cloth bag.
‘Right, well—’ he pushed his fingers through his hair, having the grace to look a little ashamed ‘—do come in.’
Stepping backwards, he held open the door to let her in. For a moment, she wavered, her body urging her to flee from his towering presence, but reason asserted itself; she would nolonger hide in fear. Her shoes clicked on the highly polished floor of the hallway as she made her way inside, the door shutting behind her with an ominous thud.
‘Allow me to take them… it… your bag to your rooms.’
He held out his hand to take her belongings from her, but her grip only tightened on the handle. ‘I can manage.’
‘All the same, I would be delighted to carry it for you.’ His furrowed brow was in direct contrast to his polite words.
Resolved not to let this situation become anything like the Chorley one, she lifted her chin. There was something about the arrogant tilt of his lips that made her want to defy him. On the face of it, his offer was kind, gentlemanly, but his body language was telling a different story. His stiff shoulders were irritated, possibly angry. Working as a governess had taught her to pay close attention to the subtle cues of those in a position of power over her, honed over her time with Chorley, although she did not need that skill to read Edward. He did not want to be here, playing servant to her, and he was not subtle about it.
This situation was completely different from anything she had heard of before, but the rules were still the same. Edward Dashworth had more control over her life than she did. He could throw her out on the street and there would be nothing she could do to prevent it. That didn’t mean she was going to allow him to ride roughshod over her. ‘My bag is not heavy, Sir. I am more than capable of taking it to my room. I am sure you have better things to do with your afternoon.’
His lips thinned; he was probably unused to having his will denied, but to her surprise, he did not argue. ‘Very well. Can you remember where your rooms are or do you need me to show you to them?’
She had no idea where to head in this labyrinth of a house, but for some reason, she could not admit to it, perhaps because she did not want to admit to any weakness or maybe embarrassment at her lack of memory, she wasn’t sure. ‘I can remember.’
‘In that case, I shall leave you to get settled.’ Glancing at his pocket watch, he added, ‘Emily has suggested mid-morning tea in the Blue Lounge. I trust that time is suitable.’
‘Of course. I shall look forward to it.’ Her stomach growled at the thought of the food that might accompany the tea; perhaps the Dashworths would provide biscuits or cake. There had been no food left in the house this morning and her stomach protested again at its emptiness. Not only that, she had not had any treats in months; if cake were provided she was fairly sure she would devour it.
