She flinched. “I do not understand what my…” she trailed off, unable to say the wordmurderaloud, for it made Freddie’s awful, violent end too real. It made the danger facing her more genuine. It made her chest go tighter still. She cleared her throat and began anew. “I do not understand what my death would accomplish. Freddie’s position made him vulnerable, but I have no role in the governing of Ireland, nor have I ever spoken publicly on the matter. What could they possibly want with his widow?”
“You do not wish to know what they could want with you.” He came nearer to her, crowding her with his scent and his body and the memories he provoked, memories that lingered like stars in the morning sky as the sun rose. Dazzling glimpses into what had once been. “For now, all you need trouble yourself with is the indisputable fact there is an enemy who wishes you ill. I understand that you are accustomed to silk and tea and drawing rooms, but the men who murdered your husband do not give a damn about your insipid world. They detonate bombs that kill children. They carve innocent men to death in the middle of a park. They do not care about anything more than their desire to gain Irish independence by any means necessary. They will spill your blood and laugh upon your grave if it gives them what they want.”
As the vicious volley of his diatribe lashed her, he continued forward until there was no distance at all. He moved with the grace of a predator. Like a lion.
She stepped back. Once. Twice. Her skirts met the wall. Her head found the cool, slick hardness of the window. She swallowed. Her hands fisted in her skirts, shaking. If he was trying to intimidate her, he was succeeding. If he was attempting to frighten her, his mission was accomplished. But that did not mean she would allow him to see her vulnerability even for a moment.
She pinned him with a glare. “Come no farther, sir. You have already encroached upon me, and I do not care to be crowded by servants.”
There.She had done it. Used her knowledge to cut back at him. Dredged up the past to wield against him.
His nostrils flared. “Understand this, Duchess. I am not your servant.”
She took pains to keep her expression one of icy condescension. “Nor are you my equal. I did not give you leave to speak to me as though we are acquaintances, for we are not.”
We were, once,whispered her foolish heart.More than acquaintances. So much more.
“I will speak to you as the situation merits,” he said, his voice as cold and dead as the winter ground. “If I am to conduct my duty here, I will need your cooperation. In case you have not realized this, the danger to you is very real, else the Home Office would not have placed six men here alongside me.”
Of course it was. Thinking again of the faceless, nameless men who had slaughtered Freddie made a sea of sickness churn inside her. It chased away the heat and left her impossibly chilled. She shivered, rubbing her arms.
He noticed. “If you are cold, Your Grace, I will see that a fire is built for you.”
It was early spring, a time of damp, cool mornings. A time when the hope of renaissance remained elusive. Burghly House had been built in the beginning half of the eighteenth century, and its cavernous chambers never seemed to warm. For some reason, it had not ever felt like home to her. Even less so now that Freddie was not there to fill it with his infectious laugh and indomitable sense of humor.
He had been such an optimist.
Always believed the best of everyone around him.
Look at where his optimism had landed him.
“I want you to build it,” she said.
The moment the demand left her lips, she wished she could recall it. Indeed, she did not know why she had uttered it aloud. One moment, she had been swept away in memories of her dead husband, and the next she had been speaking. She did not even wanthiscontinued presence in this chamber. Why, then, would she require him to linger?
Because you can, came the knowing voice inside her once more.Because you are relishing the power you have over him, to make this big man feel small.
He stiffened. “I beg your pardon, madam?”
Here was her chance to rescind the order. To dismiss him and send him away from her. But somehow, she could not.
“The fire. I wish for you to build it for me.” The cold of the outdoors leached into the glass pane. She felt it through her hair. It was calming and comforting. It made her bold. “If you are to remain here at Burghly House, you may as well make yourself useful.”
She waited, hoping for his mask to crack. For his lip to curl. For him to rage against her, tell her to go to the devil, for him to leave the drawing room and this time never come back. Instead, he stared at her.
He stared and stared, raking his dark gaze over her face, lingering at her throat. The silence swelled, growing heavy. His eyes dipped lower, lingering on her breasts as if it were a caress. She felt it, felt the heat of his perusal, her breasts tingling and her nipples tightening into stiff buds behind the protective cover of her corset.
And then his gaze fixated upon something, darkening. His jaw tightened. She knew what had caught his attention without looking down. It was her mourning brooch, gold and carved jet with glass trapping the lock of Freddie’s hair.
His eyes flicked back to hers, his countenance as impassive as if it had been hewn from rock. “Ring for a servant to build the fire,Your Grace.”
He spoke her title as if it were an epithet. As if it tasted tart upon his tongue. He was a duke’s bastard, but she had become a duchess. He may have rejected her all those years ago, leaving her behind as if she had meant nothing to him, but she had achieved the status he would never have.
The realization gave her no joy. All she knew was the same acrimony he emitted.
Abruptly, he gave her his back and quit the chamber. The door closed softly behind him. Not a slam, but worse in its deadly calm.
Perhaps she had chased him away after all.
