“Don’t trouble yourself on that score,” Hal protested.“I like the work.And it needs doing.I’m happy to help.”
“I know you are, lad.”Mr.Cartwright shook his head at himself.“Begging your pardon.Your Grace.”
“Don’t—” Hal said sharply, then cut himself off and forced himself to continue in a more temperate tone.“You can call me lad, or Hal, the same as everyone always has.Nothing has to change.”
The blacksmith’s sharp gaze softened.“But things have changed,” he said, not unkindly.“And wishing for different won’t make it so.”
No one knew that better than the people of Little Kissington, whose lives had encompassed more hardship and deprivation than Hal could bear to think of.Hal felt the back of his neck prickle with heat.Shamed that he’d betrayed even an instant of self-pity for the unbelievable privilege of his elevated rank and position, no matter how much he hated being duke, Hal squeezed his eyes shut and blew out a breath.
When he opened his eyes, Mr.Cartwright clapped him on the shoulder, just as he’d done when Hal was a small boy.The gesture made Hal’s throat close up.
Swallowing hard to clear the obstruction, Hal rasped, “I want things to be different.I never wished for my brother’s death, but I’m glad to have the chance to right his wrongs.Or to try, at least.I know there is no way to completely undo the damage my family has wrought.But I want you to know that I won’t stop trying.I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“You’ll work yourself into an early grave, is what you’ll do.”Mr.Cartwright squeezed his shoulder, the large hand gnarled with age and hard use, but still surprisingly strong.“My Khair and I were agreeing on it only last evening.That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.You can’t go on like this, lad.Living on your own up there at the big house, only coming down to the Five Mile to eat and then going straight back out to work.”
“There’s so much to be done,” Hal began, but Mr.Cartwright cut him off with a look.
“There will always be work.As my Khair says, you must make time for life, or it will pass you by in the blink of an eye.”
Unbidden, Hal’s thoughts turned to Gemma, and as though he could read Hal’s mind, Mr.Cartwright said, “You could start with those ladies who’ve taken over Five Mile House.I reckon that elder Miss Lively could show you a thing or two about how to live.Meaning no disrespect to the lady, of course.”
Hal grinned, feeling his spirits lift.“As the lady herself would be the first to agree with your assessment, I can hardly take offence on her behalf.”
The group had reached the ancient oak at the northern edge of the county, a huge tree with a knotty trunk as wide as three men standing shoulder to shoulder.The branches soared overhead, a canopy of green standing sentinel over the rest of the old growth forest.The rogation party tapped its thick brown bark with their sticks and walked on under the rustling leaves.
“The lady still doesn’t know I’m the duke,” Hal reminded Mr.Cartwright.“You’re right, I need to stop avoiding the truth of who I am now.It does no one any good; it’s only making it confusing for people to know how they should behave around me.And I know this situation with the Lively family is only making it worse, but…”
“But you still don’t want to tell them you’re the duke,” Mr.Cartwright finished for him.“Ah, never fear, lad, we’ll keep your secret.You’ve earned that much loyalty from the people hereabouts, and what do we care about a few Londoners anyhow?”
“Thank you,” Hal said, gratitude and relief fighting for dominance alongside a creeping sense ofwrongnessat hearing Gemma described as an outsider.
It was nothing but the truth.Nothing but what Hal had been saying and thinking all along.So why did it bother him to hear it now from someone else?
The steely clouds gave way to sunshine as they neared the end of the walk.The afternoon sun hung low in the sky over Little Kissington, glinting and sparkling on the burbling waters of Westcote Brook.The rogation party drew closer to Five Mile House, weary and quiet, and Hal had a sudden, visceral memory of the sort of feasting and celebrating Rogation Day had ended with when he was a child.
I should have arranged for something, he thought with a cold shock of recrimination.Not that the estate could afford much, after settling debts and investing in repairs for the tenants, but something—anything to show that he wasn’t like his brother.That he cared.
That he recognized a need for more than work in a man’s life, as Mr.Cartwright in his gentle way had tried to remind him.
It wasn’t only Hal who was in danger of working himself into an early grave.His people, too, worked hard and constantly in the ceaseless struggle to survive.Maybe what Mr.Cartwright had been trying to say was that they didn’t need another farm hand so much as they needed Hal to be the Duke of Havilocke—a duke who valued his people for more than their work, and enriched their lives beyond the barest bones of survival.
Mired in regret and nearly torn asunder by competing demands and needs and obligations, it took Hal a long moment to understand what he was seeing as he stepped through the doorway of Five Mile House behind the others.
The public taproom was filled with people, and a loud cheer went up when the rogation party walked in, scraping the mud from their boots and doffing their caps in bewilderment.
The men’s families rushed forward in a mass, bearing them off to inspect the trestle table that had been brought up from Bess’s kitchen to hold an astonishing array of platters, plates, baskets and bowls brimming with sweet and savory treats.Beside it, the bar stood ready with casks of ale and cider, which Bess was pouring and handing out with liberal abandon and a wide smile.
Striding across the room between the throngs of happy farmers and pink-cheeked wives and shouting, laughing children, Hal grasped Bess by the elbow just as Gemma and Lucy emerged from the kitchen bearing a platter with a haunch of cold roast beef and a cutting board with a round of hard white cheese.A cheer went up from the gathered crowd at the sight of the roast, and Gemma placed it in the center of the trestle table amongst the loaves of crusty bread studded with chopped walnuts, stewed fruit in jars with honey, and rounds of shortbread bristling with spicy bits of candied ginger.
“What the hell is all this?”There was a harsh edge to Hal’s voice that he hated but couldn’t seem to soften as Gemma strolled over to join them, flushed with triumph.
Bess’s eyes narrowed at Hal’s rudeness, but Gemma only tossed her mahogany curls and gave him a saucy smile.“What does it look like, Mr.Deveril?The Five Mile is hosting a little celebratory feast for bashing the boundaries.”
“Beating the bounds,” Hal corrected between his teeth.He realized his hands were curled into fists and had to make a conscious effort to relax them.“Who is responsible for this asinine idea?”
Frowning at his tense growl, Bess tugged her arm free and went back to pulling pints.“It was my idea, in a way, but Gemma is the one who made it happen.She is a force of nature when she gets an idea in her head, isn’t she?”
The force of nature raised her brows at Hal, some of her pleasure clearly fading in the face of his disapproval.The sight of Gemma filled him with aching, unspent lust, the frustrated tension of going days without touching her smooth, soft skin or hearing ear breathy little moans in his ear.
