He crumpled the letter. Then he thought better of it and burned it in the grate of the breakfast room.
He couldn’t go yet. He had work to do.
The groundoutside the keep was a churned mess of mud. Several men had scaled the outer walls and were straddled up there, looking at the damage, arguing amongst themselves about the best way to handle the roof.
And inside, puddles still stood on the floor, but they were drying. Up above, large pieces of blue sky showed.
Helen had insisted on coming with him. It was a sullen, angry Helen in a damp blue dress who stomped through the keep, picking up a pot here, a rag there, trying to find things she could rescue.
“It’s not worth it, Helen.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line and did not answer.
She had only said two words to him this morning so far. Literally. “I’m coming,” she had snarled as she flung open the carriage door and climbed in.
Why was she angry at him? It wasn’t his fault the blasted roof had fallen in.
I could have had the men fix the roof before they started on the hut.
But Helen was not his responsibility. Neither was Mags. They were of Kinmarloch, and he was the Duke of bloody Dunmore. Even though no one up here knew that yet.
He went outside the keep, into the sunshine and the wind, and waited for the verdict from the men up on top of the keep.
Helen went back and forth to the carriage, ferrying things she must be hoping she could dry out and save. He looked for tears but saw none. She was all fury. He did not volunteer to help her. Likely, she would have bitten off his head.
The man who had made himself in charge of the others climbed down and came to him at long last.
“Aye, we think the beams we had set aside for the hut will do. ’Tis nae easy thing to fix something this old. Ye would be better off just building a cottage beside it.”
Helen heard this as she tucked one more pile of sodden garments into the carriage. Her back straightened.
“My lady,” Jack said.
She turned. Her face was white. “I. Cannae. Say. Mister. Pike. Ye know I cannae say. I cannae pay. For. Any. Of. This.” She gestured at the yard, the men, the keep.
Jack walked over to her and indicated with a jerk of his head that she should come around the other side of the carriage so they could speak privately.
“Let’s put aside the question of payment.” He leaned on the closed door of the carriage and folded his arms.
“That’s easy for ye to do. ’Tis a privilege I cannae be afforded.”
She wouldn’t let him pay for this, that much was clear. Hell, the woman had barely accepted the loan of a pound, and she had paid it back as quickly as possible.
“Do you have something you could sell?” he asked.
She looked away.
“Let’s say you had the money. Which would it be? Fix the keep or build a cottage?”
Her eyes came back to his. “The earls and countesses of Kinmarloch have always lived either in the castles of Kinmarloch or Dunmore. Always.”
“Mags needs to live somewhere warm and dry and safe,” he said in a low tone. He knew Mags was the way to get to Helen.
“So ye mean to set her up in a little love nest where ye have the privilege of coming and going when ye like?” she spat.
He wanted to seize her by the shoulders and shake her. But he restrained himself.
“I don’t want Mags that way. Despite what you think, I am more than a cock and a pair of bollocks. Have no worries, all the women of Kinmarloch and Dunmore will be safe from me soon. I’m leaving, Helen. I’m returning to London. And I’m never coming back.” He made that decision just then. “And I wonder at the sorry state of the men you have known all your life that you think I would take advantage.”
