A Duchess a Day (Awakened by a Kiss #1) - Charis Michaels Page 0,47
she could see his powerful bicep through her window. She’d just managed to swing out the glass when Lusk climbed inside.
“Your Grace,” she said.
The duke made no answer. He flashed her a resentful look and collapsed onto the opposite seat. In irritated, exaggerated movements, he began to unscrew the lid of a metal flask. He took an elaborate swig, leveling her with flat, tired eyes.
She tried again. “Thank you for pressing on to Wandsworth despite the rain. Perhaps the storm has already passed into the south.”
He took another long swig from the flask and smacked his lips. “Perhaps the storm has passed into the south,” he repeated in a nasally, singsongy voice.
He was mocking her. Helena blinked at the unexpected cruelty. Camille looked up from her book. The duke raised his brows at the two of them, daring a challenge, and then fell back against the seat. He tipped his face to the ceiling.
“I know what let’s do!” he said in an obnoxious voice, too loud for the small carriage. “Let us drag ourselves to the most godforsaken part of London in the freezing rain to look at goats!” He laughed.
Helena looked at Camille. Her sister stared back with an expression of confused horror.
As a rule, the Duke of Lusk was not biting or sartorial or even particularly lucid. It occurred to Helena that, for once, he must be sober. Beneath the liquor and snuff, was Bradley Girdleston simply . . . hateful? A cold tremor of anxiety stiffened the back of her neck.
Beside her, Camille slid a gloved hand over her arm. Helena blinked at it, unaccustomed to any show of warmth from her sisters. She smiled at Camille and turned back to the duke.
“How fortunate you are to cultivate your own produce, even in the city,” she said. “But surely you cannot begrudge a property that puts food on your table and wine in your cellar?”
He took another swig from his flask, still staring at the ceiling. “I do begrudge it. Farms? Don’t care. Farm homes? Don’t like. Wandsworth? I’d rather drown.”
Helena swallowed hard, pressing on. “Well, I’ve heard the house is lovely. Perhaps you can find a comfortable spot near a warm fire while I nose around the orchard and hothouses. I’ve been told a stream on the edge of the property runs so thick with trout you can stand on the bank and see them jump.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he intoned in that too-loud voice.
She tried again. “Are you fond of the ale from your brewery?”
“Less talking,” he mumbled. “More not-talking.” He never lifted his head.
Helena nodded and looked away. It was always like this. She’d tried for years to appeal to him about their obvious unsuitability, about the control exerted over him by his uncle, about any earnest topic at all. She’d even asked him why he continued to welcome a fiancée who repeatedly ran away. He’d always ignored her, or deflected the questions, or passed out. There was usually more giggling or belching or pretending he could not hear her, but perhaps he was beginning to feel the pinch of their encroaching wedding. Perhaps the foolishness was being burned away and only panic remained. Certainly, she felt something akin to panic. She’d not expected to find harshness at the core of Bradley Girdleston, but then again, she’d not really known the duke at all.
After a half hour passed in silence, they reached the sprawling acreage of Lusk’s Home Farm. The rain had distilled to a patchy fog that hung in the air like wet smoke. Servants formed a half-moon from the door of the house, fidgety and beaming, clearly unaccustomed to a visit from His Grace.
Good, Helena thought. Let them leap to do his bidding. Divert everyone so I might ride out in peace.
She pushed the carriage curtain aside. “Oh, I cannot wait to see it all,” she said for the tenth time. “And look, the rain has stopped.”
The duke rolled his head from the carriage seat, squinting out the window. “Surely you cannot mean to traipse around in the fog, watching laborers muck about?”
“In fact, I do, Your Grace, if you are not opposed. I’ve my journals to take notes.” She patted a stack of reference books and blank journals beside her. “But you needn’t trouble yourself. I’ll take a groom to assist me.”
The duke rubbed his face with long, thin fingers and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “What’s gone and made you so agreeable all of a sudden?”