When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,28

and should have signed any agreements on her own behalf. “Why?”

“Then, madam, you are truly no longer engaged if you don’t wish to be. No suit for alienation of affections can arise from my offer of employment, and your former follower has no legal authority over you. No date was set, and you have simply cried off, as is a lady’s right.”

Matilda hadn’t been sure what the legal ramifications were for a failed engagement in England, but she trusted Mr. Wentworth’s assessment. Atticus had never quite proposed. He’d assumed that permission to pay Matilda his addresses had been consent to marry.

“You relieve my mind,” she said. “Though I still dare not return to my family.”

“Then you must remain here at Brightwell as long as you please. I haven’t time to see to my journals, while you have both time and the ability to make them more presentable. If you’ll excuse me, my gamekeeper has decreed that I must be harangued about our management of pheasants. If I fail to appear for supper, you may conclude that I have died of stupefaction, for Mr. Hefner is a loquacious soul.”

He bowed over her hand—such a warm grasp he had—and, once again, left Matilda alone.

She helped herself to a crispy slice of bacon, holding it to her nose before taking a bite. Something about her exchange with Mr. Wentworth didn’t sit well. She’d not lied, but she’d not nearly explained the whole situation to him.

He knew that.

She was reaching for a second piece of bacon when insight struck. Mr. Wentworth also knew what it was to be the victim of or the witness to a crime. Logic might eventually have revealed to him why Matilda was in flight, but experience had allowed him to leap to that conclusion.

And then Matilda knew something else: His tale of studying for the church and finding a vocation in the classroom also wasn’t a lie.

Neither was it the whole explanation of his situation, not nearly.

* * *

For two days, Duncan buried himself in physical labor when he couldn’t escape the carping of his gamekeeper, his tenants, or his conscience. The staff left him more or less alone, but then, they had Miss Maddie to occupy them.

Duncan groomed his horse to a high shine, knowing the contrary beast would roll in the first available patch of mud—and the second.

He shoveled snow from the garden walkways, creating a circular path in case nobody in particular needed an idle outing in the frigid sunshine.

He shoved trunks around in the attic to better organize the enormous framed portraits stacked by the dozen, then assisted the footmen to haul the paintings down to the long gallery from whence they’d been taken. Some of the ancestors bore a resemblance to the present crop of Wentworths—height, brown hair, blue eyes—but none of them wore a priest’s collar.

Neither did Duncan, though he sometimes woke in the night struggling to breathe, as if the noose of holy orders remained about his neck. That was Miss Maddie’s fault, of course. A woman without protection, one victimized by circumstances, was salt in old wounds.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Stephen Wentworth stood in the doorway to the gallery, leaning on the jamb, a stout cane in his left hand. He made an elegant picture in his aristocratic attire, though Duncan knew the casual posture cost him.

“The expeditionary force has arrived. What took you so long?”

Stephen moved into the room at the slow, uneven pace that was the limit of his abilities on foot. “Damned English weather. Quinn and Jane send their love, Ned says hello, and, good lord, what a homely fellow the third duke was. Puts me in mind of you.”

“He was a soldier, away from home for years at a time.”

“A wanderer, like me,” Stephen said, peering more closely at His Grace, “and like you. How are you getting on?”

Trust Stephen to exhibit not a scintilla of tact. “I’m furious.”

His lordship smiled, leaving no doubt as to which Wentworth had inherited the family’s entire complement of charm.

“The stable lads remarked as much to the gardener, who heard the same sentiment from the footmen, and they were in agreement with the gamekeeper. Our Mr. Wentworth is in a right taking o’er summat.”

Duncan spared a moment to solve the puzzle, for Stephen had likely ridden up Brightwell’s drive less than fifteen minutes ago.

“You came in through the kitchen because the front lane hasn’t been shoveled. You overheard the boots—Jinks—or the maids, or both in conversation with an under-footman or