When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,30
way also became darker.
“Quinn knew exactly what a fouled-up situation he was dumping into my lap,” Duncan went on. “Why would he do this, Stephen? I’m nobody’s fiscal conscience, nor do I want to be.”
“Jane put him up to it,” Stephen said. “She’s his conscience. Next year, when you’re too decrepit to spend the winter in Vienna, you’ll be glad you set your household to rights. The place has good bones.”
Miss Maddie had said as much. Miss Maddie, whom Duncan had been avoiding, and who was not from Dorset.
“I have hired an amanuensis,” Duncan said as they approached the family parlor. “Somebody to edit my journals and see to my correspondence.” Miss Maddie could assist with his correspondence, if he asked her to.
“Your handwriting defeats even my powers of divination,” Stephen said. “Though a good secretary can learn almost anybody’s penmanship. Where did you find such a paragon? Is he another disillusioned parson with a permanent squint?”
The door to the family parlor opened, and Miss Maddie stood before them in her two shawls.
“No,” Duncan said. “You are as usual in error. Miss Maddie, may I make known to you my cousin, Lord Stephen Wentworth. I comfort myself with the knowledge that our connection is at some remove. Lord Stephen, Miss Maddie. Behave in her presence or I’ll break your sound leg.”
Stephen bowed with the support of his cane and came up flashing the smile that was still the subject of swoons in Paris.
“Miss Maddie, pleased to make your acquaintance. What did you ever, ever do to deserve a sentence of hard labor with Cousin Duncan?”
The lady curtsied. “I consider myself fortunate to have my post, my lord. Mr. Wentworth, shall I leave you and your guest privacy at dinner?”
She clearly wanted to. She wanted to bolt from the room and probably from the house. “Lord Stephen’s feelings would be hurt if you declined to join us, and I would be subjected to a meal in tedious company. You must not think of leaving.”
Maddie stepped back, admitting them into the warmth of the parlor. She made polite conversation about the weather and she laughed at Stephen’s flirtations, but Duncan caught her glancing at the darkness gathering beyond the window.
She was thinking of leaving. She was always thinking of leaving, and he must not forget that, ever.
Which also made him furious.
Chapter Six
“Your cousin is friendly,” Matilda said, shoving the treatise on Italian farming back between the wonders of Sicily and the challenges of a Venetian winter.
Mr. Wentworth tapped the blunt end of his pencil against the desk blotter. “A life largely confined to a wheeled chair has developed in Stephen the need to charm people to his side. You favor the verb ‘to hare’ as in to hare about.”
The next essay Matilda came to was on Pompeii, which had struck Mr. Wentworth as sad, a graveyard desecrated by morbid curiosity rather than sanctified by respect for the tragedy that had formed it. Matilda agreed, but hadn’t been able to name her emotions about the place until she’d read his treatise.
“You will edit out my excesses, I’m sure,” she said. “To racket about, travel, career, journey, sojourn, make haste…the synonyms abound.”
“You are down to one shawl today.”
She pulled the shawl closer, as if that might prevent Mr. Wentworth from inspecting her.
In the week since Lord Stephen’s arrival, Matilda had enjoyed relative peace. His lordship bantered with Mr. Wentworth at the dinner table, rather like a puppy teasing an old hound. The old hound tolerated the fussing and could occasionally be jollied into a tail thump or two, but the game was mostly played by the youthful contender.
Lord Stephen and Mr. Wentworth had ridden out to call on tenants when the snow had partly melted, and closeted themselves in Mr. Wentworth’s sitting room with ledgers and an abacus on the drearier days. When Matilda happened to pass that doorway, which she did several times a day, the steady click of beads and soft murmur of voices assured her that work was in progress.
“This office is cozy,” Matilda said. “My other shawl is draped over the back of your chair.”
She was coming to think of this room as her domain, which was most unwise. She worked here, nothing more. Daily, she resolved to leave once the household was abed. Each night she found a reason to put off her departure. Clouds obscuring the moon, a cutting wind, a sky that threatened more snow…But the most tempting reason to stay was seated at the desk.