When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,55
initiative. Besides, Parker might need his brother’s coach and four again, and the coachman’s good opinion would be useful.
“I’d like that, sir. Nothing like fine English beef three times a day, I always say.”
Parker had risen and caught the eye of the serving maid when the three dandies shuffled past, bringing their tankards and pitcher. They made straight for the private dining room, the third one closing the door firmly behind them.
Chapter Ten
Duncan considered meeting Trostle in the study and rejected the notion. Matilda worked there, and the steward mustn’t see her. The family parlor would send the wrong message altogether, and the formal parlor was for respected guests.
Duncan chose instead the frigid expanse of the portrait gallery, which the footmen and maids had thoroughly cleaned. Generations of Wentworths looked down upon spotless hearths, sparkling windows, and ornate plaster bearing not one speck of dust or a single cobweb.
Cold, lovely, and ostentatious. “No fires,” Duncan said, when Manners would have ladled hot coals onto the grates. “Mr. Trostle won’t be staying long.”
“He’s in the kitchen now, sir. Demanding his nooning and making talk.”
“What sort of talk?”
Manners took down a lathe-turned wooden candlestick from the mantel and re-fitted the beeswax taper so it stood straight in the socket.
“The usual sort with him.” Manners drew himself up and gripped both of his lapels. “A woman who doesn’t know her place generally loses it. He likes that one. Another is, A fine thing, when the master of the household grasps upon whose hard work his wealth depends, that sort of talk. Danvers says he’s getting worse, but then, Danvers is pretty.”
Duncan consulted his watch rather than observe Manners’s ears turning red—again. “Do we know anything of Trostle’s background?”
The footman moved on to the row of portraits, nudging this one straight, swiping a finger across that one’s signature. “He’s waiting for his father to die, a squire over in Hampshire. I gather he and his papa don’t get along. Mr. Trostle isn’t awful, sir. The fellow we had before him was worse.”
The lot of factors and stewards Quinn had inherited from the previous Duke of Walden had been driving the estates deeply into debt. When the College of Arms had lit upon Quinn as the ducal heir after several years of searching, significant damage had already been done at the family seat near Yorkshire.
Brightwell hadn’t fared much better.
“Your honesty is appreciated, Manners. You needn’t defend a man you don’t respect.”
Manners came to a halt before the portrait of the late duke. His Grace was dressed for shooting, for tramping his acres with a pair of harriers panting at his heels, an unusual portrayal of an aristocrat. Brightwell was set in the distance on a tidy lawn, with beds of colorful tulips lining the lane and circular drive.
“I wasn’t much older than Jinks when His Grace was alive. He was a dear old thing. Tried to teach me to play chess, of all the daft notions. Said a child could master the game, when I could barely keep my letters straight. Somewhere up in the attic, we have a painting of him at the chessboard, with the pieces arranged in some famous chess puzzle. He went a bit barmy toward the end, though he was always sweet. Didn’t put on airs. Said what he thought. Didn’t suffer fools—or knaves.”
Manners aimed a pointed look at Duncan.
“Please have Mrs. Newbury send up a lavish tray,” Duncan said. “Give me about ten minutes with Trostle before the tea arrives, and warn Miss Maddie that Trostle is underfoot.”
Manners collected his bucket of hot coals. “Already done that, sir.” He gave the gallery another inspection, then headed for the door. “Miss Maddie reminds me of somebody. Can’t think who it is. The old duke used to have company by the score, but I were just a lad and mostly kept out of sight belowstairs. Still, it’s on the edge of my mind, like a dream you can’t recall if you try, but it steals closer in the middle of the vicar’s sermon.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Though that tip-of-the-tongue, edge-of-a-dream feeling didn’t pertain to Matilda in Duncan’s case. She was an entirely new phenomenon, and she’d occasioned in Duncan something like spring fever. On the way home from visiting a tenant, he’d found himself humming old French folk tunes that fit with the rhythm of his horse’s hooves slopping along the farm lane.
Humming. He never hummed.
He’d penned a report to Quinn that had nothing to do with pence and quid