When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,63

know of. The current owner of Brightwell is some banker turned duke, an absentee landlord. He’s sent a cousin out to Berkshire to manage the place, though he’s also broken the entail. Could be he’s getting ready to sell. In any case, the house has only a small staff, and the cousin keeps mostly to himself.”

“So we know where Parker is, but not where Matilda is.” No different from a week ago, or four months ago.

“This is when you give me permission to travel to Berkshire, or you tell me we’re to travel there with Tomas and Petras. We pay a discreet midnight call on this cousin, search his house from attics to cellars with no one the wiser, and when Parker arrives, we make sure the ditches are very slippery and deep.”

“We don’t even know if she’s at Brightwell.”

Carlu came to a halt at a street crossing. “Because we haven’t been given the resources to establish that fact, but you’ve said she loved the old duke and she was never happier than when you spent a few weeks out there every summer. What sort of father leaves his daughter to face the likes of the colonel without reinforcements? And God forbid she’s found by somebody other than the colonel before we can get to her.”

The cold had driven all but a few souls indoors, and thus Carlu’s insubordination hadn’t been overheard.

“What if she stole those plans, Carlu? What if she was searching for them for her own purposes when Parker came upon her? Then my daughter might well be a traitor to the Crown, and any attempt on my part to rescue her only implicates me in her crime.”

Another theory was bound to be popular with the military: Those plans implicated Matilda in Wakefield’s crime. That notion had substantial factual support, viewed from a certain inconvenient perspective.

Eyes colder than a Moscow winter wind glared at Wakefield. “She is your daughter. If she’s a sneak-thief traitor, she learned from your example or the example of others with whom you consorted. She has no other family, and yet you hesitate.”

Condemnation dripped from every word, but then, Carlu was a man far from home, with a difficult past. He did not hold opinions, he championed eternal verities.

“She should have come to me, Carlu. Why didn’t she come to me when she first found the plans?”

“Because you did not warn her of your little games; because you, like most Englishmen, lack a proper respect for the resourcefulness of women. Because the colonel could have had her taken up for questioning before you came down for breakfast. Warrants, writs, and summonses can be issued at all hours for a marquess’s son turned loyal soldier, and Parker knows exactly how to obtain them. She can’t come to you now because the damned colonel has been guarding your front door when you’re not busy stuffing him with tea and biscuits in the family parlor.”

All true. “Parker is no longer guarding my door, and Matilda is still in hiding.”

“She’s in hiding, if she’s alive.” Carlu stalked off.

Wakefield kicked the nearest pile of snow, sending slush flying up to strike him in his own face.

* * *

Duncan was not about to make love with his intended for the first time amid dusty old treatises, frigid air pouring off the window, no place to properly adore the lady except one lumpy sofa.

“Come with you?” Matilda frowned the same way she’d frowned when Duncan had begun distracting her on the chessboard with his prancing bishops.

He stuffed his shirttails back into his waistband and did up the buttons of his falls. “The occasion wants comfort and privacy. Also warmth. I know where we can have all three.” And each other.

She nodded, the barest gesture of assent, but Duncan rejoiced in the trust it signified. He led Matilda down the corridor and around one turn, then bowed her through a carved door.

“This is your sitting room,” she said. “Your personal sitting room.”

“Through there is my personal bedroom, where a blazing fire is kept burning, despite my orders to conserve fuel throughout the house.”

She went to the mantel, upon which Duncan had displayed a collection of Stephen’s sketches. “This is you, and that must be the duke. The resemblance is marked.”

To behold her among his personal effects was a pleasure. What awaited them in the next room went beyond mere pleasure, and yet, Duncan let her explore. Every man had certain physical attributes that were mostly the same—a pair of hands, a nose,