Duke Looks Like a Groomsman - Valerie Bowman Page 0,21

only had Rhys not quit, he hadn’t even balked at the chores she’d asked him to perform. In fact, he’d done them all with something that resembled aplomb. She was almost…impressed. Who knew? Apparently, the Duke of Worthington could work hard when necessary.

Not only that, but he was charming—not just to young women, as she’d learned to her own detriment last year, but his charm apparently extended to servants as well. They had either greeted him and seemed to genuinely like him or had gone so far as to come looking for him to thank him for his assistance. It truly boggled the mind.

Very well. The servants liked him. Perhaps it was because they were amused with his playacting as if he were one of them. She refused to allow his seeming friendliness to Clayton’s stablehands to make her forget the months of torture she’d lived through, wondering if he would return from the country, and months of sadness she’d endured after he’d sent her that awful letter.

There. That was the memory she needed to recall the next time Rhys Sheffield seemed truly likable. The man might be slightly charming and able to perform a few tasks in a stable when called upon, but she wasn’t about to admit defeat. Besides, anyone could endure one morning of work. She would just have to ensure she made things worse for him tomorrow. Much worse.

Chapter Nine

Rhys heaved himself onto his side on the small hay-filled mattress. He was sleeping. Or, more correctly, attempting to sleep in his berth above the stables. His head was pounding, and it was deuced uncomfortable, but he had no one to blame for his current accommodations but himself. He’d been the one who’d insisted upon sleeping out here with the other stablehands.

Kendall was sleeping on the fourth floor of the manor house with the other footmen. Bell was there too. At least they had beds. All he had was this mat on the floor. But Rhys wasn’t about to allow them to say he’d had the upper hand in winning the bet by accepting better sleeping arrangements.

The hay-filled mat might be a far cry from the downy plushness of the feather-filled mattresses he usually slept upon, but he would make do. Even if tonight’s mattress smelled like a horse’s arse and bits of hay were sticking into every conceivable part of him.

But the discomfort wasn’t what kept him awake. At least not the physical discomfort. No. He was awake because he couldn’t stop thinking about Julianna. She’d agreed to keep his secret, but he should have known she had a reason for doing so. Money hadn’t interested her. He suspected she was out for revenge. And that’s what bothered him. Not that she thought she could get him to quit and forfeit his bet, but that she apparently felt as if she were the wronged party in what had happened between them last year.

She was not only title-obsessed, she was also completely mad if she thought he was truly in the wrong. Yes, he’d essentially tossed her over, but he had every reason to do so. It just showed how entitled she was for thinking that of the two of them, he was in the wrong.

He flipped over on his back and expelled his breath. There was no use fighting it. He wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight. Dawn was probably only a few hours off. No doubt, Julianna had picked dawn just to torture him. He grimaced. He seemed to remember mentioning to her that he and early mornings had never been friends. But one early morning wasn’t about to stop him. He could take anything she threw at him. He refused to give her the satisfaction of making him quit.

And it wasn’t just her. His friends, too, had ribbed him about being unable to stand the hard work of being a servant. It riled him that no one seemed to believe he was worth a damn other than apparently to be a drunken, gambling lout who just happened to have a duke’s title hanging about his neck. Hadn’t that always been what the papers reported? Hadn’t it always secretly pleased him to make them think they were right? Why was it bothering him now, then?

The worst part was that he should have known better than to believe Julianna had loved him. His father’s words thundered in his head, making his head ache worse. “Women are nothing more than diversions. Pleasant diversion. At times. But