Chapter Eleven

 

Lanterns in windows had never been a pleasant sight for Luke. They reminded him of all the houses he’d passed by over the years. Walking as he did, always alone, he’d often catch a glimpse of people eating and drinking around a table, a woman sewing, a dog before a fire, children playing. Each glowing window was a reminder that he didn’t belong.

So now here he was, with a lamp in the window of a large stable—the closest he’d ever come to a home since the orphanage he’d been forced to leave at age eleven—and he was waiting to welcome a guest.

Lady Janice.

It was an odd sensation to be a host. Perhaps it was more accurate to say that he was the spider to her fly—which didn’t give him a good feeling, but it must be done.

It was better this way.

He allowed himself to linger over the memory of their meeting on the road—how the obstinate young lady’s lips had collided with his while his gloved hand pressed hard against the wool of her coat. The craving to caress the warm flesh of her hip had driven him nearly mad. She’d been like a potion. For a moment there—just a moment—he’d looked into her eyes and was astonished that he recognized her.

Knew her.

But, of course, he didn’t.

She shouldn’t have come to Halsey House, he remembered thinking.

But she was here now.

And she might be the best mistake of his life.

He sat near the coal stove and worked on his latest whittling project, a figure of a galloping horse, half the size of his hand. He had a whole collection of carved animals under his bed in a box. He couldn’t stop whittling them, although he no longer needed to. They’d helped him survive when he was younger. On the streets, he’d always kept several in his bag, and when money was short he’d sell one for a meal.

The door opened when he was beginning to carve away at the shape of the horse’s head. And there Lady Janice stood, red cheeked and openmouthed, as if preparing herself to be shocked. “Are the puppies all right?” she asked without preamble. “I’m not supposed to be here. But I came.”

He rose from his seat and dropped the wooden form into a canvas bag. Something in him—the foolish part—was temporarily overcome with a nonsensical delight in seeing her face. “The puppies are fine,” he said easily.

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“And Esmeralda?” Janice pulled the door shut behind her.

“Exhausted but well.”

Janice’s brow furrowed. “This isn’t about Oscar, is it? He’s not—”

“He’s recovered nicely.”

“Good.” Luke saw a visible relaxing of her shoulders. “Then what is it? You put the lantern in the window. Is there an astonishing development—in a good way? If so, what could it be?” she asked before he could answer. “Have their eyes opened?”

“Not a one.”

“Then why did you put the lantern in the window?”

Ribbons of heat from the coal stove warmed his back, but she’d let in cold air and his face, belly, and thighs were freezing. She can make them warm again, he couldn’t help thinking as she pulled off her bonnet, revealing a long, blond braid.

He had a sudden sense of indecision. Perhaps he shouldn’t tell her what he was going to tell her. She was sweet. Innocent. Kind. He was wrong to involve her. He should wait. There would be other women coming up the drive, and one of them might work.

Or not.

Should he choose a random hope—or a sure prospect?

“Because I named the last puppy,” he said calmly, although he wasn’t calm at all. She agitated him in a way he never had been before. And he’d not named the puppy.

But he must lure her in.

Her face lit up. “What did you name it?”

“I’ll tell you when we see it.” He picked up the lantern and indicated with his hand that he wanted her to go ahead of him. “Esmeralda is anxious to show all of them off.”

After dinner, he’d picked each pup up and told their mother what a fine specimen of dog it was. But he made sure to do so when no one was near.

Lady Janice’s face registered even more pleasure. “Is she proud?” She advanced eagerly, and they walked side by side past the quiet stalls. “How can you tell?”

“She makes it very clear by her expression. Her upper lip catches in her teeth, and her eyes follow me everywhere. It’s as if she’s waiting for me to notice them.”

“Oh,” Janice breathed. “How sweet.”

She cast a brief, curious glance up at him, as if she wasn’t sure what to think of him. And he felt his own reaction: half lust, half something else so compelling that it made his natural tendency to lightheartedness feel inadequate—for the first time since he could remember.

As soon as they turned a corner and she saw a glowing stall at the other end of the row, she left him behind.

He stifled his amusement. She was enthusiastic, to say the least. And beautiful, walking swiftly with her braid bouncing on her coat.

Too beautiful.

He forced himself to ignore the perfection of her profile as she fumbled with the door. She was already inside and crouched by Esmeralda when he hung the lantern on a nail on the outer stall wall and walked through the half door to join her.

Over her shoulder, she grinned. “They’re having a late supper.”

He crossed his arms and decided he must wait patiently for her to get past her initial elation at the sight. He owed her at least this small pleasure.

“When will their eyes open?” she asked, almost petulant.

“Perhaps in a week,” he said.

A small pucker furrowed her brow at his answer, but she moved on, holding up the white puppy who’d been in such distress when he was born. “What’s his name?”

“Theseus.” Luke had only just now decided.

She laughed. “This little thing?” She put her nose up to his own tiny one and laughed again, then looked up at Luke. “So you know the Greek myths?”

“Of course.”

She looked down, and he could see that she was embarrassed for having asked.

“I read,” he explained with no heat. To show her that he wasn’t offended, he sprawled next to her in the hay, his palms on the floor behind him, his legs spread wide.

She met his eyes again. “I’m so glad,” she said shyly. “I think everyone should learn to read. My mother and younger sister and I have been teaching several lads in our stable in London.”

When he didn’t reply, she went back to looking at the wriggling white puppy. Luke simply watched her hold the furry creature—and could admit to himself that he enjoyed the sight very much.

Too much.

“Why Theseus, though?” She chuckled, her eye still on the pup. “Is he destined to save many other dogs from being eaten by a Minotaur?”

“One never knows where a Minotaur will pop up,” Luke said. “They take many forms.”

She cast him a sideways glance. “You tend to assume the worst, don’t you? A monster around every corner…”

“There often is. I’d rather be prepared for them than not. And a good dog stays alert, too.”

“Well, I’m glad he has such a weighty name.” She laid the puppy back down. “It suits him, considering the drama he’s already brought to the day of his birth.”

Once again, Luke said nothing. He was trying to ascertain the best time to tell her she was working for him, whether she wanted to or not. He hated to ruin her agreeable mood—but he told himself that his reticence had nothing to do with the fact that when she was like this something dark and heavy in him dissolved. Disappeared. And left him—

Happy.

If happiness was wanting to stay in this moment.

No, he was delaying the inevitable. He knew he wouldn’t enjoy having a furious female on his hands. He’d already seen this one in action when she was angry. A new onslaught was bound to come at him. And although the wall he’d built around himself was impenetrable, her flailing at it, useless as that thrashing was, made him—dare he say it?

Sad.

Gad, that was a feeble word. But if sadness was wishing that everything could change instantly, then it was the right word.

She sat facing him now, her hands wrapped around her knees. “I’m glad you signaled to me,” she said quietly. “I had a rather difficult evening and wasn’t sure how I should sleep.”

Deuce take it, now she was confiding in him. He should stop this nonsense. He didn’t care what her petty concerns were. Or he shouldn’t. He actually did want to know why her evening was difficult.

Damn her for drawing him in. “Would this have anything to do with His Grace?” he asked dryly.

“You’re very disrespectful,” she said.

“I mean to be.”

Her gaze slid away to the puppies. “Halsey’s intimidating. But he’s not shown any signs of being wicked.” She was scornful on the last word.

“Oh?” Luke waited.

Esmeralda yawned loudly. One puppy whimpered and wriggled, but the rest had given up on their midnight snack and were sleeping soundly, their tiny rib cages rising and falling in unison.

Finally, Lady Janice turned away from the heartwarming sight to look at him. “I sense he has a temper when he doesn’t get his way, all right?” Her cheeks reddened. “But he’s a duke. They’re supposed to get what they want. And he showed remarkable restraint with me tonight. Believe me, I pushed him to the brink of impatience.”

“You?”

She nodded and sighed. “Don’t ask me to tell you why. You won’t approve. Not that I need your approval.” She sent him a threatening look, which he refused to acknowledge.

“You want to tell me,” he said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

They were speaking low. Neither wanted to disturb Esmeralda and the puppies or awaken one of Luke’s fellow stable hands.

Lady Janice pressed her fingers to her eyelids and sighed. “All right. I’m pursuing the duke, after all. Me. The girl who didn’t receive even one offer this past Season.”

Everything in Luke hated her plan. He couldn’t help leaning forward. “Why?”

She dropped her hands. “Because I’m tired of having no power. He’s a duke. He has plenty. And he can share it.” She let a beat of silence pass. “I know you thought I was after him when I arrived this afternoon. But I wasn’t.”

“Then why are you now? Don’t you have a great deal of influence already, as the daughter of a marquess? Why do you suddenly want more?”

Her face took on a closed expression. “I have very little control over my own fate. And as for why I need more power, I won’t discuss it, other than to say that I heard something today which changed everything for me. It made me realize that I have to take my future into my own hands. Which is why I’ll throw my hat into the ring.”

“Like the other women who appeared on the driveway.” The irony wasn’t lost upon Luke.

Or her, either. She looked none too happy. “I suppose so.”

And it came to him then how wrong he was to make that sort of dig. “You’re not like the others,” he told her.

It took everything in him to say those words. It was an apology. But deep down, it was also an admission. He found her different from every woman he’d ever known. She was special somehow. To him. He didn’t know why.

“What if I am like the others?” She looked at him with accusing eyes. “Who are you to judge? If a woman is scheming, it’s because she’s trying to survive.”

He knew that. He knew that. He’d felt sorry for those women who’d come down the driveway before her. His own mother had become a desperate woman. But he wasn’t going to tell Lady Janice she was right. He’d said his piece. She could take it or leave it.

He wasn’t in the business of making people like him.

She sighed. “I know that was your way of trying to apologize, Mr. Callahan. As such, I accept it.”

More irony. This time extremely bitter. She wouldn’t accept any of his apologies if she knew that he planned to bring down the very man she hoped would solve her problems.

Luke wished he could tell her right now that she might as well give up on trying to win over the current master of Halsey House. That man was Grayson Hildebrand, Luke’s first cousin. Their fathers had been brothers.

The circus maid had been right. Luke’s real name was Lucius Seymour Peter George Hildebrand, and he was the rightful seventh Duke of Halsey. And if it was the last thing he did, he’d reclaim the title on behalf of every woman hurt by Grayson or Grayson’s father, Russell—from Luke’s own mother almost thirty years ago to the desperate women who entered Halsey House now, to the nuns running St. Mungo’s Orphanage, the only home Luke had ever known, where his mother lay buried in an unmarked grave.

But he couldn’t tell Lady Janice any part of his history. It would put both their lives—and his objective—in serious jeopardy. He despised being trapped this way. He’d never been pinned in a wrestling match. But he felt pinned now. He knew that marrying Halsey would only be a disaster for her, but Luke couldn’t tell her that—yet. All he could do for now was keep reminding her that his cousin wasn’t a good man.

“Pushing Halsey to the brink of impatience will help you win him?” he asked her now. “It seems an unlikely strategy.”

“His grandmother told me that the only way to capture his interest is to tell him no,” she said. “He’s so used to everyone kowtowing to him, you see.”

“So you’re listening to his grandmother.”

She nodded. “It’s the oddest thing, her switching back and forth between being the dowager and being the Queen, but she’s very convincing.”

“Telling him no should be easy for you.” Luke lofted a brow.

“What does that mean?”

“You’re good at being defiant. Kicking. Slapping. Throwing. I’ve seen you do them all.” He knew he was being unfair, but there was something illogical in him now, something that enjoyed goading her, and he had a feeling it had everything to do with the fact that he was frustrated. Very frustrated. And not only about the fact that he couldn’t be honest with her about his own plans for Grayson.

Luke wanted her. She was so close, he could smell her hair and her skin.

And he couldn’t have her.

She deserved a man who’d stay, not someone like him, who’d never be able to give her what she needed.

She sat up on her knees, her eyes glittering with indignation. “You earned all that. You shouldn’t have yanked me out of my father’s carriage and kissed me.”

He grabbed her wrist. “I’d do it all over again.”

She pulled back, but he held tight. Their gazes locked. She was so beautiful, he could barely breathe.

“I have something to tell you,” he said, “and you’re not going to like it. It’s the real reason I brought you here tonight.”

Her eyes widened. “It wasn’t because you named the puppy?”

He released her. “Do you really think that counts as an astonishing development?”

“Yes.” She rubbed her wrist and glared at him. “I was sure you wouldn’t do it. I was surprised.”

“Well, that was a ploy to get you over here.”

“Oh?” She scrambled to her feet. “This had better be good, Mr. Callahan. I don’t have patience with men who mislead me.”

“Has one misled you before?”

“None of your business.” She narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms over her chest.

He wasn’t a laughing man. But part of him wanted to grin at how ineffectual her threatening expression was. And the other part of him wanted to strip her of her coat and clothes and kiss away that frown and any bad memories she’d accrued from whoever had hurt her.

All the more reason to be careful around her. He didn’t want to be the next man to cause her pain. “Sit, Lady Janice,” he said gently.

She kept glaring at him.

“Sit,” he insisted, “or I’ll pull you down next to me. If you try to run away, I’ll capture you. And if I have to do that, I promise I won’t let you escape until I’m good and ready to let you go.”

She let out a gusty sigh and lowered herself to the straw. “All right. This once, I’ll sit. But don’t threaten me again. You’re still a groom, and I’m a woman of influence, as you’ve noted. I can get you removed from this property without a reference. I could make your life a living hell.”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned that before.” He gave a small yawn, just to rile her. “And you won’t do it. You’re too kind. And you don’t really want me gone.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She refused to look at him. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Because”—he slid over so that she could see his eyes—“there’s something I have to find at the house. And you’re going to find it for me.”

“How dare you order me about?” she hissed. “If you need assistance, you should ask politely. I refuse to listen to anything you have to say until you show that basic courtesy.”

He couldn’t resist turning that rounded chin so that she faced him directly again. Her eyes were stormier than ever.

“I’m not asking,” he told her. “I’m ordering. There’s something I need that belongs to me—and you’re going to look for it.”

“You”—she gulped—“are extremely rude. And you’re also out of your mind. You can’t order me to do anything.”

“Certainly I can,” he said. “I’m doing it now. You have until the end of the week to find it—that’s six more days—and if you don’t, I’ll tell Oscar you’re in danger from the duke, and Oscar will feel compelled to take you home immediately.”

She gasped. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you simply ask me to help you?”

“Ask? Why would I do that?”

“I can’t believe you said that. You are so arrogant.”

“I don’t like to be beholden to anyone, my lady. Besides, if I had asked, you’d have said no.”

“How do you know?”

“Would you have said yes?”

“No.”

“See?”

She folded her arms again and glared at him. “So you think coercing me is an acceptable alternative?”

One of the puppies stirred. Esmeralda nudged it and looked at Luke and Lady Janice with worried eyes.

“Why not?” Luke pitched his voice lower so as not to disturb the dog. “If it works?”

“Well, it won’t,” Lady Janice whispered. But she was so adamant and agitated, her braid swung from one shoulder to the other.

“All right, then,” Luke said. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll tell Oscar that the duke is a dangerous man. You might be snowed in, but you can bet Oscar will find a way to get you to the village, even if it means he has to carry you over his shoulder.”

“Don’t you dare speak to Oscar!”

“You want to stay, don’t you?”

“Yes. As you well know.” She frowned at him. “So tell me what it is I’m looking for.”

“A journal. It belonged to my mother, Emily March.”

“Your mother?”

He nodded. “Why so shocked?”

“What’s your mother’s journal doing at Halsey House?”

Two puppies woke up and made little grunting noises. You’re too loud, Esmeralda’s expression seemed to say.

Luke gladly moved a few inches closer to the warm woman next to him. “She worked for the dowager duchess.”

Lady Janice leaned away. “Really?”

“Yes. Long ago, before I was born.” He couldn’t stop looking into the blue depths of her eyes for the secret to her attractiveness. It was something he couldn’t define. It went beyond standard good looks. She was very pretty, but he’d seen women who’d turn more heads. Yet none of them had ever captivated him the way she did.

He wondered if someone had put something in his tea. Some sort of potion.

“Stop staring at me that way,” she murmured.

“What way?”

“Like that.” She pushed on his chest. “And move back.”

He didn’t budge. “S-s-sh. You’ll wake more puppies.” He wanted very badly to kiss her, but it wouldn’t be a good idea. “Look at Esmeralda,” he said in a moment of inspiration. “She’s bothered.”

It took Lady Janice a good few seconds to drag her gaze away from his and look over her shoulder—a delay that tortured Luke. Her mouth was calling to him.

“Sorry,” she whispered to the dog.

Esmeralda thumped her tail.

But when Lady Janice turned back to him, Luke’s momentary reprieve from wanting to crush her to him and kiss her was over.

“Why can’t you just knock on the door and ask Halsey for this journal?” she asked.

“Because he might not want to give it to me.”

“Why?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Then I refuse to help.”

“You keep forgetting that I’m making you help.”

She was wrong for the job, Luke knew. All wrong. But deuce take it, she could be right. He could make her so. He’d been seeking a man to help him, had been waiting six weeks for just the right one, someone sympathetic and intelligent—a footman, perhaps—who’d have the guts to search Halsey House for the diary and who could be trusted not to stab him in the back.

He’d no idea that the best candidate would turn out to be a woman.

Lady Janice grabbed his coat collar. “Tell me why the duke wouldn’t want to give you the journal, Mr. Callahan. Or—or I’ll turn the tables on you.”

“Will you? How?” He pried her fingers loose from his coat.

“I need to think about it. But it will be devastating, I assure you.”

He was amused by her robust attacks upon his person. But he also admired her nerve, so he would reward her with a small piece of the whole truth. “My mother may have been mistreated here. And if so, she likely would have written about it in her diary. That’s why the occupants of the house might not want to hand it over.”

“Oh,” she said, seemingly pacified. “Did she tell you herself she might have been mistreated?”

“No, the nuns at St. Mungo’s Orphanage told me.”

“The nuns? And what’s this about an orphanage?”

“It was Sister Brigid in particular, and my mother and I lived at the orphanage. It’s a long story, and I’m not the sharing sort.”

Lady Janice shook her head. “You’ll have to get beyond that. If you want my help, I must know more. Why were you in the orphanage? And what happened to your mother?”

“Just go find the journal. There’s a chance, of course, that it’s no longer there. Perhaps someone found it long ago and threw it away. But on her deathbed, my mother confided in Sister Brigid that she hid it and wanted it found.”

“She didn’t say where it was?”

“No. She was practically incoherent. For all we know, this story was part of her delirium. But I want to find out for myself.”

And for the residents of St. Mungo’s. And for every person who’d had their happiness stolen away by Grayson or his father.

But Lady Janice didn’t have to know that part.

“You have to tell me more.” Lady Janice’s voice was trembling with intensity. “I can’t go looking for Emily March’s journal and not know why she was delirious, why you were with the nuns, and why she hid her journal.”

“Yes, you can. I’m coercing you.”

Lady Janice closed her eyes. “You’ve no tact.”

“No.” He picked up her braid and caressed its golden silkiness with his thumb. “Why should I? I’m a groom.”

She opened her eyes again and took her braid back. “You’ve given me six days to find this journal?”

“Yes.” Was that pretty confusion in her voice? Was he distracting her somehow? Because he was certainly losing focus himself. The journal seemed less and less important. Touching Lady Janice—kissing her—seemed much more imperative a goal at the moment.

Could he give himself that moment? He knew the bigger picture. He did. But right now—near her—he wanted to stop thinking about it.

For a little while.

“If you expect me to have any luck at all”—she brushed a tendril of hair off her face—“I need to know everything you know about Emily March. I need to feel her as I’m searching. It’s got to do with feminine instinct.”

“I admire feminine instinct.”

“Do you?” Her voice was a little breathy.

“Yes.” He wanted—

Oh, dear God, he simply wanted.

Her.

It was stupid of him. Careless. It went against everything in him. But there she was, her concern for a woman she didn’t know—a woman who wasn’t even alive anymore—making a mockery of the rules of survival he lived by.

“There’s a male instinct, too, you know.” He picked up her hand and traced a circle over the back of it with his finger.

“Mr. Callahan—” The words were practically strangled in her throat.

He stopped tracing and looked up. “Yes?”

“I need my hand back.”

“Are you sure? I’d like to borrow it another few seconds.”

She shook her head. “That’s not a good idea.”

He lifted it to his mouth, palm up, and kissed its center. Her skin was sweet and warm. He couldn’t help closing his eyes, inhaling her scent, and pressing that hand against his jaw.

“No,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes. “Did you know that no means ‘yes’? Just for today?”

She giggled. “You’re outrageous, Luke Callahan.”

He was, too. Still holding her fingers, but now cradling them in his lap, he leaned through the foot of air separating them, pulled her close, and kissed her lush mouth.