How to Forget a Duke Page 17

  Jacinda perked up at this information. Mind already turning, she wondered if Mrs. Lassater would know anything of use to her. Jacinda wouldn’t need much, just a few clues here and there.

  “All the better for me,” Martha continued, “for I learned that Mr. Alcott was once part of a fleet, but hated the weeks at sea, wanted to spend more time ashore. So he bought the old Burkett place.”

  “Then he’ll need a wife to keep his house and mend his nets, and I’ve a knack for sewing.”

  “I can mend a net as well as anyone. Besides, I thought you were sweet on Rodney.”

  Betsy whacked her duster along the legs of a demilune table, her topknot of blond curls swishing angrily. “I was, until he kissed Clara by the stables. Turns out, he made a fool out of me, Clara, and Mary from the kitchens.”

  “No!” Martha turned to face her friend. “What sort of fellow courts three women, in the same house, and thinks he can get away with it?”

  “The wrong sort,” Jacinda heard herself say, every syllable uttered with conviction as she stood and walked toward them. She didn’t know why, but suddenly she felt different. Air seemed to fill her lungs without her taking a single breath, expanding on a rush of exhilaration. Of purpose.

  “Oh, Miss Bourne!” Martha dropped her duster, the sunlight from a nearby window illuminating a small windstorm of glittering particles.

  Betsy shifted, hiding her duster behind her back. “How good to see you looking so well.”

  “You’re too kind. I look a fright with this red scrape, and the purple bruises around it.” Jacinda hesitated, not wanting to admit she’d been eavesdropping, but wanting to return to the topic, all the same. “I wish to thank you for helping Lucy, too, and welcoming her as you have done. Although . . . I supposed someone should warn her about Rodney, hmm?”

  “You heard that?” Betsy’s cheeks turned the color of pomegranate seeds.

  Jacinda nodded, and feeling an overwhelming urge to speak her mind on this topic, said, “It was a dreadful thing to do to you. And to Clara and Mary, too.”

  “I was ready to swear off men altogether,” Betsy admitted.

  Martha nudged her. “Until Mr. Alcott came to town.”

  “Well, is it wrong to admire a man who wants to be his own master? I wouldn’t mind having my own home and a husband. But there are very few prospects for a girl in service. Most men want a girl with a bit more than the clothes on her back.”

  “A sound argument,” Jacinda said, easily commiserating. Other than an apparent education and different wardrobe, it appeared as though she was in the same situation as the maids were, with nothing but herself to offer a gentleman.

  A rather distressing thought considering she didn’t even know who she was.

  “Even so,” Jacinda continued, “you wouldn’t want to settle for the first available man. What do you know of Mr. Alcott? Does he have family here? Or perhaps his own family somewhere else? I should hate for you to find out that he’s the wrong sort after your heart is already engaged.”

  Betsy considered this with a frown. “I don’t want to waste my half days on a man who isn’t the right sort. I’ve already done that.”

  “With the Spring Festival coming, only four days hence, we should ought to know these things,” Martha said, inciting Jacinda’s rapacious curiosity.

  “A Spring Festival?”

  “It’s more of a winter-be-gone celebration,” Betsy explained. “Each year, Whitcrest gathers at sunrise to welcome spring with a day of festival games, a bit of drink, and most important, a full day off for the servants.”

  “And there’s the seed-planting ceremony, too, for new life, good fortune, and—if you’re lucky—love,” Martha added.

  “Then you’ll need to find all you can about this man before the festival,” Jacinda said, already forming a quick, but no doubt brilliant, plan. “Therefore, I’ll go into the village and see what I can discover.”

  “If there’s anything to know about anyone, then Mrs. Lassater is the one to speak to. She even knows things people wished she didn’t,” Martha offered helpfully.

  Betsy turned a worried look from Martha to Jacinda. “Oh, but His Grace would never let you go, Miss Bourne. Not until you’re well. He’s terribly protective of you.”

  Something warm and fluttery quivered inside Jacinda at the thought. She could still feel his arms cinched tightly around her, smell the heady scent of him lingering on her clothes, hear his gruff warnings and his muttered wish to lock her in a cupboard. Hmm . . . Betsy was likely right.

  Yet that didn’t deter Jacinda. In a peculiar, unexplainable way, she felt as if it was her duty to investigate Mr. Alcott to make certain he wasn’t the wrong sort.

  And if she happened to learn a thing or two about Rydstrom from the gossiping Mrs. Lassater, then all the better.

  “I’ll simply ask Dr. Graham to escort me. Surely Rydstrom couldn’t object.”

  * * *

  “I see no true harm in permitting Miss Bourne to visit the village,” Graham said that evening, returning to the Great Hall after escorting Miss Bourne to her chamber.

  Crispin shook his head. “That is akin to saying a hurricane poses no threat to the shore.”

  The instant she’d uttered her foolish request, he’d done the sensible thing and refused. Hadn’t she had enough adventure for one day?

  Graham smiled, clearly believing the statement a mere jest as he lowered into his chair at the long, scarred table. “And is she the hurricane or the shore?”

  “She is both. For if she does not conjure disaster, it will find her, nonetheless.” Crispin took a hearty gulp of wine, recalling the events in the abandoned corridor earlier. He’d aged forty years in the seconds it had taken him to reach her. “Likely, she even attempted to enlist your aid to persuade me to her cause.”

  Graham shook his head. “I received no such request. We merely spoke of the events she recalled from the day.”

  Crispin watched the footman clear her place from the table, annoyed that she’d claimed a headache and retired early, instead of keeping with the agreement they’d decided upon. She was supposed to complete this memory exercise in his study at the end of each day. But as of yet, she had not honored her part of the bargain.

  Of course, this wouldn’t have bothered him if not for the fact that he’d written it in his schedule ledger. He’d made generous allowances for the intrusion—two entire hours for their usual banter, heated discussions, and, of course, her exercises.

  Since he accounted for his daily tasks in quarter-hour segments, this would leave a gaping hole. Now what was he going to do with the remainder of his evening?

  Distracted, he stared at the vacant arch leading to the corridor. A queer, lopsided sensation passed through him as if the Great Hall was somehow out of balance without her counterweight on the opposite side of the table from Graham.

  “I see no purpose in her going,” he said with a fractious growl. “Whitcrest holds but one shop that might interest her, if her fancy runs to hair ribbons. She would hardly have need for a blacksmith, trawling nets, or a desire to see the fish barrels filled for market.”

  “All the same, I would encourage it if only to provide her the opportunity to encounter something familiar, a sound or a scent—”

  “Of rotting fish entrails?” Crispin scoffed, sinking deeper into his ill-tempered mood. He drained his glass.

  “Well, yes. I’ve found that fragrances often evoke the most potent memories. A whiff of gunpowder can take me directly to the memory of when that musket ball pierced my leg.” Absently, he ran a fisted hand over the outside of his thigh.

  “I still don’t like it. You don’t know what she’s capable of,” he said, peering down the empty corridor again, and thinking of her quick acceptance of his refusal. An uneasy shiver rifled through him. “Why, the moment I acquiesced, I’d surely see the village burst into flames because she was curious to see how hot the blacksmith’s furnace could become.”

  Or
she could find herself in a dangerous place and opening the wrong door, or even commandeering another skiff and sailing into rough seas. It was a miracle she’d survived to the age of three and twenty.

  The doctor chuckled and removed his half-moon spectacles to polish them with a corner of his handkerchief. “It is true that she has an extraordinary gift of curiosity. But you needn’t worry for Miss Bourne’s safety.”

  “I’m not worried,” he interjected quickly. “I am . . . honor bound to protect all who reside beneath this roof. Temporarily that includes Miss Bourne. When I wrote her uncle, I vowed to ensure she returned to London in good health, and in turn he has put his faith in me.”

  “Your sense of duty does you credit,” the doctor said carefully. “But if the day is fine without the threat of another squall, I’m certain I can keep her from danger.”

  “I would not wish someone so crafty upon you.”

  “Surely you don’t mean to keep her inside until she leaves for London, as if she were fulfilling a prison sentence.” When Graham received a deflected grumble in response, his wiry brows crowded closer in disappointment. “But that’s it, isn’t it? You’re punishing her for washing up on your beach, for invading your haven.”

  “Of course not. Keeping her inside, and myself trapped along with her, would be more of a sentence to me, don’t you think?” He meant it as a jest, but it rang too true. He’d been crawling out of his skin since Miss Bourne’s accusation in the armory.

  I think you’ve kissed me.

  Her words had been taunting him all day. His appetite had become unpredictable—ravenous one minute and then dissatisfied with whatever was on his plate the next. At any given moment, no matter where he stood in the keep, he would catch a faint whiff of her bath oil as if she were always nearby. And worse, he found himself thinking about her accusation and imagined doing wholly inappropriate, passionate things to her. Plundering her lips. Raking his teeth over the shell of her delicate little ears. Dragging down her dress, inch by inch, until her breasts were bared to him, her nipples ripe and ready for his tongue.

  Twice he’d wound up in a state not fit for a man of his position, with his flesh engorged and straining against the fall of his trousers at midday.

  “Pardon me for saying this, but we both know that you are rather deliberate in most things.” The doctor glanced down to the arrangement on the table where Crispin’s empty wine goblet and full water goblet were at precise distances from the edge of the table. “Additionally, I am one of the few who know that you have denied yourself many of life’s pleasures, including female companionship, these past four years because you seek to punish yourself for the deaths of your parents.”

  Clearly, Crispin had made a mistake in confiding in Graham during a rather low point, telling him about the life of debauchery he’d lived in London and believing that those choices had contributed to the reason his parents were arguing by the cliffs. A vow of celibacy seemed an appropriate penance.

  He gave Graham a dark scowl. “Abstinence is a matter of maturity. Nothing more. As a younger man, I behaved with little regard for others and now I am more disciplined.”

  “You have a will of granite, that much is true.” The doctor paused with significance. “And you are a good man.”

  Hearing those words from one who knew all of his sins and still thought him redeemable, touched Crispin, though he refrained from showing it. Instead, he dropped his napkin onto the table and stood, giving his lapels a firm tug to bring his coat to order.

  “I think I’ll follow Miss Bourne’s example and retire as well.” Graham rose, too. “There is one thought I should like to leave you with, however. No man should be so strict with himself, all the time. Every now and then, he needs to give in to something small—oh, like a glass of brandy on a cool night, for instance. That way, he won’t be so tempted to make a bigger mistake. After all, even granite breaks occasionally.”

  Crispin offered an absent nod as if he didn’t know what the doctor was saying. And yet, his thoughts veered unerringly back to Jacinda.

  She was the tempest he’d allowed inside Rydstrom Hall, battering relentlessly against his own resolve. Which, in the end, made her absence from his study for the next two hours necessary.

  Chapter 15

  “I would rather not be tempted.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  The moment Crispin entered his study, he noticed the iron horse bookend sitting on the mantel. Not where it was supposed to be at all.

  The bookend was one of a pair—the other still on the shelf in the far corner where it belonged. Since he’d been in this room before dinner, and everything had been in its place, he knew it hadn’t been accidentally left there by one of his servants. There was only one person beneath this roof who would have moved an object for the sole purpose of annoying him.

  Jacinda Bourne.

  “Ah. I see you found my present,” the culprit said with honeyed mischief in her tone. She sauntered into the room, her hips swaying beneath a length of cream-colored muslin, her slender arms bare, her hands nonchalantly grasping a pair of gloves as if she’d decided to start undressing. Here. In his study.

  He gripped the horse by the neck and glared at her. “You were supposed to retire to your chamber, Miss Bourne. That was the purpose of bidding you a good night earlier.”

  “Mmm . . .” she murmured, stepping into his quadrant and bringing a rush of heat with her. She propped her hip against the side of the sofa and absently plucked at the fringe from a silken silver pillow. “Then I realized I was still famished. It’s your fault, after all. You declined pudding altogether, and Dr. Graham and I could hardly ask Fellows to bring syllabub just for us.”

  Crispin turned and strode to the shelves. He situated the books that had fallen over and placed the horse down with a heavy thunk. The only reason he’d declined pudding was because he thought she didn’t care for sweets. She never took sugar in her tea, and she’d only picked at the tarts. “I made it perfectly clear that you could have what you wanted.”

  “You did no such thing. You used your imperious tone, which everyone in Rydstrom Hall knows is your way of expressing your displeasure. Even the footmen stood straighter, glancing at the sideboard to ensure that the pair of candelabras were spaced evenly apart.”

  “You’re being ludicrous again.”

  With a smirk, she purposely laid that pillow next to the other, instead of in the correct placement at the opposite end.

  He clenched his teeth. “You may seek to goad me, but it won’t work. Having a sense of order, knowing where you belong and where objects belong is part of being a mature adult.”

  While he might like to keep things in certain order, he’d never once commanded his servants to do so or chastised them when something was out of place.

  Though, until Miss Bourne’s arrival, nothing had ever been out of place.

  From as far back as Crispin could remember, Fellows had always inspected each room with a ruler in hand before he checked it off his list. And there was nothing wrong with the fact that Crispin ensured that his desk and papers, his bookshelves, and his person were in order. He found the employment of such behavior gained him a sense of peace, a semblance of control.

  “Only a child flings their possessions about the room without care.” He gestured with a sweep of his hand toward the sofa, and then to her person. “Only a child keeps a disheveled appearance.”

  The upward tilt of her lips abruptly flattened, and her eyes narrowed. She tossed her gloves over the arm of the sofa. “There is nothing out of place in my appearance.”

  “Then explain the curl that always falls over your left eyebrow.” He arched his own in question, waiting.

  She pushed the lock back with a careless sweep of her fingers and settled her hands on her hips. “There. Am I an adult now, according to your confounded standards?”

  Then, as if to mock her, the curl fell again. The corner of his mouth twitched.

  She wrinkled her
nose at him. “What I would like to know is why it matters to you if the pillows are together, or if one bookend is on the mantel? And why you separate your food into sections on your plate. Then if a pea strays into the barren paths, you are quick to herd it back into the fold. And also why you take one bite from each section in turn, and never out of sequence.”

  “My only answer is that you should pay more attention to your own plate.”

  “Many of the rooms I’ve seen are like that as well,” she continued. “A prime example is the library. Have you ever thought about rearranging the—”

  “Do not touch the library.”

  A slow, cagy smile lit her features. “It’s bound to happen eventually, soon after you find your heiress. Have you ever thought of that?”

  “Not once,” he answered succinctly, putting an end to her conversation. He knew very well that his future bride would not alter a rug, curtain, or a single piece of furniture in Rydstrom Hall because she would never live here.

  Jacinda Bourne certainly had a great deal of cheek, always ready with an intrusive question or comment, always overstepping her bounds. The only time he’d managed to stop her was when he’d taken her off guard with that comment about her ears. She hadn’t responded for a full minute or more, and in the silence, that watercolor red suffused her cheeks and spread all the way to the tips of those delicate shells, making them look like frosted confections.

  So now, when she opened her mouth to issue another, likely out-of-bounds, comment, he simply slid his gaze to her ears.

  She blushed instantly.

  Congratulating himself, he returned the pillow back to its correct placement. Ignoring her gloves for the moment, he straightened to his full height and walked toward the door, gesturing for her to leave.

  “Things should be kept where they belong.” Like matchmakers who lived in London and dukes who did not.

  If things began to stray, there was chaos.

  “At opposite ends? Yet, by your own words, these pillows”—she reached down and snatched it again—“and the iron horses are mated. Why not allow them to be side by side like your peas?”