A Duke Changes Everything (The Duke's Den #1) Page 4

  A little growl echoed down when he lifted a hand. But it wasn’t the cat. The creature now assessed him with bland indifference from the crook of her mistress’s arm.

  “You are,” the tree climber grumbled as she planted her free hand in his, “a decidedly stubborn man.”

  Yet even as she made the declaration, she gave him her weight and made no further protest when he placed his hands around the very soft, very warm curve of her waist.

  Nick held tight until she planted a boot on the top ladder rung.

  She looked back at him. He expected more chastisement or revulsion at glimpsing his freakish eyes and broken face. Instead, she stared, cheeks flushed, as he slid his hands down her legs to steady her.

  “Here. Take Millicent.” As gently as if the cat were made of spun glass, the young woman adjusted the creature in her arms and aimed the feline toward Nick’s head.

  “If I take her and you fall, I won’t be able to catch you.” Of course, he’d do his damnedest. For a moment, he let himself imagine how the lady’s heat and softness would feel on top of him. But he did as she bid and retrieved the feline.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured to the cat, giving her soft orange-and-white fur a few strokes.

  “Now move down,” the lady commanded, “so I can descend.”

  Nick took a single long step off the ladder, attempting not to jostle the cat too much. As insurance, she’d sunk ten tiny needle-sharp claws into his arm. But even that agony didn’t distract him from appreciating the plump swell of the young lady’s backside as she climbed down. He also noted that her hair was a wild tangle, her shirt was littered with bits of bark, and her boots were sorely in need of a polish.

  She dusted her hands on her breeches before turning to face him. “I’ll take Millic—” Her voice cut off on a strangled gurgle.

  Ah, finally. The horror. He wondered which sort she’d be. Would she faint dead away, dash off, or simply do her best to pretend the sight of him didn’t turn her stomach?

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I didn’t recognize you.”

  “You must have known my father.” Nick didn’t think he was acquainted with the tree-climbing woman, so it was the similarity to Talbot Lyon she must have seen in his face.

  Yet when she swept a strand of hair behind her ear, a memory danced at the edge of his mind. There had been a girl on the estate when he was a boy. A servant’s daughter he’d never been allowed to speak to. The child had possessed unruly chestnut hair and a giggle that carried all the way up to where he spent hours suffering lessons with his tutor in the nursery.

  When he moved close to get a better look, Miss Thorne’s eyes widened. She swallowed hard, muscles working along the pale stretch of her throat.

  “Yes, Your Grace. I knew your father.”

  God, that honorific grated on him. “I’m looking for Mr. Thomas Thorne. Do you know where I can find him?”

  Her expression changed instantly, from unease to wide-eyed panic. But she reined her emotions in quickly and then squared her shoulders.

  “I suspect you’re looking for me. My name is Thomasina Thorne. My father has been dead for two years.”

  Nick frowned.

  The lady bit her lower lip and fixed her gaze on a spot over his shoulder, suddenly unable to look him in the eyes.

  “My condolences, Miss Thorne. But that makes this letter rather curious.” He retrieved the missive from his pocket, unfolding the note with the Tremayne crest and Thomas Thorne, Estate Steward engraved at the top.

  Her blush deepened from pink to scarlet. “I used my father’s stationery.”

  She’d done more than that. “You signed his name.”

  Miss Thorne came closer and pried the cat from his arms. The beast took some cajoling, and Nick felt each pinprick sting as her claws detached from his skin. He also felt the sweep of Miss Thorne’s hands as she petted the creature, inadvertently stroking his arm.

  “Look again, Your Grace,” she insisted, glancing at the letter.

  Nick narrowed an eye at her and then scanned the document once more. T. Thorne stared up at him from the signature line.

  “There’s a dot after T ,” she said pertly.

  “A dot.”

  “It’s the initial letter of my name.”

  “Clever.” Or exceedingly foolish. If she’d truly taken on her father’s duties, it was quite a burden for a young woman to concern herself with. Especially at a gloomy place like Enderley.

  Color still stained Miss Thorne’s cheeks, but he couldn’t detect any true remorse for her deception.

  “Which came first? Adopting your father’s name or wearing his clothes?”

  “These are my clothes.”

  That Nick believed. They hugged every inch of her body possessively. He could even acknowledge she was sensible for not binding herself inside oceans of fabric. He liked practical solutions, especially those that made life simpler. But he hated nothing so much as being deceived.

  “You lied to my solicitor, Miss Thorne.”

  “I did not lie. I always try to tell the truth.” She pursed her mouth, tilted up her chin a fraction, and shot him a look of pure defiance. Except for the telltale quiver in her jaw. “I simply didn’t fully explain.”

  “Everyone lies. You’d be the most extraordinary woman in England if you didn’t.” Looking at her—wild hair, lush legs encased in buckskin, and a hostile cat clutched at her hip—Nick acknowledged that she was the most unusual woman he’d met in a long while.

  “I did say I try.” She dipped her head before looking at him again, and the errant curl slipped down to curve around her chin. “I have been a trustworthy steward, Your Grace.”

  “We’ll see, Miss Thorne.”

  She’d already proven herself skilled at deceit. Not a good start for the one person he was relying on to tell him the truth about Enderley’s finances before he divested himself of every asset the entail would allow.

  As they assessed each other, clouds rolled in. Angry black-gray billows that perfectly matched his mood. In the distance, thunder shook the sky.

  “We should get inside, Your Grace.” Without waiting for him, she started toward the stable yard.

  Nick stared at Miss Thorne’s backside as she stalked away and cursed under his breath. He’d been back an hour and already Enderley was turning him into a beast.

  The lady’s appeal was nothing more than an irritating distraction. And a surprise. He hadn’t anticipated finding beauty in this blighted place.

  He wasn’t sure he could trust the woman, and he certainly couldn’t bed her.

  As if she sensed his wayward thoughts, Miss Thorne turned back, gazing across the distance at him expectantly. “Your Grace?”

  “Can you arrange for a meal to be brought to me?” His stomach growled as fiercely as the storm clouds.

  “Of course.” She turned away again as if he’d formally dismissed her.

  “Come and find me in an hour, Miss Thorne.”

  She stopped but didn’t turn back.

  “I want to review the inventories my solicitor requested.” Business. Practical matters. That’s why he was here.

  Looking out over the field they’d just trudged through, Miss Thorne said over her shoulder, “Very good, Your Grace. I shall meet you in your study.”

  He hated the prospect of entering his father’s space, but he focused instead on how much closer every task brought him to leaving this place forever. If she had the inventories prepared, Miss Thomasina Thorne was efficient, and that would serve him well.

  “An hour then, Miss Thorne.” He heard an odd thread of hope in his voice.

  He was counting on her, feisty, curvaceous, deceptive woman that she was.

  “Come now and tell us what he’s like?” Mrs. Scribb quizzed as she dug inside Mina’s bedchamber wardrobe of serviceable and rarely worn gowns. Nearby, Emma sorted ribbons and pins Mina hadn’t glanced at in years.

  “Not what I expected.”

  Good heav
ens, what a fool she’d been to assume Nicholas Lyon would be like his brother. Eustace had been too occupied with vices to care that Mina had taken her father’s place. But this new duke was a man of business, creating enterprises and success with his own force of will. He wasn’t the sort to let anything slip his notice.

  She’d underestimated. Badly. Now she had to find some way to fix it.

  “I can’t be late, Mrs. Scribb.” Mina tugged at the skirt and bodice the housekeeper had chosen for her to don after she’d washed. Fighting the vise grip of her corset, Mina fumbled with the fastenings. There were too many panels and buttons and hidden hooks, and she had no time for any of them. “Why is this so complicated?”

  She cast a longing gaze at the breeches she could slip on quickly and the soft cotton shirt she’d tossed over her head this morning.

  “Let me.” Mrs. Scribb shooed Mina’s fingers aside and had her laced and buttoned before she took her next breath. “Perhaps you need a bit of practice with ladylike clothing.”

  Mina would have laughed if her insides weren’t churning and the corset she’d imprisoned herself in wasn’t cutting off her air.

  Behind her, Emma, the closest Enderley had to a lady’s maid, steered her to a chair. “Sit, miss, and I’ll fix your hair.”

  “Just something simple.” She never did more with her hair than tie it back in a plain knot, even when the previous duke was in residence. Mina wasn’t certain they should be making such a fuss over the new duke.

  He was going to be trouble. Tall, broad-shouldered, unexpectedly appealing trouble who now held their fates in his hands.

  Mrs. Scribb stuck her head out of the wardrobe long enough to plant her hands on her hips and give Mina an assessing look. “He’s unsettled you. What did he say?”

  “I’m perfectly settled.” Except that she couldn’t keep her heel from tapping, and her heartbeat hadn’t steadied since he’d put his hands on her waist.

  The man’s scent still clung to her skin, and his eyes haunted her. They marked him as his father’s son, whatever the rumors might be. Only one was the same cool blue as the old duke’s eyes, but the unique almond shape of them made the men mirror images. The jagged scar lancing Nicholas Lyon’s cheek did nothing to diminish the chiseled symmetry of his features or the striking beauty of his eyes.

  There was life behind his gaze, intelligence and flickers of fiery emotion, though she’d detected little in the way of compassion. Except when she’d caught him scratching Millicent’s chin, attempting to soothe the feisty cat. Millicent hadn’t taken much notice, but Mina had.

  “He didn’t seem pleased to learn that I’d taken on my father’s role.” Her deception had displeased him, as she’d feared, though he’d seemed more irritated than furious. “There’s every chance he’ll sack me.”

  “Then we shall all go.” Mrs. Scribb sealed the declaration with a fervent nod. The wholly unrealistic plan had been proposed in the months they’d fretted over the new duke’s arrival. If he attempted to dismiss one of them, Mrs. Scribb insisted they should all give their notice in a show of unity.

  “I can’t lose this post,” Emma said softly as she swept her fingers through Mina’s hair.

  “We’ll find you another, girl.” Mrs. Scribb was quick to dismiss the maid’s distress. “Mr. Wilder and I will write you a good character.”

  “No one is losing their post because of me.” Mina turned in her chair and clasped Emma’s hands. The girl didn’t only fear for her own future. Mina knew she sent wages to her parents in Dorset, who struggled to support her six siblings. “I’ll apologize to His Grace the moment I see him again.”

  She wouldn’t let the new duke take his anger at her out on the rest of them. They hadn’t chosen her as steward any more than she’d chosen to lose her father.

  “Besides, he’s likely to keep all of us in our posts. A duke can’t run an estate without a staff, and why wouldn’t he prefer servants who know Enderley well?”

  Emma seemed satisfied with that logic. She nodded and reached up to finish arranging Mina’s hair. “Tell us more about him, miss.”

  “He’s a gentleman, like most others.” Now, that was less than the whole truth. He didn’t look like any man she’d ever met, and so far he hadn’t behaved like most men of her acquaintance either. She struggled to focus on what was mundane about him. “He’s tall like his brother. Well-dressed. Arrogant.” Confident might be a better word. His self-assured air was every inch what a duke’s should be. “He has his father’s eyes.”

  “Odd eyes, Tobias tells me. One dark and one light. Some say he wasn’t his father’s son at all.” The young maid mumbled the words just above a whisper.

  “Bite your tongue.” Mrs. Scribb stepped close, wagging a finger of chastisement. “Those rumors were never true. The duchess was faithful as they come, but the old duke’s jealousy blinded him to the truth. Anyone can see the new duke is the very image of his father, and the man’s our master now, come what may.”

  “But will he be a good one?” Mina wondered aloud.

  Masculine beauty didn’t matter. Eustace had possessed the cool Tremayne eyes and an occasional charm too. All that counted was what the new duke intended to do with Enderley and those who depended on the estate for their survival.

  “Can’t be worse than his father and brother,” Mrs. Scribb declared before clapping a hand over her mouth. “Forgive me. ’Tisn’t kind to speak ill of the dead.”

  Mina noticed she didn’t take a single word of it back. She couldn’t. The old duke had been a tightfisted bully, and his son a spendthrift dilettante who’d merrily bled the Tremayne coffers dry.

  “Sometimes we must tell the truth, even if it’s not kind,” Mina put in. “My father always did.”

  Mrs. Scribb cast her a sympathetic look. “Aye, he was a good man.”

  The best Mina had ever known.

  “We know the new duke is good at business,” Emma said as she returned Mina’s brush to a bedside drawer. “That’s already an improvement over his brother.”

  A vast improvement. And he had helped her down from the tree and refrained from dismissing her on the spot when he’d learned of her deception. Maybe she’d judged Nicholas Lyon too quickly.

  Frantic footsteps sounded in the hall outside her bedchamber. A moment later, Hildy, the youngest maid, burst through.

  “Come quick,” she said, clutching her chest to catch her breath. “The new duke’s gone mad.”

  “That was fast,” Mina said drily. Hildy did have a tendency to exaggerate. “Where is he?”

  “The study. He’s behaving very strangely, miss.”

  Mina followed Hildy and tried to match her frantic sprint. Halfway down the hall, the young maid failed to notice a bucket left in the hallway.

  “Watch out,” Mina called, catching the girl by the elbow before she hit the freshly mopped floor. “You take care of the bucket. I’ll see to the duke.”

  What Mina couldn’t see were the steps as she descended the stairs. Blasted skirts. They did nothing but keep her from maneuvering as she wished. Wrenching her hem up, she strode quickly toward the duke’s study. Mrs. Darley, the estate’s cook, stood outside the door, knotting her apron in her hands.

  A man’s voice emerged through the half-open door. A deep rumble. Wilder.

  Mina pushed into the room, and her breath tangled in her throat. Wilder shot her a look of desperate uncertainty.

  Nicholas Lyon loomed above both of them, standing atop a Chippendale cherrywood table pushed up against the unlit fireplace. Polished black boots planted wide, he stared down at her, skin glistening with perspiration, eyes aglow. Then he turned his back on her.

  He’d shed clothing since she’d last seen him.

  Don’t stare , she told herself. But her mind cataloged broad thighs, a tight, muscled backside, and a wide back encased in a scarlet waistcoat straining at the seams as he reached above his head.

  “Your Grace?”

  “There will be new rul
es in my dukedom, Thorne.” He unbuttoned the cuffs of his white shirt, rolling up his sleeves to reveal a dusting of black hair over muscled forearms. “First rule. Don’t call me that.”

  “What shall I call you?” Mina cleared her throat. “And what, if I may ask, are you doing?” She glanced at Wilder, who merely shook his head in the same miserable manner he employed when Mrs. Scribb was on a rampage or Mrs. Darnley burned his favorite apple tarts.

  “This”—he pointed at the painting above his head—“needs to come down.”

  The duke lifted off his boot heels and grasped the edges of an elaborate gilt-framed portrait of his mother. Without a moment’s hesitation, he plucked the painting from the hook that had kept it affixed to the wall for decades.

  “We could,” Wilder began in his slow, steady drone, “get a ladder.”

  Whether the duke failed to hear him or was giving in to the stubbornness Mina had already encountered at the oak tree, he ignored Wilder’s suggestion. The portrait came down at a precarious tilt, but his arms were long, his shoulders broad, and he managed to gently maneuver the enormous canvas to the floor.

  “Wilder, see to preparing this for transport back to London.” The duke jumped down with a bone-shaking thud and placed the painting in the old man’s hands. “Take good care of her.”

  Wilder nodded solemnly and then shuffled out, maneuvering the tall frame through the doorway.

  Mina closed the door behind him, shooing off the gaping gaggle of staff who’d assembled in the hall.

  “Your Gra—”

  “Try Mr. Lyon or sir or whatever you damn well please. I could even live with my lord .” Tremayne moved toward his father’s desk, an enormous bulk of dark walnut that Mina always thought looked as if it had been carved from the hull of a Viking ship.

  She expected him to sit and savor the first moment of reclining on the worn leather throne from which his father had ruled Tremayne lands with a merciless fist. Instead, he perched his backside against the front edge, crossed his arms, and watched her expectantly.

  “Mr. Lyon.” She dutifully tested the name on her lips. “I wish to apologize for not being clear in my correspondence with your solicitor.”