A Duke Changes Everything (The Duke's Den #1) Page 5

  “I hate deception, Thorne.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But I can understand seeing an opportunity and seizing it.”

  “You don’t understand.” He made her sound like one of the card sharps who played at his gambling tables. Mina’s hands balled at her sides. “I view my father’s post as a duty, not an opportunity.”

  “None of the staff here owe me or my family a lifetime of employment. There are always others seeking employment.”

  “Others without loyalty to Enderley.” Mina gritted her teeth. Emma had been wrong to hope the new duke would be better. She was beginning to think he was worse.

  “Ah, loyalty.” The man had the audacity to chuckle, a low, resonant sound that echoed in the spacious room.

  Was he laughing at her? For caring about his family home. For trying her best to step into her father’s shoes and keep his brother from bankrupting Enderley. But it was clear he wasn’t. His gaze took on a faraway look, and any mirth he felt was quickly replaced with a creased-brow frown of unease.

  “My only loyalty, Miss Thorne, is to my business.”

  “Is Enderley not your business now?” Her father thought of the estate that way, not as some collection of ancestral acres but as a living, breathing enterprise that took in the work of the staff and tenants and, in return, gave back a good living for everyone, including the Lyon family.

  “Enderley is my burden.” He shifted his shoulders like he felt the weight of his inheritance clinging to his back. “So they’re a loyal lot.” He waved toward the doorway, as if fully aware there were half a dozen ears pressed to the other side of the wood. “I know Wilder and have memories of Mrs. Squibb, but I’m unfamiliar with the new staff.” With one sweeping glance, he took her in from the hem of her skirt to the fringe of hair across her forehead. “Like you.”

  “I hardly consider myself new. I’ve lived here my whole life.”

  “Why did you stay?” He studied her intently, as if her answer mattered.

  “I never seriously considered leaving.” It was what she knew she should say, but her cheeks began to warm the moment the words were out. She had considered leaving but never taken a single step toward independence. Mostly childish fancies, and that one single moment of romantic folly that had ended in disaster. “I never wish to leave Enderley.”

  He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You still distrust me, Mr. Lyon?” Mina huffed out a sigh. She needed to earn his trust. “As long as my father was here, I couldn’t truly imagine living anywhere else.”

  He looked around, lifting his arms to encompass the room, the whole estate. “He’s not here anymore, and yet you are.”

  “Enderley is my home. Wilder and Mrs. Scribb are like family to me.” Mina felt heat creeping up her neck.

  She’d revealed too much. Duty was only part of why she stayed. The rest of what rooted her at Enderley was a tangle of sentiment and what she hated admitting most. Where would she go? What would she be if she left Enderley? There was guilt too, for even thinking of abandoning the estate her father loved so much.

  “I don’t consider staying a burden.” She winced, knowing she shouldn’t have thrown the word back at him. “But if you feel you cannot trust me or wish for another steward”—Mina fought to keep her chin up, back straight, as all the morning’s anxiety rushed in—“that is, of course, your prerogative.”

  “Keep your post, Thorne.” He pushed off the edge of the desk and stepped closer. “I do consider this estate a burden, and I’d like your help managing it.”

  “I would be pleased to, Your Grace. Er, Mr. Lyon. There is much to be done.” Mina swallowed against a knot in her throat.

  His eyes widened a bit, as if her enthusiasm surprised him.

  Relief. A sweet, heady balm rushed through her veins. She could keep her position. “And the other staff? None will be dismissed?”

  “I didn’t say that.” The hint of a smile that flickered near the duke’s mouth faded. “I have other plans for the estate.”

  Chapter Five

  Ah, the gold sparks again.

  Miss Thorne’s eyes flared with irritation. The lady went from the thin edge of insolence to absolute fury faster than any woman Nick had ever known.

  But he didn’t mind. He had some experience with beautiful women. With claiming a dukedom, he had none. Looking at her, focusing on her flushed cheeks and clenched jaw, Nick could almost forget where he was. He could almost keep all he loathed about Enderley at bay.

  Not just the title he never wanted and duties he had no idea how to embrace, but being in the room where he’d withstood his father’s cruelty for years. The man’s vicious condemnations had thundered to the ceiling, and the sting of his lash had drawn Nick’s blood countless times. Glancing down at the carpet, Nick traced the familiar vine pattern. His father always bid him to avert his gaze, unable to bear his cursed eyes.

  Nick lifted his head, pushed the ugly memories away, and focused on his very unexpected steward. Though she looked as angry as she had at the oak tree, everything else had changed. He tried, and failed, not to notice what her dress accentuated that her men’s clothing hid. Oddly, he rather missed the sight of her in trousers and a waistcoat. Not to mention the tangled waves of chestnut hair that were now imprisoned under pins.

  Yet even in the plainest drab brown dress he’d ever seen, Miss Thorne was unaccountably appealing. Especially her fierce amber gaze and cheeks that heated whenever he irked her.

  “Whatever your plans, Your Grace, the staff need to know.” She inhaled sharply. “Should they begin seeking new posts? Many were dismissed over the last few years. I understand the need to economize, but I assure you all of those remaining are essential.” She lifted a hand and fussed with her collar, waiting for him to respond. When he didn’t, she added, “I could forgo my own wages for a time, if—”

  “That won’t be necessary, Miss Thorne.” Nick swallowed down a chuckle.

  She was earnest and determined. Demanding, for one supposedly in his employ. Why the hell did he find her tenacity so bloody amusing? The lady had installed herself as estate steward and deceived his solicitor, aided and abetted by a staff who she claimed were loyal to him.

  The worst part was that he couldn’t blame her. Claim a bit of power for oneself? That he understood. And untruths? He’d lost count of the lies he’d told to save himself from hunger.

  “May I have your assurance, then?”

  He snapped his head up. “My assurance?”

  “That the other staff won’t be dismissed and that I may keep my post as steward. Most dukes wouldn’t approve of a woman serving in such a role.”

  “My brother did, apparently.”

  She bowed her head. “The late duke was absent from the estate a good deal and resided mostly at Tremayne House in Belgrave Square.”

  “Ah, yes.” A property that, blessedly, was not entailed. Nick had already hired a crew to clean and refurbish the elegant townhouse to go on the market. “He must have returned now and then. When he did, he couldn’t have failed to notice that you weren’t your father.”

  Everything about the woman was noticeable. She had a vivid bristling energy about her that filled up his father’s dimly lit study.

  “I’m not sure he thought about who ran the estate, as long as the work got done.”

  Nick remembered his brother’s laziness well. Eustace had never been interested in duty. Only play, diversion, and avoiding the responsibilities their father heaped on him. Poor, useless sod.

  “How did he die?” He wasn’t sure why he was asking. Wasn’t sure if he truly cared about any Tremayne history that had passed since he’d departed.

  But this woman cared enough for both of them. He could hear devotion in her voice when she spoke of Enderley. He could see the pride in her eyes when she swiped a bit of dust off the edge of a lampshade as she passed.

  For whatever reason, she loved this accursed place.

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nbsp; “An injury, my lord. He fell and never recovered.” Miss Thorne swallowed like she was parched, as if the memory disturbed her.

  “Fell?” The solicitor’s letter had been vague, but Nick had always imagined Eustace’s end involved women or drink or some argument over one of his vices.

  “From his horse.”

  “Here at Enderley?”

  She bobbed her head, and Nick kept his gaze on her as long as he could while he crossed to the cart on the far side of the room. He poured her a finger of what smelled like sherry and approached to hand her the tiny cut crystal glass.

  “No, thank you.” She wouldn’t look at him. Wouldn’t even turn her head an inch, though he stood less than a foot away.

  “You’re shivering, Miss Thorne.” Nick got a few inches closer and caught her scent. Flowers, peonies, and hyacinth, sweet and fresh, blotted out the room’s old smells and dark memories.

  “There’s always a chill in this room.” She gestured toward the fireplace. “I can ring for a maid to light a fire.”

  “I don’t plan to spend any more time in here than I must.” He positioned himself in front of her, giving her space to breathe, and offered the glass again. “This will warm you.”

  Her eyes flickered closed. From the tension in her jaw, he guessed she was biting her tongue. Eventually she took the glass, tipped it back, and swallowed the contents in a single gulp.

  “Thank you,” she said hoarsely.

  “So, Miss Thorne, it seems I inherited a dukedom, and you inherited your father’s post as steward.”

  He’d meant to state facts, simple truths, and yet the lady bristled.

  “I have a knack for organizing and ensuring tasks get done.” She straightened her back, rising half an inch. “My father taught me all he knew about the duties of an estate steward, and he always said I possessed a natural talent for numbers.”

  “Did he? And yet I’ve already discovered a flaw in your calculations.”

  “What flaw?”

  Nick slid one of the massive account ledger books he’d found on his father’s desk toward the edge, flipping the pages open to a grosgrain marker that had been placed near a row of recent entries. He planted his finger in the middle of the column. “There.”

  She came closer. Her heels clipped hard against the wood floor, and Nick wondered if she was still wearing Hessians under her skirt. Bending at the waist, she peered at the page, tilting her head this way and that. Then her eyes slid closed, as his did when calculating a large sum in his head.

  A sharp little intake of breath sounded in the room before she opened her eyes. “You’re right. I made an error.”

  She sounded so bereft, Nick had a momentary impulse to comfort her. He hated making mistakes in his calculations too.

  “We all make errors, Miss Thorne.” He leaned closer. “As you see, it was easily corrected.”

  “But if I made one, perhaps there are others.”

  “There aren’t. I checked.”

  “All the entries? That’s impossible. There are months’ worth of transactions.”

  “You needn’t sound so impressed. I’ve been stuck in this blasted house for an hour.” Nick noted that her brows leaned toward each other, two pretty arches, as she frowned at him. Something about her scrutiny unsettled him, and he felt that odd little charge of awareness she seemed to spark.

  He was surprised to find they had anything in common.

  “I like numbers,” he told her. “One might even say I have a natural talent . And I’m a very thorough man.”

  Miss Thorne gasped in shock.

  Nick cursed himself for infusing the words with more seductive intent than he should have. And for being far more intrigued with the woman than he should have been.

  She approached the fireplace mantel and nervously rearranged the knickknacks on top so that the porcelain milkmaid and a little marble goddess were equidistant from a hideous ormolu clock. Nick mentally calculated how much each item might fetch at auction.

  “The wall looks bare without the duchess’s portrait,” she said, glancing up at the empty patch of plaster. “The room feels far colder now.”

  “It’s always been frigid. But you’re right. The space is empty without her.” The wall was still cluttered with small paintings, landscapes mostly, and the single dominating portrait of the man Nick would always think of as the Duke of Tremayne.

  “She had kind eyes.” Miss Thorne spoke softly and then turned back to face him.

  No one needed to tell Nick his eyes weren’t kind. Most saw them as an outward sign of his blighted nature. But his mother pointed to their shape as proof of his parentage. She’d often led him to a looking glass as a child, pointing out how much he resembled like his father.

  She’d done her best to reassure him he wasn’t a bastard, but Nick only noticed his own strange unmatched eyes looking back at him and, after one of his father’s attacks, the scar marring his face.

  “What else do you remember about her?” Nick pushed the past away with such ferocity, he sometimes feared he was losing every memory of his mother. He couldn’t bear to recall the time they’d spent together after leaving Enderley, a time of poverty and fear in France. They’d been free of his father’s cruelty, but illness had taken her from Nick too soon. He wanted to remember the best of her.

  “Not much, I’m afraid. I only met the duchess a few times when I was a child. My father did not like me to disturb them.”

  “And my father? What do you remember of him?” He forced himself to ask the question, pretending that speaking of the man didn’t cause his stomach to burn with bile.

  “He . . . did not like me.” Miss Thorne shivered, clearly recalling some unpleasant encounter.

  “What did you do to provoke him?” He quite liked imagining her snapping back at the ogre. But what would his father have done in response? The duke had never tolerated any inkling of rebellion.

  “A music lesson.” She lowered her gaze to the ground and her forehead tightened into grooves of worry. “Your mother caught me plucking at one of the harps in her music room. She wasn’t angry. She encouraged me to learn and arranged for the governess to give me lessons, but the duke was livid when he found out. I was only the steward’s girl, and the governess was hired to teach your brother. The duke shouted at me and banished me from his sight.” She shook her head as if attempting to erase the memory. “I don’t think he approved of me being underfoot around the estate.”

  “Then we have something else in common, Miss Thorne.”

  She exhaled sharply, as if she’d been holding a breath, and offered him the slightest hint of a grin.

  That one little sliver of kindness and Nick’s body tightened. He resisted the instinct to lean closer. He hated how much he wanted her grin to bloom. For some inexplicable reason, he craved approval from this woman.

  But her grin faded and Miss Thorne gazed at him with the same mix of wariness and loathing as when she’d stepped down from the old oak. As if she’d never forget what he tried so hard to forget—that he would always be his father’s son.

  In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to send the woman and every other staff member at Enderley packing. He could hire new servants and sweep away everything from this wretched place’s past.

  But it wasn’t efficient. Securing new employees would take time. He wanted to flee these stones, not lengthen his stay.

  “You needn’t worry.” Nick stepped back and settled against his father’s desk, arms braced across his chest. “I have no intention of dismissing you.”

  The tightness in her jaw softened. “And the rest of the staff?”

  “They can stay too. For now.” What the hell was wrong with him? A quarter hour’s resistance from Miss Thorne and he was already conceding. “Though the young maid may have to go.”

  “Hildy?”

  “She screamed when she got a look at me. I don’t blame her, of course, but she might be happier somewhere else.” He didn’t relish the c
hild’s shrieks every time he encountered her in the hall.

  “She’s just a girl.” Miss Thorne scanned his face. Nick assumed she sympathized with the young housemaid’s response to him, at least until her gaze fell to his lips and her breath seemed to catch in her throat.

  It was almost as if the odd creature found something to admire in the shape of his mouth.

  “A skittish girl,” he said.

  Miss Thorne blinked and squared her shoulders. “One who relies on her position at Enderley. Allow me to speak to her before you dismiss her?”

  “What will you tell her? That I’m not the ogre I seem to be?”

  She began to speak and then pressed her lips together, as if thinking better of whatever retort sat on the tip of her tongue.

  “Say it,” he urged quietly, because apparently the one thing that had been missing from his life was a woman who couldn’t decide whether or not she loathed him.

  “Whether you’re an ogre or not remains to be seen, Mr. Lyon.”

  Nick grimaced. “Keep the jittery little housemaid, Miss Thorne. I’m sure she’ll get used to this.” He gestured vaguely at his face.

  “Thank you.” Her voice went breathy, uncertain. The first real crack he’d seen in her no-nonsense manner.

  Nick swallowed against a lump of unease. He moved behind his father’s desk. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled out the old devil’s chair and sat on the cold, stiff leather.

  She stood in front of him, tense and expectant, as if awaiting her first instructions as his steward.

  “The fact is, I need you, Thorne.” To get out in a fortnight, he’d need her efficiency most of all. “I’ll be relying on your knowledge of the estate and leadership with the staff.”

  “I’ll serve you as diligently as my father served yours.”

  Nick narrowed his gaze. “Our relationship will be different than theirs.” He leaned forward, flattening his palms on top of his father’s desk. Now his desk. “You’re going to help me get the estate in order.”

  “Yes, of course.” Her eyes lit as if he’d just offered her the moon. “I have a list. I can’t tell you how glad the staff are to have you in residence, to direct them and see to all that needs doing.”