A Duke Changes Everything (The Duke's Den #1) Read online

  “I did see you once, the day you left. I was watching from an upstairs window. I liked to look out on the countryside, until the maids chased me away.”

  “And what did you see?” He cast his gaze across the field, taking in much the same view she loved, though obscured now by nightfall.

  “A dark-haired boy waiting at the carriage circle. A huge black brougham that came to collect you. I remember being grateful my father refused to send me to boarding school. Was it awful?”

  “Where I went that day? You can’t imagine.” His voice dipped low and raw. Even in the dim wash of moonlight, Mina saw bleakness shadow his features. “I saw you too, Miss Thorne. More than once. You were always giggling or dancing or moving about.”

  He assessed her, as if retrieving the memories and comparing them to the woman who stood before him.

  Mina wasn’t used to being looked at. Not like this. Not with curiosity by a handsome man. Especially not when she was wearing nothing but Hessian boots and a dressing gown and his bare chest was inches from her own.

  “You seemed a strange creature to me with your carefree happiness.” He took one step closer. They were toe to toe. His breath warmed her face as he gazed at her. “Do you still enjoy dancing?

  “I’ve no need to. There’s very little cause for an estate steward’s daughter to dance.”

  “That’s very bleak, and yet you persist in caring for this place? Not just as your father’s successor, but because you think this pile of stones means something.”

  “I do.” The two words came out breathy and earnest. Like a plea.

  He simply watched her, but it seemed a small victory that he didn’t offer a scathing retort about Enderley in reply.

  “Go back inside, Miss Thorne. Dawn will be here soon.”

  “You won’t burn anything else?”

  “Not tonight.” He almost smiled. The edge of his lush upper lip edged upward a smidge.

  Mina felt the urge to say more, to extend this fledgling bit of goodwill between them. “Do you not possess any fond memories of Enderley?”

  “My mother,” he said immediately. “She’s my only happy memory of this place.”

  “We put flowers on her grave every season.”

  “What grave?” All the openness in his gaze vanished, replaced by wariness. Anger. “My mother is buried . . . elsewhere.”

  For a moment, Mina stood in stunned silence. “But there was a funeral. There’s a plaque next to your father’s in the family crypt. Why would he tell everyone she’s buried there?”

  “Because he was mad.” He shook his head and stepped away. “I’ll never tell that story. To anyone.” He waved toward the house. “Go to bed, Miss Thorne. There’s much to do tomorrow, and I need to leave this godforsaken place as soon as I can.”

  He stormed off, long legs stretching into an enormous stride as he headed back toward the house.

  Mina remained rooted in place. His anger came on quick as a summer storm. It seemed to pass quickly too. Yet there were also hints of charm and humor.

  Whatever his emotions—rage or irritation or amusement—the new Duke of Tremayne was dreadful at hiding his emotions. They seeped out, glowing as fierce as a furnace fire in his eyes.

  A sound drew her gaze to the field beyond the stable yard. The tree she’d climbed earlier in the day stood out against the indigo sky. And then another outline appeared. A horse approached, its reins dragging on the ground.

  It wasn’t like Tobias to let an animal get out of the stables at night.

  Mina started forward, slowing her pace when the creature began to shy. The stallion was lithe and sleek, not one of the Tremayne workhorses. She knew them all by heart.

  “Where did you come from?”

  The creature stalled, dipping its head to munch grass. Mina tiptoed the rest of the way, holding her breath until her fingers brushed one strip of its leather rein.

  She held her hand low, allowing the horse to take in her scent, giving him time to determine that she intended no harm.

  Then she glimpsed the sheen of his flank in the moonlight. Long dark wounds had been cut into his flesh, and blood trickled down his coat. The stripes were the length and shape of a whip.

  “Who did this to you?” Her throat burned as she ran her fingers into his mane, stroking his velvety neck. “Doesn’t matter. We have a place for you.”

  “Miss?” Tobias came out to meet her when she led the horse into the stable yard.

  “He’s injured. We need to clean him up, give him some supper, and let him know he’s safe.”

  Tobias reached out to stroke the horse’s forelock, but he cast Mina a dubious look. “Who’s he belong to?”

  “We can worry about that tomorrow.”

  “But he belongs to someone, Miss Thorne. Fine piece of horseflesh like this, I’d suspect Lord Lyle.”

  Mina suspected the same, but she wanted nothing to do with Lyles.

  “If he’s Lord Lyle’s, then the viscount or his horse trainer is an ogre.” She couldn’t bear cruelty, especially toward those who were weak and trusting.

  “He’ll want his stallion back.”

  “So he can beat him bloody?”

  Tobias grimaced, nudging his shoulders up in a shrug. “Some take a firm hand to break.”

  “Just help him,” Mina said softly. “We’ll deal with Lord Lyle later. I’ll mix up one of those poultices we used on Mercury when he caught his ankle in the blackberry bramble.”

  The young man nodded grimly. Tobias would do as she asked. He always had. They were nearly the same age and had always got on like siblings. Now her position as steward required him to do as she requested.

  “Mina?” he called when she headed toward the kitchen door. “The duke say anything about us staff keeping our posts?”

  “We can stay. He’s brought no staff with him, so he needs us for now.” She couldn’t bear to tell him the man planned to empty the house down to its bare walls. “I’ll find out more tomorrow and do what I can to secure employment for all of us.”

  Whether it was at Enderley or elsewhere. She wouldn’t let any of them worry about where they’d find their next wages.

  “Is he a good sort?” Tobias gestured with his elbow to the house. “Better than the other two?”

  Mina stared up at the windows of the second floor windows where the guest bedrooms were located, then glanced at the smoldering burn pile. She thought of Nicholas Lyon’s mercurial eyes, the misery whenever he spoke of his father, the pain at mention of his mother, the loathing whenever he referred to Enderley.

  “I’m not sure. What sort of duke he’ll be or how he’ll change Enderley remains to be seen.”

  “Bit of a mystery, then, is he?”

  He was indeed, but for all their sakes, he was a mystery Mina needed to solve.

  Chapter Seven

  “There’s no hope for the new master.” Hildy kneeled on a cracked kitchen tile while she blacked the grates. “He’s worse than the others.” The girl swiped a corn silk curl from her forehead with the back of her arm. “What shall we do about him, Miss Thorne?”

  That was the trouble. There was nothing to be done about him. Enderley was his, and beyond the near impossibility of his solicitor finding a means to break the entail, he could do with the estate as he pleased. She couldn’t stop him if he wanted to pull it apart, as he claimed.

  But she was going to try.

  Late in the night, she’d formulated a plan. The wounded horse was a reminder that loathing Nicholas Lyon would get them nowhere. There was no use fighting his anger with more of the same. Some creatures required a bit of coaxing and kindness to make them trust. Perhaps the duke simply needed a dose of kindness too.

  What if they could show him that Enderley could be a haven from all the muck and bustle of London life?

  “He’s caused nothing but wreckage since he arrived,” Mrs. Scribb complained, all respect due their new master apparently forgotten. “Goodness, how he carries on. Such beastly
manners for a gentleman. Climbing on furniture and removing paintings. If he goes on this way, he’ll have the house down around our ears before long.”

  “A slight exaggeration,” Mina said, praying she sounded the least bit convincing.

  “We could give him a bit o’ bad mutton,” Mrs. Darley suggested. “That’s what a cook friend of mine did until her master could bear it no more and took himself off to London.”

  Mina narrowed her gaze on the cook. She’d never imagined such schemes might be running around the sweet old lady’s head.

  “I fear he’ll return to London soon enough,” Mina told them, though she still hadn’t divulged his plan.

  There was much to do before the house could be rented, and in that time she hoped to convince him of the estate’s value. She had to make him see it differently, not as a burden but as an opportunity.

  Poisoning the man with mutton was not among the tactics she intended to employ.

  “Good riddance to him if he only means to hate us and make our lives miserable.” Tobias popped a hunk of fresh bread in his mouth.

  “Bad mutton could kill a man,” Emma said in a worried version of her usual soft tone. “Old Mr. McKintrick died of bad stew just last summer.”

  “Word is Mrs. McKintrick helped that along.” Tobias smirked around his next bite and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Ever wonder why she kept nightshade growing in her garden?”

  Emma’s cornflower-blue eyes went round as saucers. “Cor, do you think it’s true?”

  “We’re not poisoning him!” Mina’s shout startled her as much as everyone else, and she worked to calm the nervous energy born from too little sleep and too much fretting. “Not with food or anything else. We should be treating him better than he expects.”

  From what she could tell, Nicholas Lyon was a man who anticipated the worst. Of Enderley, and perhaps of people too. Why not defy his expectations? Surely he could be brought around to seeing value in the estate, its staff, and the tenants.

  “We should welcome him.” Mina sought out Hildy’s wide-eyed gaze. “Which will mean not shrieking when we encounter him in the halls.”

  The girl tipped her head down and gave a sheepish nod.

  “’Tis not her fault he looks a fright,” Tobias said defensively.

  “Looks all right to me,” Emma murmured. “Striking, I’d say, with that dark hair and pale eyes.”

  “The broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen. Never known a man to fill a suit as he does,” Mrs. Scribb admitted with a sniff. “Cuts an imposing figure, our master.”

  “I could sharpen my knife on the edge of his cheekbones.” Mrs. Darley’s voice carried from across the room.

  “His mouth—” Mina caught herself. Some instinct kept her from complete mortification, because none of her thoughts about Nicholas Lyon’s mouth were ladylike or proper. “It’s quite well made.”

  Hildy giggled. “I do think he has pretty lips, that I’ll admit.”

  “My hair’s dark.” Tobias planted his chin on his fist and glanced miserably at Emma.

  Mina tried steering them back to the topic at hand. “If the man has a dim view of Enderley, let’s show him otherwise.”

  “How?” Mrs. Darley called from the table where she stood peeling vegetables. “Repairs are needed, more staff, and a good deal more in the kitchen budget if we’re to fill the larders and feed him as a duke ought to be fed.”

  Adding more funds to the household budget was on the list of all Mina intended to ask of the new duke, but first she had to earn the man’s trust. “I intend to speak to him about our concerns, Mrs. Darley.”

  “Whether we treat him like a king or a foe, he’s master now.” Mrs. Scribb adjusted the collection of keys at her hip and nodded as if she’d decided on a course of action. “We’ll endure him as we have all the others. I’ve outlived two dukes. Wonder how long this one will last.”

  “Hope he goes quicker than his brother,” Tobias grumbled. When Emma gasped, he managed a brief expression of contrition. “I only meant to London. ’Spect he wants to go back to his gambling club. Word is it’s quite grand.”

  “We shouldn’t wish him away just yet,” Mina insisted. When he went back to the city, he’d be even less inclined to consider Enderley. “We need to keep him here as long as we can. We need him to invest in the estate if it’s to survive.”

  “Not to mention the list of villagers who’ll want to see him and come with their complaints,” Mrs. Scribb said knowingly. Despite how much time she spent doing her duties as housekeeper with diligence, she seemed to know everyone in Barrowmere and every bit gossip that festered in the village.

  “Perhaps we should hold them off awhile.” Wilder, who’d sat listening quietly, stood, gnarled hands gripping the back of his chair. “Let him get used to the place again before we heap on other troubles.”

  “A very good idea.” Mina nodded in agreement.

  There were so many troubles. She knew each one as if the list in her office had been etched in her mind. And more always came. That was the one certainty about her work as steward. Trouble might be as small as a broken tile or as a large as a wounded horse, but dilemmas popped up at the estate every day.

  “In that case,” Emma said, picking up a tray filled with covered dishes, “I should take his breakfast up to him.”

  Mina glanced at the watch pinned to the gown she’d donned instead of her comfortable well-worn shirt. “Did we not send it up yet?”

  “Told her to wait,” Mrs. Scribb said as she headed toward the small anteroom she used as an office. “Expected him to ring like his father used to do.”

  “I don’t think we can expect him to behave like his father. Or his brother. He may have been born here, but he’s been away for two decades.”

  “He was never reared to take the title.” Wilder squared his tall, thin frame and cleared his throat. “Perhaps it’s up to us to show him the way.”

  Mina smiled at the older man who’d become as dear to her as her own father. He was a voice of reason when she sorely needed one. “He respects you, Wilder. Will you help me?”

  “Of course I will.” He cast a bemused glance around at the other staff members. “And help ensure that none of the others poison him.” He shot a knowing wink at Mrs. Darley. “The duchess, God rest her, once charged me with protecting that young man as if he were my own. I’ve no quibble with seeing to what’s best for him now.”

  Mina looked at Wilder, wondering what he knew about the child who’d become a seemingly intractable man. If Wilder was convinced the new duke could grow into his role, then she felt hopeful too. She’d have to ask him more about Nicholas Lyon’s short history at Enderley.

  A few minutes later, the clatter of metal and porcelain drew Mina’s gaze. Emma nearly lost her grip on the full breakfast tray before setting it on the kitchen table.

  “He didn’t want his breakfast?”

  “It’s not that he didn’t want it, miss. The duke has left.”

  Mina glanced at Wilder again.

  “He must be here,” he said with reassuring certainty. “Tobias would have been called to equip the carriage. We would have heard him depart. Are his clothes still in his room?”

  Emma blushed as if the notion of examining a man’s wardrobe was nothing short of scandalous. “Didn’t check, Mr. Wilder, but the bed’s made. Perhaps he rose very early or went out last evening.”

  Mina frowned. When she’d last seen him, he’d been striding back toward the house. Where might he have detoured? “Perhaps he’s in the breakfast room. Emma, you look about upstairs, and I’ll head to the dining room. Tobias, check the stables.”

  Mina’s heartbeat hitched as she searched.

  He wasn’t in the dining room, or the morning room, or any of the sitting rooms nearby. She poked her head into the library, one of her favorite rooms, but it was empty too.

  “Mr. Lyon? Your Grace?” She still wasn’t sure exactly what to call the man.

  She’d never met
anyone who hated a place as he hated her home. He seemed to reserve a special wrath for the study, and some instinct led her there. But the room was just as it had been last night. A mess. The window sash still stood open and she crossed the room to close it.

  Where would a miserable duke go?

  She noted that the door across the hall was crooked open. The door that led to estate steward’s office. Her office.

  Surely he wouldn’t go there.

  She nudged the door with the toe of her boot, holding on to the frame to avoid the squeak in the hinges, and found a sleeping giant sprawled on the sofa where she’d once played and read and done her lessons while her father worked.

  The duke overwhelmed the lumpy piece of furniture, his body weighing down the cushions, long legs stretched out in front of him. His clothes weren’t the same he’d worn the day before. Apparently he’d risen, washed, and dressed on his own before coming down to speak to her. And then dozed off.

  With his head tilted back against the cushions, the unscarred side of his face was turned toward the window. A shaft of morning light gilded his skin, highlighting the high cut of his cheeks, the broad swell of his mouth.

  He was a beautiful man. Achingly so. The kind of face she would have drawn if she possessed an ounce of talent.

  She took one step closer and studied him. Of all the paintings and sculptures of Roman generals and Greek gods she’d seen in books, none had this man’s appeal. Perhaps because his face was imperfect and the rest of him seemed to push past the bounds of what one expected. He was taller, broader, longer-limbed. A man of contrasts and excesses.

  “You’ve found him, miss,” Emma whispered over Mina’s shoulder.

  “Perhaps you should bring that breakfast tray here. Or at least some tea.” She made her way quietly into the room, though she wasn’t sure why she took such care. She had to wake him, yet part of her envied him. She’d gotten only an hour or so of sleep herself and would have loved to curl up on the sofa for a doze.

  “Your Grace.” A little louder, she tried, “Mr. Lyon.”

  Ink-black lashes flickered up, and she found herself staring into his blue and green gaze. He blinked. For a moment he looked frightened. Young. Vulnerable. “What the hell are you doing here?”