Heartless (13 page)

He still hated the spectacles, however.

“Do you sleep in those?” the duke inquired with a careless gesture in her direction.

“In what, your grace?”

Derringer sighed. “It appears we must have this discussion again. I refuse to be called ‘your grace.’ Choose something else. Even if it’s Lord Heartless, I don’t care. And I was referring to those things on your face.”

“Lord Derringer, you seem to be in an odd temper this evening. I will bid you goodnight and we will talk in the morning.” She turned to leave.

“Just who the devil is the master in this house?”

Leandra turned around and smiled sweetly. “From your tone of voice, I assume the correct answer would be you, my Lord Derringer.” She offered a mocking curtsy as she uttered his name. “But since I am the one who has managed everything in your absence, I would have to honestly reply that I am.”

With a triumphant grin, she darted into her room and slammed the door, turning the key in the lock.

9

The duke searched for Leandra all the next morning. He started with every likely room only to come up empty-handed. He searched through rooms he hadn’t set foot in since he was in short coats and rooms he had never entered his entire life. 

He avoided the second floor stairs. He was unsure why he did this; it was just something he had always done. He never gave it much thought before but now he stopped on the third floor landing and stared down. A feeling of foreboding slithered up his spine and swirled through his mind until he stepped back, the movement jerky and involuntary. The feeling so unnerved him that Derringer turned around and headed for the servants’ stairs at the back of the house.

After looking throughout the entire castle and still finding no sign of his wife, the duke thought she might have taken a horse for a ride about the estate. If she rode. Did she ride?

This question followed him into the Great Hall where he found Stark showing a young footman the particulars on polishing silver. The duke did not recognize the young man and his brow furrowed as he approached.

“Stark, a moment,” he called.

The butler relinquished his rag and polish to the footman and traversed the distance between him and his master. “Yes, your grace?”

“Who the devil is that?” asked Derringer with a nod toward the other servant.

“His name is Thomas, your grace. Her grace hired him during your absence.”

The duke at that moment got a better look at the boy and noticed a patch over his right eye. “What happened to his eye?”

“An accident at one of the factories, your grace.”

“One of mine?”

“No, your grace. One of Lord Harwood’s, I believe.”

“Harwood? Why the devil must that man plague me so?” muttered Derringer with feeling. He shook his head slightly and said, “So her grace hired a man with one eye because…”

“I imagine she felt sorry for him, your grace. As she did with the other twenty or so that she hired.”

Derringer looked at Stark as if he’d lost his head. “Twenty or so— She hired more than just the boy?”

“Yes, your grace.”

Derringer studied his butler for the space of ten seconds. The old man wore his proper wooden expression but there was a stiffness in his bearing that had never been there before. The duke wondered about it.

A pregnant housemaid crossed the hall within the duke’s view. He eyed her in shock and she released a frightened yelp before darting into the relative safety of an antechamber.

“Where is the duchess?” he asked.

Stark looked him in the eye and replied, “I believe her grace is with Mr. St. Clair, your grace.”

“She’s with Martin? What the devil is she doing with Martin?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, your grace.”

“Where are my wife’s guests?”

“The Dowager Lady Harwood and Lady Harwood have not yet risen; Lady Schuster is in her sitting room and Lady Michaella is with her grace and Mr. St. Clair.”

The duke’s stance eased just a fraction. Why did the idea of his wife closeted with his cousin cause him such disquiet? The inordinate amount of relief he felt at the knowledge that Lady Michaella was with them caused him unease of a different sort. He shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t matter. And yet, it did.

As to the other ladies, he was pleased that they had taken his warning in earnest. He really didn’t think he could be civil to them and he very much preferred not to have to try. He decided not to ponder why he thought he’d have to try.

All that aside, he still hadn’t found his wife. And it appeared that Stark, for whatever reason, was unwilling to divulge her exact whereabouts. It had never occurred to Derringer that his staff would switch their loyalties, but it appeared they had. His bride seemed to have won them over and even added to their ranks those who would have more than one reason to feel grateful to the new Duchess of Derringer.

“Where might I find my wife, Stark?” inquired the duke, his swift loss of patience evident in his silky tone.

“In your study, your grace,” replied the butler with what looked suspiciously like a smirk.

Derringer turned to leave but before he walked away, said, “I want to meet every new servant, Stark. Have them assembled here in one hour.”

“But I don’t understand,” insisted Leandra calmly. “If the workers are properly taken care of, they will work more efficiently, will they not?”

“In theory, Merri, in theory,” replied Martin. “But it could also incite rebellion if the workers feel others are being treated better than themselves. Even if the others are not your tenants or employees and simply the workers on the neighboring estate. And with all due respect,” he added evenly, “we really should confer with Hart since he is here. It would be unconscionable to make these decisions without the permission of the landowner.”

“You are right, of course, Martin, but I cannot believe Hart would not want to treat his workers with the kindness and respect they deserve. Mr. Harper needs a new roof. I rode out to see it myself before you arrived and I would have set the workers to it immediately but then you came and many of my plans were halted.” She scowled ever so slightly. “It is most vexing to have to answer to someone when you truly believe you are in the right and your…master, for lack of a better word, may not agree.”

Martin smiled indulgently at her. “Do you ever think of anything that does not pertain to your husband’s tenants or land?”

For some reason, annoyance flared to life at his innocent question. Did he think she shouldn’t worry her pretty little head over matters that were better left to the gentlemen? Did he think she should fret more about her wardrobe, local gossip, and her own consequence?

Probably not, she told herself. Martin had never suggested that she should be an empty-headed widgeon like her brother’s wife. He’d never been anything other than polite, encouraging, and the proper gentleman. Exactly the type of gentleman Leandra had dreamed about in the brief moments she’d allowed herself to dream of marriage and a family.

But even with all the estate problems Leandra had seemed to automatically acquire with her marriage, she still worried over her dress. It had always been in the back of her mind that the duke could return home at any moment and she wanted to prove to him that she had some sense of style even if it was with the help of her maid.

And now he was home and although she wouldn’t admit it even to herself, Leandra was hiding from him. After last night, she was unsure how to act around him and, worse, she was unsure how she felt about him. He was an uncouth lout, to be sure, one who found unusual pleasure in the discomfort of others, but she’d seen evidence of his goodness in the way his servants spoke of him in his absence, the overheard word here and there when the speaker was unaware of her presence. The people who served him admired him, loved him even, though not all of them understood him. Leandra could hardly blame them. She found herself oddly attracted to him even when his unkindness lashed her like a whip. Perhaps it was a weakness in her. Or perhaps she simply believed there was a better person inside him, a better man who made an occasional appearance.

Michaella walked over to the large desk where Leandra sat with Martin on one side. She smiled sweetly. “There will be quite a lovely view from that window”—she pointed in the direction of the window where she had been standing—“in the spring, I think. Which garden is that?”

“That would be the South Gardens, dear,” Leandra told her.

Michaella nodded and turned toward the door. “I think I will go for a walk on the grounds and…” Her voice trailed off as she passed out of their hearing.

Leandra shook her head fondly at her somewhat featherbrained sister. “She is such a sweet young lady, though,” she murmured to herself.

“What was that, Merri?” asked Martin.

She smiled. “It was of little import, Martin. I was merely thinking aloud.”

The blond gentleman studied Leandra for a long moment. She grew a trifle uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny. It seemed to be a St. Clair family trait to stare a person out of countenance.

“I wonder, Merri, if you would care to go for a stroll through the gardens as well. We can follow Lady Michaella and all the proprieties would be observed,” he suggested, much of the intensity fading from his gaze.

“That sounds lovely, Martin. I must run and get my pelisse and then I will join you…?”

“In the Great Hall after I’ve determined exactly where your sister has gone.”

“Very well,” Leandra replied serenely as she rose to her feet. Martin rose as well and waited until she walked out before he slumped back in his chair with a strange frown on his face.