Page 67 of Duke It Out
I put a hand to my hair. I brushed it this morning but visiting the cottages with Rory meant I’m probably a bit windswept.
“It’s a look.” She grins, and for a second it feels normal. “Can’t wait to meet the duke properly. He looks pretty hot.”
“I—” I pause, choosing my words carefully.
“Are you worried I might steal him from under your nose?” She gives a little laugh.
I take a breath and try and figure out what to say, while she leans over and checks her lipstick in the mirror.
“Let’s go and find out, shall we?” she says, taking control. “I’ll just grab my scarf.”
Outside in the passageway I hear the familiar deep rumble of Rory’s voice before I see him – something about a problem with the Defender. His tone is clipped, low, annoyed. Then he steps into view at the bottom of the stairs, looking as if someone’s tried and succeeded in messing up his plans.
His shirt sleeves are rolled up, and there’s a smear of oil on his forearm. He’s frowning, and then he looks up and his expression softens as our eyes meet for a brief moment.
“Edie,” he says, “I wanted to have a word if you?—”
His voice cools instantly as Anna comes into sight behind me.
She steps forward with her best charming smile, the kind that’s opened boardroom doors and talked her way into private members’ clubs. “We didn’t meet properly earlier. You must be the famous Rory. Anna. I’ve heard…somuch about you.”
He flicks me a glance so brief you’d miss it if you blinked and hesitates for half a second before shaking her hand, his aristocratic mantle firmly in place. “Welcome.”
Polite. Distant. One eyebrow raised so slightly that if you didn’t know him any better you’d think his face was completely neutral. Something unreadable crosses his expression. I wonder if he thinks I invited her here, that I planned this. I don’t know how to tell him it was the last thing on my mind but now is hardly the time.
“Excuse me,” he says, turning away, “I have a call to make.”
Anna watches him disappear down the hall, then turns to me with a catlike smile. “Jesus,” she says, under her breath. “He’s not exactly warm, is he?”
I stare at the spot where he was standing. “It’s not the first word that springs to mind,” I say, after a moment of thought.
“Fucking hot though. All that buttoned up repression. I bet he’s dynamite in bed.”
I bite down on my tongue and let a very slow breath out through my nostrils before I twist my mouth into an approximation of a smile.
Later, Anna says she wants to have a nap, so I grab the car keys and escape to the stables. There’s something grounding about them – the familiar smell of sweet hay and damp stone and the comforting scent of the horses. I breathe it all in as I walk alongside Kate on the way to check on the mares in the paddock.
Kate glances at me sideways as we walk along in silence. “So, she’s your flatmate?”
“Landlord, flatmate… all in one package.”
“So, you go back a long way.”
I nod. “It’s…”
“Complicated?” Kate lifts the latch of the gate, and I step through ahead of her, watching as the Highland pony mares raise their heads from the grass, checking to make sure everything is safe before returning to the important business of eating. Their wariness makes sense to me. I feel weirdly at sea with Anna here, like two parts of my life that were never meant to connect have somehow got tangled up together.
“Complicated is a good word.”
I can feel her watching me carefully as we stand with the mares, checking them the way she does every afternoon, calmly observing the way they move and interact. To an outsider it might look like Kate was doing nothing, but she doesn’t miss a trick.
“And she’s staying at the big house?”
“In the blue room, no less.”
“Fancy. At least she’s not sharing yours.” Kate laughs.
“Not physically,” I admit. “But she’s one of those friends who sort of narrates your life without asking permission. She’s already decided I’m dying to get back to civilisation and she’ll be telling anyone who’ll listen that’s the case, even though I’ve never actually said it.”
