Page 20 of The Texan Duke
She sat back in the chair, folded her hands, and stared at him as if he had grown two heads.
He’d seen a two-headed goat once and almost told her about it but then decided it probably wasn’t the subject for breakfast conversation. He didn’t want to scare her off or send her fleeing from the family dining room.
Thankfully, there was a roaring fire warming the space. The wallpaper was an emerald green and the upholstery on the chairs around the rectangular table was plaid, the same pattern his aunt and cousins had worn the night before. For some reason, he couldn’t quite see the family dining here. The room needed to be larger, almost a baronial setting, with lots and lots of gilt and paintings on the ceiling.
Too bad he hadn’t brought his dress uniform, the one he’d only worn twice. The first time he’d been marching off to war. The second time he’d been coming back from it. It was a little worse for wear but had shiny epaulets and silver buttons and he looked mighty fine in it. Of course, he couldn’t wear his hat or boots so that diminished it a bit. And there was some blood on the right leg. He didn’t even want to remember how that had happened.
“Will your wife be joining you, Your Grace?”
“I’m not married.”
She glanced at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Nor am I a widower.”
She looked as if she wanted to ask another question, that it trembled on her lips. He bit back his smile and asked his own.
“And you, Elsbeth?”
“Am I married?” She looked startled by the question. “No, Your Grace, I’m not.”
“No suitor in the wings? No beau waiting to take you away from Bealadair?”
“No.”
“Why is that?”
She only blinked at him in response.
A moment later, he asked another question, one less troubling to her. “How many rooms are there at Bealadair?” he asked.
“One hundred eighty-nine,” she said.
“That’s a great many rooms,” he said, startled. “I’ve never heard of a house having that many rooms. I certainly never considered that I would own one.”
“Well, if you didn’t, your father certainly did.”
He looked at her. She didn’t glance away.
“What do you mean?”
“The name of your ranch. XIV. Isn’t that fourteen in Roman numerals? You’re the fourteenth duke.”
“That’s just a coincidence,” he said, even though he’d wondered more than once if it was, ever since Glassey had shown up. “It does mean fourteen, but that’s not the reason it was named that. My father and Sam tried to find a brand that couldn’t be altered, something that would foil any cattle rustlers.”
“What’s a cattle rustler?”
“A thief,” he said. “Somebody who wants something of mine.”
“There’s an old Scottish expression,” she said. “‘They wha begin stealing pins and needles go on to steal cattle.’ Although I can’t imagine anyone trying to steal our cattle. Poachers, now, that’s a different story. Our deer population is smaller than it has ever been, so we try to protect them. How do you catch a rustler?”
“By not making it possible for them to steal from me,” he said. “If they’re foolish enough to try, we follow their trail.”
“What do you do when you find them?”
Perhaps it would be better if he didn’t go into that aspect of XIV Ranch justice. He might shock her further and that was the last thing he wanted to do.
He was grateful for all those cotillion lessons his mother had insisted upon, and all the times he’d been forced to escort one sister or another somewhere. He could be a gentleman when he needed to be.
