Page 4 of The Duke's Impossible Deal
“Of course, I will see that it is done.” He bowed to her and moved away from the corridor and down the stairs.
As she turned away from her butler to face Mrs. Brown, Rowen’s eyes fell on a portrait that the wind had torn from the wall. Her late husband’s familiar, charming smile and bright green eyes leered up at her from the floor.
“This is your fault.” She picked up the portrait and glared at it. “You told me that you would give me the world, but all you did was give me pain. You took everything, and you have left me with nothing. And your actions could have killed my children. I hate you!”
She flung the portrait at the wall as hard as she could. The frame splintered, and she strode towards the canvas.
“You were a sniveling, lying, womanizing, arrogant, loathsome cad, and I wish I had never set eyes on you!”
With each word, she brought her foot down hard on the portrait, dashing the canvas and the frame. Her late husband’s fake smile was in tatters.
Her heart still thundering, she turned and walked back to her room to change into something warm and dry. Mrs. Brown followed her, waiting as her lady’s maid helped her change.
“Carl was supposed to provide for me, for our children. I might have been able to cope with his wandering eyes, but then he goes and dies, and I discover that he has left me with nothing but debt and poisoned memories. Curse him and curse all men!” Rowen exclaimed as soon as they had reached the study and she had slammed the door shut. “And men have the gall to act likeIam the one who cannot be trusted with money, simply because I am a woman! I am not the one who squandered our fortune on gambling and women and goodness only knows what else.”
She let out a growl of frustration as she began to pace across the room. “I had finally managed to get everything sorted, and then this happens. It will cost hundreds, if not thousands, to fix, and I simply do not have the money. I should, but I do not, thanks to my good-for-nothing-snake of a dead husband.”
“Could your brother support with the repairs?” Mrs. Brown asked.
“James has already stretched himself to keep us afloat—he cannot send more until he inherits. And my father…” Rowen snorted. “As far as he is concerned, I am a married woman and therefore not his problem.”
Mrs. Brown shrugged. “Most men feel it is a husband’s duty to care for his family.”
“An opinion my late husband clearly did not share.” Rowen ran a hand through her hair distractedly. “If he had, then I would not have spent the last few years trying to give my children more to inherit than a mountain of debt and a crumbling estate. My marriage settlement only covered a third of the debt; the jointure did not even touch it.”
“My Lady, may I be frank?” Mrs. Brown swallowed.
“Please do.” Rowen sighed.
“You have done everything in your power to remedy the wrongs of the late Earl, and if the world were a more just place, then perhaps that would have been enough. Alas, that is not the world we live in.” Mrs. Brown gave her a small, sad smile. “I fear we have reached our limit. The legacy that you are trying so hard to protect is already gone.”
Rowen let out a shaky breath, her eyes drifting across the map of the estate as a heaviness settled over her chest.I have failed.“I will sell?—”
The rest of her sentence was cut off by a commotion at the front door.
“If that is Georgia trying to get outside to see the dratted tree, now that the storm has calmed…”
The last of her composure snapped, and she stormed out of the study and into the corridor.
“Of all the irresponsible, utterly ridiculous things you have done, Georgia Berrymore, this truly takes the cake.” Rowen glowered. “I have half a mind to take you by the ear and teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget!”
“As enjoyable as that sounds, I think I will have to decline,” a voice said as Rowen rounded the corner and found herself looking not at her daughter, but at a very tall, very wet man.
His brown hair was plastered to his head, and his sodden clothes emphasized his muscular physique. His jaw was so sharp, it was like sculpted marble, and a faint white scar ran from his neck to the corner of his left ear. The amusement in his voice did not match the intensity of his green eyes.
The smell of rainwater mingled with a deep, rich scent of cedar and pine. Rowen’s lips parted as he moved towards her, his eyes barely skimming over her with no recollection.
Tobias Rothwell, the Duke of Erindale, moved past her and called over his shoulder, “I need to make sure no one was hurt. I trust the mistress of the house will not mind.”
He did not even recognize me.
Her heart twisted as anger and embarrassment washed over her.
Two
“What on earth do you think you are doing?” a feminine voice called after Tobias as he strode down the corridor of the unfamiliar house.
He could hear footsteps behind him as he made his way towards where he guessed the tree had fallen. His heart beat fast, and he ran a hand down his coat pocket, where an oiled pouch held the letter that had been delivered to him that morning.
