Page 5 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

“Oh no.”

Cecelia opened the sheet and read. “She seems to have misplaced an earl.”

“What?”

“A long-lost heir has gone missing.”

“Who? No, never mind. I don’t care.” The enormity of the task facing him descended on James, looming like the piles of objects leaning over his head. He looked up. One wrong move, and all that would fall about his ears. He wanted none of it.

A flicker of movement diverted him. A rat had emerged from a crevice between a gilded chair leg and a hideous outsized vase. The creature stared down at him, insolent, seeming to know that it was well out of reach. “Wonderful,” murmured James.

Cecelia looked up. “What?”

He started to point out the animal, to make her jump, then bit back the words as an idea recurred. He, and her father, had taken advantage of her energetic capabilities over the years. He knew it. He was fairly certain she knew it. Her father had probably never noticed. But Cecelia hadn’t minded. She’d said once that the things she’d learned and done had given her a more interesting life than most young ladies were allowed. Might his current plight not intrigue her? So instead of mentioning the rodent, he offered his most charming smile. “Perhaps you would like to have that basket,” he suggested. “It must be full of compelling stories.”

Her blue eyes glinted as if she understood exactly what he was up to. “No, James. This mare’s nest is all yours. I think, actually, that you deserve it.”

“How can you say so?”

“It is like those old Greek stories, where the thing one tries hardest to avoid fatefully descends.”

“Thing?” said James, gazing at the looming piles ofthings.

“You loathe organizational tasks. And this one is monumental.”

“You have always been the most annoying girl,” said James.

“Oh, I shall enjoy watching you dig out.” Cecelia turned away. “My curiosity is satisfied. I’ll be on my way.”

“It isn’t like you to avoid work.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Yourwork. And as you’ve pointed out, our…collaboration ended three years ago. We will call this visit a final farewell to those days.”

She edged her way out, leaving James in his wreck of an inheritance. He was conscious of a sharp pang of regret. He put it down to resentment over her refusal to help him.

***

Thinking of James’s plight as she sat in her drawing room later that day, Cecelia couldn’t help smiling. James liked order, and he didn’t care for hard work. That house really did seem like fate descending on him like a striking hawk. Was it what he deserved? It was certainly amusing.

She became conscious of an impulse, like a nagging itch, to set things in order. The letters, in particular, tugged at her. She couldn’t help wondering about the people who had written and their troubles. But she resisted. Her long association with James was over. There were reasons to keep her distance. She’d given in to curiosity today, but that must be the end.

“Tereford will manage,” she said, ostensibly to the other occupant of the drawing room, but mostly to herself.

“Mmm,” replied her aunt, Miss Valeria Vainsmede.

Cecelia had told her the story of the jumbled town house, but as usual her supposed chaperone had scarcely listened. Like Cecelia’s father, her Aunt Valeria cared for nothing outside her own chosen sphere. “I sometimes wonder about my grandparents,” Cecelia murmured. These Vainsmede progenitors, who had died before she was born, had produced a pair of plump, blond offspring with almost no interest in other people.

“You wouldn’t have liked them,” replied Aunt Valeria. One never knew when she would pick up on a remark and respond, sometimes after hours of silence. It was disconcerting. She was bent over a small pasteboard box. It undoubtedly contained a bee, because nothing else would hold her attention so completely. A notebook, quill, and inkpot sat beside it.

“You think not?” asked Cecelia.

“No one did.”

“Why?”

“They were not likable,” said her aunt.

“In what way?”

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