Page 42 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

James was aware of the irony, and that he was sulking. But awareness seemed to make no difference to his mood. He couldn’t bear to see anyone after that shameful public loss. It was all too easy to envision the stares, the titters, the sly enjoyment of men he’d bested in the past. The pity! He would not endure it. His distinguished place in society was based on his athletic prowess, his enviable style, his unflappable manner. Now, with one foolish impulse, he’d destroyed the identity he’d been shaping since he was fifteen years old. He couldn’t see, at this point, what he was to put in its place.

So he stayed quiet in the large, eerie house. He didn’t use lights where they could be seen from the street. He lit no fire in the bedchamber. When twilight fell, he sneaked out a side door with his hat pulled low, swathed in a scarf from his great-uncle’s wardrobe, to buy pies from a nearby shop. The greasy pastry barely sufficed to keep body and soul together. He was increasingly hungry, and the poor diet was upsetting his innards as well. Fortunately, his great-uncle hadn’t interfered with the wine cellar. James had made good use of the dusty bottles there and was not reduced to the water pump in the kitchen.

Perhaps too good a use, he decided as he stared into the mirror on a gray rainy morning. He barely recognized the image staring back at him. There were smudges of dirt on his clothes despite all his care. This place was rife with dust. His scruff of whiskers shadowed his face. His hair stood up in lamentable spikes, and he hadn’t even put on his neckcloth today. The open collar below his stubbled chin demonstrated an utter abandonment of standards. He’d lost the person he had been. He was no longer the Corinthian who’d led society before the prince defeated him.

James turned away from the mirror. He knew this was unacceptable. He had to return to his rooms and take up his life. But he wasn’t ready to do so until he could see what it would be after this.

He left the bedchamber and edged along a corridor nearly filled with detritus. This house made one feel like a serpent, slithering through narrow spaces, bending and twisting around a dusty maze. He navigated the obstacles to the room he’d chosen to begin the work of clearing away. It was the smallest he could find on the ground floor, which had been his sole criteria. A place to begin when isolation and boredom had goaded him into action.

He wedged into the space he’d dealt with so far. He’d found a few things he wanted to keep and taken those to his bedchamber. When he had this space emptied, he would store them here, lest it also fill up around him. Items he wished to be rid of went out a window that opened onto a walled garden. He’d forced a path to the window and thrown it open first thing in a bid to disperse the musty smell.

James confronted the jumbled pile ofthings. What had been in Uncle Percival’s mind as he accumulated all this? How had he not seen the madness?

James reached into the mass and pulled out a large hourglass in a carved wooden frame. Rubbing at the dust covering it, he found that the glass was cracked in several places. The sand had run out. “How very apt,” he told the air. “But I find it difficult to appreciate the humor.” He carried the hourglass to the window and tossed it onto the pile of moth-eaten tapestries he’d thrown down to muffle any noise from his discards.

As he turned back, a thumping sound intruded. Someone was knocking on the front door. He stood still until the rhythm stopped, and then for a few minutes afterward. This had happened once before. Whoever it was could go away.

When he felt certain they had departed, he went back to work, pulling out a burnished case that looked as if it might hold dueling pistols. Those would come in handy if he decided to shoot himself. “Not amusing,” he said aloud to whatever aberrant part of his brain had produced this thought. “Not in the least.”

Opening the case he discovered a set of flint blades that looked very ancient. They were beautifully crafted—a spearhead and several knives. He couldn’t imagine how anyone had made such exquisite leaf-like shapes with primitive tools. He picked one up and sliced a tiny cut in the ball of his thumb. They were incredibly sharp, as effective now as when they were created centuries ago. Carefully, he set the blade back in the case. He would keep these, he decided, though he had no use for them. They were too lovely to discard.

He set the case aside and went to haul out a massive wooden chair. Various small items rained on his head as he pulled. Narrow and probably nine feet tall, the seat had an ornately carved canopy that towered over him. This looked like something a Tudor king would sit in while he ate his way through your stores on a royal visit. It was also riddled with woodworm. Powdery residue darkened his hands. When he yanked again, one arm came loose and fell off, eaten through by the pests. Which made it much easier to chuck the chair out the window onto the pile of fabric.

With the chair gone, the mound of rubbish in the room groaned, tilted, and resettled, fortunately without burying him in a painful avalanche. A skitter of tiny feet told James that the local residents were not pleased by his incursion. “Your days are numbered,” he declared.

“And now you are speaking to mice,” he added. “Splendid.” He reached for the next bit of ducal inheritance.

***

Cecelia felt certain that James was in the town house. She didn’t know why, but she was sure he’d gone there. And whatever she’d told Lady Wilton, she couldn’t resist checking her intuition. She’d come to Tereford House alone, however, in a plain dress and bonnet to avoid servants’ gossip.

She’d pounded on the front door and called out to him, with no result. Unsurprised, she walked around the corner to the mews behind the house. She did not sneak, but she did check to see that no one was watching before she slipped into the narrow cobbled lane.

The house wall turned the corner and extended along it. Cecelia soon came to the stables that served the town house. They were closed up, naturally. She tried the door beside the larger carriage portals, expecting it to be locked, and found that it opened easily under her hand. She stepped inside and came face-to-face with a very thin, worn-looking woman in a threadbare stuff gown.

For a moment, they were equally startled. Cecelia nearly dropped the basket she held over her arm. Then the woman scowled and said, “What do you mean, walking in here without so much as a by-your-leave?”

“I didn’t realize anyone was here,” replied Cecelia.

“Well, we are.”

There was a quiver in the woman’s voice. Several ragged, skinny children peered from behind her skirts. “Did you work for the old duke?” Cecelia asked.

A flash of fear in the woman’s pale-blue eyes told Cecelia that matters were not that simple. “The old man’s dead,” the woman said. “And we ain’t leaving.”

She looked desperately tired. Examining the group more closely, Cecelia concluded that this poor family had somehow discovered the unusual situation and taken advantage of it to move into the empty building. So, despite her bravado, the woman must know that they could be ejected at any time. But it wasn’t Cecelia’s place to do so, even had she wished to. “I don’t care about that,” she said. “I just want to get inside the house.”

“There’s a little door in back,” said one of the children, a boy who looked about ten. “Mostly they forget to lock it.”

“Ned!” exclaimed his mother. She evaded Cecelia’s eyes, making Cecelia wonder if they slipped inside now and then to steal small bits they could sell. No one would ever discover the losses from the old duke’s hoard. In fact, she thought this might be a worthy use for some of it.

“I ain’t gone in since the new fellow come,” said Ned with an air of wounded virtue.

“New fellow?” asked Cecelia.

“Been here a day or so. Came through the front real quiet like. We was thinking he might be…”

“Ned,” repeated his mother.

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