“Utterly splendid to have you here, ladies,” he said, tucking a blushing Catriona’s hand into the crook of his one arm and Aunty Greenfield’s into the other as he led them up the stairs. “The gentlemen have eagerly awaited your arrival.”
The entrance hall of Claremont rose three dizzying stories high beneath a domed glass ceiling. Statues adorned the balustrades of the upper floors. The marble slabs on the floor were arranged in black and white squares like a giant chessboard. Apt, for a man known as one of the queen’s favorite strategists.
Annabelle took a deep breath and straightened her spine. All perfectly normal. She would make it through a weekend here. She knew how to pick up her knives and forks in the right order and how to curtsy to whom. She was proficient in French, Latin, and Greek; could sing and play the piano; and could converse about the history of Orient and Occident. Her antiquity-mad father and her maternal great-grandmother had seen to that; with Gallic determination, her petite grand-mère had passed on Bourbon etiquette to her descendants all the way to the vicarage. It had made Annabelle an oddity in Kent, awfully overeducated, as she had told Hattie. Who knew that it would now help her to avoid the worst pitfalls in a ducal palace?
Lord Devereux led them to a cluster of servants at the bottom of the grand staircase.
“We are about to be snowed in,” he said, “so I suggest we go for a ride around the gardens within the hour.”
Catriona and Hattie were enthusiastic about this plan, but then, they knew how to ride. Annabelle’s experience was limited to sitting astride the old plow horse, which hardly qualified her for thoroughbreds and sidesaddles.
“I will pass,” she said. “I’m of a mind to work on my translation.”
“Of course,” Peregrin said blandly. “Jeanne here will show you your room. Don’t hesitate to ask if you need something; anything you fancy, desire, want, it will be given.”
“I shall be careful what I wish for around here, then,” she said.
He grinned a by-now-familiar grin.
“Devereuuuuux.”
The inebriated bellow reverberated off the walls, and the smile slid off Peregrin’s face quick smart. “Eh. Do excuse me, miss. Ladies. It seems the gents have found the brandy.”
The four-poster bed in her guest chamber was almost indecently lush: oversized, the emerald green velvet drapes thick as moss, with a heap of silk cushions in brilliant jewel colors. She could not wait to stretch out on the soft, clean mattress.
Two stories below the tall windows was the courtyard, at its center a dry fountain circled by rigorously pruned yew trees. A vast snowy parkland that Peregrin called the garden rolled into the distance.
“Anything else, miss?”
Jeanne the maid stood waiting, her hands neatly folded in her apron.
It seemed all the splendor was going fast to her head. Why work at her translation here, when there were another two hundred rooms?
She reached for Thucydides and a notebook. “Could you please show me the library?”
“Certainly, miss. Which one?”
More than one library? “Why, the prettiest one.”
Jeanne nodded as if that were a most reasonable request. “Follow me, miss.”
The library was tucked away behind an arched oak door that groaned as it swung open. Through a wide stained-glass window opposite, between the two rows of dark wooden shelves, light poured in as if divided from a prism. A path of oriental rugs led to a crackling fireplace near the window, where a wing chair was waiting like a ready embrace.
Annabelle took an unsteady step over the threshold. There was an eerie tug of recognition as she surveyed the room, as if someone had peeked into her mind to see how she imagined the perfect library and had put it into stone and timber.
“It’s pretty with the ceiling like this, isn’t it, miss?”
Annabelle tilted back her head. The vaulted ceiling was painted a rich midnight blue and glimmered faintly with all the stars of a moonless night.
“It’s beautiful.” In fact . . . she was looking at a painstaking portrayal of the real sky, the winter sky, if she wasn’t mistaken.
“’Tis real gold,” Jeanne said proudly. “Just ring if you need anything, miss.”
The door clicked softly shut behind her.
Quiet. It was so quiet here. If she held her breath, she’d hear the dust dance.
She wandered toward the fire, her fingertips trailing over leather-bound spines, the smooth curve of a globe, polished ebony wood. Textures of wealth and comfort.
The armchair was a solid, masculine thing. A padded footstool was positioned to accommodate long legs toward the grate, and a small table stood within convenient reach. The faintest hint of tobacco smoke lingered.
She hovered. It would be bold, using the chair of the master of the house.
But the master was not home.
She sank into the vast upholstery with a groan of delight.
She’d open the book in a minute. She hadn’t sat down and done nothing in . . . years.
The lovely warmth from the fire began seeping into her skin. Her half-lidded gaze traced the stained-glass vignettes in the window—mystical birds and flowers, intricately entwined. Beyond, snowflakes spiraled silently, endlessly. The fire popped, softly, softly . . .
She woke with a start. There was a presence, close and looming. Her eyes snapped open, and her heart slammed against her ribs. A man stood over her. She was staring at his chest. Her pulse thudded in her ears as she forced her eyes up, and up. A black, silken cravat, perfect knotting. A stiff white collar. The hard curve of a jaw.
She already knew who he was. Still. Her stomach plunged when she finally met the pale gaze of the Duke of Montgomery.
Chapter 7
His eyes widened a fraction, and then his pupils sharpened to pinpoints.
The fine hairs on her body stood like fur on a hissing cat.
Oh, he had not forgotten her for a moment—he was staring down at her, irritation pouring off him like fog from an ice chest.
“What. Are you doing. In my house.”
His voice was as compelling as she remembered, the cool precision of it slicing right into her racing thoughts. A perfectly unmanageable man.
Somehow, she came to her feet. “Your Grace. I thought you were in France.”
Why, why would she say such a thing?
The duke’s expression had changed from appalled to incredulous. “Miss Archer, is it not?” he said, almost kindly. And that was rather unnerving.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
He hadn’t stepped back. He stood too close, and at nearly a head taller than she. If he intended to intimidate her with his body, it was counterproductive, for intimidation roused a strong emotion in her: resistance.
He did not strike her as a man who tolerated resistance.
His fitted black coat encased remarkably straight, wide shoulders and a trim waist. His cropped, light hair looked almost white in a shaft of December sun. Austere and colorless like winter himself, the duke. And, potentially, just as capable of freezing her to death.
“You are my brother’s companion, I presume,” he said.
She did not like the ring he had given the word companion. “My Lord Devereux and I are acquainted, Your Grace.”
She swayed forward an inch, to see if he’d do the polite thing and give her space. He didn’t. She felt his gaze slide over her face, then down her throat. The disdain in his eyes said he noticed everything: the hungry hollows of her cheeks; that her earrings were not real pearls; that Lady Mabel’s old walking dress had been altered by her own hand and clashed with her coloring.
