Page 1 of The Duke’s Suspicion

Chapter 1

As dark clouds rolled over the Cumbrian sky and thunder rumbled in the distance, Erica Burke discovered she had made a serious error in judgment. Several errors, in fact.

The most serious error, obviously, had been leaving her journal inside the inn where they had stopped to rest the horses. She was often forgetful. Careless, other people called it. But in truth she cared a great deal. Losing her journal would have meant losing months of work, losing the record of every botanical observation she had made since coming to England.

It would have meant losing a piece of herself.

To be fair, though, she would never have left her journal at a posting inn if she hadn’t been traveling. So hadn’t the real error in judgment been agreeing to accompany her sister? True, a lady often took a female companion on her wedding trip, a custom grounded in the assumption that the activities and interests of men and women, even newly married ones, were entirely separate. But Cami’s insistence on Erica’s joining her had had very little to do with convention. And as far as Erica could see, her brother-in-law, Lord Ashborough, had only one interest: his new bride. The only activity in which he wanted to indulge was… Well.

With a wary eye toward the sky, Erica hopped from the coach without explanation and hurried back across the filthy inn yard, blaming the sudden wave of heat that washed over her on the exertion. She had been promised the chance to explore the plants and flowers of the Lake District, and she was determined not to be put off by the occasional moment of embarrassment, or by the knowledge that her presence was entirely extraneous. Her only concession had been to ride in the baggage coach on occasion, with Mr. Remington, Lord Ashborough’s manservant, and Adele. Try as she might, Erica could not bring herself to think of the French girl as “Lady Ashborough’s maid.” It would have required her to concede that Cami was now a lady, and not simply her overbearing elder sister.

On the threshold of the inn’s dining parlor, she was forced to reevaluate her assessment once more. A group of rowdy young men now filled the table at which she and her party had been seated only moments ago. Avoiding as best she could the men’s eyes, hands, and voices, Erica pressed forward to retrieve what was hers. Perhaps the most serious error had been leaving Lord Ashborough’s mastiff, Elf, in Shropshire with the new vicar and his wife. Elf was neither fierce nor especially brave, but even half-grown she was enormous, and Erica had no doubt that her mere presence would have sufficed to forge a path through the room.

On the bench closest to the window sat a man with greasy dark hair. If the sight of him thumbing idly through the pages of her journal had not blanketed her vision in a red haze of anger, she might also have noticed his red coat. His militia uniform.

“Kindly unhand my journal.” Though she spoke quietly, she thrust out her hand, palm upward, so forcefully that the muscles of her arm quivered.

He did not rise, and a lazy smile revealed rather mossy teeth. “What have we here? An Irish rebel—?”

The words sharpened her senses, brought the moment into vivid relief.

As if observing her own actions from a great distance, she watched her hand sweep the journal from his grasp and then swing back. The sturdy leather binding—no delicate lady’s commonplace book, this—struck along his jaw, effectively wiping the grin from his face.

One of his fellow soldiers guffawed, and suddenly the noises and odors of the room rushed back to full force, threatening to overwhelm her. Her narrow pinpoint of focus expanded from his uniform, grimy from travel and frayed around the collar and cuffs, into a swath of chaos. Clutching her journal in one hand and her skirts in the other, she ran from the room.

Hitting him had been yet another mistake. She could not even say what had prompted her to do it. Her distrust of soldiers? His disdain for Ireland? Perhaps a bit of both. Oh, why could she never seem to control her temper, her impulses? Was he following?

Outside once more, she paused only to scan the inn yard for Lord Ashborough’s coaches. But the yard was empty. Perhaps around the corner? No? Well, surely that was his carriage, standing by the church…

Oh, no. Now she understood her most serious error. When she’d discovered her journal missing, she’d hopped from the baggage coach without telling Mr. Remington to wait. He must have assumed she had decided to ride the rest of the way with her sister. Erica’s absence would likely not be noticed for hours.

She was stranded.

She could almost hear Cami’s voice telling her to wait right where she was. But Erica’s hasty reaction to the soldier’s sneer had rendered this village’s only lodging less than hospitable.

Regrettably, she had a great deal of experience with crises. Most, like this, of her own making. And sitting still had never been her preferred method of coping with any of them.

She furrowed her brow, trying to recall the map in the guidebook. People came from all over Britain to visit the Lake District. There would be signposts to Windermere. Surely even she, with her notoriously poor sense of direction, could find it. With another glance at the threatening sky, she began to walk.

What was a little rain?

For the first mile or so, she watched the clouds tumble toward her, listened to the peals of thunder as they swelled and grew, seemingly born of the earth as much as the air. Mud from an earlier rain dragged at her hems and sucked at the soles of her walking boots. At the second mile, she gave up the roadway in favor of the grassy verge. Cold, thick drops began to fall, speckling her dress and face. Hardly had she managed to stuff her journal into her pelisse when the sky opened and water poured down in sheets, whipped by the wind like clothing on the line, blinding her.

Something sharp snagged at her skirts, jabbed at the chilled flesh of her thigh beneath. The hedgerow. A flash of lightning showed her a gap in its tangled branches, barely wide enough for her to pass through. And a little way beyond it, an abandoned-looking stone cottage. Would its roof provide shelter? She could not tell until she reached it.

Head down, she pushed onward. The wind snatched at her sodden bonnet. Nearly strangled by its ties at her throat, she scrabbled with numb fingers to loosen them. Once free, the bonnet whirled into the storm and was gone.

The twenty yards standing between her and her goal seemed to take almost as long to travel as the two miles she had already come. At last, its stout slab door stood before her. Here, in the shadow of the low building, the wind still lashed, but it no longer threatened to carry her away. As she leaned her head against the door to fumble with the latch, she felt a movement. Not of her own making. Not the rumble of the storm, either. The door swung inward and she collapsed onto the dirt floor at the booted feet of a stranger.

The cottage was not abandoned, after all.

Even a cursory glance told her these were not the sort of boots generally worn by cottagers, however. The supple leather was not muddy or scuffed as it would have been if the man were a laborer or had recently trudged across the open field. Perhaps he had been traveling on horseback. Or perhaps he simply had been wise enough to take shelter before the rain began.

Without speaking, he stepped around her to shut the door, muffling the storm’s noise and closing out its murky light, casting the single room into near darkness.

Oh, God. This was it—her most serious error in judgment. Ever. Erica scrambled to her feet and whirled about to face him, her rain-sodden skirts slapping against her legs. But he was already moving past her again.

“Wait there.” His voice was pitched low, audible beneath the storm.