Page 25 of The Duke’s Suspicion

Henry had been gentle and laughing and, most of all, kind—in other words, everything the Duke of Raynham was not. Over the years, however, she’d also caught glimpses into the shadowy place that hid behind Henry’s smiles. She had known what he wanted, what he feared. Whereas Tristan…

Well, perhaps that was part of the difficulty. Perhaps the two men were not so different after all. For despite Tristan’s show of sternness and strength, she could not shake the feeling that he too had a secret. Some soft spot that had made necessary his hard, protective shell. The thorns that guarded the tender shoot beneath.

As did she, of course. As did probably every living being. Even a duke.

How foolish to want to discover his.

A confrontation with a closed door put a stop to her peripatetic musings. Unbelievably, her wayward feet had taken her back to her chamber. If she’d tried, she couldn’t have found a more direct route. With a sigh, she let herself in. Such a lovely, elegant room. And stuck in it, she felt as out of place as a weed in a crystal vase.

Through the large windows she watched gray clouds shed raindrops that coursed down the glass like tears. No matter how large, the room felt like a cell and the weather was her jailer. She didn’t belong at Hawesdale Chase, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. The devil finds mischief for idle hands, Mama was fond of saying. But the trouble wasn’t really idleness. She glanced down at rough, stained fingers that had ruined a small fortune in embroidery silks before her mother had conceded defeat. The trouble was that her hands were no more proper than the rest of her.

The notion of teaching Lady Viviane had been a momentary bright spot. She’d never had the opportunity to share her knowledge. Not one of her younger siblings had ever expressed any interest in plants. But she’d put an end to that potential diversion with her talk of…

The blush that she’d managed to keep at bay in the library burst into flame on her cheeks at the memory. Not the memory of what she’d said, for that was simply science. Or nature, if one preferred.

But, oh, the memory of his face as she’d said it, the flare of shock in his face…and more than shock too. Something that had made his dark eyes darker still.

She had needed him to understand the controversy surrounding ladies and the study of botany. She would not have wanted to teach his sister without his knowledge and at least a modicum of support. But she would have lived much more comfortably without ever knowing what his face looked like when he set aside the mask he wore so habitually—that of the overbearing officer, the starchy duke—and showed himself to be a man with all-too-human and quite ungentlemanly desires.

Good heavens. Another moment and she’d be proving right all the naysayers who insisted that ladies ought to know as little as possible about…about…

“Sex.”

She forced herself to say the word aloud, to break the spell her imagination seemed determined to cast. Curling her fingers into the soft leather cover of her journal, she made her way to the vanity table, for there was no desk in the room. The weather might have curtailed her research, but she could still work. She had drawings to refine and notes to organize. She would spend her day sitting right here, writing…

She had left the pens and ink in the library.

With a sigh, she flipped through the journal. Its pages crinkled crisply since they’d been wetted by the rain. Drawings, descriptions, observations, lists flickered past beneath her thumb. At her roughly sketched map of the house, she stopped, her progress impeded by the stub of a dull pencil still marking her place. It would have to serve.

No sooner had she settled to the task of translating her shorthand notes about the varieties of moss to be found in Shropshire than she heard a knock. A servant, perhaps, though she had not rung. Tucking the pencil between two pages, she rose and went to the door.

Tristan was the last person she expected to find on its other side.

“Miss Burke,” he said, and dipped his head. “I had neither cause nor license to make such a remark. I’ve come to make amends for my behavior.” He spoke stiffly, as might be expected from one without a great deal of experience in offering apologies. Though to be fair, his expression was sincere.

When he bowed, she could see that his sister stood behind him, arms folded, and Erica found the scene so familiar, she had to stifle a laugh. How many times had one of her elder siblings marched her before an authority to exact a confession of wrongdoing and to witness the gratifying spectacle of her punishment?

In this case, however, she gathered that Lady Viviane would gain no benefit from seeing someone slam a door in her brother’s face.

“What sort of amends?” Erica asked instead, wary.

“We wish to show you the glasshouse,” Viviane said.

“Hawesdale’s conservatory houses more than a hundred varieties of plants, many of them tropical species,” he explained. “And it has the added appeal of being always temperate, no matter the weather.” As if on cue, a blast of rain and wind rattled the windows behind her. “You might study or sketch there to your heart’s content.”

His words—an echo of Henry’s promise to give her time to fill every page in her journal—pierced to her very heart, far sharper than his jab at the notion of a love match, though of course he could have no way of knowing how the offer would affect her. In looking for somewhere safe, somewhere other than his face, to rest her eyes, she discovered he was carrying Lee’s Introduction to Botany, along with the pens and ink she had abandoned.

“And we can begin our first lesson,” added his sister.

Tristan sent a warning glance over one shoulder. “Now, Viv. Miss Burke has not agreed…”

Disappointment streaked across Viviane’s thin face.

“A teacher ought never to deny a willing pupil, Your Grace,” Erica said quickly. “And I’m sure the glasshouse is a lovely place.”

His reply, when it came, seemed to require an unexpected degree of fortitude. “I’m told it was one of my mother’s favorite haunts.”

She nodded. “Let me get my journal.”