Page 33 of The Duke’s Suspicion

Tristan returned to his chambers by way of the drawing room, wondering whether his guests had retired for the night. Not that he wanted company, precisely. But he did not trust himself to be alone, either.

The footman had not returned to his post, and the door stood partly open, presumably left that way by the last to leave. Voices from within told that the room was not empty, however. Hidden by the stout oak panel, but with a clear view into the room, he paused. The card players had reconfigured themselves. Whitby now partnered Miss Pilkington, who looked more animated than she had at any previous time that day. Beresford and Lady Lydgate were teamed against them, seated on opposite sides of the table; he refused to speculate on what might be going on between them beneath its cover. Sir Thomas faced Lord Easton over the chessboard, the former studying his next move while his opponent snored. Virtually the same dull scene he had left. Only the Newsomes had gone. Guin now sat by the fire in place of the vicar’s wife, a book open on her lap.

His mind returned to what had just transpired in the kitchen. How close he had come to offering Erica…what, exactly? Even now, he was not sure. But he’d been momentarily possessed by the certainty that life at Hawesdale, if it must be borne, would be a sight more interesting with her in residence.

Not just interesting. Bearable. She was fresh air and wild energy and…quite possibly a spy.

She was hiding something, certainly. Some part of herself, though he suspected she had come closer than ever to revealing it to him tonight. How desperately he wanted to know more. But the curiosity he felt now was not familiar to him, neither the idle sort that had led him into misery in his childhood, nor the skilled sort that made him an asset to king and country. A curiosity not of mind, nor even—entirely—of body, but of…spirit? Kindred spirits? He laughed to himself. How could that be when they had nothing in common at all?

Though he had not made a sound, his stepmother looked up and caught his eye. When she lifted one hand to wave him in, he held a finger to his lips and shook his head. She and Viv might be the only ones in the house who wanted his company. Even the servants regretted his return, his assumption of his father’s title—and on that matter at least, he was inclined to agree. He could see no reason to cross the threshold. With a bow, he bid Guin good night. She nodded her understanding and resumed her reading, turning the motion of her raised hand into a quick smoothing of her hair. No one else knew he had come. Or gone.

Still, he was reluctant to go to bed, fearful of the direction in which his dreams might tend. Would his mind conjure visions of some tropical vine curling sensuously about his limbs, rendering him a willing captive, while an enemy crept through the darkness to carve his secrets from the depths of his soul, like flesh from bone…?

With a shake, he dismissed the disturbing, jumbled image and set off through the dimly lit corridor in the direction of the library and Davies’s orderly stack of account books. Nothing like column upon column of figures to keep a man’s mind from wandering where it ought not go.

Chapter 11

Lady Viviane laid aside her pencil. “Surely you will want to join the other guests for dinner, Miss Burke.”

Startled by the sound of the girl’s voice, Erica’s normally steady hand sent a line shooting jaggedly across the page. They had spent the day in the conservatory, where Viviane had progressed from fern leaves to a delicate violet with remarkable rapidity, though her mind had a tendency to race ahead of her fingers when she sketched. The only disturbance, the only visitor, had been Mrs. Dean, who had brought them both trays at midday. Barring the rain, it had been a glorious day spent doing exactly what Erica had always wanted to do, and she was determined to think as little as possible about the man who had made it happen.

“No,” she demurred, without looking up. “Not really.”

Viviane picked up her pencil again, but instead of resuming her sketch, she began to tap one end against her palm. “If you don’t, it will seem as if you are hiding.”

“Hiding?” Still, she did not meet the girl’s gaze. “From whom would I be hiding?”

The duke’s guests. The duke. Myself.

“Well, perhaps not hiding, exactly,” Viviane conceded. “But I should think at times you’d like more company and conversation than a potted plant can provide. Not,” she hastened to add, “that I don’t find the study of botany stimulating.”

Stifling a sigh, Erica closed her journal. “Of course, Lady Viviane. I forgot myself and kept you at your task too long, today. You may go whenever you wish.”

The girl was on her feet so quickly the stool skidded across the flagstone floor. “And you, Miss Burke? You really ought to have a break yourself. Shall I come back and remind you before the dinner hour?”

Erica consented with an absent wave of one hand and went back to her notes. She was perfectly capable of ignoring one reminder. Or ten.

As it turned out, however, she was not capable of ignoring Viviane, who at half-past five drove Erica from the conservatory with all the gravitas of the archangel expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, backed by Mr. Sturgess, who had been summoned to douse the lights and lock the door.

So it was she found herself a largely silent participant in another interminable meal—when one did not spill wine and run away, dining went on for hours, it seemed—followed by tea in the drawing room with the other ladies of the party. She drank cup after cup to keep from being expected to make conversation, and also in hopes that she would soon have a plausible excuse to flee in search of the necessary.

“Will you join us in a game of forfeits this evening, Miss Burke?” Caroline Pilkington bravely settled herself on the sofa beside Erica, which required Mrs. Newsome to shift and make room.

“Forfeits?” The vicar’s wife had not spoken all evening except to complain about the weather and mutter over whether her children’s nursemaid could be trusted to keep her “poor, motherless little ones” sufficiently dry. She sat so stiffly it was not possible for her to stiffen in indignation now, but she sniffed. “I do not approve of wagering.”

Erica studied both of them over the rim of her teacup. If she sketched faces, which she never did, she would render Miss Pilkington as an exquisite blossom and Mrs. Newsome as a dried-up twig.

“Nothing too serious, Mrs. Newsome,” Miss Pilkington replied with a musical laugh. “I propose a game of charades. The ladies shall ask riddles of the gentlemen, and the gentleman who answers a lady’s riddle correctly may request some small favor of her. A kiss, for example.”

“A kiss!” The word brought the vicar’s wife to her feet. “I’m shocked your mother would allow such a thing. As if wagering with money were not bad enough. To risk something more precious still…”

Across the room, Lady Easton Pilkington turned toward the commotion and cast a languid smile at her daughter, giving the impression of her approval, though Erica doubted she had heard a word of what had been said.

“I most certainly will not participate,” declared Mrs. Newsome, who set her teacup and saucer on the table with a clatter. “Nor countenance such indecency with my presence,” she added as she marched from the room, apparently recalling that she had not actually been invited to play.

A curve of amused satisfaction on her lips, Miss Pilkington returned her attention to Erica. “What about you, Miss Burke?”

With five siblings, both older and younger, Erica was more than familiar with the forms revenge might take. She knew it would be wisest to decline. But something about Miss Pilkington’s coolness made her burn. “Thank you,” she said, thrusting her chin upward as she spoke. “I’d be delighted.”