Page 41 of The Duke’s Suspicion

Tristan prided himself on his ability to recognize, on the basis of fewer words than this man had just spoken, a person’s education and origins and rank. The county he called home—sometimes, even the particular corner of it. His occupation.

But the stranger remained an enigma. He was not a Londoner, though he had spent enough time in that city that his birthplace no longer revealed itself through clipped consonants or rounded vowels. His clothes, his bearing, all the clues by which people tipped their hands, all the masks behind which they hid—the collective image formed by these pieces of evidence was hazy at best. The only sure thing, his unspecified connection to Erica, raised more questions than it answered.

“Do I have the honor of addressing the Duke of Raynham?” the man asked, when Tristan did not speak.

Warily, Tristan tipped his head in acknowledgment. “And you are?”

“Arthur Remington, Your Grace.” He bowed. “Lord Ashborough’s man.”

A curious description. Man of business? Manservant? Not a valet, surely, given his ill-fitting clothes. Yet somehow he carried about him an air of precision that might, at times, have veered toward the fastidious. Tristan had the distinct, unsettling impression that Mr. Remington would have little difficulty assuming whatever role the marquess demanded of him.

“Remy?” Erica’s voice came from behind him. Tristan turned to find her paused on the threshold, as if she too did not trust her eyes.

“Miss Erica.” The man’s shoulders lowered half an inch, the closest they likely had ever come to sagging with relief.

Erica hurried to him, skirting past Tristan as if he were no more than another piece of furniture. “Is Cami here? Is she—?”

“Lady Ashborough is perfectly well, ma’am. In Windermere, with his lordship.”

“He sent you through the storm?” Her gratitude was tinged with a sharper note: annoyance with her brother-in-law for putting another in harm’s way.

Affronted, the man straightened once more. “He did not. I came of my own free will. Whose fault was it but mine that you were left in Endmoor to begin with?”

“Oh, you dear man.” Erica turned on a smile of such radiance that, although not directed at him, it left Tristan almost breathless. “But how did you manage it, through the storms and the flood? The bridge at Kendal—?”

A movement in the doorway caught Tristan’s eye. Guin stood framed in the opening, motioning discreetly with one hand for him to come to her side, to afford Erica and Mr. Remington a few moments of quasi-private conversation. Tristan pretended not to see her.

“I had to travel further south and west to cross the Kent,” Remington was explaining. “Hence the delay. I should have been back here the next day, otherwise. Despite the rain.”

Someone in Endmoor would have directed him to Hawesdale. He might have arrived even before they had. Everything about the last few days would have been different, then.

Tristan stepped toward him. “I was glad to be able to offer Miss Burke my protection.”

As if he suspected Tristan’s choice of words had not been entirely honest—protection, certainly; perhaps even, initially, glad—Remington sized him up with a sharp-eyed stare, the likes of which Tristan had rarely known. A softer, worried glance toward Erica, then back again, and his voice when he spoke was hard. “Lord and Lady Ashborough will be obliged, sir.”

“Take me to Windermere.” Erica stepped closer. “I am ready to leave whenever you say.” For the first time, he realized she was wearing her own dress, washed and pressed and almost unrecognizable. She was also carrying her journal. A moment to fetch her pelisse, or have it fetched, and she could walk away from Hawesdale without leaving a trace.

Not a visible one, at any rate.

He parted his lips to say—something. He hardly knew what.

Everyone else believed he had ruined her last night, and he knew of only one way to repair the damage that had been done: repeat his offer, as many times as it took to persuade her of the necessity of accepting it. But he was not entirely convinced he ought to be in the business of persuasion. He despised the sort of man who met a woman’s resistance with persistence, who repeated his offers as if her refusal were only a suggestion. She might have grown used to hearing herself called “shatterbrained,” but Erica knew her own mind, and he saw no honor in trying to make her doubt it.

Remington too had opened his mouth to reply. But Guin spoke first. “I will not hear of you taking such a risk, Miss Burke. I’m sure Mr. Remington will attest to the poor condition of the roads. I’ve already arranged with Mrs. Dean for his accommodation. You must both wait until we’re certain the rain has stopped for good.”

Her tone brooked no argument, but Erica was ready to offer one all the same. “My sister…”

“Would rather see you safe and sound in a few days’ time than not at all,” Guin replied, clearly intending to close discussion of the matter.

Remington concurred. “I walked every step of more than twenty miles, Miss Erica, through fens that last week were fields.” Of course, Tristan thought. The man would have arrived at Hawesdale wet and muddy. The clothes he wore now must have been borrowed, likely from Armitage. “And I would not think of allowing a lady to make such a journey. Besides, Lord Ashborough ordered me to stay where I found you and wait for them. This rain can’t last forever,” Remington added, with a reassuring look for Erica. “Another few days will see the roads passable by carriage, I’m sure.”

She set her brow, her lips, her whole body into an answering frown, to which Remington thankfully seemed to be immune. “Now that’s settled,” Guin announced brightly, “I’m sure Miss Burke will be grateful to hear any report you have to give on her family. I’ll send a footman in half an hour to show you to your room. Raynham?”

The peremptory tone in which she spoke his title was more difficult for Tristan to ignore than the wave of her hand had been. And certainly he ought not to expect that Guin’s talent for meddling would extend to contriving some scheme in which he was to be left alone for a private word with Erica. Still, his answering bow was stiff with disappointment. “Of course. Welcome to Hawesdale, Mr. Remington. Miss Burke.”

She had not once so much as glanced his way, and she did not now, though he fancied he glimpsed a slight weakening in her resolve when he spoke her name. As if to be sure of her success, Guin laid her fingertips on his arm to urge him toward the door.

Remington cleared his throat. “Begging Your Grace’s pardon, I wonder if I might have a word with the duke first?”