Page 13 of Trapped with the Forbidden Duke
Wallpaper peeled off in spirals in the corners of walls, and the painted ceiling was faded and yellowing in many places, as though a fresh coat was due years ago but had not been applied. The furniture was worn and faded, stained and fraying at the seams, and he noticed how cold and empty the townhouse felt.
It had not been like that when he had last come here.
The uncertain look Lady Edwina gave him over her shoulder said just how aware she was of the difference he was noticing. As soon as their eyes met, she turned her head away.
From down the hallway, a maid walked towards them, her head bent slightly.
“Lady Edwina, shall I have tea prepared for you? The drawing room has not been cleaned yet, but I finished cleaning the parlor. If you can wait, I can serve your tea and then continue?—”
“All is well, Jane,” Lady Edwina chirped, her tone a touch too bright.
Lucien frowned, noting the strained smile and tone he had been greeted with in the private room at the Raven’s Den.
“I do not believe our guest will be staying?—”
“On the contrary,” he interrupted, irritation coiling in his stomach as he noted the lack of staff and the fact that the maid was overworked.
“Jane, leave us and continue with the drawing room?” Lady Edwina asked tightly. “Calloway, I believe there are some duties you may help Jane with.”
A look passed between her and the butler, as if the man knew something Jane did not. That, perhaps, a butler should not do the work of a maid. But he only nodded and retreated after the maid.
Hence Lucien was left alone with the lady of the house, who looked overwhelmed.
“These are the conditions you have been living in?” he asked, keeping his voice low in case there were other servants around.
He did not believe it; he just did not want to assume.
“And you thought coming to me would solve your problems?”
Lady Edwina, the proud thing that he was learning she was, kept her chin raised, her eyes turned away in what seemed to be arrogance. But it was the expression of a woman unwilling to set her pride aside.
She was just as stubborn as he recalled her brother to be.
Lucien let out a groan. “I am moving in.”
Her head snapped towards him, and her eyes narrowed. “No! You cannot just?—”
“One week,” he told her. “I will stay for one week, and I will help you get your household in order. I’ll find you some connections you need, and once I am sure that you are not one step away from ruin, I will be gone.”
Chapter Five
“One week?” Edwina asked, cocking her head at the imposing duke in her entrance hall—the imposing duke who she did not particularly want to know the full extent of their troubles.
Staring at her coolly, the Duke only nodded his head.
How could she hide Nicholas’s state from him for a week?
Her heart pounded.
How can I stop them from killing one another when they have enough bad blood between them?
How could they endure being around one another? Nicholas would not agree to it, but why would the Duke of Stormhold offer?
“Why would you want to be around a man you see as a traitor?” she asked.
“I do not,” the Duke answered. “Do not mistake me, I am only here to help, not to be around him. He had several chances to speak with me.”
Although there was an air of nonchalance about him, she could see the tightness around his eyes. She tried to think of every time Nicholas had pushed her out of his room, lost in a fit of paranoia and rage, claiming that he deserved to be alone, that he was hopeless, ruining her and their parents’ legacy.
