Page 3 of Waiting for a Scot Like You
“Sure whoever you’re meeting don’t mind if you wet your gullet first, given that you almost met old Mr. Grim.”
“Old Mr. Grim and I are good friends.” Duncan returned his timepiece to his waistcoat pocket and dusted a streak of grime off the leg of his trousers. “Just as I’m good friends with the man I’m about to meet. And if I’m late, he’ll give me a roasting like a joint of beef.” He touched his fingers to the brim of his hat. “Good day.”
The rest of the journey to Rotherby’s colossal mansion was blissfully uneventful, and within minutes,Duncan stood beneath the columned portico and knocked smartly on the door.
The butler immediately appeared. “Major McCameron.”
“Symes.” Duncan stepped into the vaulted entryway and handed a footman his hat. In early September, there was yet no need for a coat, and Duncan eschewed the affectation of a walking stick. He had functioning legs, didn’t he?
“His Grace awaits you in his study.”
There was no need to show Duncan the way. He’d been to Rotherby’s home countless times—as far back as when Noel had merely been Lord Clair—so he made quick work of the acres of corridors between the entryway and the study. He didn’t slow his steps or pause to admire the artwork and priceless decor. As usual, though, he lifted two fingers in an affectionately rude salute to the portrait of Rotherby that had been painted soon after he’d inherited the dukedom.
The door to the study stood open, and Duncan walked straight inside the chamber. He found Rotherby seated at his desk, staring balefully at several mounds of documents stacked in front of him. The responsibilities of a duke seemed vast and generated tremendous amounts of paper.
“Do you think anyone will notice if I burn these,” Rotherby asked without looking up, “and then the house down around them?”
“Her Grace might object to losing her home,” Duncan noted, dropping into one of the two chairs facing the desk.
At the mention of his wife, a smile flashed in Rotherby’s appallingly handsome face. They had been wed a month, after an engagement of mere weeks. “I’ve six country properties, so that should soften the blow. Still, if you think Jess will be upset...”
“She’s an adaptable woman, but I don’t think arson is something to which she’ll readily agree.” Duncan had been barely affected by his close call with the plummeting brick, but now that he was in Rotherby’s study, with its relative quiet that offered little distraction, energy pulsed through him.
He surged to his feet and, walking to the cold fireplace, he shook out his hands as though preparing for a fight. Surely if he concentrated hard enough, he could light a fire with his mind alone. Given how restless and flinty his thoughts had been for the past two years and three months, it wouldn’t quite surprise him if he could conjure flames merely by thinking.
“Soon, I’ll be entrusted to one of those homes,” he said, affecting enthusiasm. “Again, you’ve my thanks in offering the position of Carriford’s estate manager to me.”
The unexpected proposition had been made a month prior, at Rotherby’s wedding breakfast. At first, Duncan had laughed, thinking it was one of his friend’s occasional forays into whimsy. But no, Rotherby had been in earnest, and after realizing this, Duncan hadaccepted the position. Second sons generally did not find employment as estate managers, yet his family had always emphasized the importance of making oneself useful. Better to work—at a gentlemanly profession, of course—than be idle.
“I’m acting from pure self-interest.” Rotherby waved his hand. “Mr. Gregory will be stepping down as estate manager so he might spend more time with his grandchildren, and as Carriford is the favorite of my holdings, it stands to reason I need someone with a nauseating amount of competency to run the place.”
“Mr. Gregory will leave big boots to fill—”
“Ah, they say that the size of the boots isn’t as important as the size of one’s gloves.” Rotherby crossed the room to Duncan and glanced at his hands. “Surprised you could load a rifle with those bangers you call fingers.”
“They’re still good with the delicate work. Never had a lady complain about them.”
Well, that wasn’t so. Susannah used to sigh with exasperation because he had large, coarse hands that did not belong to an earl’s son. She’d kept giving him gloves in the hope that would make them—and him—a little more elegant.
He forcibly shoved thoughts of her away. That was long ago. It didn’t matter anymore.
“But they’ll do the job at Carriford,” he pressed on. “Been thinking you ought to give me a review in six months, make certain I’m exceeding expectations.”
“That’s not necessary—”
“Itisnecessary.” It was a measure of the durability of Duncan and Rotherby’s friendship that he could interrupt a duke without a word of rebuke. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but whatever I receive Iearn. This position’s no different, even if one of my oldest friends is giving it to me.”
“Your fatherdidbuy you a commission,” Rotherby pointed out.
“Because he told me I’d be cut off if I enlisted, so I’d no choice. But I didn’t get to be a major by merely screaming at my batman to polish my boots.” Duncan propped his elbow on the mantel. “Mark me, Rotherby, I mean what I say. Imustbe employed on a conditional basis contingent on my performance.”
He’d been wrestling with this ever since Rotherby had offered him the position. A small voice in the back of his mind had been whispering terrible, insidious thoughts. That his friend was only acting out of charity—even as he hoped this work would give him the focus he’d lacked.
Were Duncan to write up an itemized list of all the activities his life in peacetime ought to include, he had followed that list to the letter. And yet for all his adherence to prescribed behavior, restlessness pushed him from one end of London to the other. The fault had to be something within him, surely.
He neededsomething. Something to occupy his body, and even more so his mind. Nothing seemed tohold his attention anymore, and it was nigh impossible to derive pleasure from any of the things that used to satisfy him.
Rotherby had married four weeks ago, and Holloway had done the same a handful of months before that. With two members of the Union of the Rakes spending more time at home than before, the group had met with less frequency. Yet even before this, when his four friends would spend evenings out on the town, traversing from gaming hell to theater boxes to private parties, Duncan’s restlessness grew. He’d keep looking toward the door as if something or someone would walk through it, someone who would hold in their hands the missing piece to Duncan’s sense of unease.
