Page 102 of A Duke Changes Everything
Nick couldn’t tell whether she was shocked by the news or planned to head straight downstairs and begin a celebration with the other staff. At any rate, she scurried off, leaving him to dress quickly and in peace.
Downstairs, he headed for his father’s study. Mina’s closed office door felt as wrong as the quiet in the hallway the two rooms shared. She made little noises while she worked,hmm’s andaah’s andoh’s, and he’d learned them all by heart.
What the hell was he going to do when he was back at Lyon’s with only himself for company?
After collecting a few notes he’d made at his father’s desk, he found himself back at Mina’s office door. Standing outside the empty room like a fool, he wished for nothing so much as to twist the knob and find her inside.
But when he pushed the door open, he found nothing but her clean, floral scent to haunt him.
The notebook she often carried with her lay on the edge of the desk. Some of the notes pertained to the repairs he’d agreed to make to tenant houses, the estate, and structures in Barrowmere village. Nick hesitated a moment before lifting the small leather-bound journal, flipping it open to the spot where she’d placed a ribbon as marker.
He let out a sharp breath of disappointment. In front of him was a simple, practical list in a neat but utterly feminine hand. He flipped a page back and found notes from his visit with the villagers, all the promises he’d made in an effort to be benevolent. An effort to let Mina see that he could be better than he seemed.
Turning another page, he found calculations, hurriedly scratched. Numbers tumbling across the paper. Then one more flip and his breath snagged in his throat.
He emerged on the page in dashes of ink. Not the slash on his face or his strange eyes, but his mouth, generously shaped. His jaw, a sharp square below the curve of his chin. His brow, with a sinuous strand of black hair tumbling down.
She drew him in precisely the same way she looked at him. As none other ever had. Not with horror or even perverse curiosity. From the first moment their gazes clashed, Mina saw him and never looked away. As if she wasn’t put off by what she saw.
Strange woman.
“Pardon me, sir.” Wilder’s voice came from the threshold behind him. “I understand you intend to depart Enderley today.”
“It’s time, Wilder.” Nick turned to face the old man. “I’ve had as much of this place as I can stomach.”
“And Miss Thorne?” A mischievous glint came into the butler’s gaze. “What will she have to say of your absence?”
Nick laid her notebook aside reluctantly, pondered how much to tell the old man, and scrubbed a hand across the stubble he hadn’t bothered shaving from his chin. “I asked her to marry me, Wilder.”
“Did you?” The shock on the butler’s face was nearly as surprising as the high pitch of his usually deep voice.
Mina hadn’t told any of the other Enderley staff, apparently. Nick wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or disappointed.
“May I...” Wilder cleared his throat and looked at Nick pointedly. “May I be so impertinent as to ask what answer she gave?”
“None.” It seemed obvious to Nick. He wouldn’t be so damn eager to leave if he knew she would marry him. Or maybe he would. He far preferred the notion of having her all to himself in London. But if she was to be his, even Enderley would be sufferable in the interim until their vows could be made. Or even after, for visits now and then.
That thought hit him like a thunderbolt. Not the notion of returning to Enderley, but the fact that imagining such a thing didn’t cause dread to twist his insides.
“No answer at all, sir? Then I see why you wish to depart.” The disappointment in Wilder’s voice was somehow comforting, though a pale shadow to what Nick felt.
Nick slumped onto the front edge of her desk. “I wished to give her time to consider my offer. She is impulsive by nature.”
“Very.”
“Which is why three days with no answer from her seems like an answer in itself, does it not?” Nick wanted Wilder to tell him to wait a bit longer.
“An impatient man and an impulsive woman. A match made in heaven or a sure path to doom?” The old butler seemed to be musing to himself, almost mumbling.
“Please don’t pick this moment to humor me, Wilder. It’s time I stop fooling myself and go back to London. Don’t you agree?”
The butler assessed him and drew in a sharp breath. “I have never been a man to give up hope, sir.”
“That must be exhausting.” Nick quirked a brow, but Wilder seemed in earnest. He wore the stoic expression that Nick would always associate with the man. “Not even with my father?”
A slight shadow of a grin touched the old man’s mouth. “Not even with him. I hoped until Talbot Lyon drew his last breath.”
“It didn’t do you any good.”
