Page 104 of A Duke Changes Everything
Nick threw the whole of the lit tinderbox into the tower.
Mina got down on her knees and leaned forward to brush dust and a few fallen leaves from her father’s headstone. She traced the letters of his name with her fingers.
Rotherhead, where her father’s people hailed from, wasn’t far from Barrowmere. It was farther south, closer to the sea. The air had a saltiness to it and a stiffer breeze. The church’s graveyard was quiet and peaceful, just the sort of place her father deserved to rest after years of hard work and devotion.
She was glad he was buried away from Enderley. The place had consumed him in life. He needed a bit of distance from its problems in death.
“I’m sorry I haven’t come more often in the last few weeks, Papa. There’s a new duke.” Her throat thickened and tears welled in her eyes. “I love him, and I believe he cares for me.”
Though she was alone in the graveyard, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “He’s asked me to marry him.” Mina imagined her father before her, listening. What would he say when she confessed the rest? “If I say yes, that means I’m leaving Enderley behind.”
Did her father know what the old duke had done? She couldn’t bear to think he’d taken any part in such devilry, even if he only had an inkling of how the old duke had treated his son.
“You gave so many years to the estate. I tried to do as you would have wished, but I’m not sure I belong there anymore.” Mina gathered the little bundle of late autumn flowers and placed them atop her father’s grave. “I think I belong wherever Nick is.” The truth had been there, waiting for her to find it. The rightness of it made her giddy. “He’s more like me than you can imagine, Papa, but different too, in the best of ways. Not perfect. Neither of us are, but we suit each other.”
Mina stood and dusted off her trousers.
“I won’t return as often. We’ll live mostly in London, I think.” She felt compelled to add, “But we are repairing Enderley. Someone will live there and care for it, even if it’s not us.”
Leaning forward, she placed a hand on the cold stone slab etched with her father’s name and the wordsLoving father. Loyal servant.“Goodbye, Papa.”
Each step away from the church got a bit easier. She jumped up into the pony cart and let the horse take the trip back at a leisurely pace. Then anticipation got the best of her and she urged him into a canter. Within quarter of an hour, she spied Enderley’s parapet on the horizon.
She squinted when something else drew her gaze. Billowing gray. Not a cloud but puffs of smoke.
Tapping the whip against the side of the cart, she pushed the horse to go faster, until her bones rattled so hard her teeth clicked together. Moments later, she careened into Enderley’s stable yard and scrambled down from the cart.
“Tobias!”
The stable master strode out of the granary, a welcoming grin on his face. “There you are, Miss Thorne. The duke was looking for you.”
“Don’t you see the smoke?” She pointed toward the western edge of the estate as she rushed past the stable.
Tobias’s heavy footsteps followed in her wake.
Mina clutched at her chest when she rounded the stables. “It’s the tower. Not the house.” The structure was far enough away, it was no threat to the house or anyone inside.
“Get help, Miss Thorne. I’ll fetch some buckets of water.” Tobias started off, but Mina called him back.
“No, don’t bother.” She stared at the black smoke billowing from that vile structure and felt an odd sense of peace. “Let it burn.”
“But what about the cat?”
Mina frowned at him. “She’s in the stable. Emma said she brought Milly and the kittens into one of the stalls.”
He shrugged and his face crumpled into a panicked grimace. “I’ve seen her creeping around the tower. She goes back. Maybe she thinks she’s left a kitten behind.”
“Have you seen her this morning?” Mina sprinted past him toward the stable. “We have to find her, Tobias,” she shouted back at him.
Mina skidded down the line of stalls in the stable, peeking inside, trying to spot a clump of white-and-orange fur. She knelt near the straw-filled, blanket-padded box where the kittens were sleeping. Without their mother.
One of the stable boys called down from the loft. “No sign of her up here.”
Smoke wafted on the breeze, and Mina ran out of the stable. She passed Emma and Tobias in the yard. “Keep looking for her. I’m going to the tower.”
Emma wrapped a hand around her arm. “You can’t, Mina. It’s too dangerous.”
“Check the kitchen. Check anywhere she might hide.” Mina twisted out of the girl’s grip and dashed toward the tower.
