Page 23 of A Duke Changes Everything
He let out a startled laugh, not the bitter chuckle of watching his father burn, but a warmer sound. “I’m done burning furnishings for the night. Does that satisfy, Thorne?” He glanced over his shoulder at the smoking portrait. “You knew the man. Can you blame me?”
Mina understood disliking Talbot Lyon. The man had been a tyrant, brutal in his treatment of the staff, irrational and unhinged in his later years, but she couldn’t encourage the new duke’s destructive bent.
“Did you know the artist who painted your father was quite famous? If you disapproved of the portrait, we might have sold it for at least a hundred pounds.”
He narrowed his eyes and approached until he was close enough for her to smell his woodsy cologne. The scent of lavender wafted off him too. An Enderley scent. Mrs. Scribb always put a bit on the linens before placing them on the beds.
“I would have paid two hundred pounds for the pleasure of burning it.”
“That two hundred would have allowed us to hire new staff, refill the larder.”
“I hate to tell you this, Miss Thorne, but I don’t give a damn about Enderley.”
Mina’s chest burned as if he’d speared her with a fragment of the burning picture frame.
“If I had the time, I’d wrench it apart stone by stone.” He cast his gaze past her shoulder, to the far edge of the estate, where the old Tudor tower stood.
“You won’t do your duty then?” Mina understood having responsibilities thrust upon one’s shoulders and finding one’s life veering in an unexpected direction. But she couldn’t imagine shirking one’s duty, especially not when so many relied on him for their livelihood.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“But it seems you do not wish to be duke.”
“I can’t tell if you have a dry sense of humor, Thorne, or an extraordinary talent for understatement.” A single long stride and he was too close. So near that her body began to warm. He radiated heat, even in the cool night air. “Surely, you know the rumors. Most say I have no right to the Tremayne title. Or haven’t you heard that my father believed I was a bastard?”
“You’re not. That portrait proves it.” The old duke’s face was nearly obscured now, in a wash of melting paint and burning canvas.
“Resemble him, don’t I?” He bent his head so that they were eye to eye. “Same cold eyes.”
“The likeness is undeniable.” Mina could hardly tell the man he was more attractive in every way than his father. “Not to mention that you seem to share the same temper.”
He smirked, but his eyes flashed with pain, as if the accusation stung.
“Of course, I’ve only known you for a handful of hours, Your Grace. But if you truly mean to abandon the estate, then you’re more like Eustace than your father.”
“I’m nothing like them.” He moved in close, as if to emphasize his words. His chin trembled. A muscle flickered in his jaw. “Eustace? You speak of my brother familiarly. Were you close?”
“I knew him all my life.”
A grimace twisted his full lips. “Ah, yes, because he was here and I was not. As you said, Miss Thorne, you don’t know me.” He began to turn away, and Mina suddenly wanted to know why he’d left the estate as a child and never returned. Had the rumors about his parentage been the cause?
“I did see you once, the day you left. I was watching from an upstairs window. I liked to look out on the countryside, until the maids chased me away.”
“And what did you see?” He cast his gaze across the field, taking in much the same view she loved, though obscured now by nightfall.
“A dark-haired boy waiting at the carriage circle. A huge black brougham that came to collect you. I remember being grateful my father refused to send me to boarding school. Was it awful?”
“Where I went that day? You can’t imagine.” His voice dipped low and raw. Even in the dim wash of moonlight, Mina saw bleakness shadow his features. “I saw you too, Miss Thorne. More than once. You were always giggling or dancing or moving about.”
He assessed her, as if retrieving the memories and comparing them to the woman who stood before him.
Mina wasn’t used to being looked at. Not like this. Not with curiosity by a handsome man. Especially not when she was wearing nothing but Hessian boots and a dressing gown and his bare chest was inches from her own.
“You seemed a strange creature to me with your carefree happiness.” He took one step closer. They were toe to toe. His breath warmed her face as he gazed at her. “Do you still enjoy dancing?”
“I’ve no need to. There’s very little cause for an estate steward’s daughter to dance.”
“That’s very bleak, and yet you persist in caring for this place? Not just as your father’s successor, but because you think this pile of stones means something.”
