Page 5 of A Duke Changes Everything
Over the years she’d mastered half smiles, grown proficient at blank expressions, and she would’ve earned high marks in tongue biting if anyone was offering a grade.
Her father taught her that others’ opinions mattered. Along with mathematics and estate management, lessons in good manners were the ones he repeated most.
She’d striven for propriety, always eager to please him.
But inside, in a secret place, rooted so deep as to never be wholly weeded out, she hid a terrible truth. Every single day she yearned to buck the ladylike nature to which she’d been taught to aspire.
Impulsive, Papa had called her, and that was true. She had a tendency to throw herself headlong—into work, problems, and emotions she had no business feeling.
For five and twenty years she’d done her best to act as if wearing a corset and skirt pleased her as much as a practical shirt and comfortable trousers. Even as a child, what her father expected of her never quite fit who she truly was inside. There wasn’t a day she wouldn’t have thrown over her flawless porcelain-faced doll for a gallop across the Sussex downs on one of the ponies in Enderley’s stable.
When her father died two years past, she’d acted as if picking up his duties wasn’t terrifying and overwhelming and not at all the path she’d imagined her life would take.
But doing what one must, getting on with one’s duties, was what he taught her.Never let your struggles be known, he’d often say.
As a child, Mina had endlessly failed to live up to his expectations. Whether her cheeks flamed, or her voice wobbled, or her tongue tripped over words, hiding her feelings had been a constant struggle.
But she kept on trying to be ladylike. To speak gently. To mask her feelings.
This morning those skills were being put to the test. She needed to convince her uninvited visitors that nothing was amiss. Though, truth was, she dreaded the pending arrival of the new Duke of Tremayne.
As soon as Mina spotted the letter from Nicholas Lyon’s solicitor, she couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding that nothing would ever be solid or steady again. She hoped he’d be different than his father and brother. The list of what required repair and refurbishing at the estate grew each year, and Mina longed to see the estate improved. But it was a goal the previous duke had not shared. His preference had been to spend as little time as possible at Enderley.
Pressing a palm to her middle, she willed her stomach to settle.
“What a drastic change the new duke’s arrival will bring for your circumstances, Miss Thorne. We sympathize, of course.” Vicar Pribble led the trio who’d come to call shortly after sunrise, hoping to discover all they could about the new duke and demanding to know when he’d finally deign to show his face at Enderley.
They were the unofficial leaders of Barrowmere village—the eldest farmer, the magistrate, and the resident man of God.
“How could we not pity you?” the vicar went on. “A motherless, fatherless girl, without a single prospect ahead of her?”
Good grief. Mina would be sure to never seek out the vicar for encouragement when she was feeling downtrodden.
“We wish to see you living your life as a young woman should,” Magistrate Hardbrook barked in his usual gruff manner.
“And how should I live, gentlemen?” Shealmostmanaged to keep any trace of irritation from her tone.
“As a wife. A mother.” Farmer Thurston drew the words out slowly, as if she must be addlepated to even ask such a question.
“I’m afraid that will not be my fate.” She drew in a sharp breath, filling her lungs to say more. Retorts surged up and died. She could tie a bow with the knot of yearnings she’d pushed aside.
Of course she wanted to be a wife and mother, to share her life with someone who’d give her loyalty and love. A man to whom she could entrust her heart. But she’d tripped down that road before and ended facedown in a puddle, figuratively speaking. She was done chasing a fairy-tale ending that would never come.
“My father prepared me for this work, and I shall do my duties as long as I’m able.”
“Or until the new master dismisses you.” The vicar spoke bluntly, but he tempered his words with a furrowed brow and sad gaze. “You must anticipate that he will wish to choose his own steward. One who’s—”
“Not a woman?”
“It is unusual, Miss Thorne. That you must allow.”
“I woke up on the morning of Father’s passing”—her throat ached at mention of that hideous day—“and did what needed to be done.” Everyone at Enderley had looked to him for guidance, and when he’d gone, they’d looked to her. “I couldn’t leave his role empty. The work needed doing, so I did it.”
“Still isn’t right or proper,” Hardbrook grumbled.
Mina stood and stepped out from behind her desk. Between the three seated men and stacks of account ledgers and estate documents, there wasn’t much room. But squeezing close to a bookcase was preferable to enduring the scrutiny of her visitors’ disapproving gazes. She ran a finger along the shelf where she maintained a collection of items she’d gathered from around Enderley—a shard of colored glass from the original castle’s windows, a bit of polished flint, a Tudor coin dug up near the estate’s old tower.
Staring at the items eased her nerves. Nicholas Lyon might be inheriting every inch of the place, but he hadn’t visited in years. She could help him understand Enderley, if he let her.
