Page 64 of A Duke Changes Everything
“That won’t be necessary.” Mina pressed her lips together to stifle an unbidden chuckle. Nick had made sure Gregory got his comeuppance. She’d never forget the sight of him flat on his arse in the mud.
“Word around the village is that the duke was had.” Colin regarded her skeptically and lifted a paperweight from her desk, flipping the smooth stone in his fingers. “Heard he paid an enormous sum for an ebony stallion that’s barely broken.”
“He also forgave Gregory’s gambling debts at his club.” Mina still mused over Nick’s actions, and her heart nearly burst in her chest when she recalled the look in his eyes as he’d handed her Hades’s reins.
“Doesn’t make sense, though.” Colin tipped his head in an admirable impression of a confused pup. “Is the duke truly so fond of horseflesh he’d pay an astronomical sum for a dodgy pony?”
“Hades isn’t dodgy. He’s a fine horse.”
Colin was an insightful young man, forever collecting facts and experiences to piece together into unique inventions. Now he studied Mina as if she were a particle under the lens of his microscope. When his brown eyes widened, she knew any attempt to hide her feelings from him was in vain.
“He bought the horse for you,” he said quietly. “Mina, what’s between you and the Duke of Tremayne?”
She stared at her cousin so long her eyes began to water.
What was there between them? Attraction. Desire. Nick liked to point out what they had in common, but Mina viewed the list as a rather short one. He was a wealthy, successful businessman. She was simply his steward.
Yet a persistent thought weighed on her mind this morning. For the first time in a long while, she thought perhaps it was time she left Enderley.
Once Nick returned to London, would the place ever feel right again?
Yesterday, he’d declared to Gregory that he belonged at Enderley, but now that she knew what he’d endured at the estate, who could blame him for wishing to leave?
“You’re not going to answer, are you?” Colin asked in a gentle tone, curious, but not pressing for more than she could give.
“I’m not sure I can.” She didn’t have the answers herself.
“Then tell me this. If he can be swayed to purchase a horse for two thousand pounds, do you think he could be convinced to invest in my thresher?”
“He said his friend was the investor.”
“Ivanson.”
“Iverson.” Mina shuffled through a stack of letters that had arrived in the morning post. “Aidan Iverson,” she read from one of the envelopes. The man boasted an address in Mayfair.
She stared at the neat, sharp angle of his handwriting and imagined what a life in Mayfair must be like. What London must be like, with its colors and sounds and all variety of people bustling through its streets. She’d always wanted to visit.
Nick was right. She didn’t know much beyond the acres of Enderley. She’d never been out of Barrowmere for more than day trip to Brighton. After her father’s death, she’d expected to remain in her role as long as she was needed. To remain at Enderley forever.
Nick’s arrival had changed everything.
“Mina?” Colin shifted in his chair. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
An idea came, impulse as much as anything. A need to get away. “Why don’t we go to London and see Mr. Iverson about your thresher?”
“We? As in you and I?” He swept a hand around the room. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“There’s always work to do, but practically speaking, all of it can wait. Besides, I haven’t had a holiday since I became steward.”
She’d been unable to leave her father’s role for even a day. Perhaps Nick was right, and she did feel some kind of debt to him, a need to be the dutiful, proper daughter she’d often felt herself failing to be.
For too long the estate had been the only place Mina felt she belonged. Enderley was home, and the prospect of leaving had been terrifying. Now she wasn’t so sure. Everything she thought she knew had altered.
Or perhaps she had.
After years of waking and getting straight to her duties, this morning she’d paced the carpet, anxious to see Nick, anxious for something she couldn’t quite name.
“We can go today. The trip is only a couple of hours by train and we can be back before nightfall.” Mina stood and went to a shelf behind her desk. In a locked box, she kept a collection of coins and notes she’d saved from her wages over the years.
