Page 5 of His Spirited Lady
The dread multiplied when he rounded a bend and Felton House came into view. Their home in Quebec would fit in one wing, and the garden had an honest-to-God maze. Bright flowers bobbed in the sunshine. Butterflies drifted on the breeze. The cold, muddy streets of Quebec could become a memory quickly.
Another woman walked from the back of the house, a basket on her arm and a dark green cloak over her shoulders. Her copper hair glowed in the sun. She shaded her eyes with her hand for a moment before walking toward him.
“May I help you?”
“I am looking for your…master?” What did one call a duke when addressing his servants?
“Master?” Her lips twitched.
Apparently, he’d guessed wrong. Perhaps all of England would be laughing at him by the end of this trip. He dismounted, eager to stretch his legs and get firm ground under his feet. “The Duke of Rushford. I wrote of coming, but—”
The woman’s smile broke wide as she extended her hands. “Richard! We’ve been expecting you.” Her grip was warm and strong. “I’m Thea. Come in for tea.”
Chapter Two
Richard followed theDuchess of Rushford around the back of the house, past a lush kitchen garden, and through the back door. She talked the entire way.
“Oliver will be irritated he wasn’t here to greet you.” She grinned over her shoulder. “More precisely that I was right—that he didn’t have time to go back to the mill and finish his ledgers.”
“He is committed to finishing his day with numbers before he forgets.” Richard wiped his shoes on the carpet laid over the threshold before entering a kitchen large enough to house most of the first floor of their Quebec home. Light poured through large windows across oak workbenches and bounced from cream-colored pottery and black iron pots. A modern stove sprawled across one wall, perpendicular to a stone fireplace he could have stood inside without stooping, if not for the low fire there. The room smelled of bread and sugar.
She went to the hearth and returned with the kettle, placing it on a trivet in the middle of the table next to the makings for tea. Richard dragged a chair from the table, the legs bumping along the stone floor as the wood, polished by years of care, warmed against his palm.
“Julia always said…” His gaze flew to his hostess, or to her back since she was retrieving something from the stove top. How would she react to the mention of his sister, the woman Oliver had married instead of her?
Thea placed a plate of cookies on the table before sitting opposite him. Her smile was gentle. “Don’t stop the story, please.”
“She always teased Oliver that he saw his day in numbers rather than words,” Richard said as he spooned tea leaves, sugar, and milk into his cup, which was large enough to hold a proper drink. “She called his ledgers his diary.”
Julia had kept a journal all her life, and she’d warned him and Oliver against reading them. It had taken them over a year after her death to dig into the crate. One night, they’d put Simon to bed, opened a bottle of whiskey, and sat on the floor with the box between them. Richard had expected revelations. Instead, he’d read the mundane details of their lives from her perspective, laughing and tearing up in equal measure.
He had left the later ones for Oliver to read alone.
While his tea was steeping, Richard bit into a cookie and let it melt on his tongue. Warm cinnamon and sugar loosened his muscles. Oliver had written about his new wife’s skill in the kitchen. He hadn’t overstated it.
Richard wasn’t sure about the rest. Oliver had always described his childhood home as a hive of activity reigned over by his queen bee of a mother. To all appearances, Thea was here alone. “Is the house always this quiet?”
Her eyes danced as she sipped her tea. “If Hazel were home, we would be banished to the front parlor and forced to use china. The maids would tiptoe around rather than focusing on their work, and Lionel would be fussing about entertaining on short notice. They all mean well, but they still aren’t accustomed to entertaining family like family.”
From outside came barking and yipping, followed by a deep whoop Richard remembered from years in the wilderness.
“No fair, Papa.” The boyish shout was sprinkled with a giggle. “The garden is off limits.”
A heavy slap against the door timed with the thud of boots on the steps. Seconds later, lighter steps and a lighter tap sounded. “You cheated,” the little boy scolded, still giggling.
The door opened. “And you sent that beast of a dog in my path. I lost a good five seconds untangling from him,” Oliver teased. “I had to take a shortcut to compensate.”
Both arrivals paused inside the kitchen door, eyes wide and smiles wide.
“OncleRichard!” Simon launched at him, and Richard caught in him in a tight embrace.
The almost-four-year-old he’d last seen waving wildly from a ship’s stern had become a gangly six-year-old. As Richard buried his nose in the boy’s hair, smelling sweat and fresh air, Simon wound his arms around his neck. Tears stung Richard’s eyes, and his ears heated with embarrassment. He hadn’t forgotten.
Oliver strode toward him with a wide grin and open arms. “It’s about bloody time.”
Richard stood, bringing Simon up with him, but straining under the weight and relishing that his nephew clung tighter. The boy’s feet grazed his thighs. Richard managed a lopsided half-bow. “Your Grace,” he chuckled.
“You arse,” Oliver said as he gave him a back-slapping hug. They all listed dangerously when paws the size of saucers landed on Oliver’s shoulders and a furry muzzle shoved past his head.
