Page 31 of Seductive Reprise
“Ah. I found myself wondering the other day whether or not that was still the case. You see, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time at my estate there. Sarnesfield Hall.”
With a private glee, Yusef watched Sir David color, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed.
“Palgrave,” Florence warned, frowning. “Leave him be.”
“What? We’re conversing, friendly-like. As neighbors do,” he said, his words hollow. Once more he glanced at the doors which, unfortunately, remained shut, trapping them in this miserable sitting room. There was truly no love lost between him and his half-sister, let alone her vulgar embarrassment of a husband. As soon as she’d been old enough to grasp thelaw of primogeniture, she’d always looked upon Yusef as some unpleasant smell to be endured.
“Well,” she said with a sniff, “you never extended that hospitalityourway, either.”
Yusef glared. “Would you have come?”
Florence glanced at her husband uneasily.
“Right,” Yusef said, and he stood, ready to go knock down doors if need be, desperate to gain access to his sire so he might quit this place as soon as humanly possible.
“We spent Easter with Lord Robert,” Florence said, changing the subject abruptly.
Yusef turned.
She grinned at him, looking spectacularly pleased with herself. “It was quite pleasant. Excellent weather—it only rained half the time. A shame you couldn’t come.” She inclined her head in a poor imitation of disappointment, the smugness of her eyes giving her away. “I suppose he’ll meet us out in Cheshire before too long. We’re to quit London in a couple weeks.”
Mercifully, the door finally opened. Crombie stood in the threshold, waiting to escort Yusef upstairs to his father’s study.
“A pleasure seeing you, sister,” he said, hoping the stress on the last word would make her squirm. He did not bother to offer his regards to Sir David.
As he followed behind his father’s butler, it was hard to escape the memories of every time he’d made this walk before. As a schoolboy home from Eton, too ashamed to report the ghastly things he’d endured at the hand of the Collegers. As an Oxonian, anxious that his father might comment upon his new mustache. As a young man, bidding the duke goodbye before he departed for Egypt. Without thinking he ran a thumb over his clean-shaven upper lip, relieved that his experiments with facial hair remained solidly in the past.
At Rose’s counsel, he recalled. The heat of longing came over him before he could stop it.
To your mustache, she’d written,I must admit it dulls the overall effect.
He’d been so desperate to know what she’d meant by that, he’d almost thrown caution to the wind and written her immediately, instead of waiting the agreed-upon month or two. And then when he did finally write to ask her, his heart had been racing when he opened her response.
What did I mean by “overall effect?” Come now, Joseph, don’t be daft. You must know how
And there she’d blotted out her thoughts, not once but twice. How he’d scrutinized those black blotches, as if he could uncover her initial drafts, but he’d never been able to make any of it out. Now his mind dutifully repeated the rest of her sentence as he walked down the cavernous hall, his footfalls clicking in a steady rhythm along with the butler’s.
You must know how you look. Handsome, proud, elegant, epitomizing a classic profile. And such lovely eyes.There, I’ve said it, and I shan’t tell you again. You’re quite the picture of everything an exemplary young man should be.
An exemplary young man. She was the only one who’d thought of him in such a way. Everyone else was all too ready to enumerate his faults: baseborn, short in stature, foreign.
Ostensibly, Yusef was here only to make good on his bargain with Marcus Hartley. But he knew there was only one real reason why he’d returned to Marbury House to play the dutiful bastard—her. And her pointed indictment against him.
Is this what she wanted, for him to embrace his relations rather than simply pull rank? He prayed to God it was. It seemed he failed to please her at every turn.
The door opened without a sound, and he followed Crombie within.
“Palgrave,” the duke said, looking up from his work, which consisted of several massive tomes spread open and overlapping one another on his magnificent mahogany desk. It shocked Yusef, how aged his father appeared. His limbs were lighter, his hair scant, and he looked smaller overall, even though he’d always stood even shorter than Yusef. Even his voice seemed thinner. He reached for his spectacles, wiping the lenses with a handkerchief before donning them.
Yusef walked forward. “Your Grace.” He bowed slightly before taking a seat. At the sight of the duke, Florence’s parting shot echoed in his head, and he could not help himself; the question burned in his skull and he had to release it.
“I hear you visited Lord Robert last spring.”
The duke frowned. “Of course we did. He’s my brother.”
“And heir,” Yusef spat, startling even himself at his loss of composure. He quickly regained it, leaning back in an indifferent posture with arms extended, hands resting atop his walking stick.
Unfortunately, it was too late. The duke sighed as he rubbed his forehead. “Is that what this is to be about, I presume?”
