Page 23 of The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady
She had not seen the Duke since their discussion last night, when he had given her the list that crackled now in her pocket as she pressed her hand there. She supposed he was at dinner with the rest of his guests. Thankfully, those selfsame guests had given her the excuse she needed to get away. Having missed dinner to be of service to them, no one would expect to see her now.
Though admittedly, Alicia was getting sore tired of missing her evening meal.
Just this once. This last time. I will give Father the list and be done with it. I will tell him I cannot do more.
In truth, she had hoped to avoid having this conversation altogether. She had wanted to give the list to the boy selling ducks this morning.
She’d recognized the child as a favorite messenger of her father’s. Thankfully, she had been in the kitchen when he had appeared with his message to her, else she might have missed him completely. When she’d tried to press him to take the list, he’d informed her that his job had been to give her the message, not to take a reply in return. She supposed the child was scared to be caught carrying it.
She sighed now as she rounded the bend in the gathering twilight. The ruins of the castle were dark and ominous against the sky. In another hour it would be true night. She hoped her father would arrive soon that she might give him the message and be off quickly, so she could return before it became too dark to see.
In the rolling fog that drifted over the landscape, like gray ghosts haunting the twilit world, she could just make out the dark figure of a man seated upon the broken wall. He seemed to be watching the sunset through the trees.
She started forward joyously, happy to have the errand so easily over and done. “Father, I am glad to see you are early. I have…”
Alicia’s voice died away. The man seated on the wall was clearly not her father. In fact, the dark hair, the way in which he sat, seemed to imply someone much younger. Thinner. More like…
The Duke.
Alicia reeled back in surprise. “Your Grace…” She faltered, unsure what to say. To be caught here would be most unseemly, and would utterly destroy her reputation. To be caught here by her father would be ten times worse. “Your Grace…I am sorry to intrude upon your…quiet. Please excuse me.”
She ducked in a deep curtsey and turned to go, praying that her father would be late. He would see the Duke and understand the situation. He would find another way to obtain the list from her. Perhaps the child could be induced to return and take the list. A pretty coin would do much to allay fears. The old miser would simply have to part with one for the sake of his precious list.
Alicia did not get far. The Duke said something behind her, words that were too indistinct to hear properly.
“Your Grace?” Alicia turned, trying to suppress her impatient sigh. “If you were looking for a report, I have not seen your brother.”
“My brother…is an absolute…nitwit.” The Duke rose and raised something in his hand to the setting sun as though in salute. “May my father rot in blazes for what he has done to this family. I never…never…wanted this pile of rocks in the first place.”
He reeled against the ruins of the castle, the glass decanter in his hand coming down hard upon the wall and smashing. He stared at the shards, his palm open before him, muttering a word that she was sure a fine lord had no business saying.
“You seem to be drunk, Your Grace,” she said and threw up her hands for there was no way she could leave him here like this. “Let me look at that. You have cut yourself.”
She started forward but he reeled away from her unsteadily, tripping on a rock and sitting down hard on the very wall he had initially abandoned.
It seemed the Duke was not going to co-operate. Alicia glanced back the way she had come, hoping to see someone, perhaps one of his guests, that could take responsibility for the Duke. Someone, anyone other than her. But the trees closed around the path and to go back to the manor would be to leave him alone in the woods, which likewise seemed a bad idea.
With nothing else to do for it, she stepped forward to take his hand, trying to study the gash upon his palm in the fading light. There did not seem to be glass in it when she probed with her fingers. He winced and pulled away.
“Stop that,” she chided him as she would one of the neighborhood boys. “You must keep that clean until it can be bandaged properly.” She groped for a handkerchief in her pocket but it caught on the list, which came free with such a suddenness that it took her a moment to realize the list had tumbled to the ground when she had done so. She saw it now, gleaming brightly in the shadows.
“Botheration!” She bound his hand quickly with it and was about to bend for the paper when she felt his fingers upon her arm. Startled, she looked up, finding them standing very close, far too intimately.
“Stay a moment…” he said and she pushed against his arm. Thankfully, he let go immediately and she was able to leap out of reach.
“Your Grace, we have had this discussion already. I am not…” She paused, struggling for the right words without having to resort to being crass. “I am a Lady and I will act as such.”
There. That should settle it. But he seized upon the word and when he looked at her it was with an intensity that would have been unsettling had he been sober. “You have always…been too good to be in service. You have the delicate hands of one who should not work at all.”
“’I have always’,” she mocked and shook her head. “You have known me for the entirety of three days. And you know very little of ladies. Even the finest ladies have their work to do, or do you have no knowledge of how a household of that size is taken care of?”
His expression darkened. “That is too much the truth. I know nothing of manor houses or estates. I know the sea. I can tell you the story that can only be found in wind and wave. I have seen what lies in the depths, and have known the different winds in the Caribbean and the typhoons of the Far East. I have been all the way around the world, and I cannot determine which wall should be left and which to be fixed.”
His shoulders slumped as his arms raised, so he might hold his head in his hands. “I have never failed at anything in my life, not without getting up and trying again until I have mastered it. But this…this seems to escape me.”
“Three days,” she reminded him. “You have likewise been here three days. I suspect you need to give yourself time.” She stood beside him still, her hands firmly planted upon her hips as she considered the problem. Had he been sober she would have left him. But to abandon him drunk, with her father coming soon, would be to leave him vulnerable in the hands of one who would be an enemy.
Not that he would hurt him. At least I do not think he would.
