Page 61 of When a Duke Loves a Woman
“The staff will be most pleased, sir, by your generosity.”
“If they’re having to deal with my mother I believe they’ve earned it.”
“She can be quite trying.”
He turned around. His butler blushed, shifted from one foot to the other like a school lad caught doing something he ought not. “I meant no disrespect, sir. The duchess—”
“Is more than trying. She’s in my world, too, you know.”
“Perhaps once she has a grandchild, she’ll mellow.”
“I’d have a child tomorrow if I thought there were any chance of that.”
Standing with her legs akimbo, her hands on her hips, Gillie surveyed her surroundings. If she didn’t lovingly know every nook and cranny, she wouldn’t have been able to tell a brawl had taken place the night before. Bless her brothers, her staff, and anyone else who had worked hard to put her establishment back to rights in such short order. “Two tables, twelve chairs.”
“Bugger it,” Roger muttered.
Looking over her shoulder, she watched as he handed a grinning Finn, leaning against the bar, a fiver. “I told you she’d know exactly what had been broken last night,” her brother fairly crowed. “Give her a few more minutes, and she can probably tell you how many mugs were smashed.”
“I’m not going to go to that bother,” she retorted, having accepted his earlier challenge to identify how much furniture was missing. “Just see that they’re replaced.”
“Will do,” Roger said, before disappearing into the kitchen.
Shifting his stance, Finn knocked his knuckles on the wooden counter twice before meeting and holding her gaze. “Heard you had a fellow staying with you last night. Wouldn’t be that duke, would it?”
She sat on a stool. Her head was no longer hurting, but staying awake until nearly dawn had left her drained. “I know you have no love for the nobility, but he’s not a bad sort.”
“Watch your heart, Gillie. They see us as toys, to be played with for a while, tossed into the rubbish bin when we start to bore them or they spy something shinier or cleaner.”
She lifted a shoulder slightly, not completely able to shake off the sorrow. “I was helping him with something and the situation has changed. He has no reason to come around here any longer.”
“As though the nobs need a reason to do anything.”
Chapter 17
“I think Trewlove is Hedley’s by-blow.”
In the library at White’s, enjoying a drink following dinner, Thorne looked discreetly to the side in the direction where Collinsworth’s gaze was fastened. On the far side of the room sat the elder duke with his ward’s new husband. “I can’t deny there’s a resemblance.”
“Why else would Hedley allow Lady Aslyn to marry a bastard?”
“Perhaps because she loves him.” That fact had been obvious during the wedding. The couple had barely been able to tear their gazes from each other.
“Still, to then ensure he was granted membership in the club as though we have no standards here was going a bit far.”
“Trewlove might not have the lineage, but he’s remarkably wealthy and getting wealthier by the day if rumors are to be believed. He could no doubt purchase the place if he wanted.”
“Still, I find it deuced strange the duke seems to be spending more time with the fellow than he does his own son. I’ve heard he even handed some of his estates over to Trewlove.”
“No doubt he fears Kipwick would lose them. The man has a terrible gambling habit.” Thorne returned his attention to sipping his whisky, again finding himself wondering why what had once been so pleasing to his palate was now lacking in flavor. “Sometimes I wonder if we are too quick to judge a man by the circumstances of his birth rather than the strength of his character.”
“That sort of talk would give your mother and mine the vapors.”
“Indeed.” He studied the amber liquid in his glass, wondering why Society found such fault in those born of sin, when they’d had no say in the actions that had led to their conception. If not for some man and woman coming together when they shouldn’t have, Gillie would not exist, and without her, he might have died. It made the subject of bastardy rather personal of late.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement and suddenly the Earls of Eames and Dearwood were standing in front of him. Apparently not everyone had left for the country, but then these were young men and the city no doubt offered far more excitement than their estates. “My lords.”
Eames gave a curt nod. “Your Grace.” Then a nod to the man sitting beside him. “Collinsworth.”
