How to Tame Your Duke, page 3
Emilie took another step backward, a final longing gaze at her chicken. She’d only had a single rubbery bite, her first meal since a hurried lunch of cheese sandwich and weak tea at the station cafe in Derby, as she waited for the next train in her deliberately haphazard route. She hadn’t thought to bring along something to eat. What princess did? Food simply arrived at the appropriate intervals, even during the flight from the Continent, procured by one loyal retainer or another. (Hans did have a knack for procuring food.) This chicken, tough and wretched, pale and dull with congealed grease, was her only chance of nourishment until morning. The dismembered leg lay propped on the edge of the plate, unbearably tantalizing.
At the back of Emilie’s mind, Miss Dingleby was saying something strict, something about dignity and decorum, but the words were drowned out by the incessant beat of hunger further forward in the gray matter. Emilie ducked under a flying fork, reached out with one slender white hand, snatched the chicken leg, and put it in her pocket.
She spun around and hesitated, for just the smallest fraction of an instant.
“I’ve got ye, ye scraumy-legged bu—” The shout rang out from the melee, cut short by an oomph and a splatter.
Emilie turned back, set down her valise, and wrenched the other leg from the chicken. The bone and skin slipped against her fingers; she grabbed the knife and sawed through until the drumstick came loose.
A half-crown coin landed with a thud on the platter, at the bisection of leg from trunk, in a pool of thickened grease. “Oy!” someone yelled.
Emilie looked up. A man rushed toward her, his nose flinging blood, his arms outstretched. Emilie took the chicken leg, left the coin, and scrambled past the chair.
“What has ye got there? Oy!”
A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, turning her around with a jerk. Emilie held back a gasp at the stench of rotting breath, the wild glare of the bulbous eyes. The chicken leg still lay clenched in her left hand, the knife in her right.
“Stand back!” she barked.
The man threw back his head and laughed. “A live one! Ye manky wee gimmer. I’ll . . .”
Emilie shoved the chicken leg in her pocket and brought up the knife. “I said stand back!”
“Oh, it’s got a knife, has it?” He laughed again. “What’s that there in yer pocket, lad?”
“Nothing.”
He raised one hamlike fist and knocked the knife from her fingers. “I did say, what’s that there in yer pocket, lad?”
Emilie’s fingers went numb. She looked over the man’s shoulder. “Watch out!”
The man spun. Emilie leaned down, retrieved the knife, and pushed him full force in his wide and sagging buttocks. He lurched forward with a hard grunt and grabbed wildly for the chair, which shattered into sticks under his hand. Like an uprooted windmill he fell, arms rotating in drunken circles, to crash atop the dirty shavings on the floor. He flopped once and lay still.
“Oh, well done!”
The boy popped out of nowhere, brushing his sleeves, grinning. He pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and examined the platter of limbless chicken. “I do believe that’s mine,” he said, taking the half crown and flipping it in the air.
“Wh-what?” asked Emilie helplessly.
“Freddie, ye feckless gawby!” It was the barmaid. Her hands were fisted on her hips, and her hair flew in wet strands from her cap.
“I’m sorry, Rose,” said the boy. He turned to her with a smile.
Rose? thought Emilie, blinking at the broad-shouldered barmaid.
“Ye has to watch yer mouth, Freddie,” Rose was saying, shaking her head. Another shout came from the mass of men, piled like writhing snakes atop one another on the floor nearby. Someone leapt toward them, shirt flapping. Rose picked up Emilie’s half-empty wine bottle and swung it casually into the man’s head. He groaned once and fell where he stood. “I’ve told ye and told ye.”
“I know, Rose, and I’m sorry.” Young Freddie looked contritely at his shoes.
“Ye’d best fly, Freddie, afore yer father come a-looking. And take t’poor young sod with ye. He never is fit for wrastling.”
Freddie turned to Emilie and smiled. “I think you’ve misjudged him, Rose. He’s got a proper spirit.”
“I have nothing of the sort,” Emilie squeaked. She took a deep breath and schooled her voice lower. “That is, I should be happy to retire. The sooner”—she ducked just in time to avoid a spinning plate, which smashed violently into the wall an instant later—“the better, really.”
“All right, then. Don’t forget your valise.” Freddie picked it up and handed it to her, still smiling. He was a handsome lad, really, beneath his spots. He had a loose-limbed lankiness to him, like a puppy still growing into his bones. And his eyes were pure blue, wide and friendly behind the clear glass of his spectacles.
“Thank you,” Emilie whispered. She took the valise in her greasy fingers.
“Have you a room?” Freddie asked, dodging a flying fist.
“Yes, upstairs. I . . . Oh, look out!”
Freddie spun, but not in time to avoid a heavy shoulder slamming into his.
“Jack, ye drunken taistril!” screeched Rose.
Freddie staggered backward, right into Emilie’s chest. She flailed wildly and crashed to the ground. Freddie landed atop her an instant later, forcing the breath from her lungs. The knife flew from her fingers and skidded across the floor.
“Right, ye wankley whoreson,” said the attacker. He was the first one, Emilie thought blearily; the one who had knocked the coins from the table to begin with. He was large and drunk, his eyes red. He leaned down, grabbed Freddie by the collar, and hauled back his fist.
“No!” Emilie said. Freddie’s weight disappeared from her chest. She tried to wriggle free of the rest of him, but Freddie was flailing to loosen himself from the man’s grasp. Emilie landed her fist in the crook of one enormous elbow and levered herself up, just a little, just enough that she could bend her neck forward and sink her teeth into the broad pad of the man’s thumb.
“OY!” he yelled. He snatched his hand back, letting Freddie crash to the ground and roll away, and grabbed Emilie’s collar instead.
Emilie clutched at his wrist, writhing, but he was as solid as a horse and far less sensible. His fist lifted up to his ear, and his eyes narrowed at her. Emilie tried to bring up her knee, her foot, anything. She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting the shattering blow, the flash of pain, the blackness and stars and whatever it was.
How the devil had this happened to her? Brawls only happened in newspapers. Only men found themselves locked in meaty fists, expecting a killing punch to the jaw. Only men . . .
But then . . . she was a man, wasn’t she?
With one last mighty effort, she flung out her hand and scrabbled for the knife. Something brushed her fingertips, something hard and round and slippery. She grasped it, raised it high, and . . .
“OOGMPH!” the man grunted.
The weight lifted away. Her collar fell free.
Emilie slumped back, blinking. She stared up at the air before her. At her hand, grasping the tip of a chicken leg.
She sat up dizzily. Two men swam before her, her attacker and someone else, someone even broader and taller, who held the fellow with one impossibly large hand. Emilie expected to see his other fist fly past, crashing into the man’s jaw, but it did not. Instead, the newcomer raised his right arm and slammed his elbow on the juncture of his opponent’s neck and shoulder.
“Oy?” the man squeaked uncertainly, and he sagged to the ground.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Freddie. He stood up next to Emilie and offered her his hand. “Was that necessary?”
Emilie took Freddie’s hand and staggered to her feet. She looked up at the newcomer, her rescuer, to say some word of abject thanks.
But her breath simply stopped in her chest.
The man filled her vision. If Emilie leaned forward, her brow might perhaps reach the massive ball of his shoulder. He stood quite still, staring down at the man slumped on the ground with no particular expression. His profile danced before her, lit by the still-roaring fire, a profile so inhumanly perfect that actual tears stung the corners of Emilie’s eyes. He was clean-shaven, like a Roman god, his jaw cut from stone and his cheekbone forming a deep, shadowed angle on the side of his face. His lips were full, his forehead high and smooth. His close-cropped pale hair curled about his ear. “Yes,” he said, the single word rumbling from his broad chest. “Yes, my dear boy. I believe it was necessary.”
Dear boy?
Emilie blinked and brushed her sleeves. She noticed the chicken leg and shoved it hastily in her pocket.
“I was about to take him, you know,” said Freddie, in a petulant voice.
The man turned at last. “I would rather not have taken that chance, you see.”
But Emilie didn’t hear his words. She stood in horrified shock, staring at the face before her.
The face before her: His face, her hero’s face, so perfect in profile, collapsed on the right side into a mass of scars, of mottled skin, of a hollow along his jaw, of an eye closed forever shut.
From somewhere behind him came Rose’s voice, raised high in supplication. “Yer Grace, I’m that sorry. I did tell him, sir . . .”
“Your Grace?” Emilie said. The words slipped out in a gasp. Understanding began to dawn, mingled with horror.
Freddie handed Emilie her valise and said ruefully, “His Grace. His Grace, the Duke of Ashland, I’m afraid.” A sigh, long and resigned. “My father.”
TWO
The carriage rattled over the darkened road. Each jolt echoed through the silent interior before absorbing into the old velvet hangings, into the cushions with their crests embroidered in gold thread.
Emilie took in shallow breaths, hardly daring to disturb the heavy air. How many years had this carriage sat inside the duke’s stables, taken out for polishing every month or so and rolled back in again? She tried to think of something to say. She had been educated to speak into silence, to keep conversation flowing during interminable state dinners and family visits, but on this occasion she could not produce a single word.
Young Freddie sat next to her, or rather slumped, dozing against the musty velvet. Freddie, by courtesy the Marquess of Silverton, as it turned out. Across from them sat the duke, still and massive, his head bent slightly to avoid the roof of the carriage. He stared without moving through the crack in the curtains to the wind-whipped moors beyond. Emilie could scarcely see him at all in the darkness, but she knew that he was facing to his right, that he was shadowing his flawed side from her view. She sensed, rather than saw, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. The rhythm mesmerized her. What was he thinking, as he sat there with his steady breath and his steady heartbeat, while the wind pounded the carriage walls?
The Duke of Olympia had told her little about him. He lived in deepest Yorkshire, at the Ashland family seat, from which he rarely ventured. He had been a soldier before assuming the title—he was a younger son of some sort, and not expected to inherit—and had fought in India or thereabouts. (Emilie, her skin prickling at the memory of the duke’s elbow landing expertly on the drunkard’s neck, could readily believe this.) His only child, Frederick, was nearly sixteen, extremely clever, and already preparing for the entrance examinations at Oxford; his old tutor had left a few months ago, which was why they needed another scholar without delay.
There had been no mention of a wife.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but the duke’s voice checked her.
“Well, Mr. Grimsby,” he said, without turning his head, just loud enough to penetrate the rising howl of the wind with his extraordinary deep voice, “this is a fortuitous coincidence indeed. Another instant, and I should have been forced to find Frederick a different tutor.”
Emilie cleared her throat and concentrated on keeping her words steady. “And I thank you again, Your Grace. I assure you, I am not in the habit of engaging in tavern brawls. I . . .”
The air stirred as Ashland waved his hand. “No doubt, of course. Your references are impeccable. Indeed, I rather believe I trust Olympia’s judgment in such matters above my own.”
“Still, I should like to explain myself.”
He turned at last, or at least Emilie thought he did. Her eye caught a flash of movement, the sliver of moonlight striking his pale hair, and she turned away with a blush.
“No need at all to explain yourself, Mr. Grimsby,” he said. “You rescued my young scapegrace of a boy, after all. I daresay it was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Exactly that, sir. As for the inn itself . . .”
Another stir of the air. “I ought to have had a carriage sent to the railway station, of course. I can’t imagine why no one thought of it. My butler is rather old, I suppose, and unused to visitors. As am I.”
The wind screamed, the carriage jolted violently. Emilie reached for the strap, but not before she and Freddie shot forward in tandem against the opposite seat.
For an instant she was flying, suspended in the air, and then she landed with a crash into Ashland’s right shoulder, just as Freddie’s head connected into the small of her back.
Ashland shuddered at the impact. His iron arms closed around them both, steadying.
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Emilie felt for her spectacles, her whiskers. Freddie was disentangling himself slowly, muttering, fumbling for his own spectacles, which seemed to have flown from his face and onto the seat.
“Not at all.” The duke’s tone was even, but to Emilie’s ears it vibrated with some sort of emotion, distaste or impatience, and as she struggled to right herself, she sensed that his flesh was shrinking from hers. That his very bones, from the instant of impact, had convulsed with agony at her touch.
Had she hit him with such force? She hadn’t felt any pain; just the ordinary sort of thud, not even worthy of a bruise.
“You’re all right?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. His arms opened wide, releasing them both, almost pushing them away.
“Yes, yes. Quite all right.” Emilie nudged Freddie away and settled back in her place. Her face burned against the cold air. Embarrassment. Yes, that was it. Of course the duke had been embarrassed. That was natural; she had felt it, too. They were strangers. It was simply the awkwardness of it all.
“Speak for yourself, Grimsby,” said Freddie. “Where the devil have my specs gone?”
“Here,” said Ashland, from the darkness.
“Oh, right-ho.” Freddie leaned backward and sank into the seat, just as it rose up in another jolt to meet him. “I take it we’re near the drive?”
“Almost there.” A pause settled in. Ashland shifted his big body. “We will save our interview for tomorrow morning, Mr. Grimsby, if it’s convenient for you. I daresay you’d just as soon head straight for your room.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The carriage slowed and lurched around a corner. Emilie found the strap just in time.
“I believe they’ve already prepared it for your arrival. You shall instruct my butler, of course, if anything is amiss.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, sir.”
Freddie coughed. “You’re going to have to show a great deal more spirit than that, Grimsby, if you’re hoping to survive a winter up here. Once the wind starts to kick up, things turn dashed melancholy.”
A gust rattled the windows, shrieking along the seams.
“Hasn’t it rather kicked up already?” Emilie ventured.
“This?” Freddie laughed without mirth. He rapped his knuckles against the glass. “Nothing more than a gentle breeze, this. A zephyr.”
“Oh. I see.”
Freddie laughed again. “You’re in Yorkshire now, Grimsby. Abandon hope and all that. If I were you, I’d be counting the days until my first weekend off and booking the early express up to London. We are giving him a weekend off now and again, aren’t we, Pater?”
Ashland did not stir. “If your progress is satisfactory, of course.”
“Then I shall do my best for you, Grimsby. It’s the least I can offer you. And I’m dashed clever, you know. Never fear.”
“Quite clever, I’m sure.” Emilie said this with conviction. No doubt at all, young Lord Silverton was altogether too precocious.
The carriage slowed, lurched, stopped. Almost before the wheels had fixed, the door was swinging open and the duke leapt out as if from a spring.
“That’s Pater for you,” Freddie said resignedly. “Not at all fond of closed spaces. You first, Grimsby. Hero of the hour and all that.”
The moon shone round and full behind a raft of skidding clouds. It illuminated the Duke of Ashland’s hair to whiteness as he turned and stared down at Emilie. She met his gaze squarely beneath the brim of his hat, afraid of letting her eyes trail downward to his ruined jaw. The single eye enveloped her whole. In the moonlight, it might have been any shade from pale gray to vivid blue. “Simpson, this is Mr. Grimsby, Silverton’s new tutor. Have your staff see to his comfort tonight.”
Emilie was aware of an enormous dark mass to her right, immense with gravity, obscuring the night sky. A single figure resolved itself from the pitch, white collar gleaming with its own luminescence from the corner of Emilie’s vision. “Yes, Your Grace,” said a low voice, crackling with age. “You may come with me, Mr. Grimsby.”
“I shall send for you in the morning, directly after breakfast, to discuss the terms of your employment here.” A sudden gust of wind nearly tore his words away, but Ashland didn’t move, didn’t raise his voice by so much as a single decibel. “In the meantime, I urge you to make yourself comfortable in my home.”
“Thank you, sir.” Despite the numbing shock of the wind, Emilie’s cheeks glowed with warmth.
“In other words,” Freddie put in, “you’ve been dismissed for the night, Grimsby. I’d dash while I could, if I were you. In fact, being a hospitable sort of chap, I believe I’ll take you up myself.” His hand closed around Emilie’s upper arm.
