Duke Herheart Final (18 page)

“First thing in the morning if you desire, just mark it for Smithers and he will handle it. Are you also going to teach Miss Ragland to paint?

I know you two have been working on the rose bushes.”

“Roses yes, paints no,” Kathryn declared. “Not much I do with my hands ever looks like it’s supposed to. In fact, I was just complimenting Ellie on her handiwork such as this hair and her sewing and it reminded me that there is not where my talents lie.”

“Miss Ragland, where do your talents lie?” asked Agatha in a rather more pointed tone.

Michael shot her a reproving look.

“Well My Lady, I am really good with people. It sounds trite but if I 104

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told you what I did for a living, you’d probably be a little shocked.”

“Nothing can shock me gel, as long as you don’t say something provocative like you’re a courtesan.” She laughed and the others followed but it wasn’t really all that funny or appropriate.

“No, not that. I’m a counselor. I work with women and children in crisis.”

“Crisis?” It was Cassandra’s turn to sound surprised. “What kinds of crisis?”

“Abuse, homelessness, poverty, unemployment, mental illness, anything that would cause them a tremendous amount of stress. I work at an agency where we help women get back to being productive members of society or get away from abusive husbands or simply get training for new careers.”

All three of the mouths of the gentry were gaping as were Jem’s and Hallthorpes’ who had returned just as she had begun speaking. “You’re all staring at me.”

“You are right and we have all lost our manners, terribly uncouth of us. Do tell us what kinds of help you provide,” Michael said, looking at her as if for the first time all over again and trying to recover some of his usual élan. What she had said had shocked him to the core. She was someone who worked with poor and downtrodden women to help them improve their lives. Wouldn’t that be just what he’d expect of her? What an intriguing, beguiling, good woman he had found.

“One example is recently a woman came in with a baby and she didn’t have a job but she couldn’t afford childcare to go job hunting. She was in the proverbial catch-22. How to get out? We set her up for a few days with our resident day care that allows people to job search, got her some clothes from our thrift closet, and identified some job leads. After four interviews over eight days, she got a job at a day care. She takes her daughter with her and makes enough money to keep her own apartment.

A storybook ending I’d say.”

“Sounds like it. Do you believe in story book endings, Miss Ragland?” Cassandra asked skeptically.

“Not for me. But for some.”

“Miss Ragland,” Michael intoned in the soothing voice he used when he spoke to her. “Why should
you
not have a story book ending?”

“I am too much of a realist. I’ve seen too much in my life, but don’t get me wrong,” she said, her tone lightening the mood. “I absolutely believe in Sleeping Beauty and fairy tales and romance and love.”

“Kathryn, I’ll bet you could teach us all about love. You seem to be a very giving person.”

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“Thank you, Cassandra. Don’t know for sure that I am a love guru but I do think I know how to make people recognize happiness or at least reach for it.”

“You made me want to reach for it. I think you have a gift. Doesn’t she, Michael?”

“Yes. Let’s drink to gifts.” And he winked at his glowing baby sister.

* * * *

The dinner conversation with Agatha and Cassandra and Kathryn had finally lightened and become animated.
A houseful of women
. How had he come to that? But these women… he cherished them each one.

His years of being responsible for hundreds of men was now exchanged for the responsibility of a stable full of intriguing, amazing, stubborn, difficult, women. As odd as it seemed, Michael believed he could get used to this.

Since he was the only gentleman, he took his port in the drawing room with the ladies even though it was not really socially acceptable to drink in front of them. The awkward moment came when the tea tray was delivered and Hallthorpe hesitated a fraction of second in deciding who to place the tray in front of. Kathryn would someday be the lady of the house but she wasn’t yet. Agatha was the senior lady but Cassandra lived here all the time. Thorpe’s quick thinking placed the tray by Agatha and she smoothly began the pour. No one questioned his judgment.

* * * *

The next morning, Michael was attempting once again to catch up on his neglected business. “My Lord?”

“Yes, Thrasher, what is it?” Michael waved him into the room.

“One of the lads said as he saw a midnight black hunter stabled over to the woodsman’s cottage on the Hamilton property. He was coming back from visiting his mother over to Badlinton and was cutting through.

Figured there shouldn’t be anyone in residence when he heard the horse.”

“Did he see anyone about?”

“No but it did look like fresh activity. Hoof prints were churned by the door. Said he wanted to see the horse. It was a beauty, the man announced.

“Thank you. We’ll need to put a watch on the place. Can you tell me which grooms we can spare from the stable?”

“Aye, My Lord and…”

“Yes, Thrasher?”

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“I…we…want to help you lay the blackguard low, sir.”

“Thank you Thrasher.” Watching the groom’s retreating back, he realized there had been much more in Thrasher’s offer than simple loyalty. He suspected Thrasher and indeed all of his servants had been affected by the warmth of his home that had bloomed from the moment
she
had arrived.

It wasn’t just Kathryn’s dazzling smile or her quick wit, her earthy beauty or her mesmerizing voice…it was her radiant
joi de vivre
. She just lived so fully, like when she took the stairs two at a time or caught the hem of her gown hopelessly in the rose bushes and laughed at herself until she tore it beyond repair or when her smell of vanilla and warm woman filled any room she entered. The reactions of his servants, the males especially, were not surprising. Kathryn Ragland was the most delicious female he had ever met. Ever. And she would be his for the rest of his life, once he ‘laid low’ the villain trying to take her from him.

Her knock interrupted his musings. “Come.”

“There you are. Working hard or hardly working?”

“Kathryn, you have my measure, I was woolgathering. What can I do for you?’

“I need another run.”

Immediately his imagination conjured a vision of her passion drunk, sweating and sated from their previous run. But the assassin had targeted them as well. He still had not told her she was being targeted by an assassin who could strike from anywhere at any time so how could he discourage a run. “Was our last run not just a bit too eventful?”

“As I told you at the time, it was great. I am hoping you might
indulge
me again.”

“You, minx, are absolutely mischievous. How could I possibly refuse that invitation? We will however choose another route.”

“What, too many vivid memories of the last time?”

“Ahhh, I…don’t always know what to say to you, My Lady.”

“Say you will race me and that’ll be enough for now.”

* * * *

Michael had chosen the path through the woods away from Worley and Hamilton, deeper into his own property. Maybe the villain—if it was Harold Stafford or another—would avoid coming too far into Hawthorne’s park and they would be safer. He could not countenance any other outcome.

They set a slow pace on the well-trodden bridle path. She spoke first while he was contemplating their safety. “I wanted to ask about your wife. You have never really mentioned her and well, as I am getting to 107

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know about you, that’s one area of your life I know nothing about.” She turned and glanced at him. “That is if you are comfortable talking with me about it.”

“You know, Kathryn, I never thought I would feel as comfortable with a woman as I do you. My mother was sad and fragile. My sister has been a veritable recluse for the last years and Agatha is a formidable matron. You are much like a …friend.”

“Thanks, that’s a compliment. So what was she like?”

“Catherine was a Baron’s daughter. Her family spent the Season in London and she met and I believe fell in love with my cousin who…dishonored her.”

“By that I take it you mean, they had an affair?” She looked at him without the judgment he expected to see in her face. His family, even his sister had thought he had been mistaken to take Catherine to wife. Why he felt that Kathryn Ragland would understand his decision, he did not know but unburdening himself felt somehow comfortable. He had held this anger in for too long.

“Yes, she was with child and he might have married her but he dallied and did not ask her and she was afraid her condition would out while she waited on him to make the arrangements. I don’t think she would have come to me of her own volition but I happened upon them talking privately in the gardens at a soiree’ and I could tell she was trying to bring him to some point and he was being particularly evasive. When they separated she began to cry and I showed myself. The words just rushed out of her. When she realized she had told me enough to guess that she was with child, she looked as if she would die right there. I took pity on her and offered for her.”

“Just like that, a woman pregnant by another man?”

He regarded her river moss eyes and saw an altogether unexpected emotion… admiration.

“I know marrying her yourself was certainly chivalrous but why not encourage your cousin to marry her?”

“I had made the offer and I just somehow knew that if he had been so lost as to have bedded a virgin and then not immediately married her, he probably wasn’t going to. He had a certain reputation—all of the men in my family do.”

“Except you?”

“Except me.”

“Michael Stafford, you are a truly amazing man.”

She thought again about telling him of the portrait that had brought her to him but decided to let his admission sink in before throwing that at 108

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him. They had been out for what she estimated to be twenty minutes or so and it was as good a time as any to suggest they turn back. It would be about a four mile run at this rate.

She hesitated and he asked, “Is something amiss?”

“No, I think…it’s time we turned around.”

More than grateful to be heading back to the house and hopeful that they had not been followed, he stepped out in front of her and led the way back to the house. He sensed the danger as they crested a small rise that gave onto wide views of the park. There was an arriving carriage.

Visitors
. And Michael and Kathryn dressed in breeches, sweaty and breathing heavy. This was very bad.

Hoping to have secured her agreement for staying with him permanently before greeting any guests, Michael was aware what would happen if the two of them were discovered as they were, not betrothed. A betrothal would allow for a lot more flexibility in their movements and for now, his presence with her like this would compromise her reputation. He had no choice but to tell her their problem. “Kathryn, please slow down for a moment.”

“What’s wrong, you look worried.”

“Visitors. They really should not find us like this. I mean alone together and dressed scandalously.”

“All right, okay, so what do we do?”

“Servant’s entrance I think. I can towel off and greet them and you can slip upstairs and call for your maid.”

“Lead the way, Captain.” There was a tone in her voice he did not recognize and he regarded her face for any sign of that elusive niggling doubt that said something was amiss.

They parted just outside of the kitchen and she made her way toward her room. Michael regarded her retreating back and could not help but sense something was wrong. There had been no dazzling smile, not so much as a word. But she had done exactly as he had asked and disappeared without alerting their guests to her presence. What had he said or done to cause her hesitation?

* * * *

The click of the door was louder that she had meant it to be and she hoped it did not draw any attention. She wasn’t brooding. She wasn’t. It didn’t hurt that he wanted to keep her secret from visitors. Maybe, actually it did hurt a little. If she really thought about it, it made her feel cheap and dirty to be thought of as a sex partner, playmate, even friend, but not one he would publicly acknowledge. That was it…dirty. She had never let anyone make her feel dirty and as nice as he had been, he made 109

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no secret of his wish to keep her from polite society.

It was as good a time as any to begin contemplating her next move, actions she had let fall to the back burner because she had been enjoying her visit with the Stafford family. Tonight would be as good as any to have dinner in her room so she could plan in quiet.

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Chapter Twelve

Dispensing with the Stogwells had been even more difficult than ridding himself of the matron Pembroke days earlier because the Stogwells were actually decent and pleasant. He just couldn’t focus on what they were saying while he was distracted with Kathryn’s withdrawal at the end of their run. He wanted to talk to her to dispel the unpleasant tightness that had settled in his chest. She had looked…hurt.

Surely not over their conversation about his deceased wife
. Something he had said or done had caused it and he needed to fix it. “Vicar, I know my aunt would like to learn more about the Flower Committee. I will encourage her to seek you out to discuss it.”

“Wonderful, Your Grace. Your presence here is so…so…

stabilizing. The village has needed leadership. I trust that we will see a renewed spirit what with the festival and…”

“I intend to take my place of leadership.” Michael declared to dispel any notions the Vicar may be harboring.