Malia Martin (13 page)

“No, just saddle up Lucky. I hate riding inside a cramped carriage, even on long trips.”

James shrugged. “All right, then, your grace.” He went to Lucky’s stall and led the horse out through the gate. Trevor watched as the groom readied the stallion. He glanced at the doorway every so often, looking for the Duchess. He wasn’t scared of her, of course; he just wanted to leave without having to speak with the woman again.

He had left all the money he had with him for her, and he was going to put money in the
bank under her name so she could pay the servants. And he would, of course, send a good steward post haste.

He had nothing to feel guilty of, nothing!

Trevor thanked James when the groom handed over Lucky’s reins.

“Of course, your grace.” James furrowed his brow and wrung his hands. “You hurry back, now!”

Trevor cleared his throat and just dipped his head as he cantered away from the stables. Instead of leaving through the front gates, Trevor turned Lucky’s head for the back gardens. He did not want to risk being seen. Once they were into the trees that bordered the manicured gardens, Trevor pushed Lucky to a full-out gallop, intent on putting as much distance between himself and the estate before true nightfall. That was probably a little more than an hour away, though the light was fading fast.

It was obviously not a good idea to run Lucky so hard, since Trevor did not know the terrain all that well, but he was desperate to get away. They had not been gone longer than half an hour, and were not even at the town of Rawlston, when Lucky tripped over some obstacle before them. Trevor felt the horse stumble beneath him, and then he saw sky, trees, and earth tumble about him before he hit the ground.

He lay for a moment, stunned, the breath knocked from his lungs completely. After the
pounding of Lucky’s hooves, the heaving of the beast’s breath, and the sound of branches whipping against Trevor’s body, the sudden silence lulled him for a moment. And then he realized that he had not been breathing in that peaceful moment, and gulped in great mouthfuls of air.

Trevor turned over, still trying to drag breath into his lungs, and pushed himself up on his knees. Lucky stood a few feet away, shaking his head and prancing about. At least the horse had not been hurt. Trevor trailed his fingers roughly through his hair, ashamed at the danger he had just put Lucky through. It had been very bad of him to run off in such a pique and endanger the horse.

“Are you all right, sir?”

Trevor reared back, swinging his head around. A boy stood off to the side, his eyes large and round in the coming darkness.

“I seen you tumble, I did. Thought you were a goner for sure.”

Trevor just chuckled. “Aye,” he said, finally getting to his feet. He rubbed his backside discreetly before going to recapture Lucky’s reins. “I thought I was a goner for a moment, too.”

The boy laughed then, a giggle, really, that made Trevor smile as he checked Lucky’s legs, then looked under his hooves. “Well, Lucky, you’ve lived up to your name this day for sure.”

“Is he all right, then, too?” asked the boy.

“Aye, just threw a shoe.” Trevor sighed. “I
won’t be able to ride him, but at least it’s something that can be fixed.”

“Who are you talking to out there, Tuck?”

He and the boy looked up. A woman stood just outside the door of a small thatched-roof cottage Trevor had not noticed before, as it was tucked inside a stand of tall trees.

“Ah, Mum, there’s a nob here took a tumble from his horse.”

The mother advanced tentatively, a large mixing bowl clutched against her thin chest. Her quick glance swept over Trevor in the gathering dusk, and she obviously realized that he was of quality.

“Goodness, sir, are you all right?”

“Oh yes,” Trevor assured her. “I’ll have to walk the horse into town, but that’s not much of a journey.”

“No, but you’ll not make it afore dark.” The woman stirred whatever was in the wooden bowl absentmindedly.

Trevor shrugged. “’Tis my penance, I’m sure, for pushing the horse too fast in the first place.”

“Well and you’ll be forcin’ your penance upon the horse then, I think.”

Trevor glanced at Lucky, who chose that moment to whinny and look at his master balefully. “Do you want me to carry you on my back, then, Lucky?”

“Why don’t you come on in and have a bite to eat?” the woman said. “Give the horse a rest.
Either way, you’ll be walkin’ in the dark.”

Trevor looked up at the almost dark sky. “Aye,” he agreed. Then shrugged. “I am hungry, actually. I would appreciate the kindness.”

Tuck clapped his hands and ran ahead into the small cottage. The woman smiled, turning, then stopped and looked back at him, a look of reluctance upon her face. “I hope you don’t mind. The fare’s not elegant or abundant, sir.”

Trevor shook his head. “It doesn’t matter at all, and please call me Trevor.”

The woman nodded. “I’m Ruth, and the boy is Tuck. My man will be along shortly. He’s still out working the field.” She sighed. “What good it’ll do him.” She went inside, and Trevor followed.

“He’s a farmer, then?” Trevor asked.

“He tries. Went to Edinburgh three years past to work in a woolen mill there. Did well, he did. But it weren’t no place to raise Tuck. So we’re back here again.”

The inside of the small cottage was dark, lit only by the fire at the hearth. Once inside, Trevor realized that the cottage was actually more of a shack. One room, the walls lined with two old beds.

“I’d offer a place for you to stay the night,” the woman said self-consciously, “but we don’t have all that much room.”

Trevor sat at one of the rickety chairs around a small table near the fire. “Oh, I’ll be able to
make it into Rawlston. It is not much further, is it?”

“Not more than a half-hour walk,” the little boy piped up.

Trevor nodded his thanks for the information.

“Did you have business at the Hall, then?” Ruth asked as she spooned some of the mixture from the bowl and plopped it onto a sizzling cast-iron pan that sat on a three-pod ring over the fire.

“Um, yes,” Trevor answered.

“So you met the new duke?” the boy bobbed up and down with excitement. “What does he look like? Is he nice? Will he be married soon?”

“Ah, now, Tuck,” Ruth admonished the boy. “You keep your questions tucked back in your mouth as your name says you should.”

The boy frowned, his lips curling out in a pout.

“’Tis
all
right,” Trevor said quickly. “I saw the new duke from a distance, really. Seems a good chap to me. I do not think it’s any of my business to say if he’ll marry or not.”

Another small potato cake sizzled on the pan. “Oh, he doesn’t mean to be a busybody,” Ruth defended her son. “It’s just that it is very important to people hereabouts that the duke find his wife soon.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Cuz of the curse!” Tuck’s eyes widened with enthusiasm.

Trevor had to laugh. From the boy’s excitement; one would assume it was a good curse.

Ruth waved her hand. “A bit of legend around these parts, but still, it would be nice if the duke married and put it to rest.”

This time he wasn’t taken off his guard, and he was ready to hear the full extent of this curse. Trevor nodded as if he understood completely. “How did this curse start?”

Tuck finally stopped bouncing all over the room. He sat down on the wool rug before the fire, planting his elbows on his knees and propping his chin in his hands. Obviously the lad enjoyed a good story.

“Ah, well,” Ruth began, “it all started with the first Duke, and a bigger rake has never lived.”

Trevor bit his bottom lip. He was sure Sara would definitely take exception to that statement.

“He set about building Rawlston Hall and seducing all the young innocents within a twenty-mile radius.”

Trevor nodded. He now knew who had commissioned his lovely ceiling.

“Unfortunately, the man got a young gypsy girl with child, and then refused to support her or the bairn at all. The girl’s mother went to the newly finished Hall and yelled down a curse on the dukedom. She said that if any Duke of Rawlston did not settle down with one woman within the first year of inheriting the title, there
would be no heir and Rawlston would not be a profitable estate.”

“So you believe if the new duke marries within the first year of inheriting, it will break this curse?”

Ruth shrugged as the boy nodded vigorously. “We can only hope.”

There was that word again. Trevor frowned.

The woman waved about the small cottage. “Prosperity would be a welcome change. I can tell you that.”

“The duchess said she’s going to break the curse if it’s the last thing she does,” Tuck informed them all.

“Really?” Trevor said darkly.

“Uh huh. She promised.”

Ruth piled the finished potato cakes on an earthenware plate and placed it in the middle of the table. “And that’s just one more thing for the poor wee lass to do, now, is it not, Tuck?” She shook her head at the boy.

“Poor wee lass?” It was not a description that came to his mind when he remembered Queen Sara in one of her tirades.

“Och, and she is just.” Ruth brought a jug of milk to the table. “The saddest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Tuck jumped from his place before the hearth and scraped a chair back. “Can we start before Da comes home?” he asked, staring at the meager fare with large eyes.

Ruth gestured for the boy to dig in. “Go
ahead, Mr. Trevor, if we wait for my Robert, We’ll be eatin’ potato cakes hard as rocks, we will.”

Trevor took one of the yeasty tidbits. He ate slowly, shocked that the family had nothing in the way of meat. Of course, he said nothing, but he noticed suddenly how very thin the boy, Tuck, was and the fact that Ruth sat on her chair by the fire eating nothing. He felt awful for eating from the family’s meager store, but he did not want to offend Ruth by refusing.

“The saddest day since history began was the day the Duchess’s little Charles died.” Ruth sat staring into the fire as she reminisced.

“Charles?” Trevor asked.

“Aye, a little boy she birthed. Didn’t live more than five months.”

Trevor blinked, his heart thudding against his chest as if it were hollow.

“She was with child one more time after that, but she did not carry to term.” Ruth shook her head. “Ah, how that woman tried so to have a child. Always telling us that she would get an heir, that the title would stay in one family for a while and that we’d have stability . . . peace.” The woman turned a rueful smile upon Trevor. “She did try to be a good duchess, oh, how she tried. And I know she feels that she failed us.”

The small bit of potato churned in Trevor’s stomach. He felt a sickening kinship with Sara as he sat listening to Ruth tell of the Duchess
and her yearning to be what destiny had deemed impossible.

He knew desperately how that felt. Trevor put his cake down, his gaze on young Tuck. The boy was eating his cake as if it would sprout legs and scurry out of his hands. Firelight flickered over the boy’s dirty brown hair and gilded his little urchin face. A cute kid, Tuck. Trevor glanced at the boy’s mother and thought of his own.

His mother would have told him to stay. Trevor felt that truth right to his bones. She had once told him to run, but now she would have looked upon these people and told him to stay.

With that thought, Trevor clenched his fists. In truth, he should never have left his mother at the mercy of Rutherford Phillips, no matter how she had begged him to leave.

And yet, he was running once more. And this time, Trevor actually held the power within his grasp to save people—to make their lives better.

Trevor slid the rest of his cake to Tuck’s plate without letting Ruth see. The boy’s eyes rounded, and he grabbed the small offering, wolfing it down. Trevor looked away. He had spent the life his mother had given him rather selfishly, really. Spending his inherited fortune solely upon himself, as he built his own little world that he could endure. One without challenge, so that none would mock him again.

One where he hid from the knowledge that
he had run in fear when someone had needed him.

Trevor sighed. He’d be going nowhere this night except back to Rawlston. That thought made him want to run, of course. But he knew that he could not. Yes, Sara expected much of him, expected things he would never be able to do. But the least he could do for her, as well as these poor folks, was just that . . . the least he could do. Getting married in the next two months was not something terribly difficult. It did not require him to read through masses of paper or work an estate of a scale that made him shake with terror. It was not as if he would have to give up his dignity. He would still be able to keep his shortcomings to himself.

Shoving a fist into his pocket, Trevor came up with a gold coin, which he flipped onto the table. “I should be getting on, Ruth. Take this for your courtesy.”

Ruth did not protest. Tuck eyed the gold that glinted in the firelight with wide-eyed awe. “’Twas a lovely dinner, and the company was just that much better.”

Ruth smiled shyly as Trevor stood. He nodded and left, intent on getting back to Rawlston as quickly as he could.

A thorn dug into his arm and Trevor winced, but he managed to cut the loveliest pink rose on the bush. He pulled his arm carefully back and went to finish preparing the Duchess’s dinner
tray. It was a piece of art, truly.

Trevor stared at the small flour and potato dumplings in the Italian red sauce he had made earlier for Sara. He thought for a moment of the potato cakes that Ruth and Tuck were having for dinner and closed his eyes. He had no idea how he would make it better for these people, but right then, over his own Italian potato cakes, roasted vegetables, and fresh bread, Trevor vowed to do all he could.

With more determination than he had felt since his childhood, Trevor garnished the main plate with parsley, put the small vase on the tray, and swept it up with pride.

The cook held the door open for him. “This nee’okee,” he said.

“Nuokee,” Trevor corrected the man.

The large cook nodded quickly. “It is magnificent, your grace!”