Rules to Catch a Devilish Duke (2 page)

Dozen and dozens of windows gazed out from the huge rectangular center section of Greaves Park and the narrower east and west wings that rose from the snow at either end, forming a tremendous, chimney-dotted
H.
She’d driven past Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire once, and Greaves Park made that magnificent building look like a cottage.

The white and gray stone made the estate house seem almost part of the snowstorm around it, emerging and vanishing again in the changing light of dusk. In fact, it reminded her of those silly gothic tales her friend Emily Portsman kept in her room at The Tantalus Club. A shiver only half from the cold ran down her spine.

“Don’t you fret, miss,” Evans abruptly commented. “Mrs. Brooks, the head housekeeper, ’ll have you inside and warm and dry in no time.”

Perhaps Evans could read minds, or perhaps he was merely accustomed to the overwhelmed awe of first-time, half-drowned visitors to the estate. Either way, the conversation drew her away from her own overwrought imaginings. “How many servants does His Grace employ?” she asked, her teeth chattering so badly she wasn’t certain she made any sense at all.

“More than enough to see to everything you could ever need, Miss White. We may be out in the wilds of Yorkshire, but don’t you worry about that.”

Drat it all
. She must have sounded like some pointy-nosed, spoiled prima donna. Which might have been fun, except that she doubted her performance could compare to the actual noblewomen who’d already arrived there. “I only meant that it must take a small army to keep up such a grand house.”

Evans faced her again, his bundled-up expression quizzical. “Near fifty then, I think. Udgell or Mrs. Brooks’ll know better than me.”

She nodded, much preferring to be a curiosity over some easily deciphered chit—even one who’d evidently just displayed her bare, frozen arse to half of Yorkshire. Finally the wagon stopped at the head of the wide, semicircular drive, and Evans hopped to the snowy ground with enviable ease. Sophia couldn’t even feel her legs any longer. That hardly mattered, though, because the servant lifted her out of the back of the cart before she could do any more than gasp her surprise. Evans carried her up the trio of shallow granite steps to the massive front door. Under other circumstances, with two other people, this would have been terribly romantic, she was certain.

The heavy oak door opened just as they reached it. “Evans,” a reedy male voice intoned, “what have you there? We are not a charitable estab—”

“This is Miss White, one of His Grace’s guests,” the groom returned breathlessly, shifting his grip a little around her knees. “The bridge finally let loose and tossed the entire mail coach into the river. Drowned nearly a dozen turkeys, and—”

“Stop talking and follow me,” the absurdly tall, thin butler interrupted, turning his back and heading for the curved, mahogany-railed staircase at the rear of the foyer. “Roger, find Mrs. Brooks immediately.”

A footman scampered off into the depths of the house. Sophia nearly began a protest that she could manage on her own, but she closed her lips before she uttered a sound. It was a very grand, very tall staircase, and at the moment she doubted she would have been able to drag herself up to the first landing.

More servants fell in around them, and she began to feel as though she were leading a parade of hot water buckets, pillows, coal-filled bed pans, and what looked like someone’s oversized night rail. The bed pan looked especially blissful, and she could almost imagine how the warm metal would feel against her chilled feet.

They reached a large bedchamber, and after a brief conversation a short, rotund woman chased the male servants and all but one other maid out and closed the door behind them. “There we are,” she said in a warm voice that didn’t much feel like it belonged in the large, cold house, stripping the wet blanket from Sophia’s shoulders and handing it to the second maid. “They might at least have sent for the coach and kept you out of that dreadful howling wind.”

With the blanket gone, cold air rushed in around Sophia, and her already stiff muscles tightened so much she creaked. She shuddered, then nearly fell to the floor as Mrs. Brooks and the other woman began pulling at buttons and untying ribbons. She was too cold even to care when her gown fell into an icy puddle on the hardwood. Now the remainder of Yorkshire had seen her bare arse. Together the two servants half dragged her to the large, cast-iron bathtub and plunked her down into the steaming water.

“Oh! Oh … goodness that’s nice,” she chattered, sinking chin deep into the water. “And I didn’t mind the cart. I’m only grateful His Grace arrived before I ended like the poor Christmas turkeys.”

“Don’t you even try to talk, Miss White. We’ll have you warm and dry and tucked into bed in no time.”

“Actually, I think I’d like to stay in the bath for a bit,” Sophia countered, all the attention beginning to make her uneasy now that she didn’t feel in imminent danger of freezing to death. “And I can tuck myself into bed. Truly. Thank you so much for your help.”

Mrs. Brooks opened and closed her mouth again, then nodded. “As you wish then, Miss White. If you require any assistance, pull the bell. Gilly or I will see to you.”

The other maid, a petite blonde with a dash of freckles across her nose, dipped a curtsy. “I’ll set your gown out by the fire to dry, miss.”

“Thank you. And please. It’s just Sophia.” Even without these odd circumstances, she and servants had a bond that none of Society’s proper misses would ever dare to claim. Her mother had been a duchess’s maid, after all.

She closed her eyes, and in a moment the bustling and rustling ceased, closely followed by the click and thud of the bedchamber door closing. Ah, warm, steamy bliss. With the surprise and brief terror as the coach pitched headlong into the river, everything had been so busy she’d barely had time to breathe. Chaos and turkeys and shouting men and the heavy, thick crack of ice, the shock when she’d found herself submerged as the coach slowly rolled onto its side—they were all quite lucky that no one had been dragged under the ice and drowned.
She’d
nearly drowned.

And who would even have noticed? Camille, of course, would have missed seeing her for Christmas, but the new Mrs. Blackwood had a husband and a new life now. The other girls at The Tantalus Club—until the next scandalous chit came along looking for sanctuary and employment. Her aunt and uncle didn’t even know where she might be, as far as she knew, and they would care even less. To them she was just a nuisance dropped on their doorstep to eat their food, an unremarkable girl with no prospects and a supremely troublesome parentage.

For once her father would have noticed, and he would likely have been extremely annoyed that his twenty-three-year-old mistake had managed at the last moment to evade his reach now that he’d suddenly decided to notice her. Or perhaps the Duke of Hennessy would only regret that she hadn’t perished, after all. Her drowning would have saved him the trouble of following through on his threats to either remove her from The Tantalus Club or to remove the Tantalus from London, the awful, arrogant man.

The door thudded and clicked again. Grateful for the interruption of her unaccustomed morose thoughts, Sophia opened her eyes again. And then she yelped. The Duke of Greaves stood in the doorway, gazing at her with steel-gray eyes.

*   *   *

Adam Baswich, the Duke of Greaves, stood looking down at the naked young lady in the cast-iron bathtub. Steam rose from the water to straighten the damp strands of unusual scarlet hair that tangled deep red and lush at the top of her head. If she hadn’t been wearing the remains of a bonnet earlier he would have recognized her even in the middle of the river Aire; he’d never encountered anyone with hair of quite that color.

Realizing that Mrs. Brooks wasn’t present, he hesitated for a brief moment, then moved forward anyway, stopping halfway into the guest bedchamber. Saving a chit’s life should grant him some license to speak with her. “Miss White. You’re unhurt, I hope?”

She nodded, sinking still lower in the tub so that her lips were only a fraction above the rippling line of water. If they hadn’t been chattering, he might have considered them kissable, but that was neither here nor there.

“Bumped and bruised, I think, now that I can feel my arms and legs again. But yes. This is much better than being drowned.” She offered a smile that only improved the enticement of her mouth. “And as you’re the reason I didn’t drown, I think you should call me Sophia.”

“Considering that the coachman was saving the mail and the turkeys, aiding you seemed the least I could do,” he returned. “I hate when my guests expire while answering my invitations. It puts people off.”

“I can see where that might happen.”

This seemed an odd and rather amusing conversation to have with someone—a chit in particular—who’d nearly drowned, but on the other hand she would have need of her good humor. “I’m afraid that this was all we were able to recover of your luggage.” Putting a sympathetic expression on his face, Adam lifted up the wet, misshapen hat box that dangled by its fraying handle. “I’m sorry. We did search, Sophia.”

Sophia White looked at him, then at the box. Then she laughed, her mouth upturning and eyes squinting at the corners in genuine amusement. The sound, her entire reaction, in fact, was completely unexpected, and he frowned, even more intrigued now. Although he didn’t have much experience with half-drowned women, he doubted most of them would laugh at additional misfortune.

“I enjoy a good joke,” he said. “Is this one?”

Choking a little, Miss White lifted one hand out of the water and pointed at the hat box. “I detest that hat. I only purchased it on a dare and meant to wear it to shock Cammy and your other guests.” She chuckled again. “Oh, it’s dreadful. I daresay it only survived because Poseidon refused to have it in his river and cast it back upon the shore.”

If there was one thing Adam insisted on, it was having his curiosity satisfied. For the moment he put aside the information that she meant to shock his guests. That had been one of the reasons he’d invited her to his party in the first place, actually. With all the misery he meant to inflict on himself this holiday, he deserved a bit of amusement.

Keeping half his attention on Miss White, he set the box down on a chair and with his boot knife cut the string holding it closed when the wet knot wouldn’t budge. Once he’d removed the lid, he reached in and pulled the sopping wet thing out into view. It was blue, with what looked like the remains of two bright blue ostrich feathers arching over the top of it and shading two concentric rings of red and yellow flowers. A faux bird—either a sparrow or a bullfinch—nested in the center of the yellow, inner ring. “Good God.” She was absolutely correct. The hat was hideous.

Even considering the ugly hat, her reaction wasn’t anything he’d anticipated. After all, he’d just informed her that everything she’d brought with her to Yorkshire was gone. Perhaps she hadn’t understood that. Or perhaps that had been hysterical laughter, though he abruptly doubted that. Previously acquainted with her or not, he was beginning to suspect that Sophia White had rather more facets to her than he’d expected.

Adam took a breath. “Well, it’s not a disaster yet. I’m certain we’ll be able to find something for you to wear.” Setting aside the hat, he noted that if he took a step or two closer he would be able to see her bare legs beneath the water. He had no objection to seeing them again, actually, but it seemed a bit like taking advantage.

“Camille is nearly my size,” she commented, sending a glance at the towel across the foot of the bathtub. “I know she would lend me a gown.”

“Mrs. Blackwood isn’t here.”

Her pretty green eyes blinked. “That complicates things somewhat, doesn’t it?” She sighed, her mostly submerged shoulders rising and falling beneath the thinning curtain of steam. “Perhaps one of your other guests could be persuaded to lend me a castoff, then, until Cammy arrives. Or I’d be happy to purchase something from one of the maids.”

So in the space of a very few minutes she’d lost her clothes and the presence of her dearest friend, but Sophia White didn’t seem overly concerned by any of it. Adam almost hesitated to tell her the rest, but he had the distinct feeling that the news was more of a tragedy for him than for her. Aside from that, Miss White didn’t seem to overset easily. But then again, her entire future didn’t hinge on the next few weeks. He wasn’t so lucky, himself.

“You are my first guest, Sophia,” he said aloud. “And until the storm stops and the bridge can be repaired, you shall be my only guest.”

This time uncertainty crossed her expression, and he could practically hear her thoughts. Was she trapped at Greaves Park for the winter? Was there anywhere she could go to escape her situation? He could answer all those questions, of course, but he wanted to hear her ask them aloud, first. Sophia White might be a child of unacknowledged parentage, and one who worked in a profession most of his peers considered highly unacceptable, but there were times a few months ago when he’d actually found her amusing. And interesting. Had it been a façade, or was she actually as good-humored and practical as she pretended?

She spent a moment gazing at him, then wrinkled her nose in a thoughtful scowl. “Well. Unless I’m to remain submerged in the bath until spring thaw, I shall have to hope that Mrs. Brooks liked me well enough to allow me to alter one of her old dresses. Unless you have a supply of onion or potato sacks to hand, of course.”

Considering how rarely anyone accomplished the perturbing feat of surprising him, Adam couldn’t quite believe that she’d done so unintentionally—though under the circumstances, unless she’d taken a powder keg to the bridge, she’d had no idea what awaited her on the road to Greaves Park. “You mean to tell me that as long as someone has enough charity to lend you a gown, you have no other concerns over your situation?” he asked, unable to keep the well-honed skepticism from creeping into his voice.

“I
am
somewhat concerned that you’ve barged into my bath without so much as knocking,” she returned promptly. “But I’m also aware of precisely what sort of female everyone thinks me.” She tilted her head, a straying strand of her autumn-colored hair dipping into the water as she assessed him. “Is that why you came in here? I’m still dreadfully cold, you know.”