She smiled. He was the kind of man who wasn’t used to sharing confidences with anyone, but he couldn’t hold back from her—not with his thoughts, or his kisses. After only knowing her for just over a day. Which made her feel very powerful, in a uniquely feminine way.
She was still smiling when they emerged, blinking, onto a massive swathe of lawn on which sheep were grazing. On its far side sat a very neat little box of a house, in the Palladian style, two storeys high. Or perhaps not so little. She counted seven windows across the top floor.
She turned to look at Gregory, who’d come to a complete standstill. He caught her enquiring look and glowered at her.
‘This is it,’ he said. ‘God help me.’
‘Whatever do you mean? Gregory, what is the matter?’
A muscle in his jaw clenched, as though he was biting back some unpalatable truth. Whatever could there be inside that house which had the power to make him look so reluctant to enter it? The dragon of an aunt? Surely she couldn’t have too much influence over him, since he claimed to own the house? Unless he’d fallen on hard times and the woman held some financial power over him? Well, that wouldn’t matter once they were married—unless she was the kind of old harpy who would make him feel bad about marrying an heiress.
‘You’ll soon find out,’ he said grimly. Then seized her hand in his and set off for the house once more.
‘Please don’t worry,’ she panted, for he was walking so fast now he’d clearly made up his mind to beard the dragon in her den that she was having to trot to keep up with him. ‘Whatever is worrying you, I know you can deal with it. You can deal with anything.’
‘I hope to God you’re right,’ he muttered.
He took a deep breath, like a man about to dive from a high cliff into murky water, then strode up the front steps and rapped on the door.
‘Prudence,’ he said, turning to her, a tortured expression on his face. ‘Perhaps I should have warned you before we got here that—’ He broke off at the distinct sound of footsteps approaching from the other side of the door. ‘Too late,’ he said, shutting his mouth with a snap on whatever it was he’d wanted to warn her of.
Never mind. Whatever it was, she could weather it. If she’d managed to survive this past two nightmarish days, she could weather anything.
But then, as the door swung open, something very strange happened to Gregory. He sort of...closed up. It was as though he had deliberately wiped all expression from his face, turning into a hard, distant, cold man she couldn’t imagine ever climbing trees with a grin. He looked just like the man she’d first seen in The Bull—the man from whom everyone had kept their distance. And, even though she was still holding his hand, she got the feeling he’d gone somewhere very far away inside.
A soberly dressed man opened the door and goggled at the sight of them. Which was hardly surprising. Not many people looking as scruffy as they did would have the effrontery to knock on the front door of a house like this. But Gregory didn’t bat an eyelid.
‘Good morning, Perkins,’ he said. ‘Something amiss?’
‘No, Your Grace,’ said the flabbergasted butler.
Your Grace? Why was the butler addressing Gregory as ‘Your Grace’?
‘Of course not, Your Grace. It is just—’ The butler pulled himself together, opened the door wider and stepped aside. ‘We were not expecting you for another day or so.’
Gregory raised one eyebrow in a way that had the butler shrinking in stature.
‘Your rooms are in readiness, of course,’ he said.
‘And for my guest?’
The butler’s eyes slid briefly across Prudence. ‘I am sure it will take Mrs Hoskins but a moment to have something suitable prepared for the young person.’
Gregory inclined his head in an almost regal manner. Then walked into the house in a way she’d never seen him walk before. As though he owned the place. Well, he’d told her he did. It was just that until this very second she hadn’t really, truly believed it.
And there was something else she was finding hard to believe as well.
‘Why,’ she whispered as he tugged her into the spacious hall, ‘is the butler calling you Your Grace?’
‘Because, Miss Carstairs,’ he said, in what sounded to her like an apologetic manner. ‘I am afraid that I am a duke.’
Chapter Twelve
‘A duke?’
No. It would be easier to believe he was a highwayman and that this house was a den filled to bursting with his criminal associates than that.