The duke followed. “I havetoiledwithout end to make my land provide for those that reside there.” He shook his head, gripped his nape. “Change is in the air, manufacturing the way forward, yet my acres are agricultural, and I despair as I lose men to the towns for less backbreaking work. This damn weather is rendering my sheep lame and throttling my wheat.” His hand dropped. “When I inherited, my tenants were hungry and destitute and I have worked my ballocks off to at least see them well fed, housed, and I hope, content.”
Evelyn frowned and bit her lip. That did not tie with his ruthless reputation? Of forcing young lords to pauper their boots? Of coercion and stealing lands? And how on earth did a duke know of lame sheep on his estate? He must oversee every detail.
“But I read of your neighbour Lord Humby…”
“Ah, Humby.” Casper hooked a thumb to his fob pocket and she couldn’t prevent her shiver. “He’d unentailed lands bordering mine, and his tenants petitioned me for help. He hadn’t paid any bills for an age and had gambled away the harvest profits rather than re-invest them in seed. The children were ragged, they lacked a decent well, cholera lurked, and he’d threatened to throw the villagers out because their shacks disrupted his pheasant hunt.”
“I…”
“I bought up all his vowels, yes, but then gave him a choice: he could deal with the problems with my help or I would take his land and help those people myself.” He leaned close. “I grew what the Rothwell dukedom now has with my owntoil, so do not presume to know me from the gossip rags, Mrs Swift.”
Evelyn felt smaller than the humblest bug, mortified, and horribly pained.
She’d thought him a duke who threw a few coins at the masses and expected it to appease, spending his thousands on art. And many of London’s poor had abandoned the countryside due to absentee landlords expecting them to work the land for a pittance, the family famished, the houses crumbling.
But with his determined words and steadfast eyes, she could see the truth.
Others perceived Rothwell as emotionless and dull, but what they failed to comprehend was that he’d sacrificed his own pleasures for a staunch responsibility to his dukedom.
Restraint and duty ruled him.
And she’d wounded his pride, his years of toil to resurrect his estate, which she suspected no one in high society recognised or admired him for.
And she could never ever steal from this magnificent man, not the most tarnished pewter teaspoon, nor the most lustrous diamond in all England. Neither would she steal his intellect with a forged painting. Or his dignity with her foolish words.
Gazing at his stern features and now knowing the truth of him, she realised it was he who could so easily steal from her…
The one item she still possessed. An organ that thumped faster when he entered a room, that slowed when he departed, that stopped when he kissed her.
But wrongs had to be righted.
“I… I stand corrected,” she said huskily, stepping forward.
“You do?” He startled back.
“Yes. You perform your duty, above and beyond, and that is all anyone can ask.”
“It is?”
“Of course. If you beggared yourself, you would just be another pauper in the gutter, unable to provide. ’Tis a shame the gossip sheets do not report your good works. We need titled men like you to petition for the many. You seek to better lives, and I…admire such noble resolve.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Do you not believe me?”
He lifted a hand to her cheek. “Most would rather believe the gossip rags so I am flabbergasted that you take me at my word.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You have always been…honest with me.” She bit her lip. Honesty was a sensitive subject given the circumstances.
“Well, let me be further honest, Evelyn.” He bent to brush her lips with his own, all anger and hurt seemingly obliterated. Instead an awareness arced between them – an understanding, heady and intimate. “I want you. I have wanted you since first you came to my study and refused to sit.”
His eyes fairly sizzled and she knew if she nodded, she’d be back on that desk, mussing his hair and crying his name to the decorative cornices.
Temptation beckoned – to forget all in his embrace.
But unlike the Eve of original sin, she knew how snakes such as Filgrave could return to bite, and a future needed to be planned for herself and Artemisia. She could not afford to lose her wits for a moment’s passion with a man so far above her in society, decency and…
Honesty.
