Thoughts of settling all those young ladies inevitably brought on ideas of his own situation. He really ought to get on with it. The squall they’d been through, how close they’d come to disaster, impressed upon him how each day could be his last.
Should that day come earlier than later, it would mean that a certain Rupert Burdock, known to the wider world as Baron Montclave, would step in as his father’s heir. That alone would send his father following Miles to the great beyond with all haste.
Miles’ father and his father’s brother, Cyril, had been oil and water since childhood. The earl had been the direct line in the earldom. Montclave’s father Cyril might have gone on as a mister all his life, but he had been gifted the barony for services rendered to the crown. Most unfortunately, their estates bordered one another. The barony was far smaller and that seemed to be a constant needle in that family’s side.
As neighbors, they could not avoid knowing one another. The earl had gone to great lengths to instill honor in his brother, to no avail. There had even been instances when the earl had wondered if an accident had been an accident, or some plan of Cyril’s to get him out of the way so he might move up a spot in life. If the earl had died without issue, Cyril would be next in line.
Cyril went on to wed a viscount’s daughter who seemed equally dissatisfied with their lot. Then Montclave had been born to Cyril and his lady.
It was said that when a son arrived, there had been much celebration in that household, as Miles was not yet on the ground and they had high hopes a son would never arrive to the earl’s household. As the years passed, it looked more and more likely. It almost began to look assured. The only circumstance they really feared was that the countess would die and the earl would remarry to a younger and more fertile lady, thereby producing a son at the last possible moment.
Miles’ mother was nearing thirty when she became with child, much to everybody’s surprise.
Still, Cyril and his wife held out hope that the earl’s offspring would be a girl. It was not though.
Since then, Cyril had died and Montclave had taken on the mantle of Baron.
Montclave went out of his way to be some sort of obsequious friend, but Miles was not particularly fooled. There was always an undercurrent of something there—anger, resentment, scheming…something untrustworthy.
How delighted Montclave would have been to get a letter that Miles was lost at sea.
“I’d really better do something,” he said quietly.
“Oh I see,” Moreau said. “We go out to the deadly depths of the ocean with no spare sail only to crash land in barbaric English wilderness and be taken away by an eccentric duke. Butnow, you would like to do something.”
“That is about the size of it.”
“Mon Dieu.”
“Mon Dieu all you like,” Miles said. “In the meantime, fix my clothes as soon as we get to the inn. I am all but certain the duke will ask me to dine with him. I must be presentable.”
“Fix your clothes?” Moreau asked, as if he’d just been directed to fly to the moon. “I see. So what do you imagine? Moreau will blow on them to dry them out?”
“I’ve not imagined anything,” Miles said genially. “You are the valet—it’s your problem to imagine.”
“Oh yes,” Moreau muttered, “it is always my problem. The world sits heavy on Moreau’s shoulders.”
Miles stopped himself from laughing. Moreau had one duty in life—to see to Miles’ clothes. If that was the weight of the world, he’d like to know about it.
Moreau peered out the window. “And here we are at the Dolphin and Dove, another eccentric English inn. What will they serve, I wonder? Oh I know, not dolphin and not dove, it will be beef. It is always beef.”
“Let us hope you are correct,” Miles said.
They had pulled into the yard and it was apparent the duke had written ahead that he would be arriving with a caravan of people and carriages. Staff swarmed the duke’s carriage as if he were the prince.
“We’d best take ourselves out and manage on our own, I think,” Miles said.
“Yes, why not,” Moreau said. “We are nobodies now.”
Miles was often fascinated by the workings of his valet’s mind. The highs and lows of it were dramatic, to say the least. He wondered how the fellow slept at night, with all these tragic musings running circles round his mind.
“Wallow in self-pity all day long if it suits you,” Miles said, jumping down from the carriage. “Just do something about my clothes.”
Chapter Three
GRACE FELT SHEdid very well in the innyard. She wished to take a few surreptitious glances at the viscount they’d found shipwrecked on the beach while not being observed.
She’d also very much wished for the duke to invite the viscount to dine, which she’d been looking for an opportunity to suggest before Valor beat her to it.
