Page 14 of The Duchess Debt

Finally, she glanced up at him as she turned away from the table. “Although something told me that you wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight either.”

She wasn’t wrong, but not in the way she thought. Sleepless nights had become a regular occurrence for him. He’d grown used to them during the past five years, wondering where Clarissa was, wondering whose bed she was warming that evening and if the man were one of Gabe’s enemies in Parliament with whom she would invariably share information…wondering if he would ever find his brother Adam in India and be able to bring him home, or how he would keep from killing the bastard when he did.

Taking a long sip of port, Helena slowly circled the room. Her eyes swept over the furniture and decorations, examining each object carefully, as if she were using them to come to know him again.

Good luck trying.The man she knew was gone.

She approached the card table positioned between the windows, with two leather chairs pulled up close to it, and stopped. “What’s all this?”

He’d put all the papers from his meeting with Caleb onto the table because he’d planned to go over them tonight and formulate any last changes. He wanted to start the projects as soon as possible. But he hadn’t been able to concentrate, so he’d abandoned them for drink instead.

He shrugged and said as vaguely as possible, “Just plans I’ve been toying with for the village.”

There was no point in keeping them secret. Perhaps Caleb had been right. Perhaps it would be better to bring in Helena from the beginning. And yet, he couldn’t help the flare of distrust in his gut. That, too, had been put there over the past five years.

Instead of being bored and turning away, as Clarissa would have done, Helena scanned the documents. Her bright green eyes flickered with interest. “You’re building a bridge?”

“To replace the old one.”

“It looks quite ambitious.”

“It’s nothing unusual.” He shook his head as he came up beside her at the table. “And nothing you need to be overly concerned about.”

She stiffened and slowly arched a brow. “Because according to our wedding settlement, my concerns are limited to the house and dresses, as long as they don’t cost more than three hundred pounds?”

Christ.He would pay for that morning’s fiasco for a long time to come. “Because I didn’t think you’d be interested in village affairs and maintenance issues,” he corrected with contriteness. “Most women aren’t.”

“I’m not most women.”

No, she certainly wasn’t.

Her attention returned to the plans. “I’ll be your duchess, after all, and mistress of Grangely Park,” she said quietly, as if distracted by the documents. “Which means I’ll be someone the villagers can turn to for help and registering concerns. If they have questions about the bridge, then I should at least know enough about it to properly reassure them.”

Surprise sped through him to hear that, given how little Clarissa had cared for life in the country. In fact, she had actively ignored the villagers, never deigning to shop in their stores orspeak to any of them before or after the church services that Gabe insisted she attend so she would have at least a few hours each week in connection to the people whose hard work supported the estate and paid for all her extravagances. But she’d refused, complained about the estate and its workers, and criticized the countryside and everything he found dear about it. She even went so far as to scream and throw things like a child having a fit if she didn’t get her way. They had led separate lives since their marriage, coming together only for the months surrounding Alice’s birth, but even a grand house like Grangely wasn’t big enough to allow peace between them.

So he hadn’t bothered to convince her to stay when she packed her trunks and left for London, leaving him behind with the baby, who was less than one year old at the time. Instead, Gabe had been relieved to be rid of her. Only later would he learn exactly how big of a mistake he’d made in allowing her to leave without him.

Having her at Grangely had made his life insufferable. But letting her go to London alone had made it sheer hell.

“So you’re building a bridge,” Helena said in a preoccupied mumble, “but there are far more drawings here than just that. What all are you planning?”

Genuine curiosity tinged her voice. Spurred on by it—if cautiously—he picked up the master list of projects. He held it out toward her. Instead of taking it from him, she simply leaned toward him to read it, close enough that he could smell the sweet scent of honeysuckle wafting from her skin.

“Here’s the list,” he told her as he fought against the urge to close his eyes and simply drink in her presence. “New bridge, footpaths, market building with a solid roof…”

He picked up each corresponding sketch with its scrawled margin notes and handed them to her. But she didn’t step away as he’d assumed she would when faced with the enormity ofit all—as he’d hoped she do, in fact. Instead, in her curiosity and concentration, she leaned closer until their shoulders nearly brushed. He pulled in a sharp breath.

“That’s quite ambitious,” she murmured.

“All of it done in its turn,” he assured her, his voice suddenly rough, “with the needs of the village and estate workers at its heart.”

She nodded, but a distracted frown furrowed her brow.

Her expression struck him with worry. “Is there a problem?”

“No. The plans all seem well thought out, very smartly designed. But…”

“But?”