Page 19 of Reclaimed By Her Scottish Duke

“Why not?” She rounded on him, the cloth still clenched in one muddy hand. To her horror, her voice shook. “Are you enjoying it? Is that it? Come to have a closer look at the statue in the mud? You are all the same, every last one of you—bored and arrogant, starved for someone smaller to laugh at, and I am simply the afternoon’s amusement. Well, look your fill, Your Grace, and then have the decency to leave me to it.”

The Duke did not laugh. He did not flinch, either. He only looked at her steadily, his green eyes very dark in the dim room. He had come in with the outdoors still on him, riding gloves held in one hand, his hair damp at the temples, a man not five minutes out of the saddle.

“Ye’re wrong,” he said. “I came up the drive nae a quarter hour past. I looked for ye out there among them and didnae find ye, so I came lookin’ through the house. Whatever it is ye think I came to see, lass, I saw none of it. And I’m nae bored. I’ve nae been bored a single moment since a fox read me a hedge by its roots in the dark. Bored is the last thing I am, lass, when ye’re in the room.”

The words went through her guard before she could raise it, and she hated how they landed, hated the small treacherous warmth of them.

“Now.” The teasing had gone out of him entirely. “What happened out there?”

“Nothing happened.” She turned back to the washstand. “I slipped on the grass. It has rained all week. That is all.”

“Ye slipped?”

“Yes.”

“On the grass.” He did not move, nor did he raise his voice, and somehow that was worse. “Ye’re ruined to the knee down one side and nae the other. Yer hand’s black to the wrist. And there are forty people out on that lawn with their heads bent together like a rookery.” A pause. “Try again.”

“Please don’t.”

“Tell me.”

“It does not signify⁠—”

“It signifies to me.” He was immovable. “Tell me, lass, and I’ll nae ask ye a second time.”

Because she was tired, and because there was nothing left in her to hold the door shut with, she told him. It came out in pieces, flat and small, her eyes fixed on the water going grey in the basin.

After she finished, she looked at him. He had not moved at all, and the change in his face frightened her more than shouting would have. The idleness was gone out of him. What stood in its place was very still and very cold and had nothing charming in it whatsoever.

“Say her name again. That vile woman who tripped ye,” he demanded.

“No.”

“Rosaline.”

“No.” She shook her head earnestly. “You will do something. You will say something to someone, and there will be a scene, and by morning, it will be my name in every drawing room in London, and my sister’s after mine. Leave it. I am asking you to leave it.”

His jaw worked. For a moment, he looked like a man setting down a weight he had no wish to set down.

“Alright,” he relented, and it cost him. “I’ll leave it. For yer sister’s sake, and nae because it deserves to be dismissed.”

“Thank you.” Her voice had gone thin again. “Now, please go. I should like to be alone.”

“Nay.”

She turned fully at that. “I beg your pardon?”

“Ye can have anythin’ else ye ask of me today, lass, and I’ll give it to ye without a word.” He set his gloves down on the table beside him, unhurried, the way a man who meant to stay did. “But nae that. Ye’ll nae be left alone to decide it was yer own doin’.” His voice did not rise at all. “I’ll nae leave yer side.”

“Why?” She would not let the warmth win. “Why do you keep appearing wherever I am, cornering me, teasing me about a thing that should never have happened? What is it you want from me?”

“I’ve no wish in the world to humiliate ye, Lady Rosaline.” He said her name the way he always did—careful, unhurried. “I’ve just heard what a garden full of fools did to ye today, and I’d have broken a few of them for it if I thought ye’d thank me. Nay, the truth is far more foolish than that.” The corner of his mouth moved. “I only like to watch ye blush. Ye’re doin’ it now.”

She was. She felt it flood up her throat and into her face, fierce and helpless. His smirk widened at the sight of it, and that only made it worse.

“This is improper, Your Grace.”

“Perhaps.” He tilted his head. “Here’s a thing, though, and then I’ll leave ye to yer scrubbin’ if ye truly wish it. What happened in that maze last year stays between the two of us. Ye have me word on it, and me word’s the one thing in this rotten town that’s still worth somethin’. Nay soul will ever hear it from me.” His voice dropped an octave. “That being said, if ye ever wanted to continue where the two of us left off⁠—”