Page 109

“Like the Oystermouth Railway?”

“No, that is drawn by horses,” Silvester said. “Ours can take a few passengers around the estate. It is actually the first passenger railway drawn by a locomotive.”

Stella had seen drawings of locomotives in the London Times, but the machine was larger and fiercer than she had imagined. It had a round cylinder for a body and a chimney that curved from one end and jutted into the air, with three wheels per side and some rods sticking out here and there.

“Does it traverse the entire estate?”

Silvester nodded. “Huntington Grange is three hundred acres and, yes, it goes through most of it. We’ll go for a ride tomorrow.”

“I believe that Scotland will authorize a passenger railroad next year, possibly the year after,” Stella said. “That would be a better investment than ill-gotten gold.”

“My mother would like that,” Silvester said amiably.

“A tribute to her chimney.”

Her husband lounged opposite her, still all pirate. Since he had no valet, the clothing he’d changed into that morning was unremarkable. Unducal. Just a plain coat, breeches, boots that suited the challenging look in his eyes.

A gleaming, hungry challenge that suggested two bouts before breakfast had not been enough.

Stella’s heart ricocheted around her rib cage. “I don’t know how to be a duchess,” she blurted out. The carriage was slowing down.

“There’s not much to know,” Silvester said, that wicked smile curling one side of his mouth. “In the normal course of things, servants would line up outside the front door, ready to curtsy.”

“But you sent them all to London.”

“Hawtree, our country butler, was needed there, to replace the butler I fired. We do have a maid or two, enough to light fires in the morning. A few grooms who will act as footmen. The people who work in the buttery, the stables, and the ironworks are still here, but without a butler, they won’t assemble for the new duchess’s inspection.”

The coach pulled to a halt, a spray of gravel striking the undercarriage.

Silvester shoved open the door and jumped out, reaching back and lifting her out of the carriage. “Welcome to the Grange.” His smile was rueful.

Stella stood beside him, looking in silence from the deformed turret to the mismatched wings. Off to the side was a gothic ruin that was obviously only a few decades old because it looked as fake as her Egyptian crown.

Even the grass wasn’t velvety green, like that at the London townhouse. Where it wasn’t weedy, it had been cut through by the iron tracks laid for the railroad. A sharp odor of burning coal and smoky oil hung in the air.

Silvester caught up her hand. “I might as well warn you that my mother has no interest in domestic matters. One year we discovered the drawing room draperies were rotten when they crashed to the floor in a cloud of dust, feathers, and an ancient bird’s nest.”

Stella raised an eyebrow.

“Birds do tend to make their way in because the front doors are so large. We hadn’t realized that a pair nested there. Presumably they raised their children and the family flew out a window with no one noticing.”

Where was the housekeeper? Stella kept that thought to herself.

The front door was massive, clearly dating back hundreds of years. A tarnished brass knocker jutted from the left side. When Silvester hauled on it, the door swung open silently, letting out a puff of musty air.

“You know how archaeologists are rooting around in Egypt, opening up tombs?” Silvester asked.

“Looking for vulture crowns,” Stella confirmed.

“The Grange isn’t quite that old, but there are similarities.” He kicked a stone in place to hold the door open before leading her in.

The echoing entrance hall was more fitted to a castle than a country mansion. The blackened beams of the ceiling were at least twenty feet over their heads, the corners gray with cobwebs. Stella walked over to a stone fireplace, its cavernous opening taller than her head. “Is that moss?”

Silvester joined her, putting a hand on her waist and then most inappropriately letting it slip to her arse. “It appears to be,” he said, poking at the growth with his other hand. “When my sisters and I were growing up, the front doors were always open, even when it rained. One time a wild hog wandered in. The butler cornered it. Since the kitchen fireplace wasn’t large enough, we roasted it here. See, the spit remains.”

“It must have taken several trees to cook such an animal.”

“My parents never bothered to heat the entry, so that was probably the last time this fireplace was used. We invited everyone from the nearby squires to the vicar.”