Laurie Benson – His Three-Day Duchess (страница 10)
‘If I didn’t want you to tell me, I wouldn’t have asked.’
He walked to the wall between the windows and selected a sword, testing the grip in his very masculine-looking hand. Without gloves, she could see he did not have the hands of a man who led a pampered life. They weren’t smooth and pale like many of the men of the
He waved the blade in the air towards the window and the setting sun glinted off the metal. With his eye, he appeared to check the straightness of the blade. ‘I suppose another word I would use to describe you is
Lizzy pushed her shoulders back and raised her chin. ‘That doesn’t sound like a compliment.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ he replied with his back to her as he selected another sword.
‘Are you ever civil, Mr Alexander?’
Calling him Skeffington just felt wrong. He was not her late husband—far from it. She could have referred to him as Duke, but at this moment she had no wish to remind him they shared their elevated status. At this moment, she wanted to remind him that she was a duchess and had been given the title long before he ever stepped foot into Mr Nesbit’s law office.
‘Mr Alexander, is it?’ A small smile tugged at his lips, as if he found her amusing.
Kittens were amusing. Small children were amusing. She was a duchess. She was not amusing!
‘That was the name you were given, is it not?’ she replied sharply.
‘It is and I had gone by that name for thirty-five years until people began to call me by my new one. It has been a while since anyone has called me Mr Alexander.’
If she thought it would have pleased him in some odd way to refer to him by his original name, she would have called him Skeffington instead. ‘Why do you consider me wilful?’
He turned back to her with a different sword in his hand. ‘You truly are asking me that question? You? The woman who wanted to switch houses with me and, when I refused, came to the house she wanted anyway and proceeded to enter—uninvited, I might add—and order my servants around.’ He brought the handle of the sword to his eye and looked down the length of the blade, once more appearing to see how straight it was. Then his eyes met hers. ‘I would say that was wilful. What would you call it?’
A warm rush was rising up her neck and into her cheeks. ‘I don’t know what I would call it.
‘
‘I have never been called rude in my life.’
‘Maybe not openly, but I suspect it has been whispered about you behind your back.’
‘Of all the nerve!’ Lizzy tightened her grip on the sword’s handle that she was holding down by her side.
He lowered his sword and cocked his head, looking her in the eye. ‘Why are you still here? I was very generous to allow you and your aunt to take tea before continuing on your journey to harass another homeowner somewhere in the country. I agreed to allow you to stay with the understanding that when you were finished, you would go on your merry way and leave this house. Imagine my surprise when I showed Mr Finley to the door and was asked by
She felt a small weight lift from her chest at the idea she might have another day to walk the halls of this house she had long thought of as her home. ‘And what did you tell him?’
‘That it wasn’t necessary to have rooms arranged for the both of you since I would make sure you left shortly. I did, however, tell him to make certain your servants were fed so they had something warm in their bellies for the journey ahead. Your servants should not have to suffer because their mistress had made a foolish decision.’
‘I don’t make foolish decisions.’ Not any that she would admit to him at least.
He arched his brow and did not appear convinced. ‘You arrived on my doorstep in the middle of winter, from who knows how far away, assuming I would not be here and you and your aunt would be granted use of my house by my staff. That sounds foolish to me.’
‘It was a risk worth taking. My aunt resides in Bath. It is not too far a journey from here. If we had been unable to stay, we would simply have continued on to her home. Haven’t you ever tried something just to see if it was possible?’
‘More times than I’d care to admit. Is that what you were doing in coming here today? You were just trying to see if you could indeed stay here for a while. What is it about this house that makes you want it so badly?’
She couldn’t confess the complete truth to him. It would make her sound pathetic and needy. Let him believe whatever he wanted. Maybe there was still a way to convince him that he would be happier in the dark and sombre designs of Clivemoore House. Its dark colours would suit his grumpy disposition.
Simon was well aware his mouth had dropped open and his breeches had tightened when he saw the Duchess of Skeffington raise her skirts and unknowingly give him the chance to admire her very shapely long legs from the open doorway of the armoury. He didn’t want to admire anything about her. She was a haughty, materialistic woman who could agitate him like no other. But there was no denying she had legs that went on for ever and, for just an instant, he imagined skimming his hands up them.
Then she turned and pointed that sword of hers at him and he was reminded that she had the type of temperament that made it distinctly possible that she could turn that metal sword to ice simply by holding it.
In the late afternoon light that was now casting her face in a warm glow, he watched her attempt to gather the right words to explain to him why she couldn’t give up Stonehaven. He suspected she was trying to think of something to say that didn’t reveal that she wanted the higher income Stonehaven would bring to her over Clivemoore. He waited for her to offer some sentimental tale, like she had spent her honeymoon here, but she remained silent. Shortly after the old Duke’s will was read, he met with the man’s secretary, Mr Mix, and was informed of the profitability of each of the estates. Surprisingly, Clivemoore was the least profitable, bringing in eight thousand pounds per year. Stonehaven brought in ten thousand.
Simon was not about to give that income and this house to the Duchess. The Blue Drawing Room currently stored items that had come over on the ship with him from France and, although he would barely be spending any time at Stonehaven, the estate provided him with a tidy income that he could use to support both the house and some of his future excavations.
He couldn’t imagine why she had wandered into the armoury. Had she left something here that she wanted back? He understood that the contents of all the houses were his and she had no right to take any of the items with her to Clivemoore unless he granted her permission. He had no attachment to any of the things that were owned by his predecessor. He felt no sense of fondness for the family who had deserted his father when he married Simon’s French Huguenot mother. If the Duchess were honest with him about what she was looking for in the house, he might be inclined to give it to her, but she was not getting Stonehaven. It was the one thing he was grateful he had inherited with this damned title that placed too much attention on him and disrupted his plans.
She toyed with her emerald necklace. ‘Surely you must know by now that I was responsible for redecorating a number of rooms in this house. I simply like it here. It suits me.’
‘You say this house suits you,’ he said, ‘but as you can see, I am slowly going to be redecorating it to suit my taste. This house will not look the way you will fondly remember it when I am through with it.’
There was a slight twitch to her eye, letting him know that his statement had affected her.
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? You are enjoying taunting me with the fact that the one thing I want, I cannot have.’
‘Is this truly the only thing in this world that you cannot have?’
There was a hesitation and he could tell her thoughts had wandered to something else—probably the grand ducal seat in Somerset that was the most profitable and prestigious of the Skeffington estates that could never be used as a Dowager House. But he knew by the set of her posture that she wasn’t about to share her thoughts with him. At least she was not a hysterical female. He would give her that. Some women would have pleaded and cried to try to sway his decision. He had the impression the Duchess would have preferred to walk for days in the desert without water before she shed one tear in front of him.
‘This house means a great deal to me as you can see,’ she said, looking away towards the windows, ‘however, I will not have you taunt me about it. You will be very happy to hear I will be leaving now. I find I cannot stand to be in your presence much longer.’