Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After #1)(38)
Author: Tessa Dare

Izzy didn’t reply. But she could understand that feeling better than he might think. When her father died, her work had died, too.

He folded the shawl and handed it to her. “I’ve been so out of sorts, it’s driven me to . . .”

“To what?”

“I don’t even know. That’s the problem, Miss Goodnight. I’ve tried a half dozen different vices, and none of them satisfy. Cheroots are revolting. Snuff isn’t much better. I can’t abide the taste of strong spirits, and I don’t like to drink alone. What’s left? Gambling? With whom?”

She shrugged. “I suppose there’s always women.”

“Unoriginal,” he declared. “In this house, that particular vice is taken.”

An idea came to her. She dug into her pockets and handed him a clutch of paper-wrapped sweets. “Here. Sweetmeats.”

He looked at the sweets in her hand.

“Go on,” she urged. “You’d be doing me a favor. People foist the things on me in handfuls. After my morning with the handmaidens, I have more than I could possibly want.” She pointed to one. “I think this one’s a honeyed apricot.”

He took the sweet, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. As he chewed, his shoulders relaxed.

“Better?” she asked.

“Better. Thank you, Miss Goodnight.”

“It’s the least I can do.” She left the remaining sweetmeats on his worktable. “Thank you for rescuing my shawl and for telling me the truth. I mean, not the truth. A fascinating story.”

Everything made more sense to her now. Naturally, a man who’d been jilted so callously and nearly died in the bargain would take a dim view of love and romance. But was his pride the true casualty, or had his heart been broken, too?

“Duncan?”

“Mm?” he murmured, unwrapping a second sweetmeat.

“Did . . . ?” She screwed up her courage and asked. “Did he love her?”

No answer.

Oh, drat. That would teach her to ask a delicate question just as someone stuffed a sweetmeat in his mouth. Duncan made a wait-a-moment gesture, working his jaw. Meanwhile, Izzy’s gut twisted itself into knots.

Worse, she had time to question herself.

Why did it even matter whether the duke had loved his intended or not? Why did she care so much? It wasn’t as though he was ever going to marry her.

An eternity later, Duncan swallowed the morsel. But apparently she’d waited all that time for nothing.

He said simply, “I don’t know.”

Chapter Fifteen

Astonishing. In the morning, when she sat working at that table of correspondence, silhouetted by sunlight . . .

Her hair truly did look like an octopus.

It was the way she wore it, he thought. Or maybe the way it wore her. It all sat perched atop her head in that big, inky blob. And no matter how strenuously she pinned it, dark, heavy curls worked loose on all sides, like tentacles.

Of course, it was an entrancing, strangely erotic octopus. Ransom worried this might be how fetishes developed.

“You’ve been avoiding me, Goodnight.”

Her dark head lifted from her work. “I have?”

“Yes. You have.”

She paused. “Your Grace, my presence in this room right now—and this very conversation we’re having—would seem to argue against it.”

“I’m not saying I blame you.” He reclined on the sofa and propped his laced hands behind his neck. “If it were in any way physically possible, I would avoid myself, too.”

She picked up the next envelope and cleaved the seal with a savage slice of the letter opener. “I’m not avoiding you, Your Grace. I don’t know what you mean.”

Little liar. She knew very well what he meant.

Ever since the Invasion of the Idiots, and that sublime, stolen embrace in the folly, Ransom had noted a marked change in Izzy Goodnight’s demeanor.

There hadn’t been any more surprise visitors, and as many hours as Ransom walked the castle at night, he never bumped into her again. She was always waiting nearby when he awoke, but there were no more queer conversations on elephant-sized rats or rat-sized elephants.

And, queerly enough, Ransom found himself missing them.

Or perhaps just missing her.

“I have a question,” he said, interrupting her reading of an assessment regarding some new finance scheme with steam engines. “Are there dragons in Merlinia?”

“Moranglia.”

“Right.”

“If there are, why do you care?” she asked, sounding wary.

He shrugged. “Just wondering what further madness to expect, that’s all. Whether I’ll have a herd of unicorns visiting some morning, or discover trolls camping under my bridge.”

“No. No, Your Grace. No dragons, unicorns, or trolls.”

“Good,” he said. She hadn’t made it through another paragraph before he interrupted again. “What news do you have from Lord Bedridden?”

“Nothing that would interest you, I’m sure.” The flat side of her fist met the tabletop. “Your Grace, you’ve hired me to read your correspondence. Not discuss my own.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Fine.”

Ransom could see what was happening. She was putting distance between them. Which meant she was a sensible, clever woman. Which made her even more attractive. Damn it all.

“I don’t mean to be churlish,” she said. “It’s just . . . I discuss my father’s stories with everyone. And I don’t mind it, but I rather look forward to speaking of something—anything—else when I’m with you. Even if it’s the financial prospects in steam-powered farm machinery.”

He supposed that made sense. He was beginning to understand how those ridiculous tales had made her a prisoner of others’ expectations.

She would need to break free of that prison soon. Because they were halfway through the formidable heap of letters and packets, and Ransom was certain he knew what was happening.

Someone was stealing from him. And that someone had been getting bolder. The amounts of the discrepancies had been small at first, but they were growing into the tens and hundreds.

He had a theory developing. The culprit must be some clerk in his solicitors’ offices, he surmised. Or even one of the solicitors. Whoever the thief was, he has a gaming habit—cards or horses, maybe. Perhaps an expensive mistress. Or maybe he’d decided he deserved better than whatever measly salary his employers paid. So he began by pilfering small amounts, where no one was likely to suspect it. When those went unnoticed, he progressed to larger sums.