Scandal And The Duchess (MacKenzies & McBrides #6.5)(36)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

Whoever the caretakers were, they had kept the place very nicely. The architecture might be old, but the furniture was new, chair and sofas strewn with cushions and looking comfortable. The fireplace was stoked, andirons polished, and soft carpets covered the floor. The rose motif continued in the moldings at the top of the walls, in the medallions on the ceiling and above the fireplace, in the patterns on the carpets, and on the embroidered cushions.

The room beyond the sitting room one was a dining room, likewise tidy, and a stair at the far end of that presumably went up to bedrooms above.

“Lucky woman,” Rose said, returning to the sitting room and looking around in wonder.

“What woman?” Steven, now out of the wind, his panic dissipated, started to grow angry. “Why the devil did you run off like that, lass? And who shut you in the summerhouse? It was Albert, wasn’t it? I’m going to kill him—slowly.”

“I didn’t fancy staying in there,” Rose said. “The dog found the secret passage, and when I got to the other end and saw the roof of this house through the trees, I admit to curiosity.”

“Bloody hell, Rose.”

Steven caught her hand between his, he still needing to reassure himself that she was all right.

“I meant that the woman this house was built for was lucky.” Rose glanced around the sitting room again. “Whoever commissioned it for her must have loved her very much.”

Steven slid his arm around her. “I wonder if she was called Rose,” he said. “This place suits you.”

Rose met his gaze, showing no remorse that she’d led him on a merry chase. Perhaps she didn’t realize how much the bottom had dropped from Steven’s world when he’d found her gone.

“I like it very much,” Rose said, giving him the little smile that turned over his heart. “Who does it belong to, I wonder?”

“It belongs to you, Your Grace.”

Rose tried to spring apart from Steven at the woman’s voice, but Steven wasn’t letting her go. Not again.

The woman who’d entered looked like any other in these parts, plump and a bit worn by time, dressed in a plain gown with an apron, her graying hair in a neat bun. She looked like any housekeeper or cook in a country home.

“I beg your pardon?” Rose asked her, flushing.

“We’ve been waiting for you a long time, dear,” she said. “I mean, Your Grace. We’ve been keeping the place, just like he asked. Thought you’d never arrive.”

Maybe Steven had stepped into a fairy tale, like the ones he read to Sinclair’s children on occasion. Eight-year-old Andrew liked the gory and gruesome ones the best.

Rose stared at the woman, as nonplussed as Steven. “Arrive? From where? Who asked you to keep it?”

“The duke, of course. The one who’s passed on, I mean. Young Lord Charles, as my mum knew him when he was a boy, and she his nanny.”

“Oh, I see. Then you are Mrs. . . .”

“Winters, dear. I married Mr. Winters, who was steward before our son took over. Our son tried to tell us matters were bad for you, but we thought that after the will was sorted you’d come. You didn’t, not until now, but we kept on being paid to keep the place, and we saw no reason not to. Lord Charles was always a kind man.”

“Yes, he was . . . but. . . .”

Steven broke in. “What Rose—Her Grace—means is that there was no mention of this house in the will.”

Rose laughed a little. “If there had been, I’m certain the new duke would have heard of it.”

“And come to turn the Winterses out and raze the place,” Steven finished darkly.

Mrs. Winters opened her hands. “I only know the instructions we received in a letter after Lord Charles had passed. We was to keep the house for you, but when you take possession, you can do with it as you please. Now, I’ve got tea almost ready. Would you like me to bring it in here for you? Or will you take it in the kitchen, where it’s a mite warmer?”

Chapter Fifteen

It had been a day of strange marvels. When Rose and Steven finally found themselves alone in the train heading back to London, the broken settee safely stowed in the baggage car, Steven sank down into the cushioned seat beside her and burst out laughing.

“Good Lord.” Steven had stripped off his gloves, ruined beyond redemption, at the cottage, and now he held Rose’s soft hand between his bare ones. “We went to look for a settee and came up with a house.”

“It’s very odd,” Rose said, even as she warmed at his touch. “How did Charles suppose I’d find the place? The Winterses had been waiting for me for a year and a half, she said.”

“Maybe Charles wrote you a letter and hid it in the Bullock cabinet,” Steven said, caressing the backs of her fingers. “Or the deeds to the property—which if it is entailed with the main house, Albert gets anyway.”

“But nothing was in the cabinet, except the drawings of other furniture,” Rose said, frowning. “And if anything was inside the cushion of the settee, mice will have eaten it. There was certainly nothing left of that cushion by the time we got it onto the train.”

“True.” Steven deflated slightly, but then shrugged. “We’ll find it, Rosie. I promise you. Now, there’s something I decided to do when I thought I’d lost you, and I need to think on it a bit.”

So saying, he leaned back on the seat and closed his eyes.

He opened them again when Rose leaned over him and kissed him. She’d been cold all day, until he’d come to her and held her, and now she wanted to imbibe all of Steven’s warmth.

Steven’s strong hands closed on her wrists, and he pushed her back a little, his gray eyes steady. Before Rose could be surprised that he was rejecting her advances, he gently eased her down to her seat, rose, and pulled down all the shades to their compartment.

Rose’s breath caught as Steven returned to her, his eyes dark in the half light and full of promise. Her heart beat even faster as Steven resumed his seat and lifted her onto his lap. Then he proceeded to show her that what he’d had in mind for the journey went beyond more than a few simple kisses.

***

Rose and Steven entered the parlor of Steven’s hotel suite upon their arrival in London, and Rose halted in surprise. She’d supposed Steven had led her there, instead of parting for her to go to her own room, because he’d wanted to continue the seduction he’d begun on the train. Rose still wasn’t certain her bodice was buttoned right, in spite of his reassurance, and she was sure her bustle had gone back on crookedly. She reflected that Steven was a proving master at what a man and a woman could do together in tight spaces.