The Duchess (Montgomery/Taggert 16)

Claire began dusting herself off. “Thank you so much. I was becoming concerned that anyone would ever find me and that I’d—”

She stopped, since she was talking to an empty room. He was no longer in the room. She went to the doorway and looked down the stone stairs but saw no sign of the man. She looked up and saw just a bit of motion as he climbed the stairs.

Good, she thought. She didn’t want to be around him. His cynicism, his entire attitude toward life, was something she didn’t want to be near.

But then she remembered talking to him on the day they first met. It would be nice to talk to someone. Actually, it would be heavenly to talk to someone.

She straightened her shoulders, lifted her skirts, then followed him up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs she entered a room that was small compared to the one below, but still it was a nice-sized room and she could see that all of the best furniture from the old castle had been put here. There was a tapestry along one wall, and against another wall was a more modern settee that was upholstered in torn yellow silk. There were several big chairs with carvings of bearded men on them. In the center of the room, oddly enough, were eleven small tables, a chair at each one, each table covered with stacks of paper, notebooks, fountain pens, and bottles of ink.

Claire forgot how cold she was, how much she detested the man whose room this was, and started toward the nearest table.

“Leave that alone!” Trevelyan commanded from behind her.

Guiltily, she turned toward him. He was standing in the doorway with a cup and saucer in his hands, sipping at something steaming. Claire’s hunger pangs and cold returned. On one wall was a fireplace with a small fire burning. She left the table and went to stand with her back to the fireplace. Perhaps he’d offer her something to eat. She tried to remove the look of defiance she knew she was wearing and smiled at him.

He gave her a raised-eyebrow look, as though he knew just what she was thinking, went to the nearest table, sat down and began writing. “I don’t remember issuing invitations, so you may leave.”

Claire didn’t move. For all his hostility, for all that she sincerely disliked this man, oddly enough she didn’t feel half as unwelcome here as she’d felt when she tried to enter the library. “Are you staying here?”

“I don’t have time to talk to little girls. I have work to do.”

“Oh? What are you working on?”

“Nothing you’d understand,” he snapped.

She stood where she was, warming her hands, wanting very much to see what was on the tables. They were certainly an odd assortment of tables: two were Jacobean, one a Queen Anne, one that looked as though it had come from the gold drawing room, two tables that had obviously been outside in the rain for quite some time, while the others were from every time period in between. Some were quite valuable, some worth little more than firewood.

As he sat at the far table, his back to her, she leaned as far forward as she could without taking a step that he might hear and tried to see the papers on the nearest table.

He turned abruptly and stared at her. Claire straightened and tried to act as though she hadn’t been prying. She tried to cover her nosiness with a little smile, but her red face gave her away.

He picked up his tea cup, sipped at it, then replaced it in its saucer before he spoke. “Why aren’t you eating? Isn’t a meal being served now?”

“I missed luncheon again.”

“Again? Have you missed it often?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I can’t seem to calculate my walking so I get back in time to change for luncheon. But I’m sure I’ll eventually learn.”

He gave a little snort at that, a snort that let her know he had doubts she’d ever learn anything. “In the meantime you starve.” He turned back to his writing. “I guess it’s one of the fees you’ll pay for being a duchess.”

Claire made a little face at his back after he turned away. She knew she should leave but she couldn’t think what she’d do if she did leave. She didn’t like this man, didn’t want to be near him, but the sight of books and papers was too intriguing to her. She couldn’t leave.

Very slowly, without making a sound, she reached out to pick up a paper off the nearest table. It was covered with writing. She no more than had the paper in her hand when he snapped at her.

“Put that down!”

She dropped the paper so suddenly that it fell to the floor. She stood still for a moment, shaking like a child, but then she smiled at his back. He was acting as though he were ignoring her, but he was aware of every movement she made.

“What are you writing?” she asked.

“If I’d wanted you to know what I was writing I would have invited you to a reading.” Still with his back to her, without so much as a glance at her, he got up and moved to another table and instantly began writing again.

Claire started to tell him that he’d left his cup of tea behind but then she seemed to become fascinated with it. It was still steaming and it looked like the best cup of tea she’d ever seen in her life. “I have no intention of disturbing you,” she said and found herself walking toward the table with the cup on it. “I was merely out for a stroll and I saw the door open and I went inside. Harry, I mean, His Grace, said I could explore all that I wanted.”

At the end of this speech she had reached the table with the teacup on it and she had the cup in her hand before she realized what she was doing. She was aware that as soon as she had put her hand on the cup Trevelyan had spun about in his chair to look at her. Feeling quite defiant, she continued moving the cup toward her lips. She was tired of being hungry and of no one seeming to care. She drained half the cupful, then was sure she was going to die.