Chapter Eight
“That was spectacularly rude,” Dougal said to his sister, after tea had been had, crumpets nibbled, and any number of polite behavioral riddles upheld. He’d worried that Meg would be horrified at her welcome to Thorncroft Abbey but when the marzipan fruit began to fly, she’d beamed. Still, it hardly made his sister’s rudeness acceptable. “Even for you, Charlie.”
They were in the upstairs parlor, the one they all found most comfortable, as it was smaller and slightly less ostentatious. And by smaller, he meant that it could still have fit their entire flat in Manchester three times over. Gold flashed off every candlestick and there was a painting of a Roman goddess in every corner, but the couches were comfortable, and the fireplace was slightly marked with soot. It soothed him. Not to mention his sister’s newfound obsession with collecting seashells on the beach translated into baskets overflowing with shells on every surface and glued to lampshades and tables.
The entire house was formal and stiff. It reminded him with every flash and fussy folderol that he did not belong here. Not really. He never would. But in this room, he could let down his defenses a little.
He knew his sister felt the same way. He tried to excuse her behavior—he certainly understood it. But he couldn’t overlook it. She was only going to make things so much bloody worse for herself. He appreciated her defiance. Hell, most of him wanted to indulge in a good temper, but it would only prove the toffs right, the strangers and the servants watching his every move. It was no secret Mrs. Hill considered the new duke an affront to her dignity. He didn’t much care for himself, but Charlie cared too much and refused to admit it.
She sat on the settee, scowling. Her legs were drawn up, knees to her chin, feet on the cushions. He was reasonably certain ladies weren’t supposed to sit like that. But they had an agreement, he, Charlie, Colin and George, that they would abide by their own rules in the family parlor. So he didn’t mention it, only went to the table where the bottles of brandy and claret waited. He poured a glass of claret for himself and wished desperately that it was beer.
He poured another for George who glanced up from his pile of books to accept it with his usual soft smile. He was intent on reading anything he could find on Thorncroft Abbey. He’d already told them the main part of the house had been built sometime in the late fourteenth century long before Henry the Eighth confiscated it from the church and created the duchy of Thorncroft for an earl who had done him a service.
And now here they were.
“Damn Henry the Eighth, anyway,” he muttered.
As he’d muttered the same thing approximately a hundred times since inheriting the title, no one said anything. Colin only snorted from where he was practicing lounging with the proper languid ennui. He took being a duke’s brother and the next in line very seriously.
Not that it wasn’t obviously nice to have a soft bed and never run out of coal in the grate, or that he’d want to return to poverty… but sometimes, he almost wished he could. At least he knew who he’d been then. A hard worker, tired, respected.
Who was he now?
It didn’t matter. There was no turning back. Best to get on with it.
And more to the point, he wanted more for his family. His sister deserved choices, better choices than she’d had this time last year: work in the factory, work in a grand house where she wouldn’t be protected. The pub, the bawdy house if things got bad.
He’d sell his own damn self before he’d let that happen.
And his brother deserved to play at being indolent, after spending too much time up cramped crooked chimneys as a chimney sweep. He’d been so skinny. Good for business, bad for a long life. If he wanted to eat creamed asparagus soup now and wear gold rings, let him.
And George deserved every comfort and idle moment after protecting them since they were practically in leading strings. It could have gone badly for them, so many ways and too often. Still young enough, Dougal hardly had a handle on when to fight and went to hide. And his siblings, twins, both only seven years old. It wasn’t a stretch to say that George had saved their lives. From hunger, from falling into a bad crowd, from so many lurking dangers.
And so, Dougal would wear gold buttons and bow when ladies stared at him, half-frightened, half-awed. He’d marry one of them. And he’d learn everyone’s titles and the goddamn order in which to introduce them. Even if he found it both dull as tombs and bordering on painful. He’d once broken his hand on a power loom and kept working. He could do this. This was nothing.
And if it meant spending a little more time in Meg’s company, he’d learn to waltz in bloody stacked heels while wearing a lace cravat.
Maybe.
He thought of her clever eyes, her mischievous smile. The smell of mint that hovered around her. The warmth of her body in his arms when she’d feigned a swoon.
Definitely.
He’d definitely purchase a lace cravat if she asked him to.
But he’d draw the line at false calves. He couldn’t understand padding his breeches with cotton to look more muscular. He could walk the fields for that.
“I wasn’t rude,” Charlie insisted. “I wasn’t the one hiding in the shrubbery.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Why is she here anyway?”
“Miss Swift is here to catalogue the parade of Roman statues crowding this house.” It was like being watched in every room they entered. Except this one, where he’d had them removed. The portrait hall was a special kind of hell. Blank marble eyes and the disapproving painted eyes of a long line of ancestors he knew nothing about. Charlie had propped a moth-eaten hat with a frayed feather on the corner of the frame housing the third Duke of Thorncroft, proclaiming him to be the most judgmental of them all and perfectly capable of coming to life to avenge his aristocratic line in the middle of the night. Charlie thought the hat gave him something else to judge.
“She’s here to find a treasure.”
Colin laughed. “Think highly of yourself, do you?”