no intention of saying it. “I wouldn’t insist upon such formality but it does seem to chafe, doesn’t it? How republican of you. And really, Eleanor, you can’t expect to mold a young mind to your will and provide fodder for the therapy bills I’ll be expected to pay out from her trust if you can’t remember the courtesy of a simple form of address. It’s as if you’ve never met a duke before.”
She blinked. “I haven’t.”
“I’m not a particularly good representative. I’m far too scandalous, as mentioned. Perhaps you’ve heard.” He laughed when she did a terrible job of keeping her face blank. “I see you have. No doubt you’re an avid fan of the tabloids and their daily regurgitations of my many sins. I can only hope to be even half as colorful in person.”
“And it’s Miss Andrews.”
It was Hugo’s turn to blink. “Sorry?”
“I would prefer it if you call me Miss Andrews.” She nodded then, a faint inclination of her head, which he supposed was as close to any kind of recognition as he’d get. “Your Grace.”
Something moved in him then, far worse than a mere shift. It felt raw. Dangerous.
Impossible.
“Let me clear something up from the start, Miss Andrews,” he said, while his terrible horse tried to trick him into easing his hold on the reins. “I’m exactly as bad as they say. Worse. I ruin lives with a mere crook of my finger. Yours. The child’s. Random pedestrians minding their own business in the village square. I have so many victims it’s a bit of luck, really, that the country still stands. I’m my own blitzkrieg. If you have a problem with that, Mrs. Redding will be happy to replace you. You need only say the word.”
If that affected this maddening woman in any way, she hid it behind her mountainous coat and that equally dour gray scarf.
“I told you, I have no intention of being replaced.” He couldn’t say he liked the exaggerated note of patience in her voice then. “Certainly not of my own volition. Whether you wish to replace me or not is, of course, entirely up to you.”
“I might.” He arched a brow. “I do detest poachers.”
She eyed him as if he was her charge, not his ward. His ward. He hated even thinking those words. He hated even more the fact that Isobel had done exactly what she’d spitefully promised she’d do, time and again: kept her hooks in him even from beyond the grave.
“You should do as you please, Your Grace, and something tells me you will—”
“It is my gift. My expression of my best self.”
“—but I might suggest you see how I handle the child before you send me packing.”
The child. His ward.
Hugo hated that he was required to think about anyone’s welfare at all when he cared so little for his own. He had extensive staff in place, paid handsomely to think about the health and happiness of all his many tenants and other staff members and various employees, leaving him free to lounge about being as useless as he liked.
Which—he’d read in the papers and heard from a chorus of people who would know, like his own dearly departed father—was all he was good for.
The girl, however, was a different sort of responsibility than real estate in Central London or a selection of islands in the Pacific or a coffee plantation in Africa or whatever else was in his holdings.
To say Hugo bitterly resented this was putting it mildly.
“What an excellent idea,” he murmured. “I’ll see she’s waiting for you in the great hall when you finally make it to the house. It shouldn’t be long. Five minutes’ walk if you keep a good pace.”
“You must be joking.”
“Fair enough. Ten minutes’ walk if your legs are shorter than mine, I suppose. I’m afraid I can’t tell, as you appear to be wearing enough goosedown to leave the entire goose population of the United Kingdom shivering and bare. Assuming that’s what’s making you so...” He nodded at her voluminous black tent. “Puffy.”
“Your hospitality is truly inspiring, Your Grace,” she said after a moment, and the fact she managed to keep her face and voice smooth...poked at him.
He didn’t like it.
Just as he really, really didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time anyone or anything had managed to get beneath his skin.
“That is, as ever, my only goal,” he replied.
And then, because he could—because he’d dedicated himself to being every bit as awful as he was expected to be, if not worse—Hugo spun the horse around, galloped off, and left the problematic Miss Eleanor Andrews there to find her own damned way to his house.
And his ward.
And this life of his that he’d never wanted, but had inherited anyway. Some would claim he’d earned it. That he deserved it and more.
That it really was fate, not luck, after all.
Hugo knew it didn’t matter. He was trapped in it all the same.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Eleanor trudged up to the front of the house at last.
The front door itself rose forbiddingly up over a circular area directly in front of it that was paved with smooth stones and accented by the remnants of a garden turning brown as winter approached.
It seemed like an omen. Though Eleanor did not permit herself to believe in such things, of course.
The closer she’d got to the house, the more she’d wondered exactly why she’d agreed to any of this in the first place. Was it truly necessary that she isolate herself in this creepy old manor house? Was all that lovely money really worth marooning herself in Yorkshire with a man she’d never imagined she’d meet face to face—and didn’t want to meet again, thank you?
And why couldn’t Vivi do something for herself for a change?
But such thoughts made her feel disloyal. A little bit sick to her stomach. It felt like an act of betrayal when Vivi had come so close to losing her own life in that terrible accident. And had fought so hard to stay here. And walk again. Eleanor had been the only one left unscathed.
Sometimes she felt the guilt of that as if it was her own scar, slashed bright and hot across her whole body.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she told herself briskly, pulling herself together as best she could. “You already took the position.”
She rang the great and imposing bell that hung beside the door before she could think better of it, tugging on the slick old pull once. Then again.
It sounded long and low and deep, like some throwback to medieval times. She half expected knights in shining armor to come cantering up, wittering on about old King Arthur and ladies in lakes.
