cuddled in closer and exposed his belly for more attention.
“You like dogs.” A hint of a smile tugged at her full red lips.
He shrugged and thought of the hunting dogs, Milo and Merry, that he’d grown up with. “I like well-behaved dogs that have a purpose.”
Once again Rumple’s attention was drawn from one to the other.
Eyes narrowed, whatever she was about to say, she abandoned. Her expression changed to serene indifference. “Shall I call for tea or do you need to rest before dinner?”
He’d not heard a footstep or any indication that whoever was chaperoning her was about to join them. The castle was silent save for Rumple, who whined as he chewed on Nick’s hand. “Who is here with you?”
A warm blush bloomed on her cheeks. “No one.”
Confused, Nick must have misunderstood. “What do you mean? How did you get here?”
“Rhys and Poppy brought me, but they have gone to their country home a few days’ ride from here. I have a lady’s maid and there is a cook. The castle has a young boy acting as the groom, whom you probably saw when you rode up. Jamie also serves as the houseboy. I’m told there is a groundskeeper, but I’ve yet to see him.”
“You must be mad to come here by yourself. You’ll be ruined. Have you no care for your reputation?” It was not to be believed that a member of the ton would put herself in a situation where she was alone with a man not her husband. “People will think you a tramp.”
She cocked her pretty head. “Is that what you think?”
Putting the puppy on the floor, he stood. “I don’t know what to think. You never do what a proper young lady should.”
“Don’t I?” Placing Descartes on the table, she folded her hands in her lap and studied him.
“No. Any other woman of your station, when told they are to marry a duke, would simper and fawn over her intended. You acted as if I’d handed you down a death sentence.”
“Is simpering and fawning something you are fond of?” She kept her voice even, but a spark of anger flashed in her golden eyes.
He couldn’t help it, he loved to see her emotions fired up. “When I introduced myself at that ball last spring, you scolded me for introducing myself, then acted bored when we danced. When I wouldn’t answer your inappropriate questions, you became angry and stalked off.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
So drawn in by her growing temper and how well she held it in check, he’d forgotten for the moment what she’d asked. Retracing the conversation, he remembered. “Simpering and fawning…Not particularly.”
“Then why would you want me to have done so?”
“I didn’t. I don’t.” She had trapped him with his own words. “I just meant you don’t respond to things in a common way.”
“And you don’t like that? You want me to be like the rest of society and conform to expected behavior?” She closed her eyes for a moment, then stared down at the rug, thinking the matter over. “It isn’t likely that I could do that even if I wanted to.”
“That is not what I want. I don’t want anything. It is merely an observation.”
“I see.” She lifted Rumple, who curled onto her lap and closed his eyes.
“Why wouldn’t you just call off and be done with me, Faith? Why go to all this trouble and possible disaster for a man you don’t like?”
A girl of perhaps sixteen, with brown eyes and light brown hair poking out from under a white cap, stepped into the room. She crossed to the table and picked up the tea tray. “Shall I fetch more tea for the gentleman, my lady?”
Faith looked at him.
He shook his head.
“No, Thea. You probably have enough to do getting dinner prepared. It seems His Grace is not hungry.”
Thea’s eyes went wide and she made an awkward curtsy before rushing out of the room.
“I heard the old cook retired,” Nick said. “Just as well. Hopefully that little girl won’t poison us.”
Faith idly scratched Rumple behind the ears while the puppy slept. “I hadn’t realized you’d been here at Parvus Castle before.”
He hated himself for being jealous of the mutt on her lap. He longed to rest his head against those thighs and have her thread her fingers through his hair. Wishing he could dismiss his desires wouldn’t make it so. He shook away the thoughts and focused on what she said. “Geb uses it as a hunting cabin. We have come here several times to get away.”
“You have known Mr. Arafa a long time?”
“Are you interrogating me again, Lady Faith?” The hair on his arms prickled with the old feeling of an adversary trying to get the better of him.
She put the dog in the crook of her arm and stood. “I was trying to have a conversation with you, Your Grace. However, it is clear that is not possible currently. I will see you at dinner.”
Nick watched her stride out of the salon. Her head high and shoulders back like a queen.
The woman was mad to have arranged this, and he was insane to still be standing on the property.
He couldn’t just leave her alone with the storm, and he would be a fool to leave in the midst of such weather. This early snow was damned inconvenient.
Pulling on his coat and hat, he went in search of the one person on the property who might actually know what was going on. At the back of the small wilderness behind Parvus, a shed had been converted years ago for the groundskeeper.
Nick pounded on the door and tucked his hands under his arms. The temperature was dropping as night fell. “MacGruder, you in there?”
The door flew open. “There’s no need to break the door in. I’m not twenty, you know. It takes a minute to get out of the chair at my age.”
Jacob MacGruder had been at Parvus since he was a boy, and fifty or more winters had passed since them. His leathery skin was scarred and marked by time and his bony hands swelled at the knuckles. The scraps of hair on his head had gone full white, but his steel-blue eyes were still sharp and fierce.
“I thought you might have gone deaf in the years since I last saw you.”
MacGruder grunted. “I thought you might have got yourself killed with that nonsense on the Continent, but Master Arafa assured me you were still alive. Come in before you freeze me to death.”
Doing as he was told, Nick kicked the snow from his boots and hung his overcoat on a rusted hook near the door.
A fire burned in the rough hearth and soon dispelled the cold from the opened door.
“The
